PhD doctoral researchers

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)

Adnan Saif

Description
Service delivery, hybridity and boundary spanning after civil conflict in Tunisia

Arie Ruhyanto

Description
Statebuilding through Territorial Reform: Pemekaran and State-Society Relation in Papua Indonesia.

Claire Bracegirdle

Description
Learning from community conservation in Ghana

Daniel Munday

Description
A History of Autocracy Promotion, 1963 - 2018 Daniel Munday Doctoral Researcher

Deo Zihindula Namwira

Description
Rethinking post-conflict statebuilding through the impact of traditional healers in the Mozambican traditional justice system

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.

Gareth Wall

Description
Exploring values and development priorities at the individual and local levels

Hana Mosavie

Description
Research exploring the impact gender has during cultural formation due to economic decisions and structures.

Harriet Croome

Description
Investigating how changing interactions between humans and elephants affect forest socio-ecological systems in drylands: A case study of Mukogodo Forest, Kenya

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.

Jeannette Francesca Rodgers

Description
Lost in Transition: making a case for the meaningful participation of children in transitional justice.

Jingwen Jiang

Description
The Dual Logic of Chinese Transnationalism

Joseph Bell

Description
Special Economic Zones and State-Capital Relations: The Importance of Politics in the Genesis and Evolution of Economic Policy

Justin Williams

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

Kirstin Wagner

Description
Peace-keeper fathered children in Haiti and DRC

Krisna Puji Rahmayanti

Description
Collaborative Network of Health Services in Disaster Management

Marco Guglielmo

Description
Floating (On) Platforms? European Left Parties and the Digital Revolution. A Gramscian Analysis. Many scholars argue that European Left Parties were facing major ideological and electoral crises during the 2010s.

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.

Mayumi Fuchi

Description
NGO Downward Accountability in Preventing Exploitation and Abuse within Aid Sector.

Mia Hyun

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

Molly Atkins

Description
Women in Small-scale Fisheries: Tackling Gender Inequality for Livelihoods and Empowerment

Nicola Heaton

Description
More donors, more choice? "Traditional" donors, "New" donors and African agency: The case of Zambia

Ouborr Kutando

Description
The Economics of Politics in Ghana: The cost and impact of vote buying on outcomes of parliamentary primaries

Owen Frazer

Description
Sequencing in peace negotiations

Paul Rogers

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

Rehnuma Ferdous

Description
Patron-Client relations in Fisheries Co-management: Their influence on practices and outcomes

Sumedh Rao

Description
Trust and Cooperation as Social Identity in Northern Ireland

Tafadzwa Kudakwashe Kamidza

Description
Tafadzwa's PhD research project through nominated cases of Thokozani Khupe's political ambitions.

More information: International Development Department (IDD)

Course information: International Development PhD/MPhil

Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV)

Adam Payler

Description
Adam Payler is undertaking doctoral research on the relationship between democratic performance and organizational performance.

Adriana Algarin C.

Description
Adriana Algarin is starting a doctoral research about social accountability and its relation to local government performance and citizen engagement.

Bryony Rudkin

Description
Dramaturgy of political decision making in English local government.

Camila Ramos

Description
Camila Ramos-Fuenzalida is a first-year student of the Ph.D. in Local Government and Public Policy with integrated studies at the University of Birmingham.

Eileen Masters

Description
Audit and Accountability in English Local Councils

Jason Lowther

Description
Jason is a doctoral researcher looking at how evidence is used in policy making in particular contexts, using the creation of the West Midlands Combined Authority as a case study.

Kevin Harris

Description
Kevin Harris Doctoral Researcher in School of Government (INLOGOV) profile. Local councils and accessible democracy: stimulating reciprocal citizenship at the local level.

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.

Mega Hendra Waty

Description
Mega Hendra Waty, Doctoral Researcher in School of Government (INLOGOV) profile. Coexistence of multiple governmental traditions: understanding dilemmas and practices of street-level bureaucrats.

Minkyu Jin

Description
Minkyu Jin Local Government Studies in School of Government Doctoral Researcher profile. Study on Impact of the Korean Public Institution Management Evaluation System on the Accountability of Korean Public Institutions.

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

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

Vitaly Voytenko

Description
Vitaly is researching commercialisation in the English Local Government

More information: Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV)

Course information: Local Government Studies PhD/MPhil

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.

Alejandra Garcia Diaz Villamil

Description
Feminist Political Transformational Leadership: Evaluating the impact of Bolivian women leaders in advancing the social justice agenda.

Alex Brown

Description
Rethinking the GDR Opposition: Reform, Resistance and Revolution in the Other Germany.

Alexander Samuel Popowich

Description
Sam Popowich is investigating the role of artificial intelligence in the financial sector through the lens of 'Italian Theory'.

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.

