Experts
Prof Dr Ben O’Loughlin
Prof Dr Ben O’Loughlin is Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway, University of London. He completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2005. Ben is an expert in international political communication. He has completed a number of projects explaining how power and influence operate in relations between media, policymakers and publics. In recent years he has built up the theory strategic narratives in the book Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order (New York: Routledge, 2013) and in a volume of case studies entitled Forging the World: Strategic Narratives and International Relations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016). Ben is co-editor of the Sage journal Media, War & Conflict. He has published research in leading journals including Journal of Communication, Journalism, International Affairs, and Review of International Studies. In 2013-14 he was Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Committee on Soft Power and UK Influence and published the report Power and Persuasion in the Modern World. His research on media and conflict has been supported by grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, UK Technology Strategy Board, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the European Commission and the British Council.
Prof Alister Miskimmon
Prof Alister Miskimmon is a Head of Shool of History Philosophy and Politics at the Queen’s University, Belfast, UK. My research interests are primarily in the areas of strategic narratives, German, European and global security issues and European integration. I am currently working on three research projects. The first is as part of a EU-funded Jean Monnet Network researching crisis narratives in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. The second project is funded by the Noble Foundation focusing on Polish and UK defence policy after NATO’s Warsaw summit of 2016. This is a two-year project involving a team based at Queen’s University, Royal Holloway and a team based at Collegium Civitas, Warsaw. The third project is with the Charles University Prague, exploring new theoretical approaches to the study of German foreign and security policy. I have published a number of books including, Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order, New York: Routledge, 2013 (with Ben O’Loughlin and Laura Roselle) which was awarded the 2016 Best Book Award by the International Communication Section of the International Studies Association; The Politics of the New Germany 2nd Edition, London, Routledge (2011) (with Simon Green and Dan Hough); The Gathering Crisis: Germany and the Grand Coalition since 2005, Palgrave, Basingstoke (2008) (with William E Paterson and James Sloam) and Germany and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, Basingstoke, Palgrave, Basingstoke (2007). I also co-edited a volume with Ben O’Loughlin and Laura Roselle Forging the World: Strategic Narratives in International Relations, which was published by the University of Michigan Press in early 2017.
Early Career Researchers
Lisa Whitten
Lisa Whitten is a PhD candidate in politics studying at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Northern Ireland. Lisa’s research is focused on the impact of ‘Brexit’ on Northern Ireland’s political constitution and is supported by the Economic Social Research Council NINE Scholarship programme. Lisa has a BA in Politics from Newcastle University and MA in Conflict Studies from QUB. Before beginning her doctoral research, Lisa spent time working in various offices in the political sphere and public sector, including for an MP in the UK Parliament and in the Northern Ireland Executive’s Representation to the European Union in Brussels.
Pauline Heinrichs
Pauline Heinrichs is a third-year PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her thesis focuses on the strategic deployment of narratives in the making, dissolution and remaking of identities in and through political events, such as terrorist attacks. Her research aims to develop a theorisation of the event – strategic narrative paradigm. She recently completed a role as a research assistant on the Jean Monnet project Conflict, Crisis and Critical Diplomacy (C3EU), assisting in the narrative analysis of perceptions of the European Union from a wide range of stakeholders from conflict areas. She was selected as an emerging scholar at the Milton Wolf Seminar on Public Diplomacy. Pauline holds an undergraduate degree from Royal Holloway and a Master’s degree from Sciences Po, Paris.