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Personal profile

Biography

Prof. Oliver Richmond is a leading scholar in the field of IR, Peace and Conflict Studies. He is founder of the MA in Peace and Conflict Studies and contributes to its core modules in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester. In 2019, he received an Eminent Scholar Award from the International Studies Association. He has worked with international actors, especially the UN, and civil society organisations in several conflict-affected areas around the world, and has also conducted fieldwork on local, state, and international problems of peacebuilding in Timor Leste, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Colombia.

Among his publications are his recent monographs The Grand Design: Peace in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), Peace in International Relations (Routledge, 2020- 2nd Ed.), Peace Formation and Political Order in Conflict Affected Societies (Oxford University Press, 2016), and Failed Statebuilding: Intervention, the State and the Dynamics of Peace Formation (Yale University Press, 2014). He also published a Very Short Introduction to Peace (Oxford University Press,  2014), which offers an overview of the development of related concepts, theory and practices.

He is currently leading several global research projects: including the AHRC-project ‘ The Art of Peace’ (with civil society, arts partners in Lebanon, Bosnia, South Africa, and Colombia); the African Research Universities Alliance -UK Research Partnership Programme for Capacity Building in Post-conflict Societies (including universities from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Somaliland/ Somalia, and Zimbabwe);  and the Global Challenges Research Fund-project ‘Blockages to Peace’ (including civil society organisations in Colombia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Cyprus, Tunisia, and Sri Lanka). He is also a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Tubingen in Germany, Coimbra in Portugal, and Dublin City, Ireland.

Research interests

He has long been interested in critical approaches to international theory, concepts of peace and their implicit usages in IR theory, and related practices of the international system (see his earlier book which was funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, The Transformation of Peace, Palgrave, 2005). His primary area of expertise is in peace and conflict theory, and in particular its inter-linkages with IR theory. His recent work examines the evolution of the different strategies for maintaining international order in contemporary history and engages with new questions about peace and war raised in the digital era. His previous work was on peace formation and its relation to state formation, statebuilding, and peacebuilding This area of interest grew out of his work on local and everyday forms of critical agency and resistance, and their role in constructing hybrid or post-liberal forms of peace and states (see A Post-Liberal Peace, Routledge, 2011), as well as earlier conflict resolution and conflict management debates in IR, including international mediation, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding (see Maintaining Order, Making Peace, Macmillan, 2002).

Memberships of committees and professional bodies

He co-edits a Palgrave Book Series called Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, which seeks to provide a forum for the development of new and alternative approaches for understanding the dynamics of conflict and of the construction of peace: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14500

He is co-editor of the journal "Peacebuilding": https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpcb20/current

 

He is also co-editor of The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies


He is also a member of the editorial boards of several key journals, and is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Other research

Grants and Fieldwork

He is has run and been involved in several major research projects, funded by a range of research councils and donors. He is currently leading on a major AHRC project on the Art of Peace. Previously, he was Work Package Leader for a H2020 grant called ‘Good intentions, mixed results – a conflict sensitive unpacking of the EU comprehensive approach to conflict and crisis mechanisms’. Earlier awards include grants from the Leverhulme Trust (mentioned above); two EUFP7 grants (Work Package Leader, ‘Just and Durable Peace’ and Scientific Coordinator, ‘Cultures of Governance and Conflict Resolution in the EU and India’); an EU Marie Curie for post-doctoral support on EU peacebuilding in DRC and other cases; three grants from the British Academy for work on terrorism and peacebuilding in Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, and other cases, as well as fieldwork in Timor, Cyprus, and on peace/state formation in the MENA region; UNU grants for work on spoilers and on liberal peacebuilding; and from the Carnegie and Nuffield Trusts for fieldwork in Timor, the Solomon Islands and Sri Lanka, as well as the Balkans, and for post-doctoral support.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Areas of expertise

  • JZ International relations
  • peace
  • peacebuilding
  • IR Theory
  • Cyprus Conflict
  • Timor Leste
  • Balkans Conflicts
  • Sri Lanka
  • Critical Theory

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Global inequalities

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