Elizabeth Menninga’s life trajectory changed after a passing, impromptu conversation on a bus with a stranger.
Menninga, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and researcher affiliate in the Center for Social Science Innovation (CSSI), recalls the stranger remarking on her unusual combination of textbooks: one for calculus and one for political philosophy.
“Have you ever heard of game theory?” he inquired, gesturing to her textbooks. Menninga shook her head, replying that she wasn’t familiar with the concept. The stranger, a graduate student who had studied math and political science as an undergrad, encouraged her to look into the concept. He felt she might have some interest.
Later that night, Menninga did look into game theory – and she realized she didn’t just have mere interest. Rather, she wanted to reorient her entire academic trajectory around the heart of the concept.
Specifically, Menninga found herself fascinated by how the theory applied math to answer political questions.
Today, at the University of Iowa, Menninga’s fascination endures, as she uses math to understand the mediation of civil wars.
Where math and wars meet
Before her conversation with the prophetic stranger, Menninga had always been interested in math and political science, but never was fully aware how the two fields could be integrated.
Her math roots began in her childhood when her mom, who wielded a PhD in non-Euclidean geometry, would task her with crafting handmade books about math concepts during summer breaks.
This exposure would plant the seed for Menninga to later study math at the University of North Carolina. While there, she also picked up a second major of Peace, War, and Defense because her father, who was an architect in the Air Force, had a deep interest in historic wars. At the same time, she had witnessed her grandfather serve during ongoing wars.
Their experiences made Menninga interested in conflict – she wondered what compelled countries to fight each other. However, her curiosity was only a secondary interest until the conversation on the bus opened her eyes to how math could answer that marveling.
During Menninga’s investigations into the concept that same evening, she called her mom and regaled the encounter. A few days later, her mom found a summer research experience for undergraduates about game theory. Coincidentally, the faculty member that ran the program was co-authors with a political scientist who studied wars. Applications were due that Friday and Menninga quickly applied.
Menninga, who calls the entire turn of events “serendipitous,” was selected and spent the summer using game theory to study the stability of international relations. Returning to campus that fall, Menninga was now convinced she wanted do research, applying math to political science questions.
So, Menninga would go on to earn her PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina, before arriving at the University of Iowa.
Cooperation at a microscopic level
At the university, Menninga studies modern civil wars, their dynamics, and how those dynamics shape how the conflicts end.
Currently, she is investigating the various types of cooperative acts between rebel groups and governments fighting each other during wars beginning after 1989 and spanning across the globe.
Menninga points out that significant acts of cooperation like ceasefires between rebels and governments don’t emerge in a vacuum. Instead, they follow smaller acts of cooperation that have built trust between the parties.
For example, in the Ivory Coast, the government and rebels gather together in the same room for a cultural concert. Or, in Uganda around Christmas time, the government gifts phone minutes for the rebels to call their family.
“I am really interested in those things because it reminds us that these groups are full of humans,” Menninga divulges.
Menninga is appraising these cooperative events and building a “cooperative score” between the government and rebels. Positive interactions increase the score, while sour interactions decrease the score.
More recent interactions also hold more weight in the score. In fact, Menninga’s prior research has conveyed that detrimental encounters often wash away progress from any prior negotiations.
Menninga then hopes to mathematically model that as the cooperative score increases so does the occurrence of mediations between the government and rebels. If so, Menninga will then use the model to provide insight into how mediation can be reproduced in other wars.
Menninga is particularly interested how the international community can spearhead these mediation efforts, as her prior research has shown international intervention can play a critical role.
“I hope this research can provide insights into how the international community can use its resources best, in terms of where and what type of conflict management effort it engages,” Menninga explains.
Conflict, peace, and everything in-between
At CSSI, Menninga has worked with Kris Ackerson, grant development manager, to develop grant proposals, remarking that her friends at other institutions are surprised by his expertise and attention to detail. She also sees value in CSSI’s mission of bringing social scientists together to collaborate, as settling in individual departments is counterproductive.
Indeed, working together is the crux of Menninga’s research, especially through times of turbulence. But she wants to point out that even if a country is not currently experiencing conflict, her research can be applied to the inherent fluctuating relationship between all governments and adversaries.
She compares this relationship to living with a roommate, an ever evolving, and sometimes tense, situation.
“If your roommate ate the last brownie, that doesn’t destroy five years of being friends,” she explains. “As humans, we often look and remember the most recent thing that happened. It's the most salient because it's the most recent, but it’s still situated in a longer history and rarely does one event fix or destroy an entire relationship.”
Ultimately, Menninga aims to understand that longer, fluctuating history between political parties and rebel groups, even during times of peace.
And when conflict emerges, Menninga is hopeful her research can pinpoint when cooperation is on the horizon.
“Wars are being fought, but how do we rebuild?” Menninga reflects.