Dissertation (in progress): Business in Conflict: The Effects of Smuggling on the Production of Violence

Abstract: Smuggling is key to understand local economies and social interactions in porous borderlands, yet it has not been adequately researched. I contribute to address this gap in the literature by unpacking the mechanisms driving insurgents to resort to smuggling as a source of funding and analyzing the impact of such ties on rebel behavior. I focus on the Sahel region, with an emphasis on Tuareg ethnic and rebel groups and the Mali-Algeria border. First, I demonstrate that smuggling emerges as a form of pre-conflict social and economic order to attenuate people’s impoverishment, and argue that, in conflict, smuggling can build rebel capacity and para-statehood, and serve as a strategy to facilitate control over population and territory. Second, I analyze patterns of violence to assess whether violent political organizations involved in smuggling as a strategy to govern contested areas resort to more violence. I find that violent political organizations funded by smuggling to establish governance tend to minimize killing civilians, and show that smuggling, by itself, does not create hubs of violence.

Published:

Under Review:

  • “From Burden to Bargain: The Boomerang Effect of Delegating Migration Regulation”

  • “Indigenous Identities, Nation-Building, and Development in Post-Colonial African Arab(-ized) States”

  • “Entrepreneurship and Women in the Middle East: An Analysis of Perceptions, Motivations, and Policy Priorities” (with Nimah Mazaheri and Alejandro Serrano)

  • “From Coffers to Conquests: Understanding Islamist Insurgents’ Resilience” (with Tanya Bandula-Irwin)

  • “Not Texting for Fun: Implications of Mobile Phone Access for State Repression against Ethnopolitical Organizations in the Middle East” (with Victor Asal and Reyhan Topal)

Ongoing research (contact me for abstracts or current drafts)

  • “Smuggling for a Cause: Linking Insurgents’ Funding Sources to Rebel Capacity”

  • “Business at Borders: Economic Emancipation and Self-Determination in Rebel-Organized Settings” (with original dataset of commodities seized by Algerian authorities at borders, 2020-2023)

  • “Patterns of Violence and the Rebel-Smuggling Nexus in the Mali Conflict”

  • “Human Smuggling in the Sahara-Sahel: Implications of Externally-Sponsored Criminalization and Policies” (policy brief for XCEPT)

  • “Funding Insurgency and Rebel Governance” [Special Issue editor], Civil Wars (with Tanya Bandula-Irwin)

The special issue of Civil Wars on rebel financing and rebels' use of financial/economic instruments to conduct rebel governance is designed to shape the field of study, offering new empirical insights, fresh theoretical contributions, and new cases on how rebel groups finance their activities and utilize these sources to govern. The edition is focusing on four central themes including: (1) explaining funding choices; (2) funding and wartime political orders; (3) funding and conflict outcomes and (4) rich descriptions of new or elusive funding strategies. The goal for this special issue is to move the field forward by not only examining how rebel groups sustain themselves but also exploring how their revenue sources impact conflict dynamics, especially wartime political and social orders and setting the stage for future research on the increasingly complex landscape of rebel financing. 

  • ““Pardon my French”: Macronism, Nationalism, and the Crystallization of Populism” (book chapter)

Other writings:

  • The situation and treatment of returnees to Algeria (research note for the Canadian Government)

Work as a research assistant: