As ever @jamesworrall.bsky.social and myself @alexwaterman.bsky.social will be floating around various panels at the conference, so feel free to DM or email us to arrange a coffee to pitch your project!

Monday, 23 March 1600: We have another cracking lineup for the @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social roundtable! This year we're discussing methodologies in conflict research.

Headed to @ISA2026 #ISA2026 @isanet.bsky.social? Here's our lineup for the conference: Sunday, 22 March 1930-2100: Join us for the @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social drinks reception!

Early Christmas present! Very excited to have signed a contract with Oxford University Press to publish "Managing Insurgency: Counterinsurgency and Order Negotiation in Northeast India." Watch this space in 2026!

Enjoyed delivering this morning’s session on Lit Reviews and Theoretical Frameworks in journal articles with @jamesworrall.bsky.social in @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social contribution to the “International Writing Workshop Mindanao," supporting emerging scholars from Mindanao:

A great #CRS2025 at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Here are some photos from our @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social annual CRS drinks reception. It was great to catch up with friends old and new!

#CRS2025 also saw the launch of our latest @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social Special Issue on the Legacies of Rebel and Paramilitary Governance. Check out the SI here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/fciv20/c... with @nielsterpstra.bsky.social

Rounding off a busy #CRS2025 @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social also held its second Roundtable at CRS with some great discussions about epistemology and methodology, thanks to the very engaged audience and panelists. Check out the write up of our ISA Roundtable here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Attending the Conflict Research Society @thecrs.bsky.social conference in Canterbury this week? Come along to our drinks reception tomorrow (see conference programme for details)! Interested in pitching work to us? Get in touch with @jamesworrall.bsky.social to fix a coffee meeting!

Our brilliant Reviews Editors @drincon.bsky.social and @rtapscott.bsky.social are seeking expressions of interest for the journal's revamped reviews section. We look forward to seeing exciting and creative proposals! www-tandfonline-com.brad.idm.oclc.org/action/autho...

Huge thanks to our contributors @christinaboyes.bsky.social @hyyppati.bsky.social @mervekeskin.bsky.social Dana Landau, Rachel Schwartz and @meganastewart.bsky.social for reflecting on the fuzzy edges, ordering processes, need to de-centre violence and issues of knowledge production in the field

Is there a “field” of civil wars research? How is the field evolving, and what challenges is it likely to face in future years? We discussed these questions and more in a fascinating roundtable discussion at @isanet.bsky.social in March, written up here: doi.org/10.1080/1369...

Nice to see that my India Review article with Ben Holt analysing variation in the character of state-rebel conflict across Northeast India's "Highland," "Heartland" and "Hinterland" conflicts is the journal’s 3rd most-read article in the last year! Read it Open Access here: lnkd.in/e-6XjJEw

Reports of large-scale drone strikes against northeast Indian insurgent camps in Myanmar. As with most other conflict zones, the Northeast/Sagaing border area has gradually seen the arrival of drone warfare over the last couple of years www.pratidintime.com/latest-assam...

Next Wednesday (11 June) our very own Professor Christoph Bluth is presenting the Freedom Speakers International at the Light Church in Bradford. The three speakers, Yuna Jung, Riha Kim, and Sujin Kim, will share their stories about escaping from North Korea and their journey since.

Pleased to see the second article from our Gerda Henkel Stiftung funded research project on counterinsurgency doctrine published online, plenty more to come. I’ll let @alexwaterman.bsky.social explain this one in his detailed thread!

In this open-access article with @jamesworrall.bsky.social in the Journal of Strategic Studies, we theorise how specific elements of knowledge - in this case knowledge of insurgencies - are integrated, negotiated and codified into doctrine doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Interested in joining us for a discussion? DM us or contact @alexwaterman.bsky.social. We're particularly keen to pull in a broad church of civil wars scholars reflecting the field's methodological diversity, so please do circulate widely!

We are keen to build on our excellent roundtable at #ISA2025 in Chicago this year (keep an eye out for a write-up in our next issue!) by reflecting specifically on epistemology and the diverse research approaches that make up our field of study

Interested in attending @isanet.bsky.social #ISA2026? Interested in discussing how we create and produce knowledge about civil wars, and how this informs our research approaches? We are looking for participants to join a roundtable proposal for our "Reimagining a Field of Study" roundtable series!

India and Pakistan have agreed a precarious peace – but will it last? My short piece with @sudhirselvaraj.bsky.social theconversation.com/india-and-pa...

Dr Rashmi Arora gave a talk this week at Manchester Metropolitan University for the Women in Economics Mentoring Scheme, exemplifying PSID's bridge between research and practice!

Yesterday, the department's Global Security Research Group held an informal workshop to discuss a number of fascinating research projects spanning rich archival work, deep ethnographies and quantitative modelling. Particularly great to see our PhD students showcasing the evolution of their projects!

Abstract here 👇 Thank you to @hannahrwest.bsky.social and @alexwaterman.bsky.social for editing this special issue; stay tuned for the full line-up of papers imminently!

New publication in the Journal of Strategic Studies (part of a special issue on "Reimagining COIN after Afghanistan): What lies over the Horizon? In this, I question the meaning of "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism, and what kinds of futures it points towards. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Excited to share new research from one of our colleagues! Dr Clara Voyvodic @cvoyvodic.bsky.social has two papers out on armed groups and rebel authority in Colombia. Clara’s work explores the intersections of conflict, development, and non-state governance. www.bradford.ac.uk/staff/cvoyvo...

***New Open Access Publication!*** In this India Review article co-authored with Ben Holt, we develop a new typology capturing variation in state-rebel conflict across Northeast India www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

***New Open Access Publication!*** In this India Review article co-authored with Ben Holt, we develop a new typology capturing variation in state-rebel conflict across Northeast India www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Great end to a productive @isanet.bsky.social in Chicago! Presented preliminary research with Ryan O'Connor on the relationship between Naga rebel narratives and conflict events during a fascinating panel on rebel governance. Fascinating papers and super helpful discussion - thank you all! #IA2025

The calm before last night’s @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social reception @jamesworrall.bsky.social @hyyppati.bsky.social Great to see so many contributors to and friends of the journal, to meet many new faces and to learn about lots of exciting new projects!

An excellent start to #ISA2025 with @alexwaterman.bsky.social and the @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social organising a well-attended workshop on Rebel Financing and Rebels’ Use of Economic Instruments for Rebel Governance in Chicago!

Thanks to @ilyssa.bsky.social, Tanya Irwin, @jamesworrall.bsky.social, & @alexwaterman.bsky.social for their effort on the @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social Rebel Financing workshop @isanet.bsky.social. Feedback from @sanjidaamin.bsky.social & others on my paper w/ Kasia Houghton was incredibly valuable

Great start to the day in our workshop on Rebel Financing and Rebels’ Use of Economic Instruments for Rebel Governance! @ilyssa.bsky.social @jamesworrall.bsky.social @alexwaterman.bsky.social

Civil Wars is at #ISA2025 @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social do join us! 🧩Workshop on Rebel Finance and the Financialisation of Rebel Governance, Saturday @ 8am 🪁Roundtable on Reimagining the Field, Sunday @ 1.45pm 🥂Drinks Reception, Sunday @ 7.45pm Feel free to DM or email us to discuss projects!

To promote peace effectively, you need strong, soft skills, which we often teach through extra-curricular training. This week, we offered students a special session on facilitation skills. Students learned about preparation, key facilitator tools, active listening, energisers and checkin exercises.

Morning

Let us not despair but act. That's my No.1 takeaway from #MSC2025, yesterday’s Paris summit, & today's US-Russia talks in Riyadh.  Enough of the 'wake-up calls', ‘unity’ & the 'hour of Europe', those Europeans who get it must embrace the 'Nike Strategy' & #JustDoIt 🧵

Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė: “Putin won’t change. We have 3–4 years to fully prepare for a major war in Europe.”

Join us at the 28th University of Bradford Annual Development Lecture, where we explore contemporary development challenges and opportunities. This year we're delighted to welcome Prof. Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of Global Political Economy (Harvard University).

We were the University that launched the UK's first ever Peace Studies Department and continue to innovate in this field, telling the stories of those affected by conflict and actively seeking solutions. Find out more about our work to RESOLVE the UNRESOLVED. www.bradford.ac.uk/different/re...

Oh, and we also have a fantastic “Peace FC” football team which competes for (and usually wins!) the Tolstoy Cup against “War FC” of the War Studies Department, King’s College London.

The Department of Peace Studies and International Development is now on BlueSky!

This is my latest article on creative and participatory research methods for studying civilian agency in civil wars. Open access @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Nice to see my India / Kashmir chapters of the 2024 IISS Armed Conflict Survey in print www.tandfonline.com/journals/tar...

I've just received reviewers' comments back for a paper where the first author is a student. This is their first experience of peer review, and the comments made them cry. PLEASE, when doing reviews: think about the real person at the other end and whether you can be a bit nicer in tone

1x full book revisions and 1x book chapter proofs sent off!

Archivally-rich rethinking of India's biggest counterinsurgency success from Benjamin Holt: "An ‘Elephant Trying to Chase a Rat’: Indian COIN in the Mizo Hills, 1967–1970" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

📣 Attention all peace and conflict scholars and practitioners! The call for the Conflict Research Society Annual Conference 2025 is out! Get your paper, panel and workshop submissions in by 17th January 😀 conflictresearchsociety.org/call-for-pap...

Many conferences can be quite scary as an ECR/PhD, but CRS is an ideal place to take your work and develop it as part of a welcoming, supportive community. Def. recommend applying - wish I’d done so during my PhD! Also keep an eye out for @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social drinks reception and more 👀

🎓 The call is out for my favorite academic conference: the Conflict Research Society Annual Conference 2025. If you like your conferences inviting, informal, theoretically and empirically diverse, and full of relevant practitioners, CRS is for you! conflictresearchsociety.org/call-for-pap...