The Conflict Research Society GOVERNING COUNCIL
Hugh Miall
Chair
University of Kent
Hugh Miall is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Kent, joining the School in 2005. Before moving to Kent, he was a Reader in Peace and Conflict Research and Director of the Richardson Institute at Lancaster University. He was previously a Research Fellow in the European Programme of Chatham House, research director of the Oxford Research Group, and a researcher in energy and environmental issues at the Centre for Earth Resources Research. He has taught at Essex University and the Open University and has been a visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Conflict Studies at the University of Utrecht. He was Head of School from 2007-2009. Hugh Miall is a former director of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC) and is currently Chair of the Conflict Research Society.
Govinda Clayton
Strategic Director
ETH Zürich
Dr. Govinda Clayton is a senior researcher in peace processes within the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. His research interests include: negotiation; mediation; conflict management; civil war; bargaining theory; violence against civilians; non-state armed groups; pro-government militias; mathematical and statistical models; research design and methodology.
His doctoral research examined the use of third-party conflict management during civil war, in particular exploring the extent to which dyadic relations between belligerents influence the onset and outcome of mediation. His research remains primarily focused on negotiation and mediation during civil conflict, using advanced quantitative methods to systematically assess the conditions that shape the outcome of third-party led conflict management. He has published work in a number of leading international peer-reviewed journals, including: the Journal of Peace Research; International Studies Quarterly; Conflict Management and Peace Science; Cooperation and Conflict; Comparative Political Studies, and Studies of Conflict and Terrorism. Dr Clayton is also the Deputy Editor of International Peacekeeping.
Beyond academia Dr Clayton is actively involved in the development and practical use of conflict resolution methods. He is the executive director of the British Conflict Research Society (CRS) and a member of the Folke Bernadotte Academy conflict prevention working group. In a more practitioner ordinated role, Dr Clayton has run negotiation capacity building workshops and peacebuilding projects in locations including: Rome, Istanbul, Beirut and Seoul. Dr Clayton also consults with businesses and international organizations on conflict resolution methods.
Dr Clayton is an award winning teacher who is involved in the development of innovative teaching methodologies. In particular he has been instrumental in the development of role plays and online simulations for teaching negotiation. His work in this area has been awarded the British International Studies Association award for teaching innovation, a Social Science Faculty Teaching Prize, and two Kent Union Awards for ‘Best Teacher’. He has previously taught at institutions including: The University of Kent (Canterbury, UK), Koc University (Istanbul, Turkey), Philipps University (Marburg, Germany) and Kobe University (Kobe, Japan).
Oliver Ramsbotham
President
University of Bradford
Oliver Ramsbotham is a Professor of Conflict Resolution at the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, UK which he headed from 1999 to 2002. He is also Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Oxford Research Group.His main interests are in the development of conflict resolution theory, especially in relation to the question of humanitarian intervention and humanitarian assistance to people who are victims of conflict; in the ethics of peace; and in the ideas and representations of peace and conflict in the main religious traditions (especially in Islam and Christianity). Among other activities, conference papers and publications, he has been bringing together work in the first two fields by co-editing and contributing to an International Peacekeeping special issue on ‘Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution’.
Kit Rickard
Secretary
University College London
Kit is a PhD candidate at the UCL Department of Political Science. His doctoral study focuses on how external states affect civil wars, with a specific focus on how diverging forms of external support shape conflict dynamics. More broadly, he is interested in war history, civil wars, counterinsurgency, EU foreign policy, conflict resolution and international development. He is also involved in a number of projects with Prof. Kristin M. Bakke, including on paramilitary-styled assaults in Northern Ireland and geo-political orientations in the former-Soviet world.
He holds an MSc in Security Studies from UCL and a BA in European Studies from Trinity College Dublin, and spent a year abroad studying at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He has worked in non-governmental organisations and media platforms in Berlin and Brussels. Before starting his PhD, Kit worked in the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Commission, where he was involved with H2020 project management, H2020 evaluations and the European security industry.
John Gledhill
Membership Secretary
University of Oxford
John Gledhill is Associate Professor of Global Governance in Oxford University’s Department of International Development, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. Before joining Oxford in 2011, he was an LSE Fellow in Global Politics at the London School of Economics, and he had previously taught at Georgetown and George Washington universities. In his research, writing, and teaching, John investigates diverse themes of peace and conflict, including peacekeeping and peacebuilding, conflict processes, state formation and dissolution, and (transnational) social mobilisation. His recent academic writings have appeared in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, Civil Wars, International Studies Perspectives, and the Journal of Global Security Studies. He has received a Teaching Excellence Award for his work at the University of Oxford, and the same award for his teaching at the London School of Economics. He is a member of the Steering Committee of OxPeace, which is a group that brings together scholars and practitioners around Oxford who are committed to promoting the study of peace, peacemaking, peacebuilding, and peacekeeping. He is a (Visiting) Research Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (University of Queensland), and was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney in 2019.
