Dr Asaf Siniver

Asaf Siniver

Department of Political Science and International Studies
Reader in International Security
Head of Internationalisation, School of Government
Editor, Journal of Global Security Studies

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 6386
Fax
+44 (0)121 414 3496
Email
a.siniver@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Department of Political Science and International Studies
School of Government
Muirhead Tower
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Siniver is a Reader in International Security. His work is broadly concerned with conflict resolution and international mediation, the Arab-Israeli conflict, foreign policy analysis, and contemporary US foreign policy.

Qualifications

  • PhD, International Relations (Nottingham), 2006
  • MA, International Relations (Nottingham), 2002
  • BA, Political Science (Tel Aviv), 1997

Biography

Dr. Siniver joined POLSIS in 2007. He works on conflict resolution and international mediation, contemporary US foreign policy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) and international security. He has published four books and numerous journal articles, reports and policy briefs on these issues, and has advised governmental and non-governmental actors working in these areas. His research has been funded by various bodies, including the ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme, Universitas21, and several Presidential Libraries in the USA. He is a Trainer in Conflict resolution, Transformation, and Peacebuilding at the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies, and an Affiliate of the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation, and Security.  He was previously editor of the journal Civil Wars, and currently the editor of the International Studies Association's Journal of Global Security Studies (JoGSS).

His current research examines the nexus between international arbitration and mediation of territorial conflicts, and he is the editor of The Routledge Companion of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (forthcoming 2020).

Teaching

Current teaching in POLSIS

  • The Diplomacy of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (3rd Year)

Postgraduate supervision

Dr. Siniver currently supervises PhD students in the following areas:

  • Low-leverage states in international mediation
  • Interpersonal trust in back-channel diplomacy
  • Foreign Policy Analysis of US and UK decision-making on the Iraq war
  • International mediation and cease-fire agreements
  •  The role of communities in disengagement and demobilization of former fighters
  • Saudi foreign and security policies
  • The Arab Spring and Syrian politics
  • Iranian national identity and the 2015 nuclear agreement

He welcomes applications from potential PhD students in the fields of conflict resolution, contemporary US foreign policy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Foreign Policy Analysis.

Research

Research Interests    

  • Conflict management and resolution, especially third-party mediation and international arbitration
  • The making of contemporary US foreign policy
  • The politics, diplomacy, and history of the Arab-Israeli conflict
  • The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace process
  • The theory and practice of diplomacy

Current projects

  • The nexus between international arbitration and mediation of territorial conflicts
  • Foreign Policy Analysis of the Trump administration
  • Theories and typologies of Diplomacy
  • Manipulation and leverage in international mediation

Publications

Books

Siniver, A. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (London: Routldge, forthcoming 2020).

Siniver, A. (2015) Abba Eban: A Biography (New York: Overlook).

Siniver, A. (ed.) (2013) The Yom Kippur War: Politics, Diplomacy, Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press).

Siniver, A. (ed.) (2010) International Terrorism post-9/11: Comparative Dynamics and Responses (London: Routledge).

Siniver, A. (2008) Nixon, Kissinger and US Foreign Policy Making: The Machinery of Crisis (New York: Cambridge University Press).

Journal Articles and Edited Chapters

Siniver, A. and S. Lucas (2019) ‘Understanding Tacit Security Regimes’, Journal of Global Security Studies 4(4): 510-525.

Siniver, A. (2018) ‘Arab-Israeli Conflict’, The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy, 1-10.   

Siniver, A. and S. Lucas (2016) 'The Islamic State Lexical Battleground: US Foreign Policy and the Abstraction of Threat', International Affairs 92(1): 63-79.  

Siniver, A. (2016) 'Anti-Intellectualism and Israeli Politics', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Siniver, A. and L. Cabrera (2015) '"Good Citizen Europe" and the Middle East Peace Process', International Studies Perspectives 16(2):210-228.

Siniver, A. (2015) 'Abba Eban and The Development of American-Israeli Relations, 1950-1959', Diplomacy & Statecraft 26(1): 65-83.

Siniver, A. and J. Collins (2015) 'Airpower and Quagmire: Historical Analogies and the Second Lebanon War' (with J. Collins), Foreign Policy Analysis 11(2): 215-231.

Siniver, A. (2013) 'The Limits of Public Diplomacy: Abba Eban and the June 1967 War', in C. Jones and T. T. Peterson (eds.), Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 121-136.

Siniver, A. (2012) 'Change Nobody Believes In: Obama and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict', Diplomacy & Statecraft 22(4): 678-694.

Siniver, A. (2012) 'Israeli Identities and the Politics of Threat: A Constructivist Interpretation', Ethnopolitics 11(1): 24-42.

Siniver, A. (2012) 'The EU and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict', in R. Whitman and S. Wolff (eds.), The EU as Global Conflict Manager (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 80-91.

Siniver, A. (2011). 'Arbitrating the Israeli-Palestinian Territorial Dispute', International Politics 49(1):117-129.

L. Heemsbergen and A. Siniver (2011) 'New Routes to Power: Towards a Typology of Power Mediation', Review of International Studies 37(3): 1169-1190.

Siniver, A. (2011) 'Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflict', in S. Wolff and K. Cordell (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict (London: Routledge (2011), pp. 187-197.

Siniver, A. (2008) 'The Nixon Administration and the Cienfuegos Crisis of 1970: Crisis Management of a Non-Crisis?', Review of International Studies, 34(1): 69-98.

Siniver, A. (2006) 'Power, Impartiality and Timing: Three Hypotheses on Third Party Mediation in the Middle East', Political Studies, 54(4): 806-826.

Siniver, A.(2004) 'The Truth is Out There: The Recently Released NSC Institutional Files of the Nixon Presidency', Presidential Studies Quarterly 34(2): 449-454. 

Other Publications

Siniver, A. (2014) 'Mediating the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Current Prospects and Alternative Frameworks', Policy Brief for the Middle East Conference on WMD/DVs Free Zone, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt.

Siniver, A. (2014) 'Un Largo Y Complejo Proceso De Paz', Desperta Ferro no. 3: La Guerra del Yom Kippur, 1973  http://www.despertaferro-ediciones.com/en/revistas/numero/desperta-ferro-contemporanea-n-o-3-la-guerra-del-yom-kippur-1973/

Contributions to The Conversation.

View all publications in research portal