Stephanie Schwartz, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, is serving as a visiting scholar with C&C this term. As a visiting scholar, Schwartz will be working on her book manuscript, Homeward Bound: Refugee Return and Local Conflict After Civil War. Homeward Bound examines how return migration after civil wars affects local conflict dynamics in refugees’ country of origin, and in turn shapes future patterns of cross-border displacement. Schwartz is also working on several projects related to the centrality of refugee return in global asylum governance. Schwartz is presenting at C&C on November 17th, 2021.
Katerina Tertytchnaya Awarded a UKRI New Investigator Grant
C&C member Dr. Katerina Tertytchnaya has been awarded a UKRI New Investigator Grant worth £255,000 to support research on the politics on nonviolent repression in contemporary electoral autocracies. The project, which will run for three years, will allow Dr. Tertytchnaya to investigate how contemporary electoral autocracies, regimes that combine authoritarian practices with multiparty elections, use legal strategies of repression, delegated to bureaucrats and courts, in order to restrict protest and hinder opposition and voter coordination. The project builds on pilots funded by the British Academy-Leverhulme Grant, and the SHS Dean’s Strategic Fund.
Inken von Borzyskowski Awarded a British Academy’s Mid-Career Fellowship
C&C member Inken von Borzyskowski was recently awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship worth £177,000 to support research on her second book, “Exit from International Organizations: The Politics of Membership Suspensions and Withdrawals.” Inken’s second book builds upon her previous co-authored research on withdrawals and suspensions and original dataset on state exit from international organisations by analysing the motivations for exit and their consequences. The fellowship will fund fieldwork to collect archival data on the internal policy debates and reforms within international organisations as well as to conduct interviews with policy experts. This major research project will further advance understandings of international organisations and cooperation.
Prof Neil Mitchell Launches New Book
Tomorrow 17th April 2021 is the official release date for Professor Neil J. Mitchell's new book Why Delegate? In his new book, Neil investigates the incentives to delegate and the risks we take in doing so. He demonstrates how a new, modified understanding of the simple structure of the delegation relationship – the principal-agent relationship, as economists have described it – simplifies a myriad of important and seemingly disparate problems in private and public life. Using real-world case studies including child abuse in the Catholic Church, the Volkswagen pollution scandal, and FIFA corruption, Neil illustrates the broad functionality of delegation logic and the wide range of incentives at work in these relationships.
Why Delegate? is available to order online at Oxford University Press.
PhD Workshop Rundown
The third edition of the UCL PhD workshop hosted by the Conflict & Change research cluster featured the research of 30 doctoral candidates who presented their ongoing projects across 16 panels. The workshop kicked off with an inspiring keynote address from Prof Neil Mitchell on puzzles in principal-agent theory. His new book, Why Delegate? (Oxford University Press), is due to be released this month. For a detailed overview of the entire workshop and the full list of participants, the official programme is available to download here.
Despite shifting to a virtual format, this year’s workshop maintained the collaborative environment of previous editions thanks to the outstanding involvement of presenters and discussants. The virtual format enabled us to host our largest workshop to date as well as invite an incredible roster of external discussants from across the world. The Conflict & Change group extends a special thanks to all of the external discussants who were able to join us:
Dr Andreas Juon
Dr Milli Lake
Dr Juan Masullo
Prof Andrea Ruggeri
Dr Hannah Smidt
Dr Julia Zulver