Eelco van der Maat is a University Lecturer at the institute for History.

More information about Eelco van der Maat

My research examines the relationship between competition at the top of authoritarian regimes and genocidal violence. Building on recent insights on authoritarianism, I argue genocidal violence to be an instrumental reaction to elite competition. That is, if a leader is unable to target rival elites directly, they can use the opportunities provided by invoking genocidal consolidation against an outgroup to coerce ingroup civilians and local leaders into (tacit) support. So doing allows the leader to capture key state institutions from the bottom up and consolidate their support while undermining the support for their elite challengers.

My research has appeared in the Journal of Peace Research and in Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy. My broad focus is on processes and dynamics of conflict and violence; anarchy at the top of authoritarian regimes; and the relationship between authoritarian competition and political violence. With respect to political methodology, broad interests have led me to acquire familiarity with a wide range of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Specifically, my teaching interests and research focuses on causal inference, rare event analysis, advanced statistical modeling, and bridging the qualitative quantitative divide.

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