Vladimir Rauta

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.