Prof Oliver Richmond

Honorary Professor

Researcher profile

Email
opr@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Research areas

Oliver Richmond's primary area of expertise is in peace and conflict theory, and in particular its interlinkages with IR theory. He is interested in how critical approaches to international theory impact upon debates about conflict and peace, and in concepts of peace and their implicit usages in IR theory (see his recent book, Peace in International Relations, Routledge 2008). His well known book, The Transformation of Peace was published in 2005/7 and was funded by a Leverhulme Fellowship. It examined the conceptualisation of peace, and in particular the construction of the 'liberal peace', in post-conflict zones.  A new volume called 'Liberal Peace Transitions: Between Peacebuilding and Statebuilding' was derived from the Liberal Peace Transitions project at CPCS (2006-8) which resulted from 'Transformation of Peace'. Since his critical work on the liberal peace was first published he has become interested in hybridity, the local, resistance, and other forms of agency in peacebuilding, as well as their impact on shaping a 'post-liberal peace'

He is currently co-directing and involved in projects on 'A Just and Durable Peace' (EUFP7), 'Liberal Peace Transitions II' (funded by the Nuffield Trust, the University of St Andrews and GTZ), Orthodox Terrorism and Liberal Peacebuilding (funded by the British Academy), and 'Rethinking the Liberal Peace' (funded by the UN University and the University of St Andrews). He is also involved with a PRIO project on the 'Ethics of Liberal Peace' led by Kristoffer Liden and Peter Burgess. He has been involved in fieldwork in Cyprus and Turkey, Kosovo, Bosnia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands, Nepal and Kashmir, as well as in the Eastern Congo region. He is also an Associate Editor of the Review of International Studies which is currently based at the University of St Andrews.

He directs the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, which houses many of the projects mentioned above. This centre was the first of its kind in Scotland, and aims to stimulate and facilitate new thinking in theoretical and empirical terms in the area of peace and conflict studies. The centre's research projects, conducted by Oliver Richmond and by the centre's full time research fellow, Dr. Audra Mitchell, involves theoretical and comparative fieldwork in a number of post-conflict peacebuilding sites. The centre also hosts a number of PhD students and an MLitt programme in Peace and Conflict Studies.

Finally, he edits a Palgrave Book Series called Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, which seeks to provide a forum for the development of new and alternative approaches for understanding the dynamics of conflict and of the construction of peace.

Oliver Richmond is currently on extended research leave.

For further details see Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, www.st-andrews.ac.uk/intrel/cpcs/richmond


Selected publications

 

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