Kristin Bakke
Co-Chair of Sydney Bailey Prize
University College London
Kristin M. Bakke is Professor in Political Science and International Relations at University College London (UCL) and Associate Research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). She holds a PhD and MA in political science from the University of Washington, Seattle, and has a BA in journalism and political science from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is from Norway.
Prior to joining UCL in 2009, Professor Bakke was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University, at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (2007-2008), and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University (2008-2009).
She is an Associate Editor at Journal of Peace Research and serves on the advisory board of Nations and Nationalism, the editorial board of Journal of Global Security Studies, and sits on the council of the British Conflict Research Society.
Professor Bakke’s research focuses on political violence, drawing on in-depth fieldwork, public opinion surveys, and cross-case statistical analyses. The questions and topics that motivate her research include why some states are better able to avoid conflicts within their borders than others, how institutions can (or cannot) promote intrastate peace, the dynamics within self-determination movements, post-war state-building, and the reasons for states’ restrictions of civil society. Her book, Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles: Chechnya, Punjab, and Québec (Cambridge University Press, 2015), received the Conflict Research Society’s Book of the Year award in 2016. Her work has also appeared in the Annals of American Association of Geographers, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Nations and Nationalism, Perspectives on Politics, Political Geography, Regional and Federal Studies, and World Politics.
Christine Cheng
Co-Chair of Sydney Bailey Prize
King’s College London
Christine Cheng is Senior Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London. Dr Cheng is the author of Extralegal Groups in Post-Conflict Liberia- How Trade Makes the State (OUP). She co-edited Corruption and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Selling the Peace? (Routledge) with Dominik Zaum. Working with the UK government’s Stabilisation Unit, she co-authored Securing and Sustaining Elite Bargains that Reduce Violent Conflict (with Jonathan Goodhand and Patrick Meehan), the final report of a two-year project on Elite Bargains and Political Deals in conflict-affected countries. Recently, she worked with Chatham House on a DFID-funded study of Conflict Economies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. At King’s, Dr Cheng teaches on the MA in Conflict, Security, and Development. Previously, she was the Boskey Fellow in Politics at Exeter College, Oxford, and the Cadieux-Léger Fellow at Global Affairs Canada. She has worked for the UN and the World Bank. Dr Cheng holds a DPhil from Oxford (Nuffield) and an MPA from Princeton (Woodrow Wilson School). Dr Cheng is an advocate on gender equality issues, and is committed to increasing the number of women candidates in politics (TEDx talk). Dr Cheng also sits on the Advisory Board of Women in Foreign Policy.
Judith Large
Head of Practice Working Group
Oxford Research Group
Judith Large brings over three decades experience in international conflict-related policy and practice; through political mediation, support to transition settings, post-war recovery and peacebuilding processes. She is the author of ‘Push-Back: Sri Lanka’s Dance with Global Governance’ published late 2016 by Zed Books and Senior Research Fellow at the CARC, University of Kent at Canterbury UK. She led the democracy, conflict and human security division at International IDEA , Stockholm from 2003-2007; was Programme Director for CMI in Brussels; Special Advisor to the Berghof Foundation in Berlin, and worked on process design and training for the (then) Mediation Support Unit, EEAS, Brussels; for WHO, UNDP and UN Women; and with ICCROM through initiatives in Rome, Cairo, Amsterdam and Leiden. She served as an external evaluator for EU funded initiatives on minority rights in Somalia and Iraq; for the WHO (Eastern Slavonia transition); the UNHCR (Timor Leste) and other. Judith worked with women mediators in Mindanao and in Indonesia. She was visiting lecturer at institutions including the University of Kent, Lancaster University, the PRDU at York (UK), in Utrecht (Netherlands), and has published on third party intervention, human rights, gender and peacebuilding.
Andrew Thomson
Chair of the Book Prize
Queen’s University Belfast
Dr Andrew Thomson is a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and a Fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. His research interests include pro-government militias and the dynamics of violence, civilians in civil war, private military companies and other non-state armed actors, US foreign policy and theories of US imperialism, US counterinsurgency and “irregular” warfare. He also focuses on the Colombian peace process in the context of multiple warring actors and has an avid interest in peace science.
