International recognition for young academic

A worldwide federation of young professionals and entrepreneurs, Junior Chamber International (JCI) is active in over 100 countries. Its mission is to contribute to the advancement of the global community by providing opportunities for young people to develop leadership skills, social responsibility and fellowship necessary to create positive change. Past winners of JCI national awards include well known personalities such as Orson Wells, J F Kennedy and Henry Kissinger.

The award reflects the challenging route Klejda has had to take to achieve her current success in academia and research into the causes and consequences of ethnic cleansing. Klejda grew up in the isolated mountainous area of northern Albania surrounded by poverty, censorship and limited freedom of thought and expression. Her curiosity about the ways in which societies gain their freedom and nations prosper was a reflection of her living in or near conflict areas. Klejda said, ‘I felt an urgent need to understand causes of conflict, especially between neighbouring countries such as my native Albania and Yugoslavia/Serbia. I wanted to know why there were such tense relations with the neighbouring Serbs and why we couldn’t be at peace with each other’.

Studying political science in communist Albania would not allow for any questioning or criticism of the state. Following the advice of her parents, Klejda studied physics where there was less room for totalitarian state intervention. She said, ‘My parents were acutely aware of the censored state education system and the secrecy surrounding access to alternative political views about Albania and the rest of the world. They felt that exact sciences were less prone to ideological manipulations.’

Klejda left Albania in 1994 on a scholarship scheme organised between the Maltese and Albanian governments to train young diplomats. Her interest in political science was re-kindled in a new environment that encouraged open criticism and discussion with academics and policy makers, a freedom previously unknown to her.

Upon completing her studies in diplomacy, Klejda worked for several years with the Maltese government before enrolling at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she obtained her PhD in International Relations in 2004. This undertaking also required much dexterity and determination both in terms of hard work and perseverance, and also efforts to gain sufficient grants and scholarships to finance her studies.

Klejda is currently working with Professor Gareth Stansfield at the Centre for Ethno-Political Studies (EXCEPS), and is leading a project entitled Violent Non-State Actors in Contemporary World Politics. She is also working with colleagues on launching another project provisionally entitled Living with Irreconciliation.

A book based on her PhD thesis - entitled Politics of Ethnic Cleansing: Nation-State Building and Provision of In/Security in Twentieth Century Balkans is being published in the United States by Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield and will be out in spring.

Having embarked on her ‘dream’ profession, Klejda is looking forward to systematic work and greater impact.