School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

My research centres on the comparative study of dynamics of state formation and state decay in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East; and the theory and practice of international statebuilding. Some of my research is published in the European Journal of International Relations, International Affairs and the Journal of International Relations and Development. 

I currently hold a Marie Skłodowska Curie grant which is funded by UKRI (2023-2025, € 221,000).

RebeLeg: Legacies of violence, rebels and post-conflict state formation studies the long-term effect of civil wars and rebel organization on post-conflict state formation trajectories. RebeLeg develops an original analytical framework integrating theories of state formation and research on rebel governance and civil war to systematically answer its core research question: how does the legacy of violent conflict and armed movements impact post-war state-making? 

States are crucial for domestic and international stability, yet their emergence remains poorly understood. A vast literature has addressed the external dimension of state-making and debated the potential of international state-building. What this debate has however neglected is that statehood usually does not emerge from, or in the context of, international intervention but instead from domestically-led processes. To fill this gap, RebeLeg examines post-conflict state formation from an inside-out perspective by starting the analysis from victorious rebels engaged in civil wars. Drawing on its novel analytical framework, RebeLeg studies two African regions – the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa – and explains the varying trajectories of post-conflict state formation.

RebeLeg’s results will contribute to a significantly better understanding of post-conflict state formation. These highly relevant findings will facilitate international support for post-conflict states and can inform a new approach, moving away from failing militarized interventions as in Afghanistan or Iraq.