PhD doctoral researchers in the School of Government

A research degree is a unique opportunity to develop new skills, develop problem-solving abilities and make a valuable contribution to new knowledge.

Current PhD profiles from across the School

International Development Department (IDD)

Claire Bracegirdle

Description: Learning from community conservation in Ghana

Ellen Bomasang

Description: Ellen's research aims to understand the perceptions of women of colour working in the international development sector who are experiencing or experienced obstacles.

Frank Forkuo Ababio

Description: Investigating the implications of the Free Senior High School (FSHS) Policy on quality education and academic performance of students in Ghana.

Glanis Changachirere

Description: Subjectivities of Women's Political Participation.

Hermawan

Description: Hermawan is undertaking doctoral research on the relationship between multi-dimensions of decentralised system in Indonesia and corruption of local bureaucrats.

Holly Liebl

Description: Is Social Control through Menstrual Untouchability Changing in Urban Nepal?

Isidore Henry Edet

Description: Contextualising the 'Conceptual-contextual' divide: A Case Study of the Political Culture Influence on Nigeria's Security Sector Reforms

Jasmine Burnley

Description: Jasmine's PhD research project examines the role played by economies of conflict in Myanmar's political transition, a process interrupted by the sudden military coup in February 2021.

Jiasi Zhou

Description: ICT and sustainability in the development of smart city initiatives.

Justin Williams

Description: Exploring the effects of a development intervention: the Merhabete Integrated Rural Development Project, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Matt Mirecki

Description: Matt's research project draws upon his extensive and varied experience of working in the fields of international development and local government.

Mia Hyun

Description: The nexus between women in decision-making and leadership and gender responsive development outcomes.

Paul Rogers

Description: Paul's research focuses on how institutions mediate the capabilities of disabled people when confronted by extreme droughts and floods.

Ximing Yang

Description: Local government in China plays a crucial role in urban and rural development, and studying the power dynamics among local governments in developed cities

Department of Public Administration and Policy (DPAP)

Amparo González

Description: Gender Dimension in Public Policy for Smallholder Agriculture.

Camila Paz Ramos-Fuenzalida

Description: Performance of collaborative emergency management networks in Latin America.

Laurie Duncan

Description: Interdisciplinary analysis of energy systems, considering technical, economic, social, environmental and policy aspects of small community systems, focussing on reduction of carbon emissions.

Matthew McKenna

Description: Policy learning in times of failure: How English local government responds at times of central government intervention.

Pak Wan Major Pau

Description: Disaster risk management and community self-organization in the Asia-Pacific

Philip Swann

Description: The Rules of the game: understanding the relationship between politicians in central and local government

Rebekah Roebuck

Description: Dissecting the Governance Dynamics of Energy Decarbonisation Decision-Making.

Sally Ward

Description: Sally Ward is undertaking doctoral research investigating temporal patterns of self-organising active citizenship based on the case of an urban neighbourhood in the UK.

Tangang Andrew Tangang

Description: Collaborative localism: Community governments in the decentralisation process in Cameroon

Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS)

Abdiweli Garad

Description: Abdi Garad is undertaking doctoral research into state-building and interventions using a case study approach and process-tracing method to unstructured interviews.

Alice Spilman

Description: Alice joined the ICCS at the University of Birmingham on the MSc Global Cooperation and Security, graduating with a Distinction in 2017.

Altin Gjeta

Description: The Peace to Statehood Conundrum: Investigating Multiethnic Statebuilding in Kosovo

André Vella

Description: The Limits of Parliamentary Privilege: Transparency and Accountability

Bruno Sowden-Carvalho

Description: Bruno Sowden-Carvalho is researching the idea of a global island: emoceans, ontological security and Britain's political subjectivity in world politics

D'arcy Ritchie

Description: D'arcy Ritchie is a doctoral researchers in the Department of Political Science and International Studies. D'arcy is researching the feminist politics of shame.

Darren Murphy

Description: Understanding the causal mechanisms generating cross-community ratification of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement in the May 1998 referendum

David J. Zell

Description: Major cultural commemorations and the construction of cultural & political identity in the GDR, 1959-1983.

Edward Affainie

Description: Does (Income) Inequality Predict Conflict Between Ethnic and Religious Groups in Africa?

Elio Di Muccio

Description: State management of technological and economic performance in industry: The Ministry of Technology in Britain, 1964-1970

Francis Barnett

Description: The Role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Supporting Russian Foreign Policy Objectives and Shaping Geopolitical and Religious Dynamics in Europe.

Francisco Figueiredo de Souza

Description: South-South Cooperation

Ioana Cerasella Chis

Description: Ioana Cerasella Chis is working on a qualitative research project that focuses on the politics of disablement and precarious work in the UK.

Jaroslava Barbieri

Description: Jaroslava Barbieri research into Russian foreign policy and post-Soviet affairs to European studies and political philosophy.

Jonathan Pettifer

Description: Norm Contestation and the European Union

José Pascal da Rocha

Description: José Pascal da Rocha is investigating the role of mediators in mediated ceasefires in the Sudan negotiations

Marianna Karakoulaki

Description: Marianna joined the University of Birmingham in 2019 to study a PhD in International Relations

Paul Michael Graystone

Description: From 'Bridge of Cooperation' to Russia's Baltic Bastion: Exploring the Role of State Identity in Contemporary Russian Security Policy in Kaliningrad, 2000-2018.

Paul Rogers

Description: Paul's research focuses on how institutions mediate the capabilities of disabled people when confronted by extreme droughts and floods.

Paula Schwevers

Description: Eurodollars and the British Route to Financialisation

Pourya Nabipour

Description: Pourya Nabipour is undertaking doctoral research into the role of national identity in Iran's nuclear policy

Solomon Bunting Caulker

Description: Solomon Bunting Caulker is undertaking doctoral research focused on Post-Conflict security sector governance in Sierra Leone: Deficits as Inhibitors of National Development

Thomas Bobo

Description: The politics of 'green' in civil conflicts: The environment as a political opportunity.

Yishu Ren

Description: Yishu Ren's research focusses on the impact of foreign investments from emerging economies on the norms of global environmental governance and considers the resulting political affects.

Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES)

Paul Michael Graystone is an ESRC-funded doctoral researcher. His work examines borderlands, exclaves and memory politics in Russia. Paul’s doctoral research focuses on Russian Borderlands in Crisis: Assessing Geopolitical Change in the Eastern Baltic 2008-2022

Viktoria Kobzeva is funded by an ESRC Midlands Graduate School DTP Studentship. She is working on a PhD project titled: Activism woven into relations, imbued with emotion: the case studies of Chechen and Azerbaijani transnational activists networks. The doctoral project is a comparative study that fills the gap in post-Soviet Area Studies, with its focus on Caucasian diasporas, activism and transnational communities. Viktoria is supervised by Cerwyn Moore and Deema Kaneff, CREES.

Annamaria Kiss is an LISS DTP ESRC-funded doctoral researcher based at King’s College London. Annamaria’s work examines high-risk transnational activism and Russian Perceptions of Transnational Armed Mobilisation. Annamaria is supervised by Samuel Greene at KCL and Cerwyn Moore at CREES, University of Birmingham.

Aleksandre Kvakhadze is an ESRC-funded doctoral researcher. His research focuses on violent social movements and transnational activism, examining volunteers from the Caucasus who have participated in hostilities in Syria. He has published work on these and related issues in journals, including Perspectives on Terrorism, and Caucasus Survey, while he also has an extensive record of policy work.

Yuxiang Lin’s doctoral work seeks to explain the exception and ongoing success of the Bulgarian conservative political party GERB (Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria) over the past two decades. Based on one year’s fieldwork in Bulgaria during which time interviews were conducted with relevant political figures across the country, the study aims to address the wider issue of party politics in eastern Europe and why some parties are short lived while others endure. Yuxiang is co-supervised by Tim Haughton and Deema Kaneff, both from CREES.

Leonid Nersisyan is a Gulbenkian Foundation funded doctoral researcher. His research focuses on irregular warfare in Nagorno-Karabakh, and his general areas of research interest include defence analysis, arms control, armed conflict, foreign and military policy in Russia and the CIS region. He has published work on these and related issues in journals and an edited collection (in Russian) while he also has an extensive record of policy work.