Honoured to have contributed 2 chapters - "Exiting Afghanistan: Presidential Narratives, US Exceptionalism, and 'Othering' Afghans" and "Statebuilding in Afghanistan: a State-Society Relational Approach" - to this volume, which features sharp analyses by some of the foremost experts on Afghanistan.

Thrilled & honoured to join @austjia.bsky.social as an Associate Editor. I look forward to working w/ a stellar team led by @joannewallis.bsky.social & @timlegrand.bsky.social, & helping the journal cement its growing global reputation.

Absolutely shameful. Afghans promised a home in U.S. may face repatriation — and the Taliban Afghans who helped American forces are stuck in limbo as the Trump administration cuts the State Department office for Afghan relocation. We're talking upwards of 250k Afghans here.

Excited to share a new open-access article with @benckrick.bsky.social @jonpetkun.bsky.social in @iojournal.bsky.social, "Civilian Harm & Military Legitimacy" www.cambridge.org/core/journal.... This project started in 2018 Mosul, Iraq’s 2nd largest city, in the aftermath of a 9-month battle … 1/7

Does higher state capacity go together with lower risk of democratic breakdown? Many political scientists certainly believe so! Yet, in an article just published in @polstudies.bsky.social , David Andersen, @skaaning.bsky.social and I highlight important nuances to this general relationship.

🚨New publication alert!🚨 Co-authored paper on Zapatista-Rebel Interactions in Mexico is out w/ @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social. Henry Nott & I trace the actions of the Zapatistas to changes in the behaviour of the EZLN (generating transformations in governance). www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Harvard: *we hired you to absolve us, not to reveal the truth!* www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...

Iraq 2003, Iran 2025. The same playbook. And don't forget Netanyahu's role, back then, in encouraging G.W. Bush to invade either.

No better time than now to catch up on @profsaunders.bsky.social's sobering new essay on the imperial presidency and personalist rule, American-style

Example of what happens when a mainstream economist discovers structural inequality (without 'discovering' the theories to explain it): very impressive empirical documentation of it + completely out-of-touch assumptions about how to fix it (taxation, cheap debt, human capital).

Since the USIP website was taken down some months ago, many have requested access to a report my colleagues and I wrote on Youth Protest movements in Afghanistan. Now that the USIP is back (yay!), I'm posting the report here. www.usip.org/publications...

Colonial extraction and unequal exchange have shaped two centuries of North-South inequality. A thread on the new study written with @gatonievas.bsky.social [A thread 1/8🧵]

🚨New publication alert!🚨 Paul Lushenko, Keith Carter & I write about racial bias & public support for US drone strikes in Security Studies journal. 1/4 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"One of the best books I've read on Latin America, and it is the best comparative analysis I've read of the origins of democracy" The Birth of Democracy in South America by Raúl L. Madrid, coming soon in #OpenAccess #Politics #BookSky #LatinAmericanPolitics cup.org/4kfxMhu

From our new issue: "Separate but Unequal: Ethnocentrism and Racialization Explain the 'Democratic' Peace in Public Opinion" by Brian Rathbun, Christopher Parker, and Caleb Pomeroy. #APSRNewIssue www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Gen. Gwyn Jenkins rejected UK visa applications from Afghan commandos at a time when they could have been called as witnesses for an investigation into war crimes by UK troops. "Some of those denied visas were subsequently tortured and killed by the Taliban".

Afrikaners are welcome, but Afghans are not: Noem will revoke Afghans' temporary protected status on 12 July, saying that there are "notable improvements" in Afghanistan's security and economy (which is crazy) 9,000 Afghans will now be deported back into Taliban hands, just an absolute betrayal

Just published on APSR First View: "Ideology and Revolution in Civil Wars: The 'Marxist Paradox'" by Laia Balcells @laiabalcells.bsky.social and Stathis Kalyvas. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🚨#OCIS2025 prelim program is now published🚨 A stellar program of topics & speakers. ocis.org.au/program/ If you haven't registered yet, pls do! Registrations close 12 May.

Out now 🔖 Dapaan is a haunting and probing book by @psemolina3.bsky.social drawing on interviews with ordinary Kashmiris about the impact of insurgency & repression on their homes & communities. ‘A beautifully written elegy to Kashmir’ - Myra MacDonald 25% off w/code DAPAAN25 ➡️ tinyurl.com/bdfvwfzn

I'm excited to share that my book, Rebels in the Field, will be coming out with Oxford University Press this summer. The book focuses on the military processes involved in deploying force in substate conflicts.

