Sarah G Phillips
Biographic Data
| ID | 3776605 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah G Phillips |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah G |
| FAMILY NAME | Phillips |
| SIGNATURE | PHILLIPS S G |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5116-0854 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Hybrid Peace, Hybrid War: How Local Peacebuilders Frame the Non-Local Violence They Confront
Knowing What Not to Know About Islamic State: Terrorism Studies and Public Secrecy
This article identifies key differences between mainstream and Iraq-based understandings of Islamic State (ISIS) and how it rose to power in Iraq. The conventional wisdom in English-language discourses focuses on the group's organizational capabilities, particularly its military capacity, ideology, propaganda, and governance/state-building apparatus. Iraqi discourses suggest that in addition to these capabilities, the state opponents of ISIS enab…
Trivializing Terrorists: An Exchange – The Author Replies
Trivializing Terrorists: How Counterterrorism Knowledge Undermines Local Resistance to Terrorism
This article explores how counterterrorism knowledge practices affect the groups they study.We argue that these practices typically construct terrorist groups as ontologically stable and organizationally rational, which makes them appear familiar to, and so governable by, counterterrorism organizations.We show that by excluding prevalent local knowledge, Western counterterrorism policy discourses assign the power to construct the category of "ter…
When There Was No Aid: War and Peace in Somaliland
For all of the doubts raised about the effectiveness of international aid in advancing peace and development, there are few examples of developing countries that are even relatively untouched by it. This book offers us one such example. Using evidence from Somaliland’s experience of peace-building, the book challenges two of the most engrained presumptions about violence and poverty in the global South. First, that intervention by actors in the g…
The primacy of domestic politics and the reproduction of poverty and insecurity
The dominant international discourse about ‘fragile states’ calls for external actors to build the capacity of domestic institutions as a means of overcoming poverty and insecurity in the global South. It frames the pathway to greater peace and prosperity as primarily, if not entirely, domestically constituted, thereby confining the causes of poverty and insecurity to the domestic arena as well. This article argues that by focusing so intently on…
Proximities of Violence: Civil Order Beyond Governance Institutions
This article is concerned with the relationship between the quality of a country's governance institutions and the degree of civil order it experiences. Using evidence from Somaliland, it argues that order and peaceful cohabitation can be sustained not only when, but even partly because, governance institutions are incapable of reliably controlling violence. It suggests that Somaliland's postconflict peace is less grounded in the constraining pow…
Making al-Qa’ida legible: Counter-terrorism and the reproduction of terrorism
Why did America’s counter-terrorism strategy in Yemen fail to contain al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula in the years prior to the Yemeni government’s collapse in 2015? Moreover, why did the US administration think that its strategy was successful? This article draws from field research in Yemen and a diverse array of other Yemeni sources to argue that the answer lies in the fact that there are two broad, but ultimately irreconcilable, ontologies…
Order beyond the state: Explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy
How do some places with weak institutional capacity avoid being caught in the cycles of violence and criminality so often associated with African institutions in the 'failed states' literature? This paper exploits in-country variation in piracy incidence across different regions of Somalia to investigate how some territories with low state capacity can nonetheless deter piracy and provide relative order. We find that the usual explanation - state…
When less was more: External assistance and the political settlement in Somaliland
The internationally unrecognized 'Republic of Somaliland' presents a case in which the domestic drivers of peace and development may be examined when aid and other forms of international intervention are not significant variables. The relative autonomy of its peace process offers an alternative perspective on post-conflict transitions to that offered in the majority of the literature, which instead problematizes either the perverse outcomes or un…
Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa
The two regions with the greatest incidence of maritime piracy in Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, are also known for the low quality of the institutions underlying their political economies. This article investigates how institutions in these areas shape and constrain the sophisticated maritime piracy syndicates and their behaviour. Engaging with the literature on state failure and maritime piracy, we argue that norms and insti…
Al-Qaeda and the Struggle for Yemen
Since the attempted bombing of an American passenger jet on Christmas Day 2009 was traced to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, the Yemeni government has been trying to convince foreign donors that it requires extraordinary financial assistance to stay afloat in the face of the al-Qaeda threat. The West is right to worry about Yemen's ability to contain the conflict that is intensifying within its borders and has responded with a …
When less was more: External assistance and the political settlement in Somaliland
The internationally unrecognized 'Republic of Somaliland' presents a case in which the domestic drivers of peace and development may be examined when aid and other forms of international intervention are not significant variables. The relative autonomy of its peace process offers an alternative perspective on post-conflict transitions to that offered in the majority of the literature, which instead problematizes either the perverse outcomes or un…
Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa
The two regions with the greatest incidence of maritime piracy in Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, are also known for the low quality of the institutions underlying their political economies. This article investigates how institutions in these areas shape and constrain the sophisticated maritime piracy syndicates and their behaviour. Engaging with the literature on state failure and maritime piracy, we argue that norms and insti…
Making al-Qa’ida legible: Counter-terrorism and the reproduction of terrorism
Why did America’s counter-terrorism strategy in Yemen fail to contain al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula in the years prior to the Yemeni government’s collapse in 2015? Moreover, why did the US administration think that its strategy was successful? This article draws from field research in Yemen and a diverse array of other Yemeni sources to argue that the answer lies in the fact that there are two broad, but ultimately irreconcilable, ontologies…
Proximities of Violence: Civil Order Beyond Governance Institutions
