Mladen Mrdalj received his PhD in Political Science at Northeastern University in 2015. He
taught Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Research Methods. His dissertation investigated significance of external factors in the dynamics of domestic political violence in the Yugoslav civil wars. The dissertation also attempted to deal with more theoretical questions, such as: how domestic actors differentiate between the official and actual positions of international actors, how are they trying to manipulate international actors, and what can we learn about conflict management by answering these questions.
Mladen earned his LLB and MA in Security Studies from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. He is an alumnus of The Fund for American Studies and Georgetown University’s summer programs in Prague as well as in Washington D.C., where he also interned at the Institute of World Politics.
Since 2010, Mladen has been actively involved in designing and leading the Dialogue of Civilizations program which introduces Northeastern students to the Western Balkans. In this Balkans Dialogue, students visit important institutions, sites, politicians and activists in the former Yugoslavia, and learn firsthand about ethno-nationalism, post-conflict reconstruction and EU accession. In addition to these activities, Mladen lectures on various aspects of conflict and politics in the post-Yugoslav space. In 2022, Mladen expanded his Dialogue of Civilizations work to Central Asia, taking Northeastern students to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Upon returning to Serbia in 2016, he worked at the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, a think-tank ran by the former Serbian foreign affairs minister who
also served as the president of the UN General Assembly. In this capacity Mladen worked on studying Syrian migrants to Europe along the Balkan Route. Later on, he also worked on campaigns for the UN Secretary General and in presidential elections in Serbia.
Mladen returned to full time teaching in 2019, when he joined the International Burch University in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but already in the fall of 2020 he moved to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he joined Webster University. In parallel, Mladen is developing a full year study abroad opportunity in Belgrade (Serbia) for international students interested in Balkan politics and societies (www.balkansemester.org).
Since 2020 Mladen has regularly appeared in Serbian and regional TV and printed media, commenting on Serbian, regional, and international politics. You can find him on twitter @mladen_mrdalj