🚨New publication alert!🚨 Co-authored paper on Zapatista-Rebel Interactions in Mexico is out w/ @civilwarsjournal.bsky.social. Henry Nott & I trace the actions of the Zapatistas to changes in the behaviour of the EZLN (generating transformations in governance). www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Afghan women in the U.S. are going to be deported back into the arms of the Taliban. This is monstrous. www.npr.org/2025/04/11/g...

Sadly, such spurious & dubious views are common. Back in 2021, several Afghanistan experts offered more considered analysis of the dangers of politicide & genocide (of vulnerable groups) in Senate submissions & elsewhere (e.g., www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nB0...) www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

🚨#OCIS2025 early bird registrations extended🚨 If you're presenting / participating at #OCIS2025, early bird registrations have been extended to 12 May. We also plan to release the program soon. Stay tuned! ocis.org.au/registration/

Australia's universities held IDF propaganda events in Melb and Sydney this week, shunned peace protestors @wendybacon1.bsky.social & @yaakov-aharon.bsky.social report #auspol michaelwest.com.au/idf-courts-a...

Our vice chancellors need to stand up to these wannabe Trumpian fascists. We need to pressure our university leaders to be brave and stand absolutely firm on principles of free speech, academic freedom and artistic freedom. These are red lines and without them our society is at risk.

It appeared that Arab states would present a united front to avoid widespread ethnic cleansing in Gaza, but the United Arab Emirates is undercutting those efforts with the Trump administration in order to cement its future influence in Palestine. mondoweiss.net/2025/03/why-... #Palestine #Israel

Isreal using sexual and reproductive gender-based violence as a weapon of 'war' (genocide) - says the UN www.un.org/unispal/docu...

2 AP positions at Leiden: peace studies / IR and security & rule of law: www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies... www.universiteitleiden.nl/vacatures/20...

WATCH | Australian medic Muhammad Mustafa describes the aftermath of last night’s attacks at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City: “It was just mostly women and children burned head to toe, limbs missing, heads missing…”

The excellent Louise Adler discusses mandates, failures in governance, and good cultural leadership. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

“The last sixteen months offer ample evidence that, rather than peace, Australia is in pursuit of an alarming sort of quiet. Quiet will do.” Michaela Sahhar on the silencing of Khaled Sabsabi.

Such a cowardly move by Creative Australia. Capitulating to the right-wing media and Labour Gov's fears of them and Dutton. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Colleagues in Australia (and around the world), pls consider signing this statement in support of Randa Fattah & against the political repression of anti-racist and pro-Palestinian scholars.

When DEI (white diversity really) emerged as 'the' tool for social transformation, not a few of us alerted that it coddled whiteness to give it a feel-good makeover. After confronting accusations of being divisive etc, we are still here demanding social justice/emancipation for everyone, not DEI.

The ICC prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the Chief Justice of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.

Fabricating Homeland Security by Rhys Machold details how homeland security is a universalizing project, which seeks to remake the world in its image, and tells the story of how claims to global authority are fabricated and put to work. #ReadUP www.sup.org/books/title/...

Confronting piece, and cuts deep for so many of us.

First read of year- White mediocrity in academia & its alignment to merit, hostility to those who question it, and not wasting your energy (I term it politics of disengagement). Self-care & I’d go further: create our own communities (uphill task). Do read. muse.jhu.edu/article/715439

🚨 Last chance to submit your abstracts for #OCIS2025🚨

More damning insights and testimony into SAS + SBS conduct (i.e., murder + excessive force) in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Melbourne Uni has curated a collection of Decoloniality, First Nations Thinkers & Thought & Practices from the Global South of 677 items. Two years in the making. Humbled to feature in it; can't believe my luck to share space w/ folks I hold in high esteem. omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/decolonialit...

Frontlining the 'huge' Indo-US issue in the premier broadsheet in India, rn. It's ever so slightly more complex than what a binary reading imposes. Some thoughts in thread (12 posts) below 1/

An excellent indepth piece about the militias in Kunduz empowered by the US and Afghan governments, whose violence and brutality helped the Taliban gain power www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/w...

America’s war in Afghanistan might be over, but Azam Ahmed and I spent the better part of a year crossing the country, trying to find untold stories about how the Taliban won, and what the future holds. This is part two in our series. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/w...