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Jacob Mundy

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jmundy

Jacob Mundy

Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies; Director, Peace and Conflict Studies Program

Department/Office Information

Peace and Conflict Studies
222 Alumni Hall
  • T 11:00am - 1:00pm (222 Alumni Hall)
  • W 4:15pm - 5:15pm (222 Alumni Hall)

Using historical and geographical approaches, my research explores the entangled constitution of social and ideational orders. Specifically, I seek to account for processes and representations of organized violence and foreign intervention in Northwest Africa and Southwest Asia 鈥 the so-called MENA region. 

My current monographic research project is a historical reexamination of the conjuctural interrelationship between (a) changes in postwar global capitalism (particularly the neoliberal "turn" in the 1970s-1980s), (b) the intensification of militarization and armed conflicts in Northern Africa and Southwest Asia, and (c) the increasing representation of such violence as "terrorism."  To this end, I've published , one chapter in , one , and . 

My primary fieldwork sites have been Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Western Sahara, as well as imperial archives in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

A full list of my publications can be found on my Zotero page:

鈥 PhD, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, 2010
鈥 M.A., Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, 2004 
鈥 B.A., Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle, 1999

Interests: Critical Security Studies, Political Economy, Middle East, Northern Africa, Sahara-Sahel

Fieldwork: Tunisia (September 2018 鈥 June 2019); Libya (Summer 2012), Algeria (October 2007 鈥 June 2009); Morocco, Western Sahara, and Algeria (Summer 2003 and Fall 2005)

Archival Work: Archives Nationales d'Outre Mer (France), Archives nationales de Tunisie (Tunis), US National Archives (College Park, MD), Ford Presidential Library (Ann Arbor, MI)

Editorial Committee, , 2020鈥2025

Board of Directors, , 2016鈥2018, 2020鈥2022; Treasurer, 2023-2024 

Fulbright Scholar, Visiting Associate Professor, International Political-Economy Program, Tunis Business School, Universit茅 de Tunis, 2018鈥2019.

Fellow, , 2018鈥2019

Founding Fellow, Sidi Bou Said School of Critical Protest Studies.

Fellow, Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs, 2018鈥2019.

Conseil scientifique, Observatoire universitaire international du Sahara Occidental (OUISO), 2017鈥揚resent

Fellow, , 2007鈥2008

, Revised and Updated Second Edition, coauthored with Stephen Zunes, Syracuse University Press, Series on Peace and Conflict Resolution, 2021; first edition 2010; second Printing 2011.

. Polity Press, Series in Global Hot Spots, 2018. 

, Stanford University Press, Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures, 2015

, coeditor with Daniel B. Monk, University of Michigan Press, Series in Global Urban Studies, 2014. 

Jacob Mundy, 鈥淎 Theoretical War: Accounting for American Imperialism in the Middle East,鈥 Journal of Labor and Society 26 (1: Special Issue on Global Movements in the Middle East), 2023: 15鈥38,

Jacob Mundy, 鈥淟ibya: Lost in Transition,鈥 Middle East Law and Governance 13(1: Special Journal Section, 鈥淟ibya: When Transitions Become the Status Quo,鈥 edited by Jacob Mundy), 2021: 1鈥3, , Open Access Introduction.

"The Middle East is Violence: On the Limits of Comparative Approaches to the Study of Armed Conflicts." Civil Wars 21 (4: Special issue on The Politics of Comparing Armed Conflicts), 2019: 539鈥568, , Open Access 

鈥淭he Science, Aesthetics, and Management of Late Warfare: An Introduction.鈥 Critical Studies on Security 1(2: Special issue co-edited by Stefanie Fishel and Jacob Mundy), 2013: 143-158,  

"'Wanton and Senseless' Revisited: The Study of Warfare in Civil Conflicts and the Historiography of the Algerian Massacres," African Studies Review 56(3) December 2013: 25-55,  

"Deconstructing Civil War: Beyond the New Wars Debate," Security Dialogue 42(3), June 2011: 279-295,  

"Expert Intervention: Knowledge, Violence and Identity during the Algerian massacres," Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23(1), March 2010: 25-47, Special Issue on Scholarship and War: Ethics, Power and Knowledge,  

"Performing the Nation, Prefiguring the State: The Western Saharan Refugees Thirty Years Later," Journal of Modern African Studies 45(2), June 2007: 275-297, 

 

鈥淎 Theory of the Middle East: Oil for Insecurity, Permanent War, and the Political-Economy of Late Imperial America鈥 in Between Catastrophe and Revolution: Essays in Honor of Mike Davis, edited by Daniel Bertrand Monk and Michael Sorkin (New York, N.Y.: Urban Research): 193鈥206.

