ProfessorSarah Phillips

Sarah G. Phillips is Professor of Global Conflict and Development, an award winning author, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Her research draws from years of in-depth fieldwork, and focuses on international intervention in the global south, knowledge production about violence, authoritarianism, and non-state governance, with a geographic focus on the Middle East and Africa. Sarah believes that studying places that are typically marginalised within International Relations is the best way to understand how the world works.

Sarah is the author of three books, the latest of which, When There Was No Aid: War and Peace in Somaliland (Cornell University Press, 2020) was awarded the Australian Political Studies Association's biennial Crisp Prize for the best political science monograph (2018-2020). It was also a Foreign Affairs and an Australian Book Review 'Book of the Year'(2020), was shortlisted for the Conflict Research Society 'Book of the Year' Prize (2021), and was a finalist for the African Studies Association's Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize (2021). You can hear Sarah talk about the book on the New Books Network, and at the Australian Institute for International Affairs.

Sarah is published widely in top-tiered academic journals, including International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, European Journal of International Relations, African Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Australian Journal of International Affairs, and International Affairs. Her article in African Affairs (co-authored with Justin Hastings) won the Stephen Ellis Prize for the most innovative article in 2014-2015. She has also been awarded a number of prestigious competitive grants, including three from the Australian Research Council (a DECRA, a joint Discovery Award, and a Future Fellowship). Sarah held a Sydney Outstanding Academic Research (SOAR) Fellowship (2020-21), and is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at theSana'a Center for Strategic Studies (Yemen and Lebanon), and a Research Associate at the Developmental Leadership Program (University of Birmingham, UK). A link to her Keynote Address at the Middle East Studies Forum (Deakin University, December 2022), which outlines some of the preliminary findings from her Future Fellowship research can be found here.

Sarah's personal website can be found here.