His dissertation is titled The Mujahideen: A Study of Combatant Motives in Afghanistan, 1978-2005, which is based on 350 interviews with combatants throughout Afghanistan, as well as archival and media research. He has conducted research in Afghanistan for the Overseas Development Institute, the Small Arms Survey, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, the UK Department for International Development (via the International Policy Institute, King’s College, London), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has also done humanitarian work and research in the Sahrawi refugee camps, East Timor, and Kosovo. Before coming to the Institute, Bhatia was a sessional lecturer on the causes of war in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa.

By Michael Bhatia | Monday, August 27, 2007

Shooting Afghanistan: Beyond the Conflict (II)

By Michael Bhatia | Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Michael Vinay Bhatia ’99 died yesterday in Afghanistan, where he was working as a social scientist in consultation with the US Defense Department.

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Michael was a doctoral candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. He was awarded a George C. Marshall Scholarship in 2001 and a Scoville Peace Fellowship in 2000, supporting residence at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, DC.

He was working on his dissertation, titled “The Mujahideen: A Study of Combatant Motives in Afghanistan, 1978-2005,” based on 350 interviews with combatants throughout Afghanistan, as well as archival and media research. He has also conducted research in Afghanistan for the Overseas Development Institute, the Small Arms Survey, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, the UK Department for International Development (via the International Policy Institute, King’s College, London), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Before his fellowship at the Institute, he was a sessional lecturer on the causes of war in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa.