Research students
Ecoma Alaga
Email: e.b.alaga@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Security Sector Reform: A Tool for Gender Equality in Africa?
Supervisor(s): Dr. Christina Hellmich and Dr. Andreas Behnke
Synopsis of Research: My research broadly focuses on Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Gender (especially women's rights). It specifically seeks to examine the utility of SSR for the transformation of unequal gender relations within the context of the African Security Sector. In this regard, my work will trace the evolution of SSR in international development cooperation and review the methods it has employed to mainstream gender perspectives and address specially women's concerns.
Previous Degrees: BA (Hons) Political Science (University of Calabar, Nigeria); MSc Humanitarian and Refugee Studies (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)
Publications: "Gender, Peace and Security in Africa", in UPEACE Gender and Peacebuilding Reader, 2005; "Security Sector Reform and the Women's Peace Activism Nexus in Liberia", in Funmi Olonisakin and Awino Okech Women and Security Governance in Africa. Pambazuka Press, 2011
Nadya Ali
Email: xx017727@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title:
Supervisor(s): Dr. Andreas Behnke and Dr. Christina Hellmich
Synopsis of Research: My research is broadly concerned with understandings of political violence in a liberal state and the construction of identity. More specifically I am looking into the concept of radicalisation and how it functions as a tool of governance to reconstruct Muslim identity. This entails looking closely at counter-terrorism policy CONTEST with particular attention being paid to the PREVENT strategy.
Previous Degrees: BA (Hons) Politics and International Relations (Reading);MA Politics and International Relations (Reading)
Publications:"Terrorising Women: Re-thinking the Female Jihad", chapter in forthcoming edited volume: Andreas Behnke and Christina Hellmich (eds) Knowing al Qaeda: the Epistemology of Terror London: Ashgate
Joanna Baginska
Email: j.baginska@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Changing roles and status of Polish women: a comparative case study of Polish women in socialist and capitalist Poland with special references to political participation.
Supervisor(s): Dr. Jeremy Lester
Rawa Bahkit
Email: r.g.m.a.bahkit@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Good Governance, Civil Society and Human Rights
Supervisor(s): Professor Peter Woodward and Dr Christina Hellmich
Thesis Synopsis: Understanding of variations in perception of different institutions, groups and practitioners of the relation between good governance, civil society and human rights by looking at children rights in selected countries from Africa and the Middle East.
Previous Degrees: BSC(Hon)in Political Science (University of Khartoum, Sudan); MA International Studies (University of Durham, United Kingdom) ; Masters in Political Science from University of Khartoum(degree conferment pending).
Funding Awards: FCO Chevening Scholarship for MA at Durham; recently received a grant from the Gordon Memorial Trust Fund for field work in Sudan
Publications (including conference presentations): 'Good Governance in Concepts of Local Government in Sudan' presented at the Fifth International Conference on Sudan Studies, University of Durham , September 2000; 'Governance, Civil Society and Human Rights: child Protection in Sudan' at the Sudan Programme Workshop, St. Anthony's College, Oxford University, June 2011.
I have authored or contributed to numerous internal organisational reports, policy documents, training manuals and studies on issues of protection and children rights.
Relevant experience: (12 years) is in the field of child rights and protection with national and international non-governmental organisations. I have also worked for 4 years with the UN DPKO as Protection of Civilians Officer. Other experience includes teaching, training, journalism and administration
Marco Bernadini
Email: m.bernardini@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: The ecological crisis and the self
Supervisor(s): Dr. Andreas Behnke and Professor Alan Cromartie
Dimitrios Charalampopoulos
Email: dmtrschar@gmail.com
Research Title: On Neorealism and its Progress (1979-2002)
Supervisor(s): Dr. Andreas Behnke and Professor Alan Cromartie
Previous Degrees: MPhil International Studies (Reading)
Ananya Chatterjee
Email: ananya.chatterjee@reading.ac.uk/ anachat_1999@yahoo.com
Research Title: Indian Foreign Policy and the Evolution of India-China-United States Triangle
Supervisor: Dr. C. Dale Walton
Research topic: My project will examine India's foreign policy strategy with special focus on the evolution of India-China-United States strategic triangle. My research questions would attempt to address that what is the structure of the relationship between India, China and the United States of America? Does it constitute a strategic triangle? How will India balance between these two powers while attempting to realize its potential and assure its security?
Stephanie Churchill
Email: s.gordon@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: The Responsibility to Protect: A Normative Shift?
Supervisor(s): Dr.DominikZaum and Professor Alan Cromartie
Previous Degrees: BA International Relations and Politics (University of Portsmouth);
MA International Relations (King's College London).
