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

Claire Bracegirdle

Description
Learning from community conservation in Ghana

Daniel Munday

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

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.

Emmanuel Magesa Nkukura

Description
The role of government fisheries staff in co-management towards enhancing resilience in small-scale fisheries: A case of Lake Victoria

Flavia Amayo

Description
Flavia Amayo's research is about climate change adaptation decisions of smallholder women farmers in Uganda.

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.

Gareth Wall

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

Glanis Changachirere

Description
Subjectivities of Women's Political Participation.

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.

Jiasi Zhou

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

Jingwen Jiang

Description
The Dual Logic of Chinese Transnationalism

Justin Williams

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

Krisna Puji Rahmayanti

Description
Collaborative Network of Health Services in Disaster Management

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

Paul Rogers

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

Tafadzwa Kudakwashe Kamidza

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

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

More information: International Development Department (IDD)

Course information: International Development PhD

Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV)

Adam Payler

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

Amparo González

Description
Gender Dimension in Public Policy for Smallholder Agriculture.

Bryony Rudkin

Description
Dramaturgy of political decision making in English local government.

Camila Paz Ramos-Fuenzalida

Description
Performance of collaborative emergency management networks in Latin America.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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
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.

Ivor Bolton

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

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

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

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.

Umer Karim

Description
Saudi Foreign Policy

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:

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. 

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