Vladimir Rauta

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+44 (0)118 378 8501
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Lecturer in Politics and International Relations
Army Higher Education Pathway (AHEP) Lead
Module Convenor for PO1DCC (Degree Core Competencies), PO1IRS (Introduction to International Relations and Strategic Studies), and PO3DCW (Dynamics of Civil Wars)
Building location
Edith Morley Building,Room 312, Whiteknights campus, Reading.Postgraduate supervision
I am keen to hear from potential PhD students with research proposals in the area of conflict delegation and proxy war, counter-insurgency, civil wars and sub-state violence, and contemporary conflict with a focus on hybrid and/or grey zone warfare.
Background
I hold a PhD in International Relations from the University of Nottingham and my research sits at the intersection of conflict research and international security. It uses proxy wars as a vehicle to explore the delegation of war from states to armed non-state actors in the contemporary security environment. This is a significant problem spanning global politics. As recently witnessed with the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars, analysing the effects of proxy wars in a broader security and strategic context is at the forefront of international relations.
Published in journals such as Contemporary Security Policy, International Studies Review, Civil Wars, International Relations, Defence Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and RUSI, my research has contributed to the shaping of a third generation of proxy war studies in which the historical narrative is questioned against the causal concerns of ‘why’ and ‘how’. I have focused on conceptual, typological, and theoretical issues as meta-theoretical building blocks for developing proxy war research into a self-standing sub-field, whilst using both strategic interaction and Principal-Agent theory to address some empirical puzzles surrounding conflict delegation. I am currently working on a book project analysing the contemporary dynamics of proxy wars with a focus on the Middle East, out in 2022 with I. B. Tauris. Together with Assaf Moghadam and Michel Wyss, I am also the editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars.
Academic qualifications
- BA (Hons) Politics – Nottingham Trent University (2011)
- MA International Relations with a Research Track – University of Nottingham (2012)
- PhD International Relations – University of Nottingham (2017)
Professional bodies/affiliations
- Non-Resident Research Fellow, Middle East Studies Forum, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization, Deakin University, 2020–2021.
- Associate Research Fellow, Centre for Conflict, Security, and Terrorism (CST), School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, 2018–2019.
- Associate Research Fellow, Centre for Conflict, Rule of Law and Society (CRoLS), Bournemouth University, 2018–2019.
Publications
- Rauta, V. and Spatafora, G. (2023) The future of proxy wars. In: Gruszczak, A. and Kaempf, S. , (eds.) Routledge Handbook of the Future of Warfare. Routledge (Taylor and Francis) ISBN: 9781032288901
- Hammett, B. and Rauta, V. (2023) Militias and proxy wars. In: Moghadam, A. , Rauta, V. , Wyss, M. , (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars. Routledge (Taylor and Francis) , London. ISBN: 9781032004136
- Moghadam, A. , Rauta, V. , Wyss, M. (2023) The study of proxy wars. In: Moghadam, A. , Rauta, V. , Wyss, M. , (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars. Routledge (Taylor and Francis) , London. ISBN: 9781032004136
- Karlén, N. and Rauta, V. (2023) Dealers and brokers in civil wars: why states delegate rebel support to conduit countries. International Security , 47 (4). pp. 107-146. ISSN: 1531-4804 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00461
- Finnegan, P. and Rauta, V. (2022) Dilemmas of fundamentalist non-state actors in international relations. In: Charountaki, M. and Irrera, D. , (eds.) Mapping Non-State Actors in International Relations. Non-State Actors in International Relations Springer , Cham. pp. 53-71. ISBN: 9783030914622 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91463-9_4
- Rauta, V. (2021) A conceptual critique of remote warfare. Defence Studies , 21 (4). pp. 545-572. ISSN: 1743-9698 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14702436.2021.1994398
- Biegon, R. , Rauta, V. , Watts, T. (2021) Remote warfare – buzzword or buzzkill?. Defence Studies , 21 (4). pp. 427-446. ISSN: 1743-9698 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14702436.2021.1994396
- Karlen, N. , Rauta, V. , Salehyan, I. , Mumford, A. , San-Acka, B. , Stark, A. , Wyss, M. , Moghadam, A. , Duursma, A. , Tamm, H. , Jenne, E. , Popovic, M. , Siroky, D. , Meier, V. , Chinchilla, A. , Rickard, K. , Spatafora, G. (2021) Forum: conflict delegation in civil wars. International Studies Review ISSN: 1468-2486 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isr/viab053
- Rauta, V. and Monaghan, S. (2021) Global Britain in the grey zone: between stagecraft and statecraft. Contemporary Security Policy , 42 (4). pp. 475-497. ISSN: 1352-3260 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2021.1980984
- Rauta, V. (2021) ‘Proxy War’: a reconceptualisation. Civil Wars , 23 (1). pp. 1-24. ISSN: 1369-8249 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2021.1860578
- Rauta, V. (2021) Framers, founders, and reformers: three generations of proxy war research. Contemporary Security Policy , 42 (1). pp. 113-134. ISSN: 1352-3260 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2020.1800240
- Rauta, V. (2020) Proxy warfare and the future of conflict: take two. RUSI Journal , 165 (2). pp. 1-10. ISSN: 1744-0378 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2020.1736437
- Rauta, V. (2020) Towards a typology of non-state actors in ‘hybrid warfare’: proxy, auxiliary, surrogate and affiliated forces. Cambridge Review of International Affairs , 33 (6). pp. 868-887. ISSN: 1474-449X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2019.1656600
- Smith, T. , Lee, P. , Rauta, V. , Khalfey, S. (2020) Understanding the Syria Babel: moral perspectives on the Syrian conflict from just war to Jihad. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism , 43 (12). pp. 1108-1128. ISSN: 1521-0731 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1523358
- Rauta, V. (2019) Conceptualising the regular-irregular engagement: the strategic value of proxies and auxiliaries in wars amongst the people. In: Brown, D. , Murray, D. , Riemann, M. , Rossi, N. , Smith, M. , (eds.) War Amongst the People. Howgate Publishing Limited , Havant.
- Rauta, V. (2018) A structural-relational analysis of party dynamics in proxy wars. International Relations , 32 (4). pp. 449-467. ISSN: 1741-2862 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0047117818802436
- Rauta, V. and Mumford, A. (2017) Proxy wars and the contemporary security environment. The Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence. Palgrave pp. 99-115. ISBN: 9781137536754 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53675-4_6
- Rauta, V. (2016) Proxy agents, auxiliary forces, and sovereign defection: assessing the outcomes of using non-state actors in civil conflicts. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies , 16 (1). pp. 91-111. ISSN: 1743-9639 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2016.1148416