Victoria Clayton
Email: jb021831@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: What Explains the Contrasting State Recognition Practices of the European Union and its Member States?
Supervisor(s): Dr.Oisin Tansey and Professor Beatrice Heuser
Previous Degrees: BA History and Politics, Lancaster University; MA International Security Studies, University of Reading.
Gerry Doyle
Email: g.doyle@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Bernard Schriever and US Military Spaceflight
Supervisor: Professor Colin Gray
Research Topic: My thesis topic relates to General Bernard Schriever USAF and US Military Spaceflight. General Schriever (1910-2005) is remembered within the USAF principally as the 'father' of the ballistic missile program during 1953-60. My thesis aims to extend appreciation of his work developing other aspects of US Military Space capability, including his involvement with the various (ultimately abortive) attempts to develop a military manned spaceflight capability. It draws on the opening to researchers of his collected papers at the Library of Congress in Washington DC during 2011 and on interviews with his surviving colleagues and relations, now living at various locations in the USA.
Publications: I was the author of the UK Military Space Primer, published by the MOD in 2010 (http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DCDC/OurPublications/Concepts/UkMilitarySpacePrimer.htm), and spoke at the inaugural PGR Conference at Reading in 2011.
Previous Experience: I am a part-time PhD student within the Department; I am also a serving Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force. I joined the RAF in 1981 on graduation from the University of St Andrews with a BSc(Hons) degree in Computational Science, and have served as a pilot on Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and E-3 AWACS aircraft. I also spend six years as a Qualified Flying Instructor within the RAF University Air Squadron system, instructing undergraduates at Birmingham and Cambridge University Air Squadrons on the Bulldog training aircraft. I have served as a staff officer in the UK Permanent Joint Headquarters, the Joint Staff within the British Defence Staff - United States at the British Embassy in Washington DC and in various flying training and standardisation roles. Most recently I served at the UK Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) at Shrivenham during 2007-11. The RAF sponsored my attendance at Cambridge University (Peterhouse) to complete the MPhil in International Relations in 2003-4, and are sponsoring my PhD as a 'Tedder' Fellow within the Chief of Air Staff's Fellowship Programme. I also undertook part-time study sponsored by DCDC as an external student at Swansea University during 2008-9. As of September 2011, I will be assuming the role of Executive Officer at the Royal College of Defence Studies (a component of the UK Defence Academy) at Seaford House in Belgrave Square, London.
Otto Fiala
Email: o.fiala@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: State Building and the US Military
Mahmut Günaydin
Research Title: Turkish Democracy in the Middle East
Corinne Heaven
Email: c.heaven@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title:The Powerful Truth of Facts: The Politics of UN Security Council Fact-Finding Missions
Supervisor(s): Dr.DominikZaum and Professor Alan Cromartie
Synopsis of Research:The PhD project analyses UN Security Council fact-finding missions as a tool for global governance. In developing a Foucauldian approach, it places the practice of fact-finding as a new expression of disciplinary power in the wider theoretical context of the authority of the Security Council. The thesis thus contributes to the debate on international organisations and peacebuilding.
Previous Degrees:BA, MA (Diplom), University of Bremen (Germany)
Safdar Hussain
Email: safdar.hussain@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Pakistan-China security relations
Supervisor(s): Dr. Dale Walton
Salah Ibrahim
Research Title: Middle East
Hajiqul Islam
Research Title: Food Security: Bangladeshi Grain Imports
Supervisor(s): Dr. Dale Walton
Elmoiz Ismail
Email: e.ismail@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Government of Sudan
Catherine Jones
Email: c.jones2@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: How is the Rise of China Impacting on the Liberal World Order?
Supervisors: Dr.DominikZaum and Professor Alan Cromartie
William Jones
Email: w.b.jones@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Political Theory of Localism
Supervisor(s): Dr Alan Renwick
Spyros Katsoulas
Email: s.katsoulas@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: The Guardian's Dilemma: The role of the United States in Greek-Turkish relations
Supervisor(s): Professor Colin Gray, Dr. Dale Walton
Synopsis of Research: My research interests lie in the fields of geopolitics and alliance theory, and their application to the Eastern Mediterranean. Namely, I focus on the role of the United States in Greek-Turkish relations from World War II until the end of the 20th century. The engagement of the United States in the Eastern Mediterranean, a traditional geopolitical junction of great importance, was filled with problems, for control of the region was often compromised by the disputes of Greece and Turkey, both declared allies of the United States. The aim of this research is to examine how the United States coped with the ensuing dilemmas by looking at eight Greek-Turkish crises.
