John Thayer Sidel (1966) is a political scientist and is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he is affiliated with both the Department of Government and International Relations department, as well as the Asia Research Centre.
John Sidel was born on June 4, 1966 in New York City. He received his Bachelor's degree (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and an MA in Political Science in 1988 from Yale University, where he worked closely with James C. Scott, and he received his PhD in 1995 from Cornell University, where he worked under the supervision of Benedict Anderson. Sidel taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, first as a Lecturer in Southeast Asian Politics (1994–2001) and then as a Reader in Southeast Asian Politics (2001–2004).
John T. Sidel's thoughtful review of my book raises two important, intertwined issues that I focus on here: the nature of group identity and the differences he sees between interpretivist and poststructuralist accounts of ethnic conflict. He offers two views of ethnic groups: One argues that strong identities and a sense of groupness precedes, and forms the basis for, conflict, and the other asserts that identities are necessarily incomplete, inadequate, and accompanied by anxiety, and that conflict is constitutive of ethnic identities. He attributes the former position to me while suggesting that I ignore the latter.
John T. Sidel is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Before taking up this post at the LSE in 2004, Professor Sidel taught for ten years at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He received his BA and MA from Yale University (1988) and his PhD from Cornell University (1995).
