By Jennifer Lambert (SC '00)

As a recent PhD graduate interested in work involving development, security and the Middle East, Jennifer Lambert (SC ’00) called upon the Truman community to find someone with relevant experience.  She quickly connected with Matthew Mingus (CO ’86), who recently returned from working on governance and development issues in Iraq.

Matthew was a double major in speech communications and public affairs at the University of Denver when he won the Truman Scholarship in 1986.  His desire to work with community development organizations drove his interest in public service.  And after his undergraduate degree, he did work for community-based non-profits in Colorado and Michigan.  Yet his love for learning, influenced by the work of some influential teachers, drove Matthew back to school, where he earned an MPA and PhD in Public Administration.  He is now a professor of governance at Western Michigan University.

Most of Matthew’s research focused on comparative public administration—comparing two or more countries like Canada and the United States.  While he found his research compelling, he continued searching for international consulting opportunities to broaden his knowledge and expertise.  It is this desire that led a rather comfortable and tenured professor in Michigan to apply for the opportunity to serve as a senior governance specialist with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Iraq.

By the time the State Department called to interview Matthew, he had talked with several people who had been to Iraq before and served in similar capacities.  So when he was presented with the opportunity, Matthew felt he had a good idea of what he was signing up to do.  Of course, no person’s path to Iraq comes without obstacles, and Matthew’s biggest obstacle was making this work with wife of 19 years and a 15 year old daughter.  While his wife was against the idea at the start, she was much more supportive by his first R&R because she could see how excited he was by the work he was doing in Iraq.  But perhaps Matthew was aided by the speed of events after taking the opportunity.  Within weeks of being hired, Matthew was training for his Iraq adventure just outside DC.  And after just three weeks of training, he was landing at the military side of Baghdad International Airport.

Of course, going to Iraq comes with risks, so his family’s hesitancy is certainly understandable.  While he had some concerns and worries about his own safety, Matthew said he basically let the US military personnel worry about security and focused his attention on learning about a foreign culture and doing his job.  He remarked, rather casually, “You know we have the best trained security personnel in the world in the US armed services.  I wasn’t preoccupied with concern about my safety; I let the people whose job it was to protect my team worry about that.” 

Matthew’s job consisted of working with local governments to teach local officials, in his words, “that democracy means more than just elections.”  Life under a dictator in Iraq meant that nearly all decisions were made by a highly centralized regime in Baghdad, so most members of town councils and provincial governments had little experience in actually making decisions and implementing them.  One of the biggest lessons that Matthew and his colleagues taught Iraqis was how to communicate more democratically to reach a consensus. 

Perhaps his biggest accomplishment was helping the more rural provincial governments, called qadas, surrounding Baghdad work together and advocate for their collective interests.  Matthew says that this is a classic urban politics problem.  When locales live near a large urban center, most of the attention and resources get devoted to that urban center and leave many of the suburban and rural surrounding districts with less clout.  These more rural districts now hold a semiannual conference and have learned to work more closely to get their districts’ concerns and issues addressed.

Overall, Matthew said it was a great experience, it will contribute positively to his research and course content, and it gave him the opportunity to learn about a completely foreign culture.  He had never been in an Arab state before and didn’t have an educational background in anything related to the Middle East.  Matthew characterizes the Iraqi people as “a friendly, open, and extremely hospitable people who have a very hands-on and engaged culture, particularly when in groups, but individuals can be very reserved.”  During meetings, when a new person entered the room, everything often stopped as people greeted and welcomed the new member.  “It made for some long meetings,” Matthew recalled, “but it shows just how warm and hospitable the Iraqi people really are.”

If other Truman Scholars are interested in similar work, Matthew said most of the current opportunities to serve on PRTs are now in Afghanistan.  The key is to talk to people who have done it before, so you can figure out if the opportunity is right for you and how to get connected to the opportunities available.  Most opportunities are available at usajobs.gov (U.S. government) and devnetjobs.org (private contractors and NGOs).

Jennifer Lambert (SC ’00) recently completed her PhD in Political Science (International Relations/Middle East) and is currently teaching at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.