Biography

In my research program’s thematic focus on international security, peacekeeping missions, and international organizations (particularly NATO, the EU, and the UN), I am the principal investigator (PI) of several several specific projects.

The first project studies the issues and practices related to burden sharing and collective action problems of international institutions, especially UN, EU, and NATO. This project has been funded since 2017 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and already resulted in several journal articles in International Political Science Review, European Security, and International Politics, as well as book chapters published in the Oxford Handbook on NATO and the Research Handbook on NATO. The long-term goal of this project to develop a constructivist approach to the theory of collective action in global security governance based on practice theory.

The second project studies the effectiveness of peace operations (e.g., in Afghanistan and the Balkans) and their political implications and lessons for international security institutions (e.g., UN, EU, NATO). For example, I examine how local knowledge and Western peacekeepers are integral parts of conflict resolution processes in i.e. Afghanistan. This project transcends disciplinary boundaries and links the research fields of international security policy and development policy, commonly referred to as the security-development nexus.

In a third project I explore how organizations acquire local knowledges (plural). To this end and with generous funding from the SSHRC Partnership Development grant (2020-2024), we built the “Peacebuilding and Local Knowledge Network (PLKN)”, which is a partnership of international academics, policy-makers and peacebuilding practitioners exploring how international organizations understand, acquire and integrate local knowledge(s) into their decision-making and operational activities. Driven to improve the effectiveness and credibility of international peace interventions, we collaborate to produce innovative, empirical research and useable, practitioner-relevant tools and training materials.

Earlier findings are presented open access here.

An Insight Development Grant (2025-2028) will extend this international networking and research in this area.

A fourth research project studies the aid effectiveness of major donors in Afghanistan (Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US). We ask, what inputs, outputs, outcomes and impacts did their projects have? Moreover, we ask, which projects worked, which ones did not work (and why)? This project extends my co-authored monograph Canada as Statebuilder? Development and Reconstruction Efforts in Afghanistan with a structured comparative impact evaluation.

This project builds on my prior work theorizing interventions (see e.g. my recent monograph on The Peacebuilding-Transitional Justice Nexus, Palgrave, 2021 and journal articles in Global Policy and Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding).

In most of my research projects I follow qualitative research methodologies like discourse analysis, process tracing, and expert interviews, often used in triangulation with quantitative data.