​Welcome. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. My primary research interests include self-determination, secession, civil war, leadership in rebellion, and non-violent resistance.  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 Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Research, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, 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

• Held a Rebel Governance Network workshop in Austin at the Peace Science Society
• Collaborating on two recently funded projects: 
  • Securing the victory? Understanding dynamics of short-run and long-term success in popular uprisings and democratization with Kristian Gleditsch
  • Street-level Autocrats – Individual Decisions with Collective Consequences with Kristin M. Bakke.
• Forthcoming article at JPR on Conflict Negotiations and Rebel Leader Selection
• New post up on ​How to Get Research to Impact Policy
• Ran the Pay It Forward workshop at ISA.  Great resource for junior women in IR
• Check out this post at PVAG on promoting a research agenda on Rebel Governance
• See my blog post with Wendy Wong on Hierarchy & Gender in Political Science

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Recent talks and travels

Columbia University 2019
Syracuse University 2019
Princeton, Liechtenstein Institute, 2018
APSA Women's Research Mentoring Workshop 2018
University of North Carolina 2018
University of New Mexico 2018
Duke University 2018
University College London 2018
Penn State University 2017
Georgetown University India Initiative Roundtable 2017 
Georgetown Univ. Int'l Theory & Research Seminar 2017
​University of Chicago, PISP 2017
University of Wisconsin, Madison 2017
​DC IR Workshop, Georgetown University 2017
Middle East Institute 2017
UMD Advance Program 2017
​Memorial University of Newfoundland 2017
Bahá’í Chair for World Peace 2017
University of Texas, Austin 2017
American University 2017

Tweets by @kgcunnin

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Current positions in the profession

• I maintain a crowd-sourced Database of Faculty Accommodations.  Please contribute!
• I serve as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Peace Research and am on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Global Security Studies, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Politics.​
• I joined the APSA Committee on the Status of Women in 2016
• I am the chair of the ISA Committee on the Status of Women (2017- 2019)
• I participate in the Women in Conflict Studies (WICS) network and am an alum of Journey in World Politics.

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