Profile for Robin Luckham

Robin Luckham is a Post-retirement Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He has forty plus year’s professional experience, more than thirty at IDS and held previous academic positions in Nigeria, Ghana, USA and Australia. He is the Outgoing Chair of the International Advisory Group of the Global Facilitation Network on Security Sector Reform, position held since 2002. He possesses vast experience in management of large research programmes, including (most recently) IDS research programmes on ‘Complex Political Emergencies’ and on ‘Democratic Governance in Conflict-torn Societies’. His areas of specialisation include conflict and political violence; security and development; political economy of oil and conflict; state-building and post-conflict reconstruction; democratic institutions and democratic politics in transitional and post-conflict societies; military institutions and power; security sector governance; demilitarisation and development; politics and political economy of sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of geographical experience his focus has been mainly on Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Ghana and Nigeria, but also South Africa, Somaliland, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Liberia, Senegal and Mali. He also has some experience in Sri Lanka and Bosnia.

He holds a vast list of publications including the following books: Can Democracy be Designed? The Politics of Institutional Choice in Conflict-torn Societies (ed. with Sunil Bastian, Zed Press 2003), Governing Insecurity. Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments in Transitional Democracies (ed with Gavin Cawthra, Zed Press 2003), Democratisation in the South:  the Jagged Wave, (ed. with Gordon White, Manchester University Press, 1996) The Nigerian Military. A Sociological Analysis of Authority and Revolt 1960-67 (Cambridge University Press 2007). Amongst his more recent articles are: ‘The Discordant Voices of ‘Security’’, Development in Practice, 17 (4&5), August 2007; ‘Nigeria: Political Violence, Governance and Corporate Responsibility in a Petro-state’ (with Okey Ibeanu), in Mary Kaldor et.al., Oil Wars (Pluto Press 2007) and ‘The International Community and State Reconstruction in War-torn Societies’, Journal of Conflict, Security and Development 4 (3), December 2004.

He holds an MA (Politics, Philosophy and Economics), Oxford University 1961 and a PhD (Sociology), University of Chicago 1969.