Gordon Burt
COUNCIL MEMBER
Open University
Gordon Burt was Chair of the Conflict Research Society from 2008 to 2015, and took the lead role in organising the Society’s annual conference from 2007 to 2014. He is author of: Values, World Society and Modelling Yearbook for 2014 (2016), 2015 (2017), and 2017 (2018); Conflict, Complexity and Mathematical Social Science (2010); Football and Mathematics, Premier League and World Cup (2018); and the editor of Alternative Defence Policy (1988). He also produces a monthly Commentary following A New Agenda which ‘seeks to explore all aspects of society using all the academic disciplines paying special attention to values … with special interest in modelling … not disinterested in practice … and aspiring to high academic standards’. Gordon Burt has a degree in mathematics and a degree in psychology. Before his retirement he was an educational adviser and evaluator at the UK Open University. He has been an active researcher in peace and conflict studies, politics and international relations for almost forty years.
Corinne Barra
Chair of the Cedric Smith Prize
ETH Zürich
Corinne Bara is assistant professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, where she leads a project on the impact of ceasefire agreements on the trajectory of violence in war zones. She received her PhD from ETH Zürich in 2016. Her research focuses on the dynamics of violence and strategies of armed actors during and after civil wars, and her work has been published in the Journal of Peace Research and the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Tom Woodhouse
COUNCIL MEMBER
University of Bradford
Tom Woodhouse is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford. He was the founding director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford in 1990 and held the Adam Curle Chair in Conflict Resolution at Bradford until 2012. He is the co-author with Oliver Ramsbotham and Hugh Miall of Contemporary Conflict Resolution (now in its fourth edition). The book has been translated into Japanese and Spanish, and in 2016 a companion volume, The Conflict Resolution Reader, was published. His most recent book is Adam Curle: Radical Peacemaker, co-authored with John Paul Lederach and published by Hawthorn Press in 2016.
He is the general editor with Oliver Ramsbotham of the Routledge series Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution. Other current roles include: senior adviser and member of the International Advisory Council of the Institute for Economics and Peace; Ambassador for the Global Peace Index; member of the Advisory board for the UNESCO Chair in Sport Social Inclusion and Conflict Resolution at the Open University of Catalunya, Barcelona; and visiting research and teaching fellow at the University of Ramon Llull Barcelona and Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, where he teaches on the Rotary International Short Course in Peace and Conflict Resolution.
He is currently working on the role of sport in promoting peacebuilding and is on the Advisory Board of the Independent Football Ombudsman with special responsibility for football and community. He has acted as adviser to the Mayor of London’s Sports Strategy Team which is developing a policy to develop sport for social inclusion and conflict resolution. He has written the entry on Sport and Peace for the Routledge Handbook on Sport Peace and Development, edited by Richard Giulianotti (Routledge 2017).
Herb Blumberg
COUNCIL MEMBER
Goldsmiths
Herbert has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University and Visiting Professor at Haverford College. He is a Bibliographer and Review Editor for Peace and Conflict, journal of the Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. He is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and also of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence.Herbert has authored or co-authored about 50 articles in social psychology and research methods and has co-authored or co-edited several books on non-violent conflict resolution (relating largely to peace and to civil rights) and on small groups. His interests gradually shifted to various topics in group dynamics and then to a combined focus on cognitive facets of social interaction. Data he is currently analysing deal (among other things) with everyday conflict and informal communication.
The Conflict Research Society ADVISORY BOARD
Catalina Montoya
Dr Catalina Montoya Londoño is a lecturer in International Relations, director of the MA in International Relations and director of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies (tutu.hope.ac.uk) in Liverpool Hope University. The Centre brings together academics from a variety of disciplines and practitioners who work on issues related to peace, war and conflict. Her main research interest include relationships between states, civil society and media in the context of conflict and peacebuilding, and international relations with particular emphasis on Latin American and Colombian Politics. She has published on the impact of event driven news in the projection of US foreign policy in Colombia, the use of media by civil society organizations to foster democracy and human rights in Colombia and Latin America, the relationships between political and media systems, and political and media debates regarding transitional justice in Colombia.
Feargal Cochrane
Professor Feargal Cochrane is Professor of International Conflict Analysis in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. He is also Director of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC). in 2017 he was elected Vice Chair of the Political Studies Association (PSA) and also serves as a Trustee of the Oxford Research Group (ORG) .
He was previously Director of the Richardson Institute, a peace and conflict studies research centre in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Lancaster University. Professor Cochrane has also held academic posts at the Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster and at Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Cochrane has published widely in the area of political violence and conflict transformation in leading international journals and with prestigious academic publishing houses, including Yale University Press, Routledge, and Polity.
Isabel Phillips
Isabel Phillips is a Conflict Specialist whose work crosses the boundary between the commercial and political fields. Alongside running her own professional services consultancy, Ge-fahr Limited, she is a consultant and member of Lead Faculty for the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), and a visiting lecturer for the University of Westminster Law School and the University of Bradford Peace Studies Division.Before setting up Ge-fahr, Isabel worked full-time for CEDR from 2003 -2012. Her experience now encompasses mediation, training and consultancy work, done across the world, in a range of different sectors including NGO, IGO, public and private sector organisations. Her initial practical experience in conflict and mediation was gained through nearly three years based in Bosnia for “Forum ZFD” (a German NGO), where she was project manager for their civilian conflict resolution project in Bosnia-Herzegovina.Isabel is a fluent German speaker and holds the German vocational qualification in Civilian Conflict Transformation. She has a BA (Hons) First class in History, an MA (Distinction) in International Relations and a Post-Graduate Diploma (Distinction) in Research Methods. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Bradford.
Ismene Gizelis
Theodora-Ismene Gizelis is a Reader (Associate Professor) in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. She is the author of Globalization, Integration, and the Future of European Welfare States (Manchester University Press, 2010) and articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Peace Research, Political Geography, International Interactions, Journal of Economic Development and Cultural Change, and Conflict and Cooperation. She was the guest co-editor (together with Louise Olsson) of International Interactions (2013) on “A Systematic Understanding of Gender, Peace and Security – Implementing UNSCR 1325.
Julie Lloyd
Julie Lloyd is a Clinical Psychologist and Cognitive Analytic Therapist working in the UK National Health Service (NHS) with people with intellectual disabilities and also in an intensive care psychiatric unit. She is currently co-editing a new book on cognitive analytic therapy and the politics of mental health. Her involvement in CRS comes from the same dialogic motivation in her choice of career and she finds a mutual enrichment between CRS ideas and psychological ones that she uses widely to understand why people get into conflict. In her job this conflict is often about society’s attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness, which often involve similar relational patterns to those found in international conflict. She is one of several psychologists who are on the CRS Council and part of our aim is to help the group to use psychological insights to formulate conflicts.
Larry Attree
Larry Attree is Head of Policy at Saferworld. With over 13 years’ experience, he is a globally recognised expert on conflict issues. He input extensively into global negotiations on peace and development issues including the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, the Busan Partnership and the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. His experience includes project management, advocacy, policy development, advisory and capacity building support, evaluation and extensive research. His expertise covers aid and conflict, stabilisation, counter-terrorism, governance and statebuilding, arms control and armed violence reduction, reintegration, community security, security and justice sector development and conflict sensitivity (including conflict analysis, programme design, monitoring and evaluation). Larry has worked for a variety of UN and international agencies, NGOs and the corporate sector with several years’ field experience in conflict-affected parts of Eastern Europe, the Pacific, Asia and Africa.
Marwan Darweish
Dr Marwan Darweish is Principal lecturer in peace and conflict studies at the Center for Trust Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR) at Coventry University, 2009-present. I am deeply concerned about the growing violent response to social, political and economic injustices in the world and the lack of constructive peaceful interventions. I believe that active nonviolence civil resistance and conflict transformation is the key to transform structural and direct violent conflict and address social injustice and change the imbalance of power relation between the conflicting parties.
Dr Darweish research interest are nonviolence resistance, everyday resistance, conflict transformation and dialogue in asymmetric conflicts. He has extensive experience across the Middle East region and a special interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and ongoing peace negotiations. He has wide-ranging experience as an academic, researcher and lecturer, as well as in leading/facilitating on training courses on conflict transformation, mediation, negotiation and and peace processes. He has published specialist reports and has contributed to many conferences and seminars, as well as having a number of published academic and specialist report on related debate. He is experienced in working with civil society partners, governmental and non-governmental organizations; with community driven initiatives as well with mulit-donor funded programmes. . He has published extensively on the topic of nonviolence resistance, and popular protest in leading peer-reviewed journals and published a few book manuscripts and the latest with Rigby in 2015 about the popular protest in Palestine and the role of the Israeli peace groups. He is fluent in English and Arabic as well as Hebrew.
