PhD Candidate: Rebel-to-State Transition in Civil War

How do victorious armed groups transition from rebel to government? What is the role of local commanders in post-civil war settlements? Help us answer these questions as a PhD candidate.

The Centre for International Conflict Analysis and Management (CICAM), part of the Department of Political Science at Radboud University, is looking for a PhD candidate to partake in the 'Commander Politics: Cooperation and Competition in Civil War' project, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and led by Dr Romain Malejacq, the project's principal investigator (PI).

The project aims to study the role of commanders in civil war and post-civil war settlements through the lens of rebel-to-state transition. The PI will investigate rebel-to-state transition in the context of Afghanistan, which provides a unique look at Islamist rebel victory. As a PhD candidate, you will conduct a small (n = 3-4), qualitative, comparative analysis of rebel -to-state transition by non-Islamist groups. The cases to be investigated will be determined, in cooperation between you and the PI, based on similarities and differences between them. Cases that will be considered include the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in Rwanda, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in South Sudan, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (SNLF) in Nicaragua, the National Patriotic Liberation Front (NPF) in Liberia, or the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Kosovo. Focusing on non-Islamist rebel victories will also allow the team (you, the PI and, later on, a postdoctoral researcher) to leverage the ideological (in particular Islamist) variable, and measure its impact on state-building outcomes (as compared to other variables and other ideologies).

You will be responsible for carrying out the core fieldwork of the project, which will include semi-structured interviews with high-level state officials and former rebels (roughly 3-4 months in each country). Following the completion of the fieldwork, you will write-up findings for publication in high-impact academic journals and in the form of a doctoral dissertation. Throughout the project, you will also have the opportunity to engage in knowledge valorisation activities, such as briefings to policymakers. Supervision will be provided by Dr Mathijs van Leeuwen and Dr Romain Malejacq. You will teach for 120 hours per year for the first three years.