Institutions are important in mitigating the extent to which shocks produce violent consequences, but their effectiveness is conditioned by the behavior of local and international leaders. Ostensibly perfect institutions may fail due to poor stewardship, while even imperfect ones can succeed at preventing violent escalation if local and international political leaders have sufficient political will.
Publications
The EU as an International Security Provider: The Need for a Mid-range Theory
Published in Global Society, as part of a Special Issue on "Theorising the European Union as an International Security...
Theorising the European Union as an International Security Provider: Actors, Processes, Outcomes and Impact
Co-edited with Annemarie Peen Rodt and Richard G. Whitman, this special issue was published by Global Society in 2015....
Consociationalism, Power Sharing, and Politics at the Center
Published in The International Studies Encyclopedia in 2010, this chapter outlines the main features of centripetalism, power sharing, and power dividing and of their prescriptions for divided societies. I compare the three schools to one another and showing their...
The EU as a Conflict Manager? The Case of Georgia and Its Implications
Co-authored with Richard G. Whitman and subsequently published in International Affairs, this article offers an analysis of the EU's engagement in Georgia as a standpoint from which to assess the EU's role as a conflict manager. The paper begins with a brief narrative...
Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Responses
Why does ethnic conflict remain one of the major security challenges in today's world? Can we avoid another Rwanda in the future? How was it possible, after almost four decades, to achieve a lasting settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland, while that in Kashmir...
Conflict Resolution in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood
This paper was commissioned by the European Policy Centre and co-authored with Amanda Akcakoca, Thomas Vanhauwaert, and Richard G. Whitman. It analyses the impact of the war between Russia and Georgia on the EU's ability to manage conflicts in the wider eastern...
Complex Power Sharing and the Centrality of Territorial Self-governance in Contemporary Conflict Settlements
This article contends that three key characteristics in the context of self-determination conflicts are crucial in determining the institutional design of their settlement: the compactness of groups' settlement patterns in a given state; the degree of ethnic...
Ethnic Minorities in Europe
This report, prepared for the European Centre for Minority Issues, in Flensburg, Germany, provides an overview of ethnic minorities in Europe, including details on the size of different minority groups, their origins, and the nature of claims and disputes they are...