Research

Megan A. Stewart is an associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Her research interests focus on explaining variation in how changes to social, economic, and political hierarchies—especially across racial, gender, class, or religious/ethnic lines—are attempted and achieved, and how war or political violence is often the context or consequence of such endeavors. She explores questions related to this topic using quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods.

Stewart is the author of Governing for Revolution, in which she explains why some rebel groups undertake complex and challenging wartime projects to transform social orders by altering hierarchies of power, while most other rebel groups do not. In 2016, her paper in International Organization, “Civil War as State-Building,” received honorable mention for the Best Paper Award by APSA Conflict Processes Section, and presents findings from her dissertation, which was awarded the 2018 Walter Isard Best Dissertation Award by the Peace Science Society (International). Stewart’s research has also been published at Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Conflict Management and Peace Science, and Research and Politics, and has been featured in the Washington Post, Political Violence at a Glance, and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS).

Stewart received her PhD in government from Georgetown University and her BA in politics and journalism from New York University.

Selected Publications

Please also see Megan Stewart’s curriculum vitae (CV).
Stewart, Megan A. Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War. (2021) Cambridge University Press
Stewart, Megan A. Foundations of the Vanguard: The Origins of Leftist Rebel Groups. (2023) European Journal of International Relations
Stewart, Megan A. and Karin E. Kitchens. “Social transformation and violence: Evidence from US Reconstruction” (2021). Comparative Political Studies
Stewart, Megan A., Civil War as State-Making: Strategic Governance in Civil War. (2018) International Organization
Mampilly, Z. and M. Stewart, A typology of rebel political institutional arrangements. (2020) Conflict Resolution
Stewart, M. and Y. Liou, Do Good Borders Make Good Rebels? Territorial Control and Civilian Casualties. (2017) Journal of Politics
Girod, D., Stewart, M. and M. Walters Mass protests and the resource curse: The politics of demobilization in rentier autocracies. (2016) Conflict Management and Peace Studies