Research Interests
My present research is centred on two themes:
Forecasting: Forecasting long-term incidence of civil armed conflict, forecasting regime type, and joint forecasts for conflict and regime type. Developing models (Bayesian and frequentist) for forecasting conflict and regime type.
Political Economy of Authoritarianism: Regime duration, repression and regime survival, voting and regime survival, autocratic coalition dynamics, especially the relationship between the dictator and the security apparatus.
Background
Working experience:
- Research Director, Conditions of Violence and Peace, PRIO 2017 – 2021
- Associate Editor, International Area Studies Review
- Senior Researcher, PRIO, 2014 – 2021
- Norwegian Ministry of Defence Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, PRIO, 2014 – 2016
- Associate Researcher, PRIO, 2010 – 2014
- Research Assistant, CSCW, PRIO 2008 – 2010
- Research Assistant for Dr. Tom Segev 2007 – 2008
- Research Intern, African Council for Sustainable Health Development, Ibadan Nigeria, 2003
Education:
- PhD in Political Science, University of Oslo (January 2014)
- M. Phil, Political Science, University of Oslo (June 2009)
- BA, Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, (June 2004)
Consulting experience :
- World Bank, on the development consequences of conflict (2010—2011)
- Human Security Report Project, on education and conflict (2011)
- NATO-Allied Command Transformation, on strategic foresight (2014—2015)
- EU Commission, Joint Research Center, on developing a global conflict risk model (2014—)
- United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, on forecasting conflict and political instability (2014--)
Blog Posts
Since 2010, almost 700,000 people have been killed as the direct result of warfare. But war kills and injures far more people than those who die directly on the battlefield. War destroys health systems, increases infant mortality, reduces life expectancy, increases poverty, and deprives children of education. If we could ... Read more »
The UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) is a major achievement. It has focused the world’s attention on the human aspects of development, highlighting and featuring not just economic gains but also schooling and education and life expectancy. In this, it was a hugely important corrective for a development community that ... Read more »
People around the world are grappling to understand events in the United States at the moment regarding the current wave of protest and protest policing. A few events readily come to mind in this comparison but the one that probably carries the greatest resonance would be the uprisings/disturbances/riots that followed ... Read more »
In December of last year, the Chinese state jailed a physician in the city of Wuhan. His crime? Attempting to warn authorities against the occurrence of a potentially contagious and deadly new virus. The physician, Dr. Li Wenliang, has since died from the same disease whose spread he tried to ... Read more »
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ... Read more »
Today, the Praia City Group on Governance Statistics is launching its Handbook on Governance Statistics. The Praia Handbook on Governance Statistics provides improved data that can assist in the prevention and management of conflicts. What is the Handbook about? the … handbook is in itself nothing less than a historical ... Read more »
Inequality fosters violent conflict, which again causes inequality, triggering a vicious cycle. In December the UN Development Programme (UNDP) released its annual ‘Human Development Report’. For 2019 the report focused on inequality. The report is being launched as nightly news is dominated by pictures of protests in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Chile and Hong Kong. These ... Read more »
Authoritarian structures made Chernobyl an unavoidable accident. The HBO series “Chernobyl” has garnered rave reviews all over the world. Norwegian newspapers have been almost unanimous in their praise of the series. And with good reason. This is television drama at its very best. One largely overlooked aspect of the series ... Read more »
In 2015, the United Nations stated unequivocally in the last progress report for the Millennium Development Goals that “conflict remains the largest obstacle to development”. Yet, reducing conflict and violence in the world was never a target in and of itself under the MDGs. This changed with the inclusion of Goal 16 ... Read more »
Syria’s seven years of conflict have had devastating consequences, with hundreds of thousands of people dead and more than 4 million refugees. Would the story be different if the United Nations Security Council had managed to come to an agreement and deployed a peacekeeping operation (PKO) early in the conflict? ... Read more »
In 2017, approximately 90,000 people died as the direct result of armed conflict. This figure is down for the third year in a row, and is now 31 percent lower than in 2014. Nearly a third of all conflicts – and four of the 10 most serious wars worldwide – ... Read more »
