This past summer, government professor Dirk Vandewalle served as a key advisor to the United Nations, using his political expertise to help determine the United Nations' course of action in dealing with post-conflict Libya.
Vandewalle is one of two or three experts in the world who "really, truly know the country," he said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Vandewalle is the author of "A History of Modern Libya," published in 2006, and is among the few Western scholars who traveled to Libya during the now-ousted dictator Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's rise to power in 1969, according to the Cambridge University Press website.
"There were very few people that the media could go to if they wanted to get any kind of serious information," Vandewalle said.
The U.N. is "fortunate" to have Vandewalle as a resource since he brings an academic approach to a culture he knows well, government department chair John Carey said in an email to The Dartmouth.
"Libya has been largely inaccessible to academic researchers particularly to those who wanted to examine its politics for so many years," Carey said in the email. "There just aren't many political scientists who have spent a lot of time there and who have a longstanding commitment to understanding the country. So the events beginning last February made [Vandewalle's] expertise extremely valuable to policy makers."
Vandewalle's commentary on the crisis in Libya began receiving national attention from media outlets such as Newsweek, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in February after rebel forces overpowered the Qaddafi regime, The Dartmouth previously reported.
"In general, I think people were certainly very interested in hearing my ideas and I think they were very respectful of an academic perspective that could put what was happening in a larger historical context a historical and analytical context," Vandewalle said. "There is an element of exhilaration to it that something you've worked on for so long now is taken seriously."
Vandewalle said he initially expected the rebel uprising to be stomped out quickly due to the strength of Qaddafi loyalist forces. After the North Atlantic Treaty Organization sided with the rebels, he also expected the conflict to swiftly come to a close. Those predictions have proven to be "quite wrong," Vandewalle said.
When making projections about the fate of Libya, Vandewalle calls upon his earlier academic work and now foresees difficulties in the nation's rebuilding efforts, he said.
"The argument that I have made all along is that this is a country Libya is a country that doesn't have a history of state-building or of nation-building," Vandewalle said. "My prediction all along has been that this will come to haunt Libya."
Vandewalle said he brings his expertise and the national attention he receives back to his Dartmouth classroom in various ways. It is important for students to understand that some professors "bridge the gap" between academia and the "real world," he said.
"Sometimes, there are real, practical applications to what we do," Vandewalle said. "[Students] get a chance to take courses and interact with people who straddle both worlds."
Christine Garcia '13, who took Political Economies of Arab Gulf States with Vandewalle in the spring, said Vandewalle made the class interesting by relating political theories with real situations in the Middle East.
Vandewalle has a "rare talent" for making his knowledge of the situation in Libya accessible to non-experts, Carey said.
"I've listened to his interviews on TV and the radio," Carey said. "A lot of the time, they'll have various experts on, so you get to hear different perspectives. [Vandewalle's] commentary always stands out. He gets right to the core points and brings real insight to whatever developments are being discussed on a particular day. That's not easy to do or, at least, a lot of academics aren't that good at it. But Vandewalle does it particularly well."
Vandewalle's position in the public eye has brought positive attention to the College, Asian and Middle Eastern studies professor Steven Ericson said.
"I think it brings credit to the institution that the person works for," Ericson said. "It reflects well on Dartmouth College. For the scholar, I think it opens up various opportunities for interacting with practitioners diplomats and people outside of academia to benefit their teaching and their research."
Vandewalle said he will remain involved in Libya's rebuilding process, and expects to take time off from teaching to travel to the country. He added that he will no longer teach the two classes that he was originally scheduled to teach in Winter term.
Vandewalle is leading the government Foreign Study Program in London this Fall term, and said he expects the impact of his absence to be "minimal" in the long run.
