• Project

    Title : Between Intervention and Sovereignty: Responsibility and International Authority in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina


    My doctoral research investigates how responsibility is framed, allocated, and transitioned by international actors following intervention in intrastate conflict. Focusing on post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, the project examines how international and local actors negotiate responsibility during the long and uneven process of reconstruction and peacebuilding.
    The research is guided by the central puzzle of why Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to experience international intervention and oversight nearly three decades after the signing of the peace agreement. It explores how international understandings of responsibility shape the boundaries between intervention and sovereignty, and how incomplete transfers of responsibility from international to local actors contribute to ongoing post-conflict fragility.
    Using a mixed-methods design, the study combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and the Dayton Peace Agreement from 1995 to 2023. This approach traces how responsibility is articulated, justified, and redefined across different phases of intervention and transition.
    The project contributes to debates in state-building, transitional justice, and responsibility by revealing how the framing of responsibility within authoritative discourse shape post-conflict reconstruction and the dynamics of international involvement. It develops an integrated understanding of post-conflict responsibility practices that can inform analyses beyond the Bosnian case.

  • Career

     
    05/2020 Member of the Graduate School of Politics (GraSP), Institute for Political Science, University of Münster.
    2019 Exam Proctor at the Department of Economics, The University of Western Ontario, Canada.
    2018 - 2019 Graduate Teaching Assistant – Women’s Studies and Feminist Research – Introduction to Women’s Studies, University of Western Ontario, Canada.
    2018 - 2019 M.A. Women’s Studies and Feminist Research in Collaboration with Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, University of Western Ontario, Canada
    2014-2018 B.A. Honors Specialization in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research. Minor in Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, University of Western Ontario, Canada

     

  • Publications

    Selected publications

    • Cullen, Laura C. (2020). Female Combatants and the Post-Conflict Process in Sierra Leone. Journal of International Women's Studies, 21(2), 114-125. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol21/iss2/10

    Selected conference talks and papers

    • April 2019: World Women’s Studies Conference – Female Combatants and the Post-Conflict Process in Sierra Leone.
    • 2017: Flaunting It! Women’s Studies Undergraduate Conference - Tomb of the “Forgotten” Soldier: Selective Grief and Remembering at the Canadian National War Memorial.

     

  • Further Information

    Research interests

    • Post-Conflict Responsibility
    • Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
    • International Relations and Justice
    • Human Rights

    Awards and scholarships