In a recent episode of the caustic sitcom “Silicon Valley,” the hard-luck start-up protagonists attend a big technology convention. They stumble across an app called PeaceFare, a game that lets players “build peace” on their phones by giving virtual money to virtual homeless people or virtual corn to virtual starving villagers. ... Read more »
Posted by Håvard Hegre, Nils W. Metternich, Julian Wucherpfennig & Håvard Mokleiv Nygård on Wednesday, 2 August 2017
Driven by the ever-increasing availability of (big) data, as well as computational power and resources, we are currently witnessing an important academic debate about the promises and pitfalls of predicting social and human behavior. Given its potentially disastrous consequences, the prediction of armed conflict and political violence more generally, not ... Read more »
Most of the world’s attention has recently been directed towards Syria. In the shadow of Syria, the conflict in Yemen has been left to its own devices, and Yemen is now set to experience an even greater humanitarian catastrophe than Syria. In Syria, we witness the beginning of the end ... Read more »
Headlines from battlefields in Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine give the impression that the world is becoming ever more violent. Indeed, since 2013 the number of armed conflicts in the world and the number of battle deaths has risen. Fortunately, the long-term trends nevertheless driving the waning of war ... Read more »
Why do dictators hold elections that merely play to the gallery? On 11 October, Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected as president of Belarus with an impressive 84 per cent share of the vote. The election was anything but free and fair. According to the OSCE, Belarusian law makes it impossible for ... Read more »
More aid workers are being targeted in violent attacks than ever before, but the roots of humanitarian insecurity have nuanced and surprising causes. Syria. Afghanistan. Mali. Central African Republic. Today’s complex conflicts seem to be defined by insurgents, terrorist groups and other violent actors with ideologies that increasingly disregard the ... Read more »
The UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals are ready for adoption. For the first time, the UN will measure the incidence of one of the most controversial, but important, development indicators: the amount of armed conflict in the world. On 25 September this year, a UN summit will adopt the new ... Read more »
Posted by Håvard Mokleiv Nygård & Carl Henrik Knutsen on Monday, 10 August 2015
In Zaïre (currently DR Congo) in 1991, the country’s personalist ruler Mobutu Sese Seko faced popular unrest, army mutinies, and shrinking resources for patronage. Mobutu was seemingly starting to lose his grip on power, which he had held since the mid-1960s. In response, Mobutu ended the decades-long ban on political ... Read more »
War is a development issue. War kills, and its consequences extend far beyond deaths in battle. Armed conflict often leads to forced migration, long-term refugee problems, and the destruction of infrastructure. Social, political, and economic institutions can be permanently damaged. The consequences of war, especially civil war, for development are ... Read more »
An assessment of the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations The increase in the deployment of UN ‘blue helmets’ is a key driver of the gradual decline in the number and severity of armed conflicts worldwide since the mid-1990s. This brief summarizes a study that assesses the complete, long-term effectiveness of ... Read more »
The development consequences of armed conflict are profound and far-reaching. While the direct victims of war understandably receive most attention, the effects of conflict extend far beyond battlefield casualties and refugee camps. Research has shown that conflict affects all aspects of development covered by the Millennium Development Goals, and that ... Read more »
As a result of civil wars, some of the world’s least developed nations are now further away from achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals than they were when the goals were first adopted. The UN General Assembly adopted the Millennium Development Goals in September 2000. Following lengthy debate, the assembly ... Read more »
The recent uprising in Ukraine echoes what happened in the earlier Orange Revolution. Much can be learned by comparing these events and looking at similar uprisings in other countries. This comparison clearly shows the important role played by security forces in determining whether brutal repression or successful regime change will follow. ... Read more »
The last 20 years have seen a gradual decline in the number and severity of internal armed conflicts worldwide. This trend is partly due to widespread improvements in factors such as education levels, economic diversification, and demographic characteristics. These factors are projected to continue to improve for the remainder of ... Read more »