Professor Oisín Tansey

Professor Oisín Tansey is the Principal Investigator on the 'Democratization and UN Peacebuilding' project. He is a Professor in International Politics in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. 

Oisín's work focuses primarily on UN peacekeeping, authoritarianism and regime change. 

His work has been published in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, the European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, and Global Governance. 

He is the author of two books with Oxford University Press: Regime-Building: Democratization and International Administration (2009) and The International Politics of Authoritarian Rule (2016). 

He previously worked at the University of Reading and has a DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford. 

Professor Sarah von Billerbeck is  Co-Investigator on the 'Democratization and UN Peacebuilding' project. She is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Reading. 

Sarah's research focuses on UN peacekeeping, peacebuilding, international organizations, and legitimacy. 

Her work has been published in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, the European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, and Global Governance. 

Her book, Whose Peace? Local Ownership and United Nations Peacekeeping (2016), was published by Oxford University Press. 

She previously worked at King’s College London and she holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford. 

Dr Birte Gippert is a Co-Investigator on the 'Democratization and UN Peacebuilding' project. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. 

Birte’s work centers around legitimacy, power and authority, and democracy in EU and UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Current work includes research on Haiti’s peacekeeping experiences and UN legacies, international institutional creation and design of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, and strategic delegitimation narratives by local elites against international criminal tribunals.

She has published widely on these issues and is the author of the monograph Local Legitimacy in Peacebuilding (Routledge, 2017).

She previously worked as a research and teaching fellow at King’s College London and the University of Reading. 

Dr Kseniya Oksamytna is a Co-Investigator on the 'Democratization and UN Peacebuilding' project.  She is a Senior Lecturer at City, University of London. 

Her research interests are international organizations and peace operations. Her recent work has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Contemporary Security Policy, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Studies Review. 

She is the author of Advocacy and Change in International Organizations: Communication, Protection, and Reconstruction in UN Peacekeeping (Oxford University Press, 2023) and co-editor of United Nations Peace Operations and International Relations Theory (Manchester University Press, 2020). 

She previously worked at the University of Warwick and King’s College London.