Niels Terpstra
Dr. Niels Terpstra is Assistant Professor in Conflict Studies at the Centre for International Conflict Analysis and Management (CICAM), Radboud University. His research focuses on the dynamics of civil war, political violence, insurgency, and terrorism. He is particularly interested in governance and legitimation practices of non-state armed groups during and after civil war. Furthermore, he is interested in foreign policy, particularly the political and strategic dimensions of peace- and state-building missions.
Niels has published in the journals Small Wars & Insurgency, Civil Wars, Peacebuilding, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and Modern Asian Studies. Niels has field research experience in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Colombia. Niels’ dissertation on ‘Rebel Governance and Legitimacy in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka’ investigates how the Taliban in Afghanistan have governed territories under their control and how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) governed in Sri Lanka. Moreover, it investigates how rebel governance affects civilian compliance with a rebel group and what this means in terms of legitimacy, authority, and state formation processes.
Over the past years, Niels was also involved in advisory and evaluation projects for the Netherlands Ministry of Justice and Security, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the peace organization PAX.
