Mareike Schomerus, (PhD London School of Economics and Political Science) is VP at Busara and visiting lecturer at UChicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Working on the intersection of social, political and behavioral science, Mareike has published widely on violent conflict and international engagement, evidence-based policy and the mental models that shape it, and behavioral mechanisms in post-conflict recovery, for which she has developed a body of work on the ‘mental landscape’. She was formerly Director of Programme Politics and Governance and Research Director of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium at ODI in London.
MIASA Project: The Global School – Globally Comparative Peace and Security Studies (GCPSS)
Within IFG 13’s ambition to develop a framework for theoretical qualitative comparison in peace and security research towards building generalisable theories, I will focus particularly on the framework development. This includes interrogating philosophies of comparison in different cultures, and drawing on literature and empirical work to develop a number of comparison parameters. We will test these out within IFG 13, with the ultimate aim being that we settle on a few vectors along which comparison can travel without being restricted to a particular epistemology, imagination of a conflict, or theoretical approach.
Selected publications
Schomerus, Mareike. 2023. Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict. London: Bloomsbury. Open Access here: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9780755640867
Schomerus, Mareike. 2021. The Lord’s Resistance Army: Violence and Peacemaking in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rigterink, Anouk S., and Mareike Schomerus. 2026 (fortcoming). Research Design in Politics and International Relations London/ Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Muthike, Wairimu, and Mareike Schomerus. 2023. “Learning from Insurance Agents: Peacebuilding, Resilience and the Mental Landscape.” In Horn of Africa Bulletin, edited by John Githigaro, Eden Matiyas and Aaron Stanley. Uppsala: Life & Peace Institute.
De Vries, Lotje, Pierre Englebert, and Mareike Schomerus, eds. 2019. Secessionism in African Politics: Aspiration, Grievance, Performance, Disenchantment: Palgrave Macmillan.
