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Welcome to my personal webpage. I am an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Politics and IR at the University of York and the founder and convener of the Politics After War Network (PAW-scholars). I am currently the Director of School of Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the University of York.  My main research interests lie at the intersection of politics and international relations with a particular focus on post-war politics and peacebuilding, political inclusion and transformation of armed groups, politics of DDR, and resistance politics more broadly.

Recent publications

I am delighted to share a new co-authored Practitioner Report Negotiating Political Integration of Armed Groups in an Era of New Conflict Patterns and Changing Peacemaking Landscapes (2025) co-published by FBA, PAW-Network and the Berghof Foundation. Drawing on collaborative research and practitioner engagement, the report offers a number of recommendations for mediators and practitioners to support conflict transformation. I also recently wrote a new paper The Political Integration of Armed Groups in a Chancing Global Security Landscape (2026) published as part of the British Academy and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Global (Dis)Order International Policy Programme. Drawing on new comparative research, the paper offers a typology of armed groups’ prospects for political integration.

Projects and engagement

I am currently leading a new project Negotiating armed groups’ political transitions drawing on a number of case studies and fieldwork in Bangsamoro in the Philippines, funded by the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA). I am also working on a second project – the Mass Atrocities Resistance Project – funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and based at the Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and Minorities Studies, in which we seek to identify and understand the strategies threatened groups employ to protect themselves against atrocities, and how these groups may be able to mobilise support domestically or internationally.

I regularly work with policy makers and practitioners in the fields of DDR, peacebuilding, mediation and democracy support and have consulted on several such programmes and projects over the years. I am member of the Integrated DDR Training Group, have worked with the UN Department of Peace Operations alongside several international and governmental agencies. See policy tab for recent policy engagements and publications.

My research has been funded by the European Commission, the Norwegian Research Council, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Philomathia Foundation, Westminster Foundation for Democracy alongside several smaller grants and awards.