Dr Darweish presented the finding of his research in the House of Parliament, and to civil society organisations in Israel/Palestine. His research with Thiessen about the challenges facing Palestinian and Israeli peace organizations was produced as short film by Israel Social TV and shown to Israel organizations and international donors.
For 7 years Dr Darweish has been a Peace and Conflict advisor at Responding to Conflict and has taken on a range of conflict consultancies including work involving Horn, East and Central Africa and Israel/Palestine with EU, DFID, GIZ, ZFD, UNDP and many other international organisations.
Ourania Dimitraki
Dr Ourania Dimitraki is a lecturer in Economics at Bedfordshire University. Her principle research interests are focused on the regional aspect of social reproduction under specific socio-historical conditions and political/government policies on economic growth. She is currently working on a project that investigates the effects of military expenditure on economic well being in least developed countries (LDCs).
Peter Emerson
Peter Emerson is the director of the de Borda Institute (www.deborda.org), a Northern Ireland-based international NGO, which promotes inclusive voting procedures on all contentious questions of social choice. A leading authority on voting systems for use in both decision-making and elections, he has spent a considerable amount of time in conflict zones – not only in Northern Ireland but also in the Balkans and the Caucasus; he speaks Russian, some Serbo-Croat, and is now learning Chinese. He has published over ten books as well as more than a dozen articles in peer reviewed journals in over half-a-dozen countries, and he has also lectured throughout Europe, in Africa, the USA, and most recently in China. In addition, he has worked in a score of elections in Central and Eastern Europe as an election observer for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE. His latest book is From Majority Rule to Inclusive Politics, (Springer, 2016).
Steve Pickering
Steve Pickering is a lecturer at Brunel University London. Steve has previously held positions at Kobe Univerity, Japan; the Department of Government at the University of Essex; and the Richardson Institute at Lancaster University. His research looks at geo-spatial factors and conflict, infrastructure, environmental factors and big data. His latest book is “Understanding Geography and War: Misperceptions, Foundations and Prospects” (2017) published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Yeshim Harris
Yeshim is the Co-founder Director of Engi Conflict Management and a Senior Research Fellow of University of Kent. Her areas of specialism are multi-track diplomacy, policymaker & civil society cooperation; stakeholder engagement; building dialogue platforms and advocacy training.
She is well versed in the Mediterranean Basin plus N Ireland and S Africa. Her work in Cyprus has received much praise as she brought together some institutions and individuals who have resisted to engage in such dialogues before, due to their highly conservative nature of their views.
She is a trained Conflict Resolution Facilitator; has a Master’s degree in Development Aid Programmes; and a Certificate of Mediation and Peacemaking in Complex Conflicts.
Dennis Bury
Dennis Bury is a registered psychologist. He has been a priest, bookseller, psychological therapist of various approaches and a lecturer. Now semi retired retains an adjunct prof role for Syracuse University in individual personality. His peace and conflict research focus is upon how dictatorial frameworks ‘mature’ to cruelty. In the CRS, he adopts the stance that conflict research should be disseminated as a form of social health.
OTHER ROLES WITHIN THE CRS
Robert Nagel
Conference Organiser
Dr. Robert Ulrich Nagel’s research at GIWPS focuses on women’s impact on peacekeeping missions’ effectiveness. Prior to joining GIWPS, Robert earned his PhD in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent. His research explored the conflict dynamics that contribute and result from sexual violence, their consequences for international security, conflict resolution, and post-conflict stability. Robert’s research is published or forthcoming in the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal of Peace Research. He won the 2019 Cedric Smith Prize for the best peace and conflict studies paper by a UK or ROI-based PhD student and the International Studies Association 2020 Dina Zinnes Award. He is also a member of the editorial team for International Peacekeeping and a member of the Consultative Group for the Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict dataset.
Marina Petrova
Conference Organiser
Dr. Marina Petrova is a Research Fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University. She received her PhD from the Department of Government, University of Essex. Her research interests include political violence, non-violent resistance, and quantitative methods. In her work , she studies different types of political mobilziation and their determinants, dynamics, and outcomes. Her work has been published at the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Phillip Nelson
CRS Assistant
Phillip Nelson is a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. In 2015 he received a prestigious scholarship from the ESRC to undertake his PhD research at the University of Essex, from which he graduated in 2019. His thesis used advanced quantitative methods to examine why people fight in rebellion and how natural resources can be used by militias, not just rebel groups, to fund their operations. His previous research has been both cross-national and sub-national, with a focus on Colombia. During his PhD, Phillip spent three months as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia.