Staff profile

I joined Durham University as Assistant Professor in 2020 after a year as a Teaching Fellow in Defence, Development and Diplomacy at the Durham Global Security Institute. Prior to that, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the EDDA Research Center and Course Coordinator for the United Nations University Gender Equality and Studies Programme (UNU-GEST) at the University of Iceland. I obtained my PhD from the University of Leeds after working for Malteser International, a German humanitarian aid and development organisation.

My research so far has focused on peacekeeping training institutions particularly in an African context, looking into the transfer of Western as ‘universal’ norms. I explored how complexities of post-conflict situations were represented in the classroom and the assessed drivers of training content and methods. My research is embedded in the wider academic discussion on democratisation, violence prevention / management and post-conflict reconstruction.

In my current research I continue to address the empirical and theoretical implications of peacebuilding, among it the AHRC/FCDO-funded research on the protection mandates of peacekeepers. The project comparatively explores humanitarian protection practices of military peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Federal Republic of Somalia. In so doing, it studies experiences of peacekeeping practices by protection recipients (civilians and humanitarians) and compares and contrasts them with the experiences of military peacekeepers.

• International Interventions
• Peacekeeping
• Peacebuilding
• Security Assistance in the Global South
• Women, Peace and Security
• International Practice Theory
• Norm Diffusion
• African Regionalism
• Global IR

Authored book

• Flaspöler, A. (2019). African Peacekeeping Training Centres: Socialisation as a Tool for Peace?. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351170284

Journal Article

• Flaspöler, A. (2016). Adding peacekeepers to the debates of critical liberal peacebuilding: new insights from the perspective of peacekeeping training in Africa. Peacebuilding, 4(3), 231-246. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2016.1168085

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Flaspöler, A. (2017). Peacekeeping Training: Torn Between Complexity and Time. [Peacekeeping Blog Series]

Working Paper

• Bakonyi, J., Flaspöler, A., Lugano, G., & Thill, M. (2023). Performing the Protection of Civilians Mandate: Experiences of African Military Peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Federal Republic of Somalia