鈥淒as Ende des Friedensprozesses in der Westsahara und der Zusammenbruch des UN-Waffenstillstands,鈥 in Westsahara: Afrikas letzte Kolonie, edited by Judit Tavakoli, Manfred O. Hinz, Werner Ruf und Leonie Gaiser (Berlin: regiospectra Verlag, 2021): 59鈥80.

鈥淐ritical Approaches to Peacebuilding,鈥 in , edited by Henry Carey (Cambridge University Press, 2020): 193鈥206.

鈥淟ibya,鈥 in , edited by Ellen Lust (Sage/CQ Press, 2019), 529鈥550. Revised and updated from 14th Edition.

鈥淭he Geopolitical Functions of the Western Sahara Conflict: US Hegemony, Moroccan Stability, and Sahrawi Strategies of Resistance,鈥 in , edited by Raquel Ojeda Garcia, Irene Fern谩ndez-Molina, and Victoria Veguilla (Palgrave, 2017): 53鈥78.

"Moroccan Settlers in Western Sahara: Colonists or Fifth Column?" (coauthored with Stephen Zunes) in , Oded Haklai and Neophytos Loizides (eds), Stanford University Press, 2015: 40-74. 

"Bringing the tribe back in? The Western Sahara dispute, ethno-history, and the imagineering of minority conflicts in the Arab world," in , Will Kymlicka and Eva Pf枚stl (eds), Oxford University Press, 2014: 127-150. 

"Western Sahara: Nonviolent Resistance as a Last Resort," coauthored with Stephen Zunes, in , V茅ronique Dudouet (ed), Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution, 2014: 20-44.

"The Aftermath: The Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103," The Alarmist Podcast (November 10, 2022),

"Unpacking the power plays over Western Sahara," The Conversation (August 1, 2022), https://theconversation.com/unpacking-the-power-plays-over-western-sahara-186675

"Militias Aren鈥檛 New. Our Fixation on Them Is," The Century Foundation (May 5, 2022),   See also: Podcast, "Are We Really in an Age of Militias?" Order From Ashes (May 5, 2022), 

Hugh Lovatt and Jacob Mundy, Free to choose: A new plan for peace in Western Sahara (Brussels: European Council on Foreign Relations, May 2021),

"Interview with Jacob Mundy on Libya" by Bill Fletcher Jr., Global African Worker (October 2020),

Podcast, "The War for the Western Sahara," Popular Front (December 16, 2020),

"The U.S. recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara. Here鈥檚 what that means," The Monkey Cage (Blog), Washington Post (December 11, 2020),

Press Conference, "Western Sahara ceasefire over after 29 years," Foreign Press Association (November 17, 2020),

Interview, "Ceasefire Ends in Occupied Western Sahara After U.S.-Backed Moroccan Military Launches Operation," Democracy Now! (November 16, 2020),

Interview with Bill Fletcher on Libya, Global African Worker (October 3, 2020),

Podcast, "Jacob Mundy, Libya (Polity Press, 2018)," Interview with Prof. Susan Thomson, New Books in African Studies (September 7, 2020),

Podcast, "Why is the 'everywhere' war mostly in the Middle East and North Africa?," Maghrib in Past and Present (July 15, 2020), 

"The Oil for Security Myth and Middle East Insecurity," Middle East Report N掳 294 (Spring 2020),

"Why 鈥榯oo many cooks in the kitchen鈥 could inhibit a peace deal in Libya," The Conversation (January 23, 2020),

"The Globalized Unmaking of the Libyan State," Middle East Report N掳 290 (Spring 2019), 3鈥7,

"Libya conflict boils down to the man driving the war 鈥 Khalifa Haftar," The Conversation (April 10, 2019),

"The collapse of oil for insecurity: Why Venezuela鈥檚 turmoil and the Khashoggi crisis portend an even darker geopolitics of oil," Africa is a Country (March 24, 2019),

Alice Wilson and Jacob Mundy, "Business as Usual in Western Sahara?" Middle East Report (January 21, 2019),

"Why Libya鈥檚 new elections might not put the country back on track," The Conversation (June 6, 2018),

Paper, 鈥淗ow did the Middle East become 'the Middle East?',鈥 Global Histories of International Thought and Geopolitical Concepts, University of Groningen, May 2024.

