Department of Government

In January, 2010, John T. Crist became Associate Director of Research at the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Crist joined GU-Qatar in July 2008 as Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs. He received his Ph.D. in interdisciplinary social science from the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts (PARC) in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University (1998). He returned to the Maxwell School in spring 2008 as a visiting fellow at the PARC program.

At SFS-Qatar, Crist teaches courses on conflict and conflict management, global social movements, and the social dimensions of armed violence. With Associate Dean Brendan Hill, he is co-coordinator of Zones of Conflict, Zones of Peace, a co-curricular course that introduces students to basic principles in peacemaking and conflict management and the dynamics of life in divided societies and post-conflict settings. As part of the Zones initiative, Hill and Crist have led students on trips to Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Germany and Poland, Cyprus, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Prior to his arrival in Doha, Crist taught courses in sociology, peace and conflict studies, social movements, strategic nonviolent conflict, and research methods at the M.A. in Conflict Resolution Program on Georgetown University’s main campus, the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, the Peace Studies Program at Colgate University, and the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of America. He has published journal articles and book reviews on social movements, nonviolent action, and the policing of demonstrations. He edited a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography on ethnographic fieldwork in war zones and post-conflict settings. As a fellow of the Albert Einstein Institution (1990–93), he conducted extensive archival research in England and India on the politics of nonviolent mobilization during the Gandhian anti-colonial struggle in India.

Crist also has extensive experience in fellowship administration. He was program officer (1995-99), senior program officer (2000-2006), and acting associate vice president (2006-07) of the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), a think-tank established and funded by the U.S. Congress to promote the prevention and resolution of violent international conflicts. At USIP, he managed two annual fellowship programs for scholars and professionals in international affairs and conflict management, including competitions for senior fellows and for doctoral dissertation fellows. In 2008, Crist conducted an evaluation of the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows program for the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C.