Robert A. Rubinstein is a distinguished professor of anthropology and professor of international relations at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where from 1994 to 2005 he directed the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts. He works in the areas of political anthropology, medical anthropology, and in social science history and research methods. He received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1977, and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1983.
Rubinstein has conducted overseas research in urban and rural Egypt, throughout the Middle East, and in Belize and Mexico. In the United States, he has conducted research in Atlanta, Chicago and Syracuse.
His work in political anthropology focuses on cross-cultural aspects of conflict and dispute resolution, including negotiation, mediation and consensus building. He is an originator of the field of the anthropology of peacekeeping in which he has conducted empirical research and policy studies. He examines the ways that the success of peace operations depend upon cultural considerations, and how organizational and institutional cultures and structures can facilitate or frustrate coordination in peace operations. Rubinstein has collaborated on policy applications of his work with the International Peace Institute the United Nations Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and of Internal Oversight Services, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and the United States Army Peacekeeping Institute.
As a medical anthropologist, Rubinstein focuses on conflict and health, inequalities in access to health care and the implications of those disparities for the health of populations, and on the integration of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Grounded in Sol Tax’s Action Anthropology, together with Sandra D. Lane he developed the CARE (Community, Action Research and Education) approach to community-based health interventions in Syracuse, Atlanta and Egypt. Rubinstein has collaborated on health policy issues with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Carter Center, the Georgia Department of Physical Health and the Onondaga County Health Department.
Rubinstein’s work has been supported by grants from a wide variety of foundations and agencies, including: The Ford Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the National Institutes of Mental Health, the Ploughshares Fund, The United States Institute of Peace, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the William T. Grant Foundation. He has published more than 125 articles in journals and books. He is author or editor of ten books and research monographs,
In 1983, Rubinstein was a founding member of the Commission on Peace and Human Rights of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. He served as the commission executive secretary from 1983-1988, and from 1988–2018 as commission co-chair. From 2000–2004 he was editor of the commission’s official journal, Social Justice: Anthropology, Peace and Human Rights.
In recognition of his work, he has received among others the 2016 Victor Sidel and Barry Levy Award for Peace from the American Public Health Association, the 2010 Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association, the 2000 Edward Weisband Distinguished Alumni Award for Public Service or Contributions to Public Affairs from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Rubinstein is a member of the board of directors of The Bridgeway Group. From 1999-2013 he served on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund.
