By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
A professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School will lead a federally funded consortium of U.S. scholars tasked with studying how international development programs impact international terrorism and violence.
Jacob Shapiro, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at the school, and experts from Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego, will share an $8.4 million U.S. Department of Defense grant that funds the study, which is part of the department’s Minerva Research Initiative.
The Minerva Research Initiative is a university-based program that looks at “areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy” and funds research on terrorism, religious and ideological studies, the Chinese military and new approaches to national security, according to the Department of Defense Web site.
Researchers, including like Mr. Jacobs, will work with agencies that distribute international aid to better gauge the impact of assistance programs, through tracking changes in violence and other regional indicators, according to university documents.
The U.S. Department of Defense, which announced the formation of the Minerva Initiative in July 2008, plans on providing between $10 to $20 million annually for the program. The Minerva Initiative also involves the National Science Foundation. Foundation officials signed a memorandum of understanding about their commitment to a variety of Minerva Initiative projects.
The researchers plan on studying programs that seek to counter violence and reinforce peace through governance, like local institutions such as courts, parliaments, or civil society groups.
”Such research is important because current theoretical work suggests that while such programs can lead to better representation and fewer incentives for violence, they can also foster formal, autonomous bases of power for opposition groups that ultimately undermine governments,” said Mr. Shapiro, in a statement.

