Professor Anastasia Shesterinina
Chair in Comparative Politics

Profile

Biography

I joined the Department in January 2023 as Chair in Comparative Politics. I currently hold a £1.2m UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship and direct the Centre for the Comparative Study of Civil War established as part of this Fellowship. Previously, I was a Lecturer and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield and a Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University, affiliated with the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. I obtained my PhD in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

My fieldwork-intensive research explores the internal dynamics of and international intervention in contemporary armed conflict, with a focus on social mobilisation, ex-combatant reintegration and civilian protection norms and practices. In 2021, I launched a 7-year UKRI-funded Civil War Paths project “Understanding Civil War from Pre- to Post-War Stages: A Comparative Approach,” which views civil war as a social process that connects dynamics of conflict from pre- to post-war periods through evolving interactions between non-state, state, civilian, and external actors involved, and compares different paths civil wars follow through coordinated fieldwork and analysis with a team of interdisciplinary researchers. 

My book Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia (Cornell University Press, 2021) was awarded the APSA Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Charles Taylor Book Award and the ASEEES Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies in 2022. The book asks how ordinary people navigate the uncertainty of the war’s onset to arrive at different mobilisation decisions. Based on nearly 200 life history interviews with participants and non-participants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993, it shows that individuals come to perceive risk in different ways, affected by earlier experiences of conflict and by social networks at the time of mobilisation, and act differently based on whom they understand to be threatened and mobilise to protect.

My work has been published in American Political Science Review, Journal of Peace Research, Perspectives on Politics, European Journal of International Relations, Cambridge Review of International Affairs and International Peacekeeping, among other journals.

I have been actively involved in the debates on data access and research transparency in Political Science as a working group lead on Evidence from Researcher Interactions with Human Participants at the Qualitative Transparency Deliberations of the APSA Qualitative and Multi-Method Research Section and have written on ethics and openness in sensitive field-based research.

I have also contributed to policy discussions on conflict and peace processes, including at the Geneva Peace Week and the Chatham House panels on the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia, as well as by acting as an expert on the Principles for Peace Stakeholder Platform.

Research

Overview

Civil War

I currently lead the Civil War Paths project “Understanding Civil War from Pre- to Post-War Stages: A Comparative Approach” funded by a £1.2m UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship. This project seeks to transform how scholars and policymakers think about the dominant form of contemporary armed conflict. As part of the project, a team of interdisciplinary researchers analyse different paths that civil wars follow drawing on intensive coordinated fieldwork in Colombia, Lebanon, Nepal, and South Sudan. Life history interviews centre experiences of participants and non-participants in conflict and peace processes in these contexts.

Among other outputs, the project has resulted in the publication of a novel analytical framework for understanding civil war in European Journal of International Relations, which views civil war as a social process that connects dynamics of conflict from pre- to post-war periods through evolving interactions between non-state, state, civilian, and external actors involved.

The project is based in the Centre for the Comparative Study of Civil War that was established as part of this Future Leaders Fellowship. The Centre runs an international Fellowship Scheme attracting civil war researchers from academic and practitioner backgrounds and hosts a widely read blog with contributions from our Fellows and a seminar series with participation of top scholars in the field.

Social Mobilisation

Funded by major grants from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, my research on social mobilisation involved immersive fieldwork over eight months with nearly 200 participants and non-participants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993.

This fieldwork culminated in the publication of a single-authored article “Collective Threat Framing and Mobilization in Civil War” in American Political Science Review in 2016 and a book Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia with Cornell University Press in 2021, which was awarded the APSA Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Charles Taylor Book Award and the ASEEES Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies in 2022.

In this research, I ask how ordinary people navigate the uncertainty of the war’s onset to arrive at different mobilisation decisions from fleeing to fighting. I show that individuals come to perceive risk in different ways, affected by earlier experiences of conflict and by social networks at the time of mobilisation, and act differently based on whom they understand to be threatened and mobilise to protect. Combined, these elements underlie the socio-historical approach to mobilisation in civil war that this research advances.

Ex-combatant Reintegration

Since 2017, I have conducted field research with former mid-level commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP). Originally funded by the Max Batley Seedcorn Grant. in Peace Studies at the University of Sheffield, this research has sought to understand varied experiences of ex-combatant reintegration after the signing of the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia based on rank in the armed organisation.

A research brief on the roles mid-level commanders have undertaken in the peace process has been published with the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute. As part of this research, I have collaborated with the Newton Fund RCUK-Colciencias Improbable Dialogues project, which resulted in a forthcoming co-authored book Participating in Peace: Violence, Development and Dialogue in Colombia with Bristol University Press.

Civilian Protection Norms and Practices

In parallel to my fieldwork with participants and non-participants in civil war, I have conducted desk research on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, focusing on such global actors as the United Nations and China. This single- and co-authored work has highlighted “particularized protection” practices, problems of intervention and norm-shaping dynamics, particularly in the area of Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Fieldwork Methods and Ethics

I have devoted considerable effort to examining and supporting Early Career Researchers (ERCs) on fieldwork methods. Careful attention to research ethics runs across my research. I have focused on openness in sensitive field-based research and the emotional dynamics of fieldwork in my published work.

As part of an APSA Qualitative Transparency Deliberations working group, I co-coordinated deliberations on data access and research transparency in the discipline, which resulted in a co-authored report and article in Perspectives on Politics, including guidelines for researchers, editors, reviewers and funders.

My single-authored work on openness in qualitative research is reflected in the extensive online appendices detailing my processes of data collection and analysis, for example, in my research on mobilisation in civil war, and contributions on the impact of emotional dynamics of fieldwork on research results and sources of evidence in field-intensive research on violent conflict.

Publications

Selected publications

My book Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia (Cornell University Press, 2021) was awarded the APSA Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Charles Taylor Book Award and the ASEEES Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies in 2022.

The book was reviewed as part of the Ethnopolitics Symposium as well as in Perspectives on Politics, Nationalities Papers and Europe-Asia Studies, among other journals. It was also discussed on the New Books Network and Reimagining Soviet Georgia podcasts.

Other selected publications include:

• Participating in Peace: Violence, Development and Dialogue in Colombia (with Jefferson Jaramillo-Marín et al.), Bristol University Press (forthcoming).
• “Identifying Contemporary Civil Wars’ Effects on Humanitarian Needs, Responses, and Outcomes,” Daedalus (forthcoming).
• “Civil War as a Social Process: Actors and Dynamics from Pre- to Post-War,” European Journal of International Relations 28, No. 3 (2022), 538-562.
• “Between Victory and Statehood: Armed Violence in Post-war Abkhazia," WIDER Working Paper Series (2022).
• “Transitions to and from Civil War,” APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter (2021).
• “Sources of Evidence and Openness in Field-Intensive Research on Violent Conflict,” Politics, Groups, and Identities 9, No. 4 (2021): 851-857.
• “The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications” (with Alan M. Jacobs et al.), Perspectives on Politics 19, No. 1 (2021): 171-208.
• “Committed to Peace: Former FARC-EP Midlevel Commanders as Local Leaders in the Peace Process,” SPERI Briefs (2020).
• “Ethics, Empathy, and Fear in Research on Violent Conflict” (including Online Appendix), Journal of Peace Research 53, No. 2 (2019): 190-202.
• “In and Out of the Unit: Social Ties and Insurgent Cohesion in Civil War,” Households in Conflict Working Paper (2019).
• “Collective Threat Framing and Mobilization in Civil War,” American Political Science Review 110, No. 3 (2016): 411-27.
• “Particularized Protection: UNSC Mandates and the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict” (with Brian L. Job), International Peacekeeping 23, No. 2 (2016): 240-73.
• “Evolving Norms of Protection: China, Libya, and the Problem of Intervention in Armed Conflict,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 29, No. 3 (2016): 812-30.
• “China as a Global Norm-Shaper: Institutionalization and Implementation of the Responsibility to Protect” (with Brian L. Job), in Alexander Betts and Phil Orchard (eds), Implementation and World Politics, Oxford University Press (2014).

External activities

Overview

Collaboration and engagement

I am a collaborating researcher on the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research project Institutional Legacies of Violent Conflict that informs policymakers on the institutional dynamics of civil war and am a contributor to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences project Rethinking Humanitarian Health Response to Violent Conflict that brings together practitioners and academics to define new strategies for the provision of health services in areas of violent conflict.

I have participated in high-level panels on Rights, Inequalities and Peace at the Geneva Peace Week (2022) and the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia at the Chatham House (2019, 2020). I have delivered guest talks on the social dynamics of civil war at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Conciliation Resources, Interpeace and Geneva Peacebuilding Platform. I have also been invited to present my research at a range of international conferences and seminars, including a recent keynote address “Reimagining Civil War Studies: Civil War as a Social Process” delivered at the launch of Équipe de recherche sur la politique internationale des conflits civils at Université de Montréal.

My contributions to public debate have appeared in The Conversation and WIDERAngle, among other outlets.

Memberships

Since 2021, I have supported the development of Principles for Peace, a global participatory initiative to reshape how peace processes are implemented, as an expert on the Stakeholder Platform of the International Commission on Inclusive Peace.

As an active member of the American Political Science Association, I have served on the committees of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Charles Taylor Book Award (2023) and the Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in American Political Science Review (2022). Between 2016 and 2020, I led the working group on Evidence from Researcher Interactions with Human Participants at the Qualitative and Multi-Method Research Section’s Qualitative Transparency Deliberations. This work resulted in the publication of data access and research transparency guidelines for researchers, editors, reviewers and funders in the area of human subjects research.

Editorial duties

I am on the Editorial Board of Qualitative Research and have reviewed articles and monographs for leading journals and publishers, including American Political Science Review, European Journal of International Relations, Global Governance, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Perspectives on Politics, World Politics and Cambridge University Press.