Other News

Akin has authored an article titled The state, Boko Haram and vernacular security: Gendering terrorism and counterterrorism in Nigeria, which is included in a Special Issue on Vernacular Security in the Security Dialogue which he also co-edited alongside Lee Jarvis and Michael Lister. You can read the article here (Open Access): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/09670106251351869

Akin has been awarded funds to lead an international project with two main partners in Africa. The two-year project (2025-2027) will involve a collaboration with the Centre for Media, Policy, and Accountability, Nigeria (CMPA) and The Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC&N), Ethiopia on a project titled Insecurity, Migration, Environment and Resilience: Dialogues, Challenges and Everyday Politics of (In)security in Sub-Saharan Africa, to investigate how various communities and institutions negotiate these challenges, local understandings and the everyday practices which they deploy to guarantee their own safety.

Alex Homolar has published a new article in the interdisciplinary journal Media, War & Conflict. ‘Narrating future war: Reimagining enmity during the collapse of bipolarity’ examines how narratives shape what matters in international relations. Focusing on elite debates on future war, the article explores how political agents within the US defence establishment reimagined the international system during the demise of the hegemonic interpretative framework that had shaped the postwar order. It argues that the reconstruction of enmity during the collapse of bipolarity should be understood as an assemblage of existing narrative elements into a new security story. The article concludes that events shape but do not determine how conceptions of what matters in international politics evolve and how future war is (re)imagined.

Read the article -> Narrating future war: Reimagining enmity during the collapse of bipolarity - Alexandra Homolar, 2025

In Foreign Policy magazine's new series "The Historical Presidency", PAIS's Tom Long and co-author Carsten-Andreas Schulz put Donald Trump's recent threats to reclaim the Panama Canal in a long-term perspective. Trump's early-term threats against Panama follow a long pattern, they argue. US governments treat the small country's sovereignty as conditional. And though Panama seemed to cave in to Trump, the isthmisan country has a long history of surprisingly successful pushback. The United States may, once again, regret overplaying its hand in the isthmian country.

Read the article -> Trump Isn't the First U.S. President to Threaten Panama's Sovereignty

As tensions escalate between Cambodia and Thailand along the borders, young participant-researchers from both countries met in Kuala Lumpur to plan peaceful responses. Since beginning their collaborative research last year into the drivers of cross-border online conflict, they have built a strong network, recently naming it Peace Developer, committed to countering harmful narratives. During the visit, they also met with local Malaysians to learn from the country’s multicultural experience, exploring how such models might inform approaches to regional tension.

The gathering was part of a broader participatory and action-oriented research project co-developed with Women Peace Makers (Cambodia), Wocation (Thailand), and PAIS PhD Candidate Raymond Hyma, whose doctoral research explores what happens to peace research when those affected by conflict become the researchers themselves. The visit was supported by PAIS through the Warwick Impact Fund.