David Mendeloff

Research Interests
Dr Mendeloff is actively engaged in research on the theory and practice of formal truth-seeking and accountability mechanisms in the aftermath of war and atrocity. He is particularly interested in the relationship between truth commissions and domestic and international war crimes tribunals and the causes and prevention of war and violence in post-conflict societies. His expertise is in the causes and prevention of war; Nationalist, Ethnic and Identity Conflict; Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Reconstruction; Transitional Justice; U.S. Foreign Security Policy; Russian Foreign Policy; Russian Education.

Areas Current Teaching
David Mendeloff teaches courses in conflict analysis, peacebuilding and reconstruction, and post-conflict justice at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, and serves as Director of NPSIA’s Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS). He is also faculty associate of Carleton’s Institute of European and Russian Studies (EURUS).

Selected Publications
He is completing a book manuscript, “Truth-Telling, Mythmaking and Interstate Conflict,” which examines the relationship between national historical memory and foreign policy conflicts with case studies drawn from the former Soviet Union.

“Trauma and Vengeance: Assessing the Psychological and Emotional Effects of Post-Conflict Justice.” Human Rights Quarterly 31, no. 3 (August 2009): 592-623.

“‘Pernicious History’ as a Cause of National Misperceptions: Russia and the 1999 Kosovo War.” Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 1 (March 2008): 31-56.

“Intervention and the Nation-Building Debate” (with Fen Osler Hampson). In Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World, eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, 679-99. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 2007.

“Truth-Seeking, Truth-Telling and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Curb the Enthusiasm?” International Studies Review 6, no. 3 (September 2004): 355-380. [Lead article]

“Causes and Consequences of Historical Amnesia: The Annexation of the Baltic States in Russian Popular History and Political Memory.” In Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy, eds. Kenneth Christie and Robert Cribb, 79-117. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.

“Explaining Russian Military Quiescence: The ‘Paradox of Disintegration’ and the Myth of a Military Coup.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 27, no. 3 (September 1994): 225-246.

“Explaining the Persistence of Nationalist Mythmaking in Post-Soviet Russian History Education.” In The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia, eds. Vera Kaplan, Pinchas Agmon, and Liubov Ermolaeva, 185-228. Tel Aviv: The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1999.