Tamar Mitts

Tamar Mitts

Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs

Tamar Mitts

International Affairs Building, Room 1330


Personal Details

On Leave for the 2022-2023 Academic Year

Tamar Mitts is a political scientist who uses data science and machine learning to examine the dynamics of conflict and political violence, with a focus on the causes and consequences of radicalization and violent extremism.

Her current research examines the behavior of Islamic State supporters on social media. She studies how supporters respond to experiences of anti-Muslim hostility in the West, how they react to online propaganda, and whether they are sensitive to counter-extremism programs aiming to reduce radicalization. These projects draw on new data on the online behavior of over a million users linked to the Islamic State on Twitter.

Her other projects examine the social and political legacies of violence and terrorism, the way in which symbolic attachment to territory shapes the resolution of territorial disputes, and the role of rapidly-evolving media technologies on political processes around the world.

She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

Education

  • PhD, Columbia University
  • MPhil, Columbia University
  • MA, Columbia University
  • BA, New York University

Honors and Awards

  • Patricia Weitsman Award for outstanding graduate student paper, International Security Studies Section (ISSS) of the International Studies  Association (ISA). 2018.

Research And Publications

From Isolation to Radicalization: Anti-Muslim Hostility and Support for ISIS in the West

Oct 2018

American Political Science Review

Tamar Mitts

Terrorism and the Rise of Right-Wing Content in Israeli Books

Sep 2018

International Organization

Tamar Mitts

Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Territory

Jun 2018

Political Science Research and Methods

Tamar Mitts

Guy Grossman

Devorah Manekin

Can war foster cooperation?

Jun 2016

Journal of Economic Perspectives

Tamar Mitts

Michal Bauer

Christopher Blattman

Julie Chytiloya

Joseph Henrich

Edward Miguel

In The Media

Democratic Resilience

SIPA students, professors, and alumni are untangling the multidisciplinary challenges posed by online misinformation.

Nov 11 2022
Geopolitical Stability

Harnessing big data, Mitts’s research seeks to understand the use of social media by extremists.

Nov 10 2022

In a new article, Tamar Mitts and co-authors examine coalitions among key actors and their networks of followers.

Aug 29 2022
Publications on Politics

Online propaganda helped the Taliban return to power, but now the group is being banned from critical digital avenues says Tamar Mitts. 

Jul 27 2022
VOA News

"A growing literature finds that nonviolence is more successful than violence in effecting political change. We suggest that a focus on this association is incomplete, because it obscures the crucial influence of ethnic identity on campaign outcomes," the paper Tamar Mitts co-authored is published in American Political Science Review.

Feb 21 2022
Cambridge University Press