Kelebogile Zvobgo

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• Ph.D.
• Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Government; Director of the International Justice Lab at William & Mary

Since 1970, scores of states have established truth commissions to document political violence. Despite their prevalence and potential consequence, the question of why commissions are adopted in some contexts, but not in others, is not well understood. Relatedly, little is known about why some commissions possess strong investigative powers while o...

The United States—an architect of international criminal tribunals in the twentieth century—has since moderated its involvement in international justice. Striking to many observers is the United States’ failure to join the International Criminal Court—the institutional successor to the tribunals the nation helped install in Germany, Japan, the Balk...

What is field research? Is it just for qualitative scholars? Must it be done in a foreign country? How much time in the field is “enough”? A lack of disciplinary consensus on what constitutes “field research” or “fieldwork” has left graduate students in political science underinformed and thus underequipped to leverage site-intensive research to ad...

The field of social science lacks diversity, in both academia and industry. One cause is the pipeline problem. Too few students from diverse backgrounds—notably, first- generation college students and students of color—pursue social science undergraduate and graduate degrees. And, those who do are disproportionately likely to exit their respective...

Truth commissions aim to promote transparency, accountability, and reconciliation by compiling detailed narratives of political violence. To achieve this end, both victims and perpetrators of abuses must testify. Yet, little is known about how commissions can be designed to facilitate perpetrator testimony. This article develops a theory of perpetr...

Rising authoritarianism, far-right parties and violent political movements in the 21st century prompt scholars and practitioners to revisit two foundational assumptions in the transitional justice field, which was established in the 20th century amid the third wave of democratization. The first is that transitional justice is a consequence and a ca...

En sus informes finales, las comisiones de la verdad recomiendan diversas medidas para reparar los daños ocurridos en el pasado y prevenir los futuros. Recientemente, se ha comenzado a estudiar más estos organismos y la elaboración e implementación de sus recomendaciones. Algunas investigaciones resaltan la importancia de crear órganos de monitoreo...

The near-exclusive focus on research in PhD training often leaves new graduates under-prepared for the professorate. While research is highly valued in hiring, tenure, and promotion processes at major research universities and elite liberal arts colleges, teaching and service are also important. In this chapter, I discuss how I teach research insid...

Can international organizations (IOs) boost support for their authority? We consider the effectiveness of appeals to the principle of complementarity, which holds that IOs only act when domestic institutions fail. Supporters of IOs like the International Criminal Court (ICC) frequently use complementarity as an argument to rally support for interna...

How do societies remember historical political violence? We draw on an original dataset of more than 150 memorialization projects proposed by truth commissions in 28 post-violence countries, from 1970 to 2018. These projects include the removal of monuments, installation of museums, inauguration of national days of remembrance, and more. Truth comm...

How do societies remember historical political violence? We draw on an original dataset of more than 150 memorialization projects proposed by truth commissions in 28 post-violence countries, from 1970 to 2018. These projects include the removal of monuments, installation of museums, inauguration of national days of remembrance, and more. Truth comm...

This article brings transitional justice scholarship to bear on the case of racial violence in the United States. We investigate how knowledge of racial terror lynchings shapes Black Americans’ support for symbolic and material transitional justice measures. We administer a survey with an embedded experiment to Black residents in Maryland, a US tra...

What accounts for the creation, design, and outputs of quasi-judicial institutions in autocracies? Prior research demonstrates that autocrats co-opt electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions to curtail opponents’ power and curry international patrons’ favor. However, scholarship on co-optation neglects quasi-judicial mechanisms, such as tru...

States often use reservations to modify their treaty obligations. Prior research demonstrates why states enter reservations and why states object to reservations, but little work explains why states withdraw them. We argue that states withdraw reservations in response to international social pressure. Using novel data on reservations and reservatio...

International relations scholarship assumes that states weigh the costs and benefits of treaty ratification. In human rights, the worse a particular state's record, the higher the presumptive costs of ratification and the lower the likelihood of ratification. But prior work neglects variation in the extent of obligation that different treaties crea...

Increased attention to racialized knowledge and methodological whiteness has swept the political science discipline, especially international relations. Yet an important dimension of race and racism continues to be ignored: the presence and status of scholars of color in the discipline. In contrast to other fields, there is little research on (unde...

International relations scholarship assumes that states weigh the costs and benefits of treaty ratification. In human rights, the worse a particular state’s record, the higher the presumptive costs of ratification and the lower the likelihood of ratification. But prior work neglects variation in the extent of obligation that different treaties crea...

Undergraduates today face a more demanding and competitive labor market than their parents' generation. In response, some pursue double majors to signal breadth to potential employers and improve their job prospects. Some also realize that a strong signal of workplace readiness is having in-demand skills acquired through independent and collaborati...

We study the conditions under which states withdraw reservations to human rights treaties. Using novel data on reservations and reservation withdrawals for the nine core international human rights treaties, our analyses reveal two factors that compel states to withdraw reservations: (1) pressure from peer states and (2) pressure from human rights t...

Historical injustice (political violence, for our purpose) is temporally distant and sometimes temporally extended. The transatlantic slave trade and colonialism are two prominent examples. Violence in the past reverberates into the present. Descendants of enslaved Africans in the Americas are subjected to structural, state and interpersonal violen...

States often use reservations to modify their treaty obligations. Prior research demonstrates why states enter reservations and why states object to reservations, but little work explains why states withdraw them. We argue that states withdraw reservations in response to international social pressure. Using novel data on reservations and reservatio...

