Dr Christine Cheng
Lecturer in International Relations
Department of War Studies
Strand Bridge House
King's College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
Tel: 020 7848 2944
Email: christinecheng@kcl.ac.uk
Office hours: Tuesdays 13.00-14.00. Please ring rather than email.
Areas of research
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Post-conflict transitions, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding
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Extralegal groups and ex-combatants
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Corruption
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Natural resources and violent conflict
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Failed and fragile states
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Politics of West Africa
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Women in Politics
Biography
Christine Cheng is Lecturer in International Relations and joined the department in 2012. From 2009-2012, she was a post-doctoral fellow in politics at Exeter College, University of Oxford. Dr Cheng's research interests lie at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics. She was the 2009 Cadieux- Léger Fellow at Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Dr Cheng holds a DPhil from Oxford (Nuffield College), an MPA from Princeton University (Woodrow Wilson School), and a BASc from the University of Waterloo (Systems Design Engineering). She has worked for the UN Commission on Human Security, the World Bank's Gender Group, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. She also regularly comments on international affairs for a variety of media outlets including the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, al Jazeera, Radio France International, and Real Clear World.
Current research
Dr Cheng is currently finishing up a project on extralegal groups in post-conflict Liberia that builds upon her dissertation research. The project examines ex-combatant groups that have taken over natural resource areas in the aftermath of war and the problem that these groups pose for long-term statebuilding. For this project, Dr Cheng conducted field research in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. She is interviewed about this work here.
Dr Cheng has also been working on the issue of corruption and post-conflict peacebuilding with Dominik Zaum. This project provides a more complex look at how corruption affects peacebuilding efforts and also how peacebuilding practices, especially those of the international community, can unwittingly foment corruption. This research led to the publication of Corruption and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Selling the Peace?
Doctoral supervision
Dr Cheng is willing to supervise students her areas of research expertise.
Recent publications
Forthcoming. Post-Conflict Transitions and Extralegal Groups. (Under contract with Oxford University Press).
Forthcoming. “Private and Public Interests – Informal Actors, Informal Influence, and Economic Order after War” in M. Berdal and D. Zaum, The Political Economy of Post-Conflict Statebuilding, Routledge. Draft chapter here.
Forthcoming. With Dominik Zaum, “Corruption in Post-Conflict Transitions and the Role of Natural Resources” in C. Bruch, W.C. Muffett, and S. Nichols, Governance, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Earthscan.
2011. Co-edited with Dominik Zaum, Corruption and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Selling the Peace? Routledge. Chapter abstracts here.
2011. With Dominik Zaum, “Selling the Peace? Corruption and Post+Conflict Peacebuilding” in C.Cheng and D.Zaum, Corruption and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding- Selling the Peace?, Routledge. 1-25.
2011. With Margit Tavits. “Informal Influences in Selecting Female Political Candidates”, Political Research Quarterly. (PRQ has issued a press release on this article in advance of the US primary season. See media coverage from Canada.com and the Vancouver Sun.)
Dr Cheng's publications are available here and her c.v. is available here.
Online
Dr Cheng blogs at http://christinescottcheng.wordpress.com/ . You can also follow her on twitter at cheng_christine.