Books

Post-war rulers: How former rebels shape the state after civil war

Single authored monograph – in progress

This book analyses how rebel groups turned political parties govern and impact on peacebuilding and state-building after armed conflict. Based on in-depth comparative analysis of five cases of territorial conflicts where former rebels become part of the ruling-elite by winning competitive elections, the book examines their role in shaping the trajectory of postwar governance and state building. In doing so, the book engages with themes of sovereignty, territoriality and contested regional security that is of great relevance to understanding shifting logics of nation-building in the contemporary global order and ever-shifting frameworks for peacebuilding.

Civilian resistance to mass atrocities

Co-Edited book with Ellens Stensrud and Claire Smith

In the international policy and research field of mass atrocity prevention, there is a strong normative emphasis on the duty of outsiders to rescue victims groups either through political pressure or through more forceful economic and military measures. However, the reality of mass atrocities (here understood as large-scale violence against civilians) that victim groups usually have to protect themselves. This book’s premise is that there is a need to better understand the strategies that threatened groups employ to protect themselves against atrocities, and how these groups may be able to mobilise support domestically and internationally. The book includes chapters that focus on one of the following topics: Actors (who are the most central actors of resistance in specific types of atrocities or country contexts and how do resistance options vary when perpetrators are non-state actors?); Strategies (what type of actions constitute resistance to mass atrocities); and Dimensions (how do resistance strategies change over time and during different phases of a conflict or atrocity escalation?).

The effects of rebel parties on governance, democracy and stability after civil wars: From guns to governing (edited by John Ishiyama and Gyda Sindre)

This book provides a systematic overview and in-depth analysis of the effects of rebel group inclusion on democracy following the end of conflict across the globe. In 16 chapters, it examines different types of rebel groups, addressing the subject matter through the lens of three dimensions – democracy, stability, and governance – which structure the book and the individual chapters. As such, it affords a rare opportunity to bring together two heretofore separate research traditions – conflict studies and political parties. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party theory, civil wars and peacebuilding, democratization studies and state building and more broadly to comparative politics, development studies, and security studies.

The Routledge Handbook on political parties (edited by Neil Carter, Dan Keith, Gyda Sindre and Sofia Vasolopoulou)

The Routledge Handbook of Political Parties provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the study of political parties provided by leading experts in the field. 

In an era of widespread political disillusionment, political parties are often the main targets of citizen dissatisfaction, yet they are the key institutions that make democracy work. Analysing political parties in unrivalled depth and breath, with comparative thematic chapters throughout, as well as a dedicated section on political parties and party politics in specific country settings, this handbook examines and illuminates the key questions around: how parties organise; how their ideologies have evolved over time; their relationship with society; how they differentiate themselves and how they respond to new social, economic, and political developments. 

The Routledge Handbook of Political Parties is essential reading and an authoritative reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners involved in and actively concerned about research in the study of political parties, party systems, and party politics.