Centre for Global Politics, Economy and Society (GPES)

Assessing the importance of strategic and political context for military reforms. Combining the applicants’ language skills and expertise in post-Soviet military transformation and Ukrainian politics, this timely project will assess two important factors that are essential for the successful pursuit of reforms, yet rarely figure in analyses, because they do not fit into dominant analytical frameworks: Ukraine’s geostrategic idiosyncrasies and the significance of the political context, especially regarding civilian control, within which the reforms are carried out.

Jon Wheatley has been designing and deploying Voter Advice Applications (VAAs) during critical elections in over 30 countries at supranational (EU) level, at national level, and at sub-national level since 2010. VAAs are online tools that match their users' policy preferences with those of candidates or parties, providing users with a visual display that indicates the voting options that best correspond with their preferences.

Violent conflict has a detrimental effect on public health when civilians are injured, diseases spread and health infrastructures collapse. This project investigates an often-neglected aspect of public health during conflicts: the impact of violent conflict on the abuse and misuse of prescription and non-prescription medicines ('drugs') amongst local populations. It aims to understand the impact of different forms of violent conflict on patterns and levels of drug abuse/misuse in four MENA region countries: Iraq, Libya, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen. The study uses a quantitative survey and semi-structured interviews with community pharmacists to gather data about pharmacists' experiences, perceptions and responses to drug abuse/misuse in conflict societies.

Race, Ethnicity and Youth Politics of Belonging in Britain. The aims of this project are to produce new knowledge on the politics of belonging among invisible East Asian youth in Britain.

This study will focus on Syrian refugee fathers and their families ‘integration’ through the men’s accounts of doing fathering and maintaining family life through early transition experiences. The project will compare experiences in the UK and Sweden in order to examine how different country policies and integration processes are experienced.

Dr Stephen Hurt's research on the European Union's relationship with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states has been the basis for his contribution to debates on UK trade policy since the Brexit referendum result in 2016. This research has, over many years, challenged the claims made about the developmental benefits to African countries of the EU's trade and development policy.

Dr Sarah Whitmore is regularly involved in providing consultancy to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (now Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office). She has conducted over 10 expert briefings, including to every HMA-Ambassador Designate Kyiv since 2002, and to the Minister for Europe, Rt.Hon David Liddington, in 2014. Additionally, she produced commissioned reports for the US Department of State (2005), and the Department for International Development (DFID) (2014).