Dr. Blair Welsh

Contact

BlueSky: @blairwelsh.bsky.social

My pronouns are he/they.

I am an Assistant Professor and Wolfe-Western Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, where I direct the Conflict and Recovery Lab. I am affiliated with the Africa Institute and the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. My research examines how people and institutions respond to insecurity in conflict-affected societies. It is organized around four themes: (1) the strategic logic of armed violence, (2) law and justice in and after war, (3) health and environmental risk, and (4) recovery and reconciliation.

My research is published or forthcoming in International Organization, International Studies Quarterly (x3), Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Global Security Studies, and Conflict Management and Peace Science, with papers invited to revise and resubmit at Nature Human Behaviour and International Organization. It focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, with fieldwork in Ghana, Iraq, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda. I combine field and survey experiments, original event data, and geospatial methods, often in partnership with governments and international organizations, to generate policy-relevant evidence.

Prior to joining Western, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at New York University Abu Dhabi. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Government at the University of Essex in 2023. I have held fellowships at the Governance and Local Development Institute, University of Gothenburg; the School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona; the Centre for International Studies (CÉRIUM), University of Montréal; the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CEPSI), McGill University and University of Montréal; and the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex.

My research is supported by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CEPSI), the Economic and Social Research Council, the IKEA Foundation, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, Mitacs Canada, the Centre for International Studies (CÉRIUM), the South-East Network for Social Sciences, and University College London. It also involves collaborations with the Ministry of Justice in Somalia, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Department of Peace Operations, and UN Women.

I have also worked as an Analyst and Researcher for Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), AKE International, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), E-International Relations (E-IR), Global Risk Insights, and the House of Commons (UK Parliament), and I have served as an advisor to the United Nations and the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.