RECENTLY PUBLISHED:

• Together with Jack Watling, our article: “Assessing the causes of strategic realignment of Sahelien states” which examines why the Sahel juntas decided to change security partners from Western and multilateral actors to Russia, was recently published in the RUSI journal and is currently open access here.

• The African continent has seen 16 coup attempts and 9 successful coups over the past 4 years. I am exploring the reasons for that in this African Affairs article: Contagious Coups in Africa: History of Civil-Military Imbalance.

• What is a “peacekeeping army”? With Paul D. Williams, we define the concept based on three different dimensions: operational, doctrinal and structural. The article: “Peacekeeping armies: how the politics of peace operations shape military organizations” is published in International Affairs and can be found here.

 

 

OUR BOOK IS FINALLY OUT!!

• Together with brilliant Jonathan Fisher, we have written a book on African Peacekeeping - focusing not on peacekeeping in Africa but, rather, peacekeeping by Africans. We demonstrate how peacekeeping is – and has been – weaved into Africa’s national, regional and international politics more broadly. You can buy it paperback (or hardback) here.

• “From Peacekept to Peacekeeper: Seeking International Status by Narrating New Identities”

This article is one of those that has taken AGES to write, rewrite, and finally get accepted for publication! I’m therefore extra happy that it has now found an Open Access home in Journal of Global Security Studies! The main argument is that peacekeeping is a way for post-conflict states to get both new identities and status in the international arena.

• Who’s been making African solutions over the past two decades? In our new Egmont policy brief – Paul D. Williams and I map membership patterns in the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and find that African governments persistently elected autocrats and states experiencing violent conflict to serve on the PSC, thus undermining the AU’s principles. Read it here!

• My article on Security Force Assistance in Niger – which is based on extensive fieldwork with the Belgian Special Forces in and about Niamey – is out now and OPEN ACCESS In Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding! You can download the article here.

It is part of a Special Issue on Security Force Assistance co-edited by Maggie Dwyer, Will Reno and Øystein Rolandsen, so check out the whole Issue in JISB: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/risb20/current

• My chapter on Achieving a Feminist Peace is out now! It is open access during a limited time period, and you can download it here.

It is part of the book: “A Requiem for Peacebuilding?” edited by Jorg Kustermans, Tom Sauer and Barbara Segaert, which is the result of a workshop that we had in December 2018 on Peacebuilding.

• I’ve followed the development of a new gender-mixed capability, and thereby also the integration of the first female soldiers in the Belgian Special Forces Group, over the past year and half. This has included a lot of interviews and observations and the result is an open access Egmont policy brief, published in February 2018, entitled: “Expanding the Reach of the Special Forces with a gender-mixed Deep Development Capability”. Read it here!

• Very happy to have my article about Female Peacekeepers’ added burden out in International Affairs! You can read it here.

For those who don’t have access, you can read the accepted version here, yet please remember to reference it as published in International Affairs. Wilén – Accepted Version – Female Peacekeepers’ Added Burden

• What are the main challenges of military assistance in the field? In my latest policy brief, co-written with Pierre Dehaene, we take a look at the micro level of military assistance in Niger. You can find the paper in French here, and in English here.

• My latest article about how to achieve a gendered Security Sector Reform of the post-conflict military is out in International Feminist Journal of Politics. It is available here.

• Together with Paul D. Williams, we’re examining the African Union’s response to the recent political crisis in Burundi. You can find the article in Journal of Modern African Studies here.

• Why is it so hard for women to integrate the army? I wrote about this in the Washington Post, with Lindy Heinecken. You can read the article here.

• I wrote an article about the difficulties to regender the military with Lindy Heinecken, which was published in Gender, Work and Organisation, and which is now open access!

•  I co-edited a Special Section of Journal of Eastern African Studies on African militaries in peace operations together with David Ambrosetti and Jean-Nicholas Bach which was published in January 2018.

• I have co-written two of the articles in the special section: together with Gérard Birantamije and David Ambrosetti, we are analysing the professionalisation of the Burundian military and its involvement in international peace operations. The article is available here.

• I have also co-written an article on Rwanda’s military as a people’s army and local heroes, both home and abroad, together with Josefine Kuehnel. The article is available here. The special section also contains articles by Paul D. Williams, Thomas Mandrup, and Marco Jowell.

• In a new Special Section in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, I am examining the links between Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Troop contribution to peace operations. In particular, I try to identify the unindented consequences of such links, including the reinforcement of the post-conflict government’s power. The article is available here.

• Andrea Purdekovà, Filip Reyntjens and I have recently published an article on the militarisation of governance in post-genocide Rwanda. In the article, we examine how Rwanda’s society has been permeated by a glorification of militarisation since the end of the genocide. The article was published in Third World Quarterly and can be found here.

• Together with Bert Ingelaere, I have written an article on how ex-combatants in the DRC make sense of sexual violence by analysing over 100 interviews with former rebels. The article was published in Journal of Contemporary African Studies in April and can be read here.

• My book: “Justifying Interventions in Africa” published with Palgrave Macmillan, is finally out in affordable paperback! It can be ordered here.

• If you want to know a bit more about it before you buy/borrow/read all of it, I’ve written a blogpost about it on Democracy in Africa which can be read here

• I’m writing about the findings for my research on how to integrate former fighters into national armies in the Washington Post – you can read the article here.

I’ve also been writing about the Burundian crisis in several places including the Washington Post, World Politics Review and the Security Governance Group, all which you can find below:

“African Union Intervention Could Do More Harm than Good in Burundi” in World Politics Review

“Burundi Crisis: The Military’s Central Role” at Centre for Security governance

“Is Burundi still a Credible Peacekeeper?” on the Monkey Cage Blog, Washington Post

“Burundi’s Crisis could spill over borders as rebellion grows” in World Politics Review

“Burundi’s Military Still Key to Stability amid Political Crisis” in World Politics Review