Simone Tholens
Adjunct Professor of International Relations
About
Adjunct Professor of International Relations, SAIS Europe; Senior Lecturer International Relations, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, and Co-director of the Centre for Conflict, Security and Societies. She is currently on a Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship and a Visting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre/European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy (AY 21/22).
Simone Tholens' main research interest within International Relations are postliberal interventions, security assistance, bordering processes, and materiality of global war practices, as well as theories of contestation and practice. She has been working on these themes in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean area, in particular on EU border management, energy integration, and defence capacity building.
She has published in internationally esteemed journals such as International Affairs, International Studies Persepctives, Journal of International Relations and Development, and Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. She has also co-edited (w/Raffaella A. Del Sarto, 2020, University of Michigan Press,) "Resisting Europe: Practices of Contestation in the Mediterranean Middle East." Her ongoing projects include a monograph (in progress), supported by the Leverhulme Fellowship, called “Assembling Security Assistance,” and a Special Issue (w/ Abdullah Al-Jabassini) with Mediterranean Politics on “Reordering the Middle East: The evolution of Security Assistance as an international practice.”
Prior to taking up the Lectureship at Cardiff University (2016), she was a Research Associate at the Robert Schuman Centre/European University Institute, and an Adjunct Professor of Conflict Management at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Europe. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute, an MA from University of Amsterdam, and a BA from University of Oslo. For a recent curriculum vitae including a full list of publications, see personal website.
Simone Tholens' main research interest within International Relations are postliberal interventions, security assistance, bordering processes, and materiality of global war practices, as well as theories of contestation and practice. She has been working on these themes in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean area, in particular on EU border management, energy integration, and defence capacity building.
She has published in internationally esteemed journals such as International Affairs, International Studies Persepctives, Journal of International Relations and Development, and Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. She has also co-edited (w/Raffaella A. Del Sarto, 2020, University of Michigan Press,) "Resisting Europe: Practices of Contestation in the Mediterranean Middle East." Her ongoing projects include a monograph (in progress), supported by the Leverhulme Fellowship, called “Assembling Security Assistance,” and a Special Issue (w/ Abdullah Al-Jabassini) with Mediterranean Politics on “Reordering the Middle East: The evolution of Security Assistance as an international practice.”
Prior to taking up the Lectureship at Cardiff University (2016), she was a Research Associate at the Robert Schuman Centre/European University Institute, and an Adjunct Professor of Conflict Management at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Europe. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute, an MA from University of Amsterdam, and a BA from University of Oslo. For a recent curriculum vitae including a full list of publications, see personal website.
- European terrorism and organised crime, (forthcoming) with R. Maryon, in Developments in European Politics 3rd ed., E. Jones and V. Anghel (editors), Macmillan International (2021)
- Knowledge, networks and materiality of intervention: assembling security force assistance in Lebanon, (forthcoming) in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding (2021)
- Theorising capacity building , with C. Bueger, in Understanding Capacity Building: Maritime Security and the Western Indian Ocean Experience, C. Bueger, T. Edmunds, and R. McCabe (editors), Palgrave Macmillan (2021)
- Resisting Europe: Practices of Contestation in the Mediterranean Middle East, R.A. Del Sarto and S. Tholens (editors), University of Michigan Press (2020)
- Winning the post-war: norm localisation and small arms control in Kosovo and Cambodia, in Journal of International Relations and Development 22:1 (2019)
- Security assistance in a post-interventionist era: the impact on limited statehood in Lebanon and Tunisia, with R. Hanau, in Small Wars and Insurgencies 29:3 (2018)
- Practices of imperial identity: patterns and paradoxes in EU trade and energy policies towards the Maghreb, in North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institutions and Culture, T. Serres and M. Haleh Davies (editors), Bloomsbury (2018)
- Border management in an era of ‘statebuilding lite': security assistance and Lebanon's hybrid sovereignty, in International Affairs 93:4 (2017)
- Diffusion, contestation and localisation in post-war states: 20 years of Western Balkans reconstruction, with L. Groß, in Journal of International Relations and Development 18:3 (2015)
- An EU-South Mediterranean energy community: the right policy for the right region?, in International Spectator 49:2 (2014)
- "Tesco for terrorists" reconsidered: arms and conflict dynamics in Libya and in the Sahara-Sahel region, F. Strazzari and S. Tholens, in European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 20:3 (2014)
- Which and whose authority? EU support to security governance in Aceh, in European Security 21:2 (2012)
- Another Nakba: weapons availability and the transformation of the Palestinian national struggle, 1987-2007, F. Strazzari and S. Tholens, in International Studies Perspectives 11:2 (2010)
In the News
The uncomfortable track record of outsourcing global security.
Simone Tholens wrote in La Repubblica, 10/21