Christian Davenport is the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding, a Professor of Political Science as well as a Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan and a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Primary research interests include political conflict and violence (e.g., human rights violations, genocide/politicide, torture, political surveillance, civil war, and social movements), measurement, racism, and popular culture. He is the author of eight books: The Death and Life of State Repression with Ben Appel (2022, Oxford University Press); The Peace Continuum with Erik Melander and Patrick Regan (2017, Oxford University Press); Ethnic Politics and Conflict/Violence with Erika Forsberg and Johanna Birnir (2017, Taylor and Francis); How Social Movements Die (2016, Cambridge University Press); Media Bias, Perspective and State Repression: The Black Panther Party (2010, Cambridge University Press); State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace (2007, Cambridge University Press); Repression and Mobilization with Carol Mueller and Hank Johnston (University of Minnesota Press. 2004), and Paths to State Repression: Human Rights Violations and Contentious Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).
Prof. Davenport is the author of fifty+ refereed articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Comparative Political Studies, and the Monthly Review (among others). He is the recipient of numerous grants (e.g., 26 in total with 10 from the National Science Foundation) and awards (e.g., the Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar Award and a Residential Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences – Stanford University).
Prof. Davenport is currently working on numerous books: The United Racisms of America: Understanding Anti-Black Human Rights Violations from Slavery to the Present (with David Armstrong); Relative Contention: A Unified and Unifying Approach to Political Conflict and Violence (with Havard Nygard, David Armstrong, and Hanne Fjelde); The Consequences of Contention: The Political and Economic Aftereffects of Political Conflict and Violence (with Havard Nygard, David Armstrong, and Hanne Fjelde); Ending Police Violence: A Global Study (with Meghan Burt); and, Forced Together: How Police Violence Unifies and Not Divides Americans (with David Armstrong).
2024 Speaker List