In this episode of the LSE Conflict Zone podcast, host Maliek Banat talks to Brian Milakovsky, an associate researcher with the PeaceRep-Ukraine programme and the lead author of a recent report, Critical Raw Materials, Local Content Policy and Ukraine’s Economic Recovery and Ukraine programme director Luke Cooper about the turbulent current conjuncture in Ukraine. With protests, scandal and geopolitical stress intensifying they discuss how major stakeholders are envisioning Ukraine's economic re...
Aug 14, 2025•52 min•Season 3Ep. 6
In this special episode, Dr Luke Cooper, the director of our Ukraine research programme sits down with the host to unpack how the war in Ukraine is transofrming state capacity, fuelling economic strength and redefining the path to peace in non military terms. With shifting alliances and increasing domestic pressure, will economics determine the endgame more than firepower?
Jun 25, 2025•49 min•Season 3Ep. 5
With the return of Donald Trump in the White House – and his insistence that Kyiv and Moscow strike a peace deal “in 24 hours – huge uncertainty now hangs over the future of Ukraine’s democracy and freedom. In this podcast, Luke Cooper and Zoe Williams discuss the huge challenges and hardships Ukraine has experienced in the war, drawing on insights from Luke’s recent visit to Ukraine. They are joined by Ukrainian academic Yuliya Bidenko from Karazin University in Kharkiv.
Jan 25, 2025•46 min•Season 3Ep. 5
The outlook on lasting peace in Ethiopia has been grim since the cessation of active hostilities in November of last year. A peace agreement between the Tigray’s People Liberation Front, or the TPLF, and the Federal Government in Ethiopia has led to significant political concessions from the Tigrayans but ultimately falls short of resolving the underlying tensions. In this episode we explain how the mode of transactional politics has come to dominate the dynamics inside Ethiopia under the curren...
Nov 15, 2023•36 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In the aftermath of the Republic’s collapse, a lack of shared understanding of policy priorities and effective civic interventions is impeding development of pathways toward stability for Afghanistan. The situation has since deteriorated across all scores of human security under the Taliban, with concurrent human rights, humanitarian, and political crises. In this episode we look at how narratives of state failure, shaped largely by Western expertise, have overlooked and undermined the progress ...
Nov 03, 2023•27 min•Season 3Ep. 3
The war in Ukraine is an ‘axial event’ in twenty-first century history, in which the agency of Ukrainians will have, one way or another, a tremendous impact on the future of global security. From Ukrainian soldiers and emergency rescue teams operating on the frontline to the extensive web of civilian volunteers across the country, civic resistance continues to be a potent counterforce to the brute force of Russia’s military machine. But can this unity be sustained and under what conditions? In t...
Oct 06, 2023•32 min•Season 3Ep. 2
In slightly more than a decade of independence, South Sudan has endured civil war and a shaky peace agreement that leaves over 11 million South Sudanese yearning for the a less violent future. Devastating war in neighboring northern Sudan once again underscores Juba’s acute dependence on revenue from oil exports, which have similarly been captured by the country’s kleptocratic rulers. In this episode we look at how the lack of equitable distribution of revenue has persisted. Using latest researc...
Sep 22, 2023•31 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has long been associated with mineral wealth. Indeed, the country is hugely rich in natural resources - and this has played an important incentivising role in the conflicts seen over the last three decades. But this is by no means the whole picture. And a one-sided focus on minerals alone can lose sight of other important dimensions. In this episode, we explore the changing nature of the political economy of violence in the DRC. We outline the c...
May 04, 2021•49 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Conflict research as a subject area has often been prone to colonial mindsets and thinking. In a world in which power disparities between wealthy states and the former colonial world remain very large - indeed, often huge - there are significant structural imbalances of power between the the North and South. These are reflected in the resources available to the academic community. Privilege can often create regressive attitudes and mindsets, which reinforce and reproduce these power disparities....
Mar 29, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 4
The transition away from fossil fuels is one of the major questions facing humanity in this century. In many states globally, this is presented as both a necessity and opportunity: to create new and sustainable economies. But what happens if decarbonisation is forced on a state? In this podcast, we explore the 'peak oil' problem in South Sudan. As the country's reserves dwindle, and oil prices collapse, the extremely impoverished, oil dependent economy has faced a mounting and existential crisis...
Mar 17, 2021•41 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Somalia is one of the world's poorest countries. It has suffered from a problem of persistent, intractable violence since the 1980s. But there is a new, optimistic atmosphere around Somalia development. All indications are the country has significant oil reserves. Amongst many intellectuals and the Somali elite, there is considerable excitement at this prospect. Is this Somalia's once in a lifetime opportunity to forge a new path to prosperity? In this podcast, we critically review the efforts u...
Feb 16, 2021•47 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Syria is often seen as a tragic case of "non-intervention". One of several examples of where the international community failed to protect civilians from violence and atrocities. But, while there is an element of truth in this view, it also begs many other difficult questions about the rights and wrongs of intervention in societies dealing with intractable violence. In this podcast, we set out to challenge some of the assumptions in the existing debate. We argue that Syria has seen very wide ran...
Feb 03, 2021•54 min•Season 2Ep. 1
It can be hard not to get lost in the horror when studying societies experiencing violent conflict. And it can easily lead to the conclusion that 'nothing can be done'. Our findings on the Conflict Research Programme challenge this assessment by uncovering the presence of civic minded groups and individuals pushing for alternatives to exclusionary identity politics and the political marketplace. What's more we have also found local peace agreements to be a pervasive response to contemporary war....
Oct 05, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 6
State violence and repression can be a particular problem in conflict and post-conflict societies. Constructing democratic and legitimate public authority is vital to overcome this. This means ensuring that the state is not a vehicle for rentier interest groups. And that the unique right to legitimately use force it enjoys is subject to democratic control. This makes the reform of state security services, so that they work under legitimate public authorities, vital to bringing about a sustainabl...
Sep 22, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 5
In conflict and post-conflict situations it can be easy to get lost in the horror faced by many people in these societies. But we should be wary of this tendency - because it can blind us to the opportunities for change. The belief that ‘nothing good’ occurs in conflict regions is typical of a Western-centric bias and a rather 'top down' model of intervention. In this podcast we challenge this way of thinking. And we do so by talking about an empirical phenomena we find in conflict ravaged socie...
Sep 11, 2020•59 min•Season 1Ep. 4
It is commonplace to see inter-communal, religious or ethnic conflict as an important factor in war ravaged countries. But the discussion of these features are often crude and one-sided. Tribal, clan or religious based identities, for example, are frequently cast as the only significant factor. To overcome this, the Conflict Research Programme investigates the holistic relationship between different, interconnected logics: a political marketplace condition where politics becomes a question of bu...
Aug 12, 2020•55 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Countries experiencing intractable conflict often exhibit high levels of corruption. Politics becomes a question of buying and selling support amongst interest groups, not serving the public interest. And violence can be used as a negotiating tactic to access more resources in the market. In this podcast, we introduce the idea of the political marketplace as a way of understanding the relationship between politics and organised violence in twenty-first century conflicts. This is a term which we ...
Jul 29, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 2
How is war changing in the twenty-first century? What makes contemporary organised violence distinct from past conflicts? In this podcast, the first in a new series from the LSE, we explore the nature of intractable conflict in the modern world. While warfare is no longer seen as a normal mechanism for resolving disputes between states, many states and regions across the globe still live with the reality of conflict and violence. Modern warfare has become more like a social condition, an intract...
Jul 22, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 1