This article is concerned with the relationship between the quality of a country's governance institutions and the degree of civil order it experiences. Using evidence from Somaliland, it argues that order and peaceful cohabitation can be sustained not only when, but even partly because, governance institutions are incapable of reliably controlling violence. It suggests that Somaliland's postconflict peace is less grounded in the constraining pow…
Order beyond the state: Explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy
How do some places with weak institutional capacity avoid being caught in the cycles of violence and criminality so often associated with African institutions in the 'failed states' literature? This paper exploits in-country variation in piracy incidence across different regions of Somalia to investigate how some territories with low state capacity can nonetheless deter piracy and provide relative order. We find that the usual explanation - state…
Trivializing Terrorists: How Counterterrorism Knowledge Undermines Local Resistance to Terrorism
This article explores how counterterrorism knowledge practices affect the groups they study.We argue that these practices typically construct terrorist groups as ontologically stable and organizationally rational, which makes them appear familiar to, and so governable by, counterterrorism organizations.We show that by excluding prevalent local knowledge, Western counterterrorism policy discourses assign the power to construct the category of "ter…
The primacy of domestic politics and the reproduction of poverty and insecurity
The dominant international discourse about ‘fragile states’ calls for external actors to build the capacity of domestic institutions as a means of overcoming poverty and insecurity in the global South. It frames the pathway to greater peace and prosperity as primarily, if not entirely, domestically constituted, thereby confining the causes of poverty and insecurity to the domestic arena as well. This article argues that by focusing so intently on…
Al-Qaeda and the Struggle for Yemen
Since the attempted bombing of an American passenger jet on Christmas Day 2009 was traced to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, the Yemeni government has been trying to convince foreign donors that it requires extraordinary financial assistance to stay afloat in the face of the al-Qaeda threat. The West is right to worry about Yemen's ability to contain the conflict that is intensifying within its borders and has responded with a …
Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa
The two regions with the greatest incidence of maritime piracy in Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, are also known for the low quality of the institutions underlying their political economies. This article investigates how institutions in these areas shape and constrain the sophisticated maritime piracy syndicates and their behaviour. Engaging with the literature on state failure and maritime piracy, we argue that norms and insti…
When less was more: External assistance and the political settlement in Somaliland
The internationally unrecognized 'Republic of Somaliland' presents a case in which the domestic drivers of peace and development may be examined when aid and other forms of international intervention are not significant variables. The relative autonomy of its peace process offers an alternative perspective on post-conflict transitions to that offered in the majority of the literature, which instead problematizes either the perverse outcomes or un…
Order beyond the state: Explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy
How do some places with weak institutional capacity avoid being caught in the cycles of violence and criminality so often associated with African institutions in the 'failed states' literature? This paper exploits in-country variation in piracy incidence across different regions of Somalia to investigate how some territories with low state capacity can nonetheless deter piracy and provide relative order. We find that the usual explanation - state…
Proximities of Violence: Civil Order Beyond Governance Institutions
This article is concerned with the relationship between the quality of a country's governance institutions and the degree of civil order it experiences. Using evidence from Somaliland, it argues that order and peaceful cohabitation can be sustained not only when, but even partly because, governance institutions are incapable of reliably controlling violence. It suggests that Somaliland's postconflict peace is less grounded in the constraining pow…
Making al-Qa’ida legible: Counter-terrorism and the reproduction of terrorism
Why did America’s counter-terrorism strategy in Yemen fail to contain al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula in the years prior to the Yemeni government’s collapse in 2015? Moreover, why did the US administration think that its strategy was successful? This article draws from field research in Yemen and a diverse array of other Yemeni sources to argue that the answer lies in the fact that there are two broad, but ultimately irreconcilable, ontologies…
When There Was No Aid: War and Peace in Somaliland
For all of the doubts raised about the effectiveness of international aid in advancing peace and development, there are few examples of developing countries that are even relatively untouched by it. This book offers us one such example. Using evidence from Somaliland’s experience of peace-building, the book challenges two of the most engrained presumptions about violence and poverty in the global South. First, that intervention by actors in the g…
The primacy of domestic politics and the reproduction of poverty and insecurity
The dominant international discourse about ‘fragile states’ calls for external actors to build the capacity of domestic institutions as a means of overcoming poverty and insecurity in the global South. It frames the pathway to greater peace and prosperity as primarily, if not entirely, domestically constituted, thereby confining the causes of poverty and insecurity to the domestic arena as well. This article argues that by focusing so intently on…
Trivializing Terrorists: How Counterterrorism Knowledge Undermines Local Resistance to Terrorism
This article explores how counterterrorism knowledge practices affect the groups they study.We argue that these practices typically construct terrorist groups as ontologically stable and organizationally rational, which makes them appear familiar to, and so governable by, counterterrorism organizations.We show that by excluding prevalent local knowledge, Western counterterrorism policy discourses assign the power to construct the category of "ter…
Trivializing Terrorists: An Exchange – The Author Replies
Knowing What Not to Know About Islamic State: Terrorism Studies and Public Secrecy
This article identifies key differences between mainstream and Iraq-based understandings of Islamic State (ISIS) and how it rose to power in Iraq. The conventional wisdom in English-language discourses focuses on the group's organizational capabilities, particularly its military capacity, ideology, propaganda, and governance/state-building apparatus. Iraqi discourses suggest that in addition to these capabilities, the state opponents of ISIS enab…
Hybrid Peace, Hybrid War: How Local Peacebuilders Frame the Non-Local Violence They Confront
Political science (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Political economy (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (5 works) · Development economics (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Terrorism (4 works)