Lars-Erik Cderman. (Photo: Daniel Rihs / 13 Photo)
Is a divided Syria more peaceful than an intact country? Would the secession of Catalonia – that is, a regional separation from Spain – tend to worsen or minimise the conflict with Madrid?
These are the sort of questions that Lars-Erik Cederman is studying from a globally comparative perspective. Cederman is a political scientist and works with modern data and computer-aided methods.
He was surprised to receive a personal call from the Federal Councillor Johann Schneider-Ammann. He was even more pleased to be the first social scientist to win the Swiss Marcel Benoist Science Prize since the economist Ernst Fehr did in 2008. He will receive the award for his research on the causes and solution approaches for conflicts between ethnic minorities and central state governments.
A passion for politics
Cederman has been Professor of International Conflict Research at ETH Zurich since 2003. He grew up in Sweden and now lives in Switzerland with his family. Both countries have left their mark on him. He feels at home in both, and is a citizen of both countries. “Sweden and Switzerland are the same in many ways”, he says. “For example, both countries share the conviction that conflicts can be solved rationally and practically through political consultation and compromises.”
His “passionate interest” in politics has accompanied Cederman, who was born in 1963, since the time he entered student politics as an engineering student at the University of Uppsala. “I liked that so much that from that point onward I wanted to dedicate myself fully to politics”, he recalls, “At the same time it became clear to me that I wouldn’t necessarily make a good politician. So political science was the perfect solution for me.” He then went about implementing his plan.
He completed his engineering studies, but then in 1988 he went to Geneva, where he graduated from the Institute for International Studies with a diploma in international relations. He earned a doctorate in political science in 1994 at the University of Michigan in the United States of America with a dissertation on the development and dissolution of states and nations. After that he lectured at the universities of Oxford, Los Angeles and Harvard.
Inspired by
Professor Calculus
He knew that he wanted to become a professor at the age of 15. His inspiration was the character Professor Calculus from the famous comic strip “
The Adventures of Tintin
”. Unlike the slightly mad professor from the comic, Cederman is neither a lone wolf, nor is he eccentric. He is more of a person concerned with finding balance. This is reflected in his research. One of the things that he has demonstrated is that political and economic inequalities between a centralised state and minorities increase the potential for conflict, while a balanced distribution of power, wealth and the fulfilment of basic needs can stabilise a country.
Cederman’s feeling for balance is also evident in his work: In his research group, he pays attention to an even relationship between individual freedom and team activities. Ultimately, he requires not only comprehensive databases and high computational capacity for his computer-based conflict research, but also a team that complements itself in the collection and analysis of the various data. “It’s important to me that we find a balance between individual creativity and collective performance”, he says.
His team thanked him by nominating him for the prize without telling him. "That makes me proud", says Cederman. The year 2018 has been exceptionally successful for Cederman so far: in addition to the Marcel Benoist Prize, he has also received an ERC Advanced Grant, thanks to which he can now research the interactions between state changes, nationalism and war.
Inequality and separation of power, nationalism, state policy and conflict solution – these subjects have run through Cederman’s work since the start of his career: for instance, three years ago Cederman showed in an article in the American Political Science Review that the combination of federalism and separation of central government power can have the effect of reducing conflict. “Switzerland is a shining example of that”, says Cederman. These conclusions are not undisputed, because there are counterexamples – such as the former Yugoslavia.