A free and independent press monitors government actions, broadcasts public grievances, and facilitates debate and dissent among citizens. Because of this, some executives run interference—censoring newspapers, harassing journalists, and shutting down media outlets—whereas other executives do not. What explains this variation? We argue that executi...

This chapter discusses ‘what is fieldwork’, navigating, planning, and conducting fieldwork. It engages theory and praxis to offer answers to questions that graduate students puzzle over about fieldwork.

Collaborative research in the social sciences has risen in recent decades. Scholars recognize that they can produce more high-volume, high-impact research when working in pairs and teams than when working alone. But how do scholars collaborate? Some identify colleagues with whom they share substantive research interests, suggest a partnership, and...

Did “America First” construct America irrelevant? Answering this question has been the subject of much debate in the popular press, the policy community, and scholarly circles. That asked, it is worth remembering that scholars and policymakers have long argued that one of the most enduring and important aspects of the US role in the world is Americ...

The United States, a key architect of global governance institutions in the twentieth century, has moderated its international engagement in the twenty-first century. In climate governance, the United States signed but did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, then acceded to but ultimately withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord. In trade, the United Stat...

Over the past half-century, numerous transitional justice (TJ) measures have been implemented globally. While much research has examined different TJ modalities in the aftermath of authoritarian rule and armed conflict, a growing body of work recognizes TJ outside of political transitions. We study a noteworthy export from transitional to non-trans...

Children are among the most vulnerable groups during periods of repression and conflict, and their exposure to violence can have long-term effects on their development, including how they manage and express feelings of fear, anger, and shame. Children’s engagement in subsequent transitional justice processes, such as truth commissions, can also sha...

Over the past half-century, numerous transitional justice (TJ) measures have been implemented globally. While much research has examined different TJ modalities in the aftermath of authoritarian rule and armed conflict, a growing body of work recognizes TJ outside of political transitions. We study a noteworthy export from transitional to non-trans...

International relations scholarship has made significant strides in explaining how states design treaty obligations and why they accept treaty commitments. However, far less attention has been paid to factors that may influence states’ modification of their treaty obligations via reservations. We theorize that states will be more likely to enter re...

In the last five decades, transitional justice (TJ) institutions have spread rapidly around the world. Scholars cite this trend as evidence of norm spread, specifically diffusion of the norm of acknowledging and providing restitution for human rights violations. But the spread of institutions does not necessarily mean that underlying norms are bein...

Since the 1990s, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel and Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) have responded to hundreds of human rights complaints filed by or on behalf of project-affected communities. Yet, little is known about complaint outcomes and factors that enhance the likelihood of complaint success. We theorize that complaints involving indig...

Faculty recruitment and PhD student placement have become increasingly competitive over the past decade. The emphasis of graduate student training—research above all else—often means a difficult transition into the professoriate, where expectations for faculty are broadened to include teaching and service. In response, we offer a model of an organi...

A free and independent press monitors government actions, broadcasts public grievances, and facilitates debate and dissent among citizens. Because of this, some governments run interference – censoring newspapers, harassing journalists, and shutting down media outlets. But, other governments do not. What explains this? We propose that executives de...

What is field research? Is it just for qualitative scholars? Must it be done in a foreign country? How much time in the field is “enough”? A lack of disciplinary consensus on what constitutes “field research” or “fieldwork” has left graduate students in political science underinformed and thus underequipped to leverage site-intensive research to ad...

Children are among the most vulnerable groups during periods of repression and conflict, and their exposure to violence can have long-term effects on their development, including how they manage and express feelings of fear, anger, and shame. Children’s engagement in subsequent transitional justice processes, such as truth commissions, can also sha...

The field of social science lacks diversity, in both academia and industry. One cause is the pipeline problem. Too few students from diverse backgrounds—notably, first- generation college students and students of color—pursue social science undergraduate and graduate degrees. And, those who do are disproportionately likely to exit their respective...

What accounts for the creation, design, and outputs of quasi-judicial institutions in autocracies? Prior research demonstrates that autocrats co-opt electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions to curtail opponents' power and curry international patrons' favor. However, scholarship on co-optation neglects quasi-judicial mechanisms, such as tru...

Since 1970, scores of states have established truth commissions to document political violence. Despite their prevalence and potential consequence, the question of why commissions are adopted in some contexts, but not in others, is not well understood. Relatedly, little is known about why some commissions possess strong investigative powers while o...

The United States—an architect of international criminal tribunals in the twentieth century—has since moderated its involvement in international justice. Striking to many observers is the United States’ failure to join the International Criminal Court—the institutional successor to the tribunals the nation helped install in Germany, Japan, the Balk...

Faculty recruitment and PhD student placement have become increasingly competitive over the past decade. The emphasis of graduate student training—research above all else—often means a difficult transition into the professoriate, where expectations for faculty are broadened to include teaching and service. In response, we offer a model of an organi...

International relations scholarship has made significant strides in explaining how states design treaty obligations and why they accept treaty commitments. However, far less attention has been paid to factors that may influence states’ modification of their treaty obligations via reservations. We theorize that states will be more likely to enter re...

Since the 1990s, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel and Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) have responded to hundreds of human rights complaints filed by or on behalf of project-affected communities. Yet, little is known about complaint outcomes and factors that enhance the likelihood of complaint success. We theorize that complaints involving indig...

Truth commissions aim to promote transparency, accountability, and reconciliation by compiling detailed narratives of political violence. To achieve this end, both victims and perpetrators of abuses must testify. Yet, little is known about how commissions can be designed to facilitate perpetrator testimony. This article develops a theory of perpetr...