Louis-Alexandre Berg

Dr. Louis-Alexandre Berg is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University and a Senior Expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research explores the causes and consequences of violent conflict, the effects of international peacebuilding and security assistance, the politics of security and justice sector reform, and civil-military relations. He is the author of Governing Security After War: The Politics of Institutional Change in the Security Sector (Oxford University Press), which explores how political calculations affect efforts to restructure police and military forces in the aftermath of civil war. He also examines the political dimensions of organized criminal violence, including how politicians and criminal organizations interact to control territory, markets, and state offices. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Timor-Leste, Honduras, Haiti, and Colombia. His research has appeared in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, Civil Wars, International Interactions, International Peacekeeping, among others. Dr. Berg has served as an expert adviser to international development, peacebuilding and security assistance programs with The World Bank, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the United Nations. His advice focuses on designing, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based approaches to addressing security and justice challenges, and on incorporating political analysis into policy and programming. Dr. Berg has been a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He holds a PhD in Government from Georgetown University, a Masters in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, and a BA from Brown University.