Panel Participant, 鈥淚mperialism,鈥 Political Economy Summer Institute, June 3, 2023, online.

Chair and Discussant, 鈥淩emade by War: New Perspectives on Postwar North Africa,鈥 Annual conference of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, Tunis, Tunisia, May 11-12, 2023

Workshop Presentation, 鈥淥il and In/Security,鈥 Security in Context, University of Oklahoma, September 16-17, 2022.

Keynote Address, 鈥淭he End of the Ceasefire and Its Consequences,鈥 Symposium on Western Sahara: Between Colonialism, Imperialism, and Self-Determination, Freiheit f眉r die Westsahara e.V, April 23, 2021, online.

Paper, 鈥淲hy is the 鈥楨verywhere War鈥 mostly in the Middle East and North Africa?,鈥 Western Interventions in the Wake of Arab Uprisings: Political Containment, Neoliberalism, and Imperial Legacies, Workshop, Middle East Center and School of Global and Area Studies, Oxford University, February 23-25, 2021, online.

Talk, 鈥淢aking Hegemony in the Middle East,鈥 Sovereignty, Order & Conflict Seminar Series, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Syracuse University, October 8, 2020, online.

Lecture, 鈥淭he UN Failure in Western Sahara,鈥 Osaka School of International Public Policy, University of Osaka, Japan, November 5, 2019.

Paper, 鈥淲hy is the 鈥楨verywhere鈥 War Mostly in the Middle East?,鈥 Le Centre d鈥櫭塼udes Maghr茅bines 脿 Tunis (CEMAT), September 12, 2019.

Concept Paper, 鈥淒evelopment and Global Security,鈥 Governance and Local Development in the Middle East and North Africa, workshop, organized by the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, held in Sarajevo, August 7鈥9, 2019.

Paper, 鈥淔rom the Capital of Africa to the Caliphate: High Modern Authoritarianism and Infrastructural Warfare in Sirte, Libya,鈥 De/constructing the Middle Eastern City: Places, Publics, and Geographies of Global Connection, workshop, Maxwell School of International Affairs, March 30, 2018.

Lecture, 鈥淭he Necessity of Human Rights Violations in Western Sahara,鈥 Departamento Derecho Internacional P煤blico, Relaciones Internacionales e Historia del Derecho, Universidad del Pa铆s Vasco, November 23, 2017.

Paper, 鈥淐onditions of Regionality: The Politics of Comparing Armed Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa,鈥 The Politics of Comparing Armed Conflicts, workshop, Universit茅 du Qu茅bec 脿 Montr茅al, October 13, 2017.

Paper, 鈥淩egional Insecurities: Arms, Oil, and Orientalism in the Middle East and North Africa,鈥 Middle Eastern Studies, Maxwell School of International Studies, Syracuse University, September 28, 2017.

Co-organizer and co-chair, Making Space in the Maghrib, 30th Annual Conference of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, funded by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, Djerba, Tunisia, July 8鈥9, 2017.

Paper, 鈥淭owards a Political Economy of State Failure in Libya,鈥 Extremism, Security, and the State in Africa, Institute for African Development Symposium, Cornell University, October 29, 2016.

Talk, 鈥淲hy you鈥檝e never heard of Western Sahara: Morocco, the United States, and Africa鈥檚 Last Colony,鈥 Cornell Law School, April 18, 2016.

Talk, 鈥淔rom 鈥楽tate of the Masses鈥 to State of the Martyrs: Rethinking Libya,鈥 Arab World Studies Program, American University, April 11, 2016.

Presentation, 鈥淓conomics as Antipolitics in Civil War research,鈥 Symposium on the Geopolitics of Inequality, Bloustein School of Public Affairs, Rutgers University, November 11, 2015.

Paper, 鈥淭he Geopolitical Functions of the Western Sahara Conflict: US hegemony, Moroccan Stability, and Sahrawi Resistance,鈥 Seminario Internacional sobre el Sahara Occidental, University of Granada and University of Ja茅n, Spain, October 31鈥揘ovember 1, 2015.