Previous Degrees: BA International & European Studies, Panteion University, Athens; MA War Studies, King's College, London
Ahmed Khadir
Email: k.h.a.ahmedkhadir@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Western Culture's Impact on Islam
Euihiak Kim
Email: gz022754@reading.ac.uk
Research Title: The Sources of South Korea's military doctrine and its application to the force structure
Supervisor(s): Dr Geoffrey Sloan and Professor Beatrice Heuser
Adam Leong Kok Wey
Email: A.L.KokWey@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Thesis Title: Special Operations and Leadership Decapitation: Strategy and Strategic Effectiveness
Supervisors: Dr. Geoffrey Sloan and Professor Beatrice Heuser
Publications/Research Interests: Adam hails from the warm and sunny tropical paradise of Malaysia. Adam’s research interests are on all aspects of strategy, special operations, and economic security. He has presented papers on these diverse fields in various international conferences. His latest forthcoming paper publication is “The Mumbai Attack: The Utility of Special Operations” in Strategos (Journal of the US Military Strategists Association), and “A Re-examine of R.G. Collingwood’s Re-enactment” in The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Adam is also contributing a chapter titled “US Special Operations Forces: A strategic analysis of its involvement in Afghanistan and Vietnam” in a forthcoming book, Current Trends and Issues in American Foreign Policy Towards Asia (fall 2011), edited by Professor K.S. Nathan.
Adam holds a Bachelor in Business Administration (Honours) majoring in finance from the National University of Malaysia, and a Masters in Strategic and Defence Studies from University of Malaya. Adam is on study leave from his lecturing post in the National Defence University of Malaysia, where he had taught on the subjects of war and conflict, and strategic thought.
Lemi Lomuro Luyango
Email: kb791636@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Intelligence in Post-Conflict Situations
Entisar Mansoor
Email: zy026832@reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Gender, Islam and the state: the impacts on women's political participation in Bahrain.
Supervisor(s): Dr. Christina Hellmich
Ana Omalyev
Research Title: Serb Debate on Europe/EU
Supervisor(s): Andreas Behnke and Dominik Zaum
Christopher Parry
Email:c.j.parry@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Psychology of Senior Military Commanders
Spyridon Plakoudas
Email: vd024042@reading.ac.uk / spiros_plakoudas@yahoo.gr
Research Title: Royalist Counterinsurgency (COIN) in the Greek Civil War, 1946-1949
Supervisor(s): Professor Beatrice Heuser
Synopsis of Research: This research project will attempt to fill a certain historiographical gap: the underemphasised and unsystematic perusal of the Royalist strategy. In the voluminous literature of the Greek Civil War, the Royalist strategy has been either examined deficiently only from the military viewpoint or rendered subordinate to the analysis of the policies of the intervening domestic and external actors (e.g. the Communists' strategy). The thesis engages the following wide-spectrum issues: the theoretical and historical origins of the Royalist strategy, the decision-making computations and functional mechanisms of the Royalist strategy, the impact of the engaged domestic and foreign actors on the formulation of strategy, the dynamics of strategic evolution, as well as the role of "strategic culture" (known in French as "mentalité").
The project intends to explain the Royalist strategy with over 60 years of hindsight. Therefore, documentary research -which offers rapport with inaccessible subjects as an non-reactive technique and enables unobtrusively the attestation of the confessions of prominent personalities-- will be used to answer the research question. Furthermore, recently published archival material in Greece has transformed radically the setting of documentary research on the Greek Civil War.
Previous Degrees: BA in International Relations (Panteion); MScEcon in Strategic Studies (Aberystwyth). I was awarded scholarships and prizes for my remarkable academic performance in the Department of International and European Studies throughout the four-year undergraduate studies.
Peter Randall
Email: p.s.randall@reading.ac.uk
Research Title:British and Prussian Military Doctrines in the Nineteenth Century
Supervisor(s):Dr. Geoff Sloan and Professor Beatrice Heuser
Synopsis of Research: My thesis aims to examine how doctrine developed in Britain and Prussia in the nineteenth century in order to provide new understanding of fundamental principles relating to doctrine, its development, and how it is affected by differences in strategic culture.
