Members

Stathis N. Kalyvas

Stathis N. Kalyvas is Gladstone Professor of Government and fellow of All Souls College at Oxford. Until 2018 he was Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he also founded and directed the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence. Kalyvas obtained his BA from the University of Athens (1986) and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1993), all in political science.  He taught at Ohio State University (1993-94), New York University (1994-2000), the University of Chicago (2000-03), Yale University (2003-2017) before joining Oxford in 2018. He is the author of The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Cornell University Press, 1996), The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2015), the co-editor of Order, Conflict, and Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and the Oxford Handbook on Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2019). His research focuses on conflict and political violence.

Mikael Hiberg Naghizadeh

Mikael is a DPhil Student in International Relations at New College. He has previously completed an MPhil at Oxford's Pembroke College, an MSc at LSE, and has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oslo.

He is currently interested in developing a framework for studying the origins of rebel groups, their ideological trajectories, and how this relates to rebel governance. His primary focus is on explaining why Islamist insurgencies have come to represent a rising proportion of insurgencies overall.

You can contact him at mikael.naghizadeh@new.ox.ac.uk

Evgenija Kroeker

Evgenija Kroeker is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and is based at Nuffield College. Her project explores the conditions under which different international organizations - be they global or regional - send peacekeepers into civil conflicts. Mainly, she is interested in understanding the logic of decision-making at various levels of the global security architecture: How does the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decide which conflicts it puts on its agenda in the first place? And when do these civil conflicts see peacekeeping deployment by the UN? Does the rationale for discussion and deployment differ in regional organizations (ROs)? Does the African or European Union intervene in fundamentally different conflicts and do they decide according to different criteria? And under which conditions does the global interact with the regional - i.e. when does the UN send peacekeepers into conflicts together with ROs? 

More generally, Evgenija's research focuses on (unilateral or multilateral) external intervention into civil wars as well as understanding the logic of foreign policy decision-making of different entities (states, IOs). 

You can contact her at evgenija.kroeker@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

Moshe Ben Hamo Yeger

Moshe is a DPhil candidate in Politics at Oxford's DPIR. His academic background is in Politics and International Relations, having studied in Mexico (ITAM) and Switzerland (IHEID). Prior to Oxford, he worked for the Mexican government and different research institutions in Mexico City and Geneva. Broadly speaking, he is interested in the intersection between criminal violence and politics in Latin America, with a particular focus on Mexico. For his doctoral dissertation he is exploring the variation in civilian mobilisation strategies in contexts of large-scale criminal violence.

Emily Myers

Emily Myers is a doctoral candidate in Political Science and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Duke University in the United States.  She is a junior visiting scholar at Nuffield College and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. Emily’s research to explores how armed groups build social ties to civilians during civil war and how these strategies influence post-conflict politics, primarily in Nepal. Her dissertation asks why rebel groups who rely on civilian support sometimes pursue seemingly unpopular policies like coercive recruitment, flipping gender hierarchies, and regulating (or forcing) romantic relationships. She posits that these strategies can, under some conditions, increase armed groups’ reach into the ‘domestic’, ‘private’ realms of civilians’ lives, thereby deepening armed group control. A related part of her research agenda examines the gendered dimensions of rebel-civilian ties.  

Emily is also a Prior to graduate school, Emily was a Research Associate at the National Endowment for Democracy and a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Alliance for Peacebuilding in Washington D.C.  

Kamissa Camara is a Dphil candidate in Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University and is based at Jesus College. Her research project focuses on recent military coups in Mali and Guinea (West Africa) and how the regional body ECOWAS responded to both. She aims to assess the root causes of the 2020 and 2021 coups in both countries and the determinants that elicited the economic and political sanctions the ECOWAS applied against Mali and Guinea. Her research will also analyse how coup makers responded to these regional sanctions.

Before joining Oxford University, Kamissa had a 15-year career in Africa policy and served as Mali’s foreign minister and chief of staff to the President. She is affiliated with the Washington DC-based United States Institute of Peace and Middle East Institute as visiting expert for the Sahel and non-resident scholar.

Kamissa can be reached at kamissa.camara@politics.ox.ac.uk

Kelly Hunter

Kelly Hunter is a Junior Visiting Scholar at Nuffield College and a Recognized Student in the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at University of Oxford. At her home institution, Duke University, Hunter is a PhD Candidate in Public Policy and Political Science where she studies the politics and impact of interventions by international actors on women in low- and middle-income countries. Her research incorporates, first, a macro approach by examining why countries contribute to policies that target women. Second, it pursues a micro approach by examining the politics of implementing these interventions and policies and their unintended consequences. Hunter is a James B. Duke fellow and an affiliate of the Center for Global Reproductive Health who has conducted field work in Kenya (Kisumu, Nairobi, and Migori). Her research has been supported by the Duke Global Health Institute, Kenan Institute for Ethics, and Center for Strategic Philanthropy & Civil Society. In fall 2023, Hunter will join the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University as a postdoctoral fellow.

Livia Schubiger

Livia Schubiger is Associate Professor of International Relations at the DPIR, and a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor at Duke University (Department of Political Science) and at the London School of Economis (Department of Government). Her research examines dynamics of violence, governance, and mobilization, often in the context of armed conflict, state repression, and organized crime. She currently works on several projects that explore institutions and norms related to wartime and/or gender-based violence. Livia Schubiger’s research has been funded by institutions such as the US National Science Foundation, the National Institutes for Health, and Innovations for Poverty Action. Her work has been published, or is forthcoming, at the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Journal of Peace Research, among others.

Christoph Sponsel

Christoph Sponsel is a DPhil Candidate in Politics at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on political participation in peace process societies, with a regional focus on Latin America. For his doctoral dissertation, Christoph analyses the involvement and influence of demobilized rebels in protests and social movements using Colombia as a case study.

Before joining the University of Oxford, Christoph studied economics at Yale, Cambridge, and the Barcelona School of Economics and business administration at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid. He also spent several years working in management consulting and has interned at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bogotá and the German embassy in Quito.

Motasem Abuzaid

Motasem is a doctoral student in Politics at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College). His research is broadly concerned with the study of ethnic and political violence under authoritarian contexts in the Middle East from an interdisciplinary perspective. This includes the examination of coercive formations in such regimes and how they intersect with sub-national and patrimonial affiliations. His previous work explored the multiple layers of surveillance in one-party states and the spatial history of urban resistance in various Syrian cities as a more nuanced interpretation of urban collective action. It relied on qualitative methods (building on fieldwork interviews and archives) in addition to spatial modeling and analysis (based on mobilization datasets). In the DPhil program, he examines the process of urbanization and how it may contribute shape trajectories of revolutionary episodes in the Fertile Crescent and beyond.

Prior to joining the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford, Motasem worked in the development sector in Turkey for several years and completed two master's degrees in Sociology (Marmara University) and Arab Studies (Georgetown).

Joana McCloy

Joana is a second-year MPhil student in Comparative Government at Lady Margaret Hall. Her research centres on civil resistance movements and the mechanisms of failure, with a specific focus on the interaction between state repression and resistance movements, as well as inquiries into social movement transformations. For her thesis, Joana concentrates on the Syrian civil resistance during the Arab Spring and examines how these movements transformed into a violent conflict. She completed her Bachelor's degree in International Relations at Jacobs University, Germany.

Andrea Ruggeri

Andrea Ruggeri is Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford. He joined Brasenose College and the Department of Politics and International Relations in 2014. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Amsterdam from 2010.  He holds a PhD in Government (Essex, 2011), an MA International Relations (Essex, 2006) and a BA in Diplomatic and International Sciences (Genova, 2005). His research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, International Security, International Interactions, International Organization, International Peacekeeping, International Studies Review, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Political Geography, Political Science Research & Methods and edited volumes. He has a forthcoming book co-authored with Vincenzo Bove and Chiara Ruffa with Oxford University Press entitled  “Composing Peace. UN Mission Composition and Effectiveness”. He is in the editorial board of Journal of Peace Research, Il Politico, International Peacekeeping, Quaderni di Scienza Politica and the Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica.

Ellen Tveteraas

Ellen is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. Her project focuses on the historical and cultural underpinnings of rebel group conduct, examining social opportunities and constraints that influence group behaviour.  

Before her doctoral research, Ellen completed an MPhil in International Relations at Balliol College, Oxford, and a BA in Middle Eastern Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

 You can contact her at ellen.tveteraas@politics.ox.ac.uk

Arun Frey

Arun Frey is a DPhil candidate in Sociology at the University of Oxford. His thesis examines patterns of discrimination, intergroup conflict, and integration during the course of the European refugee crisis. His other research projects focus on the study of violent crime, polarisation, and social movements using methodological tools from computational social science. Prior to Oxford, Arun worked at the United Nations Secretariat in Bangkok, Thailand.

Benoit Siberdt

Benoit Siberdt is a DPhil candidate in Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford. His current research project explores the reconceptualisation of civil war onset and dynamics from a comprehensive perspective. More broadly, his research interests include political violence, civil war, civilian agency and collective action. Prior to his doctoral research, he completed a BA at the University of Namur, Belgium and an MSc at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, both in Political Science.

