Dr Jan Selby

Biography

Jan Selby is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Director of the Sussex Centre for International Security (SCIS). His research focuses on peace processes; environmental security; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and international relations theory.

Jan studied at the universities of Durham and Lancaster, and received his PhD in Sociology from Lancaster in 2000. He subsequently taught in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Lancaster, and the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth, before joining Sussex in 2005. He was Head of Department at Sussex from 2007-2009. He has held Visiting Reserch Fellowships at McGill University, Tel Aviv University and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.

Jan Selby's research focuses on peace processes; environmental security; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and International Relations theory.

On peace processes, Jan's research advances a critical political economy- and geopolitics-informed account of contemporary peace processes and post-conflict peace-building. This research considers a large number of peace processes, but centres principally on the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Egyptian, Northern Ireland, India-Pakistan, Cypriot and Sudanese cases. An early stage of this research was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

On environmental security, Jan's research focuses especially on international water and climate politics. Jan is author is author of a monograph and various journal articles on Israeli-Palestinian and Middle Eastern water politics. Until very recently he was Principal Investigator on the EU Framework 7-funded project Climate Change, Hydro-Conflicts and Human Security (CLICO), undertaking research (together with Sussex colleague Clemens Hoffmann) on water-climate-conflict linkages in Cyprus, Israel-Palestine and Sudan. Together with Clemens, Jan recently convened a major international conference, Rethinking Climate Change, Conflict and Security, papers from which are forthcoming in the journal Geopolitics. Jan and Clemens are also currently working on a manuscript on water-climate-conflict issues, forthcoming with IB Tauris. Jan has served widely as a consultant and advisor on water policy issues.

While Jan has conducted field research in a number of