Mimi GerstbauerFaculty

One of my first "political memories" is a Vietnamese refugee living in my basement when I was a little girl in Cincinnati.  Later, his whole family came to the United States. I began traveling internationally at age 5 and visited several continents by age 9. My interest in world politics had begun! My interest in Peace Studies also has deep roots, but was solidified when I studied abroad in Nicaragua in college and had the opportunity to document the peacebuilding work of a Nicaraguan development agency in remote eastern areas of Puerto Cabezas and Nueva Guinea. Arriving not long after decades of war had ended, my work included interviewing many peace activists, community leaders, and guerrilla leaders. I was inspired! My first article, published in "Peace Review", emerged from this research. 

I still enjoy studying away.  I led a "Community Peacebuilding in Colombia" trip in January 2023, mostly based in Medellin.  In Spring 2020 I taught at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.  Yes, that was cut short by Covid.  You can check out my blog: mgerstbajapan.home.blog.  I served as a Fulbright Scholar in Poland for 6 months in 2015. (You can check out our blog "The Gerstbauer Gig in Poland" at mgerstba.wordpress.com).  My time in Warsaw, a city resurrected from the ashes of war, gave me many new stories to tell about the Politics of Reconciliation, my current research interest.  Perhaps the most exciting place for this political scientist was Gdansk, a city on the Baltic. In Gdansk World War II began.  In Gdansk, Communism began to unravel for good.   One of the photos at right shows a section of the Berlin wall on the left and Gdansk shipyard wall on the right.  Some brave strikers in the Gdansk shipyard in the early 1980s began the Solidarity movement....a huge factor in the ultimate crumbling of the Iron Curtain and Communist Europe.  And, it was a nonviolent movement!

Dr. Mimi Gerstbauer is a political science professor but also contributes to several interdisciplinary programs.  She teaches international relations courses, US foreign policy, Latin American politics, politics of developing nations, and introduction to Peace Studies. Her research interests include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in international politics and peacebuilding, faith-based actors in peacebuilding, post-war reconciliation processes, and the role of forgiveness and apologies in international politics. Gerstbauer authored a book on inter-state reconciliation -  U.S. Foreign Policy and the Politics of Apology (Routledge, 2017).  Other publications include:  "The Whole Story of NGO Mandate Change: The Peacebuilding Work of World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, and Mennonite Central Committee," Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly; “Transnational Peacebuilding: Bringing Salt and Light to Colombia and the United States,” Development in Practice; and The New Conflict Managers: Peacebuilding NGOs and State Agendas (in New Threats and New Actors in International Security, Palgrave). Gerstbauer has been at Gustavus since 2001. She graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College (IL), worked as a domestic Peace Corps volunteer in a Puerto Rican neighborhood of Chicago for a year, and then completed her M.A. in Peace Studies and Ph.D. in Government at the University of Notre Dame.  She lives in St. Peter with her husband, Fabian, three sons, and an expanding menagerie of pets and board games.

Courses Taught