Nicholas Pope
Nicholas Pope researches para-statal armed groups (militias, paramilitaries, extermination groups and death squads) in urban peripheries and rural frontier regions. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS University of London and works as a Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He has worked in a variety of research, strategy and project management roles in peace/conflict, education, defence, and digital safety projects with the United Nations Development Programme, the Australian Department of Defence, SAGE Publishing, Internet Matters, Save the Children, and Ford Foundation, amongst others, with a focus on strategic communications interventions and collective action policy approaches. He has also lectured on international development and humanitarian action courses at SOAS University of London and the University of Melbourne.
His research interests include the relationships between para-statal armed groups, states, and societies. Specifically, he is interested in their intermediation roles – between local communities and statebuilding programmes – including how gender dynamics and alternative forms of doing politics can influence armed group practices which can, in turn, shape broader political processes. With this approach, he aims to understand the implications of armed groups for governance, strategy and intelligence coordination of security, environment and climate, illicit flows, and development policies.
Nicholas is an interdisciplinary and qualitative researcher, and he works with ideas from political economy, political geography, political ecology, and anthropology. Although his work has involved a variety of Global South countries, including Colombia, Argentina, Afghanistan, East Timor, Myanmar and the Philippines, his research expertise is in Latin America and, more specifically, Brazil.
