The Conflict Research Society congratulates Adam Lichtenheld on winning the 2025 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year Prize for his book titled Guilt by Location: Forced Displacement and Population Sorting in Civil Wars.
At a time when global displacement is at a historic high, the book offers an urgent and illuminating new perspective on how armed actors weaponize displacement. Having built a valuable new dataset and combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, Lichtenheld uncovers a previously underacknowledged logic of forced displacement: Governments and armed groups often uproot populations to sort them, rather than to just expel them.
The prize committee received over 40 nominations from conflict and peace researchers, institutions, practitioners, and publishers around the world. The winning title was selected from a shortlist of four outstanding books, based on criteria including the significance of its contribution to conflict and peace studies, policy relevance, methodological rigor and credibility of the findings, innovation, interdisciplinarity, and quality of writing.
Lichtenheld particularly impressed the jury with his dissection of the theoretical foundations of forced displacement, surfacing a strategic logic that is far more sinister than it may initially appear. In the absence of reliable information about civilians’ identities and loyalties, combatants use displacement as a means of inference—drawing conclusions from civilians’ decisions to stay or flee, and from where they go. This strategy, which Lichtenheld terms “guilt by location”, adds a powerful new dimension to our understanding of wartime population movements. Throughout the book, Lichtenheld convincingly shows how the practice of placing civilians in camps or designated areas—a practice which is often presented as “protective” or “logistical”—serves the political and military purposes of the belligerents.
The book draws on an impressive body of evidence, including original data collection and statistical analysis, fieldwork in Uganda and Syria, case studies from Burundi, Indonesia, and Vietnam, along with a wealth of examples from conflicts past and present.
The policy implications are profound, raising critical questions about the role of humanitarian actors in supporting camps that may inadvertently serve as instruments of coercion. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book speaks directly to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike.
Congratulations to Adam Lichtenheld on a timely and important book that significantly deepens our understanding of one of the most widespread and troubling manifestations of armed conflict today and presents policy relevant considerations and recommendations for actors attempting to prevent, mitigate and manage the impact of forced displacement.
This year’s winner was selected from a shortlist of four exceptional books.
The judges commended the overall high quality of research in all the shortlisted titles. We extend our congratulations to the following runners-up (in alphabetical order):
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Jerome Drevon. From Jihad to Politics: How Syrian Jihadis Embraced Politics. Oxford University Press. For an extremely timely—almost prescient—analysis of Jihadi armed groups in Syria and beyond, providing insights into these groups as political and local actors, rather than solely viewing them through a transnational ideological lens. This insight will be critical for those attempting to navigate the rapidly moving developments in jihadism, geo-politics in the region and beyond.
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Erica L. Gaston. Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Columbia University Press. For a fresh theoretical perspective and detailed empirical analysis of U.S. engagement with proxy forces, which carefully demonstrates the limits and blind spots of existing explanations in order to expand both Principal Agent Theory and Bureaucratic Policy Analysis; a useful undertaking for both policy makers and academic research.
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Anita Gohdes. Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence. Oxford University Press. For a compelling theoretical argument on the strategic use of digital surveillance and censorship—an analysis so clear and persuasive it prompts us to wonder why we hadn’t seen it this way before— enabled and supported by painstaking, valuable and innovative data collection and analysis.
Special thanks to the 2025 CRS Book Prize Judges: Allard Duursma, Isabel A. Phillips, Peer Schouten, and Corinne Bara (facilitator).
