U.S. and Non-U.S. Scholars

Fulbright New Century Scholars Program
Overview • Previous NCS Programs • NCS Scholar List • NCS Brochure • 2002-2003

Courtney Jung

Assistant Professor
New School University, Department of Political Science
Conflict Resolution and Democracy in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/Palestine
United States

Courtney Jung is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the New School for Social Research in New York City. She is also Director of the Janey Program on Latin American Studies. She has written books on the politics of ethnic and racial identity in South Africa's democratic transition, and on the Mexican indigenous rights movement and the Zapatista uprising. As a New Century Scholar she plans to pursue research on the politics of transitional negotiations in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine.

Professor Jung received her PhD from Yale University in 1998. During the spring of 1998 she was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science at Washington University, and a visiting lecturer in Political Science at the University of Cape Town. She has been a visiting professor at Yale University. In 2001-2002 she was a Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and she is a current recipient of the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar Award. Her book, Then I was Black: South African Political Identities in Transition is a winner of the 2001 Choice outstanding book award.

Selected Publications:

"South Africa's Negotiated Transition: Democracy, Opposition, and the New Constitutional Order." Politics and Society, Vol.23 No.3, September 1995: 269-308. (With Ian Shapiro.)
Then I was Black: South African Political Identities in Transition. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000.
"The Burden of Culture and the Limits of Liberal Responsibility." Constellations Vol.8, No.2 (June), 2001): 219-235.

Conflict Resolution and Democracy in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine

I propose to undertake a comparative study of conflict and negotiations in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine to test the hypothesis that the disposition of constituencies is a crucial component of the success of negotiations that ostensibly take place between elites alone. Conflicts that take ethnic, racial, or religious form A) are nevertheless politically inspired; B) will involve political settlements that turn on elite decision-making; and yet C) most importantly involve negotiations between these leaders and their bases of constituent support. Elites must build a coalition for a settlement that is sufficient to sideline nay-sayers on either side. In a complex dynamic, democracy both diminishes the chance of, and secures, a settlement, as it transforms the 'conflict imaginary' - that is, the society-wide perception of what is possible. Both options greatly complicate these kinds of negotiations, defying any attempt to reduce them to a stylized game among elite players.

Scholarship in the field of ethnic conflict and conflict resolution is plagued by the underlying question of whether such conflict is primarily 'bottom-up' (driven by hatred, mistrust, and vendetta at the level of individual interaction) or 'top-down' (driven by the power games of strategic politicians). This project seeks primarily to examine the dynamic interaction of elites and masses during peace negotiations. A combination of in-depth interviews with elites, survey data, and election results will be employed for the purpose of building an analytic model that is These three cases correspond precisely to the tripartite differentiation the New Century Scholars Program has identified for the production of innovative comparative work on ethnic conflict and resolution. The puzzle lies of course in the three very different trajectories these conflicts have taken, despite what seemed initially like equally bleak prospects.

These three cases correspond precisely to the tripartite differentiation the New Century Scholars Program has identified for the production of innovative comparative work on ethnic conflict and resolution. The puzzle lies of course in the three very different trajectories these conflicts have taken, despite what seemed initially like equally bleak prospects.