Team

Corinna Jentzsch

Corinna Jentzsch is the Principal Investigator of COUNTERRR and an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University. She is a scholar of social movements, civil war, international security, African politics, and fieldwork ethics, and has conducted fieldwork in Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, and Tunisia. Her current research focuses on government responses to emerging insurgencies, civilian collective action during civil war, and conflict transformation and escalation.

Her recent book Violent Resistance: Militia Formation and Civil War in Mozambique (Cambridge University Press, 2022) examines how and why community-based militias form and spread. Her work has also appeared in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Perspective on Politics, Political Geography, Civil Wars, Africa, ForeignAffairs.com, African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, and several edited volumes.

She received her PhD from Yale University, and prior to that studied at Free University Berlin and Sciences Po Paris. She is an associate editor of the International Studies Review, the flagship journal of the International Studies Association.

Ivan Dunduro

Ivan Dunduro is a PhD candidate in the COUNTERRR project and at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology (ISCTEM, Mozambique) and a Master’s degree in Research for International Development (SOAS, United Kingdom), and has 14 years of professional experience working on development programs in Mozambique.

His research interests lie at the intersection of policy, conflict, and development, with a particular focus on how interventions are conceptualized and implemented to repress, resist, and reorder in contexts experiencing violent insurgencies. Through his doctoral work, he aims to contribute to critical debates on how development programming and state responses can be designed to more effectively address the dynamics of jihadist insurgencies in Africa.

Emmanuel Ogwuche Okpe

Emmanuel Ogwuche Okpe is a PhD candidate in the COUNTERRR project and at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University. He specializes in the study of terrorism, counterterrorism, insurgency, counterinsurgency, political violence and conflicts in Africa particularly the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria and the Lake Chad. His PhD research at Leiden University explores the Nigerian government and community responses to the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria.

Prior to joining the Institute of Political Science as a PhD candidate, he was a Commonwealth Scholar at the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK where he researched why Boko Haram recruits child soldiers in Northeast Nigeria. He obtained a Master of Letters in Terrorism and Political Violence from the University of St Andrews and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science (First Class Honours) from the Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State, Nigeria.