​Welcome. I am a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. My primary research interests include self-determination, secession, civil war, non-violent resistance, and nonstate actor governance.  I received my Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2007. I have been a Fulbright Scholar and a Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo.  My book Inside the Politics of Self-determination was  published by Oxford University Press in 2014.  My work has also been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, Journal of Politics, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Research, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Research & Politics and Perspectives on Politics. ​I received the ISA's 2017 ISSS Emerging Scholar Award.

Download my CV

Google Scholar page

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Recent news

• Great discussion of Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline in Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence
• New article! Internal Drivers of Self-rule Referendums with Laia Balcells and Harriet Goers.
• My article with Jessica Maves Braithwaite is out at JCR Backgrounds With Benefits? Rebel Group Origins and Concessions During Civil Wars in Africa
• New article out on Rebel actors and legitimacy building with Peggy McWeeny and Leo Bauer
• Check out the new JPR Special Issue on Nonviolent Resistance and its Discontents, edited with Erica Chenoweth ​​​

Current positions 

• I maintain the Rebel Governance Network
• I am the BSOS Advance Professor at UMD
• I am a member of the Non-State Armed Governance Group
• I maintain a crowd-sourced Database of Faculty Accommodations.  Please contribute!
• I serve as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Peace Research.​

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Recent talks and travels

Edinburgh Dialogue on Constitution Building in Fragile Settings, 2024
​DOD Basic Research Office Forum Presentation 2024
​All Azimuth Workshop Series, Bilkent University, 2024
Peace Science Society International Presidential Address, 2023
​Network of European Peace Scientists, Bologna, 2023
APL Research Frontiers Forum: Climate Change & National Security, 2023

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Travels and Loki

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