INSCT Staff
Corri Zoli, Ph.D.
Research Fellow, Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism
Corri Zoli is an INSCT Research
Fellow with research interests in
national and international
security and humanitarian issues with a focus on the
new war, science-technology issues, and gender,
culture, and diversity. With herPh.D. in
cultural studies, her work
adapts new critical methodologies—a concern
for cultural interests (ethnicity, religion,
ideology, norms, rhetoric, heritage, identity) in
world affairs, for instance—to traditional security
topics, whether grand strategy, understanding
patterns of global conflict, or transnational
security issues. She also has an area specialty in
the Middle East and has completed all coursework for
the Masters of International
Relations and Certificate of Advanced Study in
Security Studies from the Maxwell School at Syracuse
University. Before coming to INSCT, Zoli was a postdoctoral
fellow in science-technology and diversity issues at
the L.C. Smith College of Engineering & Computer
Science, Syracuse University.
Her current research focuses on global security issues at the intersection of cultural studies and security policy, with additional interests in gender and identity, terrorism, critical theory, and globalization. She is currently preparing a book on “strategic identity” in the context of the new war, how states and nonstate actors (often unwittingly) create political identities in implementing their security goals and grand strategies. This project looks at how the Arab mujahedeen in the aftermath of the Afghanistan-Soviet wars (1979-1989) became a transnational political identity that was both coherent enough for members to see themselves as brethren but flexible enough to take in recruits across diverse national cultures, tribes, regions, etc. It also explains how, despite most theories of terrorism, the preponderance of empirical evidence suggests that terrorists use these unlawful tactics as part of an identity imperative, to create or maintain strong affective ties with fellow terrorists, and not as an effective strategy motivated by political ends. Among other aims, Zoli’s research efforts demonstrate a consistent priority: the value added to “real world” political and international issues and policy analysis by interdisciplinary academic research.
Contact:
Email: cbzoli@syr.edu