Research Interests: My research interests include the evolution of strategy, strategic culture, and military history, particularly that of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Previous Degrees: BA (Hons) War, Peace and International Relations (Reading); MA International Security Studies (Reading)
David Reindorp
Email: d.reindorp@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Maritime Security, Politics and the Freedom of the Seas
Supervisor(s): Dr. Geoff Sloan and Professor Colin Gray
Malte Riemann
Email: malte.riemann@gmx.de
Research Title: War Outsourced: The privatisation of security, conflict and war and its impacts on contemporary warfare and international law
Supervisor(s): Professor Beatrice Heuser andDr. Frank Tallett
Norma Rossi
Email: n.rossi@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Fighting Mafias in Established States:Lessons from Counterinsurgency
Supervisor(s): Professor Beatrice Heuser and Dr. Lester
Previous Degrees:BA in Politics University, University of Roma Tre (Rome); MA in International Relations, University of Roma Tre
Wilfried Sawadogo
Email: w.r.sawadogo@ pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title:The Politics and Strategy of Chinese Economic Penetration in West Africa
Supervisor(s): Professor Peter Woodward and Dr.OisinTansey
Christian Schatz
Email: c.j.schatz@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Civilian Powers and Militarism
Daniel Steed
Email: d.a.steed@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Strategy, Intelligence, and British performance in the 1956 Suez Crisis
Supervisor(s): Dr. Geoff Sloan and Professor Colin Gray
Synopsis of Research: Much research has been conducted into Strategy and Intelligence, but little has been done in terms of the relationship of Strategy and Intelligence to one another. The result has been a lack of adequate analytical framework to holistically assess Strategic and Intelligence performance in relevant case studies. This thesis will create such a framework in order to explain British performance in the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Previous Degrees: BA War Studies 2007, King's College London; MA Strategic Studies 2008, University of Reading.
Valerie Swain
Email: v.r.swain@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: The Effectiveness of the British Grand Strategic Level of Planning: the role of the Committee of Imperial Defence (1920-1940)
Supervisor(s): Professor Beatrice Heuser and Dr. Geoff Sloan
Previous Degrees: BA (Hons) Sociology with Social Administration, Bangor; MSc Computing for Commerce and Industry, Open University
Hari Timalsina
Email: h.p.timalsina@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Women in Nepal
Supervisor(s): Alan Renwick
Sarah J. Travis
Email: s.j.travis@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Soldiers Within Society: A comparison of Canada, France and the United Kingdom
Supervisors: Professor Beatrice Heuser and Professor Pam Denicolo
Previous degrees: BA (Adv) Psychology, University of Manitoba; BA Politics and International Relations, University of Manitoba; MA Intelligence and International Security, King's College London
Synopsis of research:My research explores how soldiers perceive themselves within the societies of Canada, France and the United Kingdom, and whether this perception changes as a result of military training or combat experience. The research utilises focus groups employing techniques from Personal Construct Psychology, as well as surveys with soldiers from each of the case study countries.
S. Ozgur Ugurdan
Email: s.o.ugurdan@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title:Explanatory Power of Classical Geopolitical Theory in terms of American Foreign Policy in case of Kurdish Separatist Movements between 1942 and 2004
Supervisor(s): Dr. Geoff Sloan
Marie Westoby
Email: m.westoby@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: Why Do Some Environmental Agreements Succeed Whilst Others Fail?
Supervisor(s): Dr. Jonathan Golub and Professor Catriona MacKinnon
Synopsis of Research:My thesis explores the move from qualitative to quantitative approaches in the analysis of the impact of environmental agreements. It considers the validity of such a move in the context of two recently produced databases.
Previous Degrees:BA Economic Science, Aberdeen; MA Environment, Policy and Society, Open University.
Ben Whitham
Email: b.whitham@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title:Neoliberal Ideology and Liberal-Democratic State Violence: a Critical Realist Intervention
Supervisor(s): Dr. Andreas Behnke and Professor Alan Cromartie
Synopsis of Research: Ben's doctoral research is funded by the Leverhulme Trust as part of the major research programme on the 'Liberal Way of War' at the University of Reading. Ben's thesis seeks to explain the relationship between neoliberalism as a dominant ideology and forms of transgressive liberal-democratic state violence (torture, detention without charge or trial, violent restrictions on protest and so on).
Previous Degrees:BA Politics (1st), University of East London, 2003-2006; MA International Relations and Globalisation (Dist.), London Metropolitan University, 2007-2009.
Research interests include: theories of politics and international relations, especially Marxist and broadly 'critical' approaches; critical realism and the philosophy of social science; neoliberalism in political-economic theory and practice; discourse analytical approaches to politics and IR; and radical critiques of power, semiosis, social stratification and political violence.
Steven Wood
Email: fb017708@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Research Title: A Libertarian Way of War?
Supervisor(s): Dr. Dale Walton
Synopsis of Research: The research is focused on the US, and explores the libertarian philosophy that stresses maximum individual and economic liberty for local, national and global prosperity. It explores the argument that these liberties are intrinsically linked. The main themes of exploration are: the nature and evolution of money; central banking; foreign policy (interventionism vs. non-interventionism). The project utilises the literatures on economics and military theory, but uses the American constitution as a starting point.
Previous Degrees: BA War, Peace and International Relations (Reading); MA Strategic Studies (Reading); MA Intelligence and International Security (Kings).