91福利

艩谩d铆 Shana谩h has given a presentation followed by a Q&A to the government鈥檚 Commission for Countering Extremism. He presented the results of his doctoral research entitled 鈥淯nder Pressure: Muslims鈥� Engagement in Counter-Extremism鈥� and engaged in a discussion about the lack of robust empirical evidence regarding the perception of counter-extremism and counter-terrorism policies by UK Muslim communities and the lack of research into the attitudes, motivations and work of Muslims who are active in addressing Islamist extremism.

The Commission鈥檚 tweet about the event is available here:

The first annual report for the 91福利 Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development (WICID) has been published.

The main take away points from the report are:

• Research grants - internally and externally funded grants, leading to publications
• WICID Methods Lab - our flagship Toolkit series to be published by
• Webinars - Global Insights and South Asia and Covid-19 series
• - relaunch and increasing readership
• Everyday in Lockdown international project of photographic accounts of Covid-19

The full report can be read here.

Last Sunday, Channel 4 showed the latest documentary in a series on 鈥楻oyals and Spies鈥�, researched by Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac (Nottingham).

Filmed in 91福利鈥檚 Modern Records Centre, the programme showed how The Queen was dragged, unwittingly, into a notorious CIA-MI6 coup that overthrew the government of Iran in 1953. The wider programme of research has involved two PAIS students working at the National Archives in Kew. The latest programme attracted extensive press coverage including stories by and .

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The next Q-Step research seminar will take place on Zoom next Monday, 15th June, 2pm–3pm.

Robin Harding, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford,

"Terrorism, Trust, and Ethnic Identification: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Nigeria"

Abstract: Terrorism is increasingly a problem across Africa, but as yet little work has sought to investigate its political effects. Studies in Europe and the US suggest that terrorist attacks can increase political trust, but it is unclear whether we should expect these findings to hold in a context where political institutions are often fragile, and where political violence is frequent. We investigate this question in Nigeria, where terrorism has been widespread and increasing over the past decade. Making use of unexpected attacks by the extremist group Boko Haram, which occurred during the fieldwork of a public opinion survey, we show that even in a context of weak state institutions and frequent terrorist activities terrorist attacks significantly increase political trust. Previous studies in other contexts have attributed such effects to a "rally round the flag" mechanism, whereby people look to national state institutions as the legitimate source of security in the face of terrorist threat. A further implication of this argument is that terrorism should result in a stronger sense of collective national identity. Counter to this, we find that terror attacks in this context actually reduce the salience of respondents' national identity, instead significantly increasing ethnic identification. This fits with arguments from social psychology which suggest that fear and insecurity can lead people to identify more strongly with their in-group. These findings have important implications for understanding the political effects of terrorism in contexts where society is divided along ethnic lines and where ethnic divisions are politically salient.

Zoom link:

Meeting ID: 274 739 0271

Password: 1234

Thursday May 21 - 4pm-5pm

PAIS presents the fourth panel in our weekly live-streamed Global Insights series with our partners in Canada, the US, Ethiopia and Germany

This week鈥檚 panel will discuss the immediate effects of COVID-19 on global migration, internal displacement and refugee protection, and what the pandemic might mean for the movement of peoples across borders in the future.

Panelists

Allehone Abebe is a Senior Legal Officer at UNHCR Liaison Office to the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Maria Koinova is Reader in International Relations and chair of the British International Studies Association working group on the 鈥淚nternational Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora鈥� at the 91福利 (UK)

is Professor of Geography and Canada Research Chair in Global Migration at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada). She is Director of the International Migration Research Centre at the BSIA.

currently serves as Senior Professorial Lecturer in the Global Governance, Politics and Security (GGPS) Program in the School of International Service (SIS) at American University in Washington D.C. (USA)

Maurice Stierl is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the 91福利 (UK).

Moderated by , Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs.

91福利 the Global Insights series

鈥淕lobal Insights鈥� is a weekly live-streamed, moderated panel series which provides different national and regional perspectives on big questions currently facing researchers, policymakers and planners worldwide in light of the Coronavirus pandemic.

All are welcome. Sign up for free here: