Boukje Kistemaker

Boukje Kistemaker is a part-time PhD Student at the King’s Wargaming Network, War Studies Department.

Besides her research, Boukje is currently a full-time Senior Horizon Scanning Specialist at the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. In her work, as part of the Strategic Foresight team, she designs and facilitates interactive and experiential learning and sensemaking exercises to explore risks, uncertainties and trade-offs to inform future organisational planning and programming.

For more than a decade, Boukje has served as an analyst/ strategic advisor in international security and complex emergencies in field and headquarter settings for, among others, the UN Operations and Crisis Centre (UNOCC), the UN Office for Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), Janes’ Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC), the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS), the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Boukje holds an MA in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from the Centre for Conflict Studies at Utrecht University.

Research interests

• Experiential learning
• Organisational learning
• Simulation- and game-based education
• Crisis management
• Risk analysis and -management
• Foresight
• (Counter-)Terrorism

Supervisors

Dr. David Banks, Prof. Dr. Brooke Rogers

Publications

Duijvestein, I. et.al. (2015). ‘Reconsidering Rebel Governance’, in African Frontiers:

Insurgency, Governance and Peacebuilding. City: Country: Ashgate.

Gaub, F. and Kistemaker, B. (2013). Palestinians as ‘strategic refugees’. EUISS.

https://www.iss.europa.eu/content/palestinians-‘strategic’-refugees

Gaub, F. and Kistemaker, B. (2013). All quiet on the Bahraini front? EUISS.

https://www.iss.europa.eu/content/all-quiet-bahraini-front

 

Kistemaker, B. (2013). The Role of Libraries in Emergency Situations: case-study Haiti. Institute of Developing Economies, Japanese External Trade Organisation. https://mopac.jetro.go.jp/webopac/AB00750021

Janes Terrorism Insurgency Monitor

• Burkina Faso arms civilian volunteers in the fight against Islamist extremism (with Jessica Moody, 25 February 2020)
• COVID-19: Explosives attack on COVID-19 response meeting highlights threat of sustained insurgency campaign in Thailand (20 March 2020)
• COVID-19: Ansar Allah actions underplay high-risk impact of coronavirus in Yemen (25 March 2020)
• Attack on major town in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado signals escalation of local Islamic State insurgency (26 March 2020)
• Escalation of military operations raises risk of retaliatory ASG attacks against civilian population in southern Philippines (21 April 2020)
• COVID-19: Infection impacts Hizbullah’s domestic reputation and regional operations (with Mitch Prothero, 28 April 2020)
• Islamic State call to arms in South Asia indicates desire to expand regional presence (with Alexander Theodosiou, Gabriela Serrano, Heather Nicell and Olivia Harper, 4 May 2020)
• Resilient Sinai insurgency and worsening socio-economic conditions likely to result in deteriorating security in Egypt (27 May 2020)
• Risk of Sahel insecurity spillover into Gulf of Guinea highlighted by deadly attack in Cote d’Ivoire (15 June 2020)
• Security situation escalates at hands of newly-emerged Coalition des Patriotes pour le Changement (CPC) amid elections in Central African Republic (15 January 2021)
• Palm Sunday attack highlights sustained risk of militant Islamist attacks during Christian holidays in Indonesia (30 March 2021)
• Gold rush? Risk of resource-driven insurgency increases in western Mali (14 April 2021)