Joséphine Lechartre

Joséphine Lechartre is a PhD Candidate in Political Science and Peace Studies studying political behavior, political violence, peacebuilding, and race and ethnicity. Her research explores the nexus between past and present forms of violence by looking at how past conflict actors continue to act as peace spoilers in the present, and how past experiences of victimization impact the capacity of civilian populations to mobilize for justice and political inclusion after conflict.

Lechartre’s dissertation, “From Survival to Assertiveness: Civilian Consciousness-Raising in the Shadow of War,” explains why individuals and communities sometimes become political activists as a result of victimization in civil wars, and why they are silenced and withdraw from politics in other cases. Using participant observation, interviews, archival work, and a community survey, she finds that the strategies civilians adopt to navigate war determine whether they acquire radical, pro-democracy political attitudes that continue to drive political engagement in the post-conflict period.

Lechartre’s research on war legacies is based on in-depth interactions with civil society activists during extensive fieldwork in Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico. A peace practitioner before beginning her doctoral work, Lechartre’s work is grounded in establishing key partnerships with the actors driving change on the ground, and producing scholarship that will inform policy-making and impact local and international-level change.

Lechartre’s research agenda is developing in promising new directions. Her next project expands on her previous research on behavioral legacies by investigating how state-capture and collusion between legal and illegal actors during conflict profoundly reshaped local economic and political orders in Guatemala, Colombia, and the Central African Republic.

Lechartre is affiliated with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the Klau Center for Human Rights, and the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies. She is the recipient of a Notebaert Fellowship 2018-2023, and of a John Darby Fellowship 2018-2019. In Spring 2023, Lechartre was a predoctoral fellow at the Center for International Studies at the Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada. Her research has been published at the Journal of Peace Research and in policy-oriented outlets such as The InterAmerican Dialogue.