Dr Christalla Yakinthou

Dr Christalla Yakinthou

Department of Political Science and International Studies
Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies

Contact details

Address
Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS)
Department of Political Science and International Studies
School of Government
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Christalla Yakinthou is a political scientist specialising in conflict transformation in deeply divided and post-war countries. She has specific expertise in transitional justice, conflict within societies, and constitutional design.

Qualifications

  • PhD (University of Western Australia)
  • Masters-equivalent diploma of European Public Law (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
  • BA, Hons (University of Western Australia)

Biography

Dr Christalla Yakinthou is a Birmingham Fellow, and member of the Institute for Conflict, Co-operation and Security in the University of Birmingham's POLSIS department.

Her areas of research interest include transitional justice and conflict transformation, the protection of human rights, political design for conflict societies, power-sharing, and the role of ethnic conflict and historical memory in political architecture. She has an active interest in the politics of the MENA and Mediterranean region.

She is firmly committed to bridging the divide between academia and practice. Prior to her appointment at Birmingham, she worked extensively in transitional justice and conflict transformation. Between 2009 and 2011 she established and managed the International Center for Transitional Justice's (ICTJ) Cyprus Program. In 2011 she moved to ICTJ's MENA headquarters in Beirut, where she primarily managed projects on memory and conflict in Lebanon. She has provided policy advice for international organisations, large NGOs, and a number of governments.

She is also co-founder of the Bluestocking Institute for Global Peace and Justice, an Australia-based NGO fostering dialogue on issues of global importance including peacebuilding, sustainable development, and social movements.

Postgraduate supervision

Research and dissertation proposals that fit within the following categories are welcomed:

  • Conflict transformation, particularly post-settlement;
  • Transitional justice both in theory and practice, and transitions in the MENA region;
  • The relationship between constitutional design and transitional justice;
  • Power sharing;
  • Cypriot, Lebanese, and Tunisian politics and conflicts;
  • The right to truth in international law and practice, and issues around enforced disappearance and missing people during conflict.

Research

Reaching out to enemy communities after conflict: Christalla Yakinthou at TEDxUniversityofBirmingham

Research interests:

Conflict transformation and transitional justice

  • Post-settlement conflict transformation processes
  • The relationship between top-down and bottom-up perceptions of transitional justice
  • Transitional justice in the MENA region

Transitional justice and constitutional design

  • The place of transitional justice in constitutional design
  • The relationship between power-sharing and transitional justice

The legacies of ethnic and power conflicts

  • The Greece-Turkey-Cyprus conflicts
  • The impact of the conflicts in Lebanon

The right to truth in law and politics

  • Enforced disappearance and its impact on societies and perpetuating conflict
  • The right to truth and enforced disappearance

Publications

Selected authored and edited volumes:

Yakinthou, C., and Arthur, P., (forthcoming) (eds), Transitional Justice, International Assistance, and Civil Society: Missed Connections, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Wolff, S. and Yakinthou, C. (eds), (2011), Conflict Management in Divided Societies: Theories and Practice, London: Routledge

Yakinthou, C. (2009), Political Settlements in Divided Societies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Selected journal articles:

Yakinthou, C., and Croeser, S., (2016), Transforming Tunisia: Transitional Justice and Internet Governance in a Post-Revolutionary Society, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 10 (2): 230-249.

Lucas, S., Yakinthou, C., Wolff, S., (2016), Syria: Laying the Foundations for a Credible and Sustainable Transition, RUSI, 161 (3): 22-32.

Arthur, P., and Yakinthou, C., (2015), Funding Transitional Justice: A Guide for Supporting Civil Society Engagement, Public Action Research. Available at: http://fundingtj.org/

Yakinthou, C. (2009), The European Union's Management of the Cyprus Conflict: System Failure or Structural Metamorphosis?, Ethnopolitics, 8:307-323

Yakinthou, C (2009), Reflections on a Meditrated Conflict, Ethnopolitics, 8:243-246

Yakinthou, C. (2008), The Quiet Deflation of Den Xehno? Changes in the Greek Cypriot Communal Narrative on the Missing Persons in Cyprus’, The Cyprus Review, 20:15-33

Selected book chapters:

Yakinthou, C. (2011), 'Cyprus', in Wolff, S. and Yakinthou, C. (eds.), Conflict Management in Divided Societies: Theories and Practice, London: Routledge

Varnava, A., and Yakinthou, C., (2011), 'Cyprus: Political Modernity and Institutions of Democracy in a Divided Island', in The Oxford Handbook of Sub-National Democracy in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Yakinthou, C. (2009), 'The House that Annan Built?', in Varnavas, A. and Faustmann, H., (eds.) Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond, London: I.B. Tauris

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Communities and Cohesion

Christalla Yakinthou is a political scientist specialising in conflict transformation in deeply divided and post-war countries. She has specific expertise in transitional justice, conflict within societies, and constitutional design.