GLOBAL SECURITY

IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

I am Associate Professor in Global Security at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and the Director of the Global Security Programme at Oxford’s Pembroke College.

Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia’s War

Borderlands are like a magnifying glass on some of the world’s most entrenched security challenges.

Transforming the War on Drugs: Victims, Warriors, and Vulnerable Regions

The war on drugs has failed, but consensus in the international drug policy debate on the way forward is missing.

Fronteras Rojas: Una Mirada al Conflicto y el Crimen desde los Márgenes de Colombia, Ecuador y Venezuela

The borders of a country say a lot about the society that forms it. In these sensitive edges, conflict takes root easily; it is there that it is nurtured and camouflaged, where it is strengthened and creates its own laws.

I am further Senior Research Associate at the Department of Politics and International Relations, and affiliate at the Latin American Centre. I am former (2019 – 2021) Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. I am Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute Geneva. I hold a doctorate from the Department of International Development and St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

My work focuses on global security in the contemporary world. I study evolving security dynamics in the context of armed conflict, unstable regions, and the global illicit economy, transitions from war to peace, and state responses to insecurity. I am particularly interested in the role that diverse types of violent non-state groups play in these dynamics. Among other areas, I focus on the political economy of borderlands as spaces where criminal, terrorist, and conflict dynamics converge. Methodologically, I am fascinated by the use of ethnographic methods in Political Science and International Relations, as well as multi-methods research. I have conducted extensive fieldwork in war-torn and crisis-affected regions, including in and on Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Myanmar and Kenya (on Somalia).