André Vella

Description
The Limits of Parliamentary Privilege: Transparency and Accountability

Anja Benedikt

Description
Imaginings of Identity: The Construction of National Identity in the Immigrant Integration Discourse in Germany.

Bruno de Seixas Carvalho

Description
Bruno de Seixas Carvalho is examining the fantasy of Global Britain: Ontological security, maritime security, and the UK's foreign policy after Brexit.

Chiara Cervasio

Description
The security dilemma in Sino-Indian Relations

Chris Featherstone

Description
Why did the US and the UK decide to invade Iraq in 2003? A Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis

Darcy Luke

Description
From 'funny money' to 'hard cash': Cash limit reforms to Treasury control of public expenditure in the context of the global crisis of capital in the 1970s

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
Making peace with the public: Can public discourses on human needs for security, identity, recognition and equal participation encourage support for peace processes ending intractable conflicts?

David J. Zell

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

Donatella Bonansinga

Description
The Role of (In)security in Populist Narratives

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

Emanuel Bourges

Description
Emanuel Bourges holds a BA in History and a Master's in Government and Public Affairs from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Emily Burn

Description
Emily Burn is undertaking doctoral research on the links between acknowledged political interest, perceptions of politics, and political engagement.

Francisco Figueiredo de Souza

Description
South-South Cooperation

Hana Mosavie

Description
Research exploring the impact gender has during cultural formation due to economic decisions and structures.

Henry Price

Description
Mapping neoliberal depolicitisation via the discursive relations of contemporary feminist activism

Ivor Bolton

Description
The implementation of German heritage policy and the representation of the German Democratic Republic through memorials and museums.

Jake Scott

Description
Jake Scott is undertaking doctoral research into the phenomenon of populism and its theoretical relationship to democracy.

Jaroslava Barbieri

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

José Pascal da Rocha

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

Joseph Ward

Description
Why risk a referendum? Reassessing the politics of the referendum in the UK

Karma Lama Tamang

Description
Karma's doctoral research is about ethics of nonviolent political actions. The project seeks to demonstrate how methods of nonviolent politics share similar morally troubling features with violent political methods.

Koffi Henry Sawyer

Description
Enhancing Electoral Democracy in Africa: The Impact of Intergovernmental Organisations in Promoting Credible Elections

Marco Guglielmo

Description
Floating (On) Platforms? European Left Parties and the Digital Revolution. A Gramscian Analysis. Many scholars argue that European Left Parties were facing major ideological and electoral crises during the 2010s.

Marlene Schrijnders

Description
From London to Leipzig and back: Goth scenes in the GDR between Endzeit and Revolution.

Nicolò Fasola

Description
Nicolò's doctoral research aims at providing a theoretical account of Russia's distinctive approach to war-fighting and its interrelation with the country's self-perception and worldview.

Olga Aymerich Franch

Description
Community responses to the return and reintegration of ISIL affiliated families in Iraq.

Patrick Vernon

Description
Patrick is undertaking research on the heteronormative character of mass violence and responses to mass violence

Paul Betts

Description
A critical review of 'evidence-based' policy in British policing.

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.

Pourya Nabipour

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

Shardia Briscoe-Palmer

Description
(De) Construction of Masculinity and the Discrimination of the 'Other': An analysis into the masculinitie(s) performed by black men in the Caribbean

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

Szymon Parzniewski

Description
The role of migrants in building city resilience for emergency response and disaster disk reduction (DRR): a case study of Birmingham (UK) and Sendai (Japan).

Thais Bessa

Description
Can girl brides choose? Discourses on child and early marriage and representations of female agency

Umer Karim

Description
Saudi Foreign Policy

William Horncastle

Description
An investigation into the relationships between Political Finance Systems and Financial Inequality

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.

More information: Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS)

Course information:

Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS)

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.

Chiara Cervasio

Description
The security dilemma in Sino-Indian Relations

Donatella Bonansinga

Description
The Role of (In)security in Populist Narratives

Sumedh Rao

Description
Trust and Cooperation as Social Identity in Northern Ireland

More Information: Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS)

Institute for German and European Studies (IGES)

Alex Brown

Description
Rethinking the GDR Opposition: Reform, Resistance and Revolution in the Other Germany.

Anja Benedikt

Description
Imaginings of Identity: The Construction of National Identity in the Immigrant Integration Discourse in Germany.

David J. Zell

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

Ivor Bolton

Description
The implementation of German heritage policy and the representation of the German Democratic Republic through memorials and museums.

Marlene Schrijnders

Description
From London to Leipzig and back: Goth scenes in the GDR between Endzeit and Revolution.

More information: Institute for German and European Studies (IGES)

Course information: German Studies (Social Sciences) PhD/MPhil

Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES)

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.

More information: Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES)

Course information: Russian and East European Studies PhD/MPhil