You can contact him at benoit.siberdt@politics.ox.ac.uk

Natasja Rupesinghe

Natasja Rupesinghe is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. She is also a PhD Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Her DPhil project examines the dynamics of jihadist mobilisation and community resistance in Central Mali. More generally, Natasja’s research interests include the causes and dynamics of conflict and violence, civilian agency in conflict zones, as well as well as stabilisation and peace-building. She has conducted fieldwork in Mali, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka.

Prior to joining Oxford, Natasja has been a Research Fellow at NUPI since 2016. She has been seconded as a policy officer in the African Union Peace Support Operations Division in Addis Ababa. She has an MSc in Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in European Social and Political Studies specialising in International Relations and French at the University College London.

Dáire McGill

Dáire McGill is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre, working on the programme CONPEACE - From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace.  Dáire's research is primarily focussed on the contribution of local communities in the Colombian-Venezuelan border region to creating contextually appropriate security-related policies and practices, especially where these intersect with experiences of marginality.  This examines both how security is understood and solutions proposed at the local level, and the extent to which local knowledges influence the overall security architecture through interactions at municipal, departmental, and national level.  A second research strand is on the changing political and security perceptions of Venezuelan citizens over the last fifteen years.

Dáire holds a PhD from the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University, having previously received an MSc in Globalisation and Development from the University of London and a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Liverpool.  His PhD operationalised the theoretical framework of Transformative Justice in a Structural Violence Reduction Matrix (SVRM), an analytical tool to evaluate the transformative potential of public policy initiatives – across their diagnostic, process, and outcome dimensions - undertaken in transitional contexts.  The SVRM was applied to rural initiatives in Colombia, providing empirical insights into the characteristics necessary for initiatives to address structural violence as well as the weaknesses of transitional justice approaches.

His work has appeared most recently in publications of the International State Crime Initiative and the Routledge Transitional Justice series.

Carina Uchida

Carina Uchida is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford. Her current research focuses on the impact of exogenous shocks on gendered harm in protracted conflict settings. Carina is particularly fond of critical and post-positive theoretical frameworks to better understand – and reconstruct – previous assumptions of International Relations, statehood and (in)security. They are also a research consultant for University of Oxford’s Global Security Programme where she analyses changes in conflict – particularly in Myanmar, Colombia and Somalia – towards civilian insecurity and its implications for sustainable peace. 

This is her second time at Oxford, where she completed an MSc in Latin American Studies. Prior to starting their DPhil, Carina worked at the International Labour Organization specialising in gender and labour-related issues in the Asia-Pacific region.

Chris Thornton

Chris Thornton is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford. Prior to returning to academia, Chris worked for 10 years in the field of political and conflict mediation, particularly in Tunisia and Libya. Chris has also advised on mediation and dialogue processes in Algeria, Egypt, Thailand, Somalia, Ukraine, Yemen and Zimbabwe. Chris' doctoral thesis concerns processes of authority building following unconstitutional changes of regime. Chris has degrees in History from the University of Edinburgh and International Relations from the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva. Chris was the 2011 recipient of the Mariano Garcia Rubio prize for the best dissertation in International Law for his work on post-conflict property restitution.

Anne Wolf

Dr Anne Wolf is a postdoctoral fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on counter-revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab Spring. Wolf is particularly interested in the relationship between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements, and why some people decide to support either side at different points in time. In the past, Wolf’s research has focused on authoritarian politics and Islamist movements, with a specific focus on the regime of the longtime Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his main political opponent, the Islamist Ennahda movement. She is the author of Political Islam in Tunisia: The History of Ennahda (OUP, 2017) and a range of other publications.

Emma Madden

Emma is a DPhil student in Politics based at St. Hilda’s College. She specializes in computational methods in social science with a particular interest in modelling complex social systems through the lens of political violence. She is also interested in identity formation, conformity, and group dynamics, especially as they relate to civil war and insurgency.

Prior to the DPhil, Emma completed an MSc in Sociology at Oxford’s Green Templeton College and an undergraduate degree in Political Science at the University of Chicago. She also served as the head of data science and methodology at a London-based ESG consultancy, conducting extensive fieldwork and social surveys across Sub-Saharan Africa.

You can contact her at Emma.madden@politics.ox.ac.uk

Thomas Brailey

Thomas is a second year MPhil student in Comparative Government. His research focuses on conceptualising and typologising private military companies as one of many instances of non-state security, and understanding the conditions under which a state chooses to engage with private security forces. Prior to joining Oxford, he was a pre-doctoral fellow with the Payments and Governance Research Program. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Data Analytics from the University of California, San Diego.

You can contact him at Thomas.brailey@politics.ox.ac.uk.