Welcome! I am Professor of Political Science and International Relations at University College London.
At the heart of my research agenda are questions about how violent conflict and political order shape one another. I examine how institutions—formal or informal—both manage conflict and are themselves transformed by violence. While my earlier work focused on how institutional arrangements can accommodate grievances and reduce the risk of violent conflict, my more recent research examines how wars and violence reshape institutions, state-society relations, and political attitudes. I draw on both quantitative and qualitative methods, including surveys and fieldwork in Northern Ireland, India, Guatemala, and post-Soviet states and de facto states. I am the author of Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles and numerous academic journal articles, as well as articles for a general audience.
I came to the Department of Political Science at UCL in 2009, where I co-founded the Conflict & Change research cluster. Prior to joining UCL, I was Assistant Professor at Leiden University and a post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard. I have also been affiliated with the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
I am Chair of the Conflict Research Society (CRS), an associate editor at the Journal of Peace Research, and sit on the editorial board of International Security.
Originally from Norway, I studied political science at Østfold College, in my hometown Halden, and theater at the University of Oslo before moving abroad. I hold a BA (2000) in journalism and political science from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a PhD (2007) in political science from the University of Washington, Seattle.
See my CV and Google Scholar profile.
