Dr Danny Hirschel-Burns
Associate Lecturer
Danny Hirschel-Burns is an Associate Lecturer in the University of St Andrews’ School of International Relations in Scotland. He studies violence, ideology, rebel governance, and socialization with a focus on qualitative methods. His first book project, entitled the “The Political Projects of Rebels: The FARC and campesinos’ political ideas” examines the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) socialization of civilians, and specifically asks under what conditions this socialization changed civilians’ political ideas. The book draws on months of ethnographic work in former FARC areas, interviews with experts and ex-combatants, and surveys of Colombian civilians to identify variation in FARC governance practices and their subsequent effects on civilian political ideas. A second project, co-authored with Andrés Aponte and Andres Uribe, examines the relationship between territorial control and violence against civilians, and the nature of “governing violence” that armed groups exercise to implement their vision of social order. The first paper of this series, focused on the Colombian conflict, was published online at the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 2023.
He holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College in Peace and Conflict Studies and received his PhD from Yale’s Department of Political Science in December 2023. He has previously been a visiting researcher at the Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular/Programa por la Paz (CINEP-PPP) in Bogotá, Colombia, a United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Peace Scholar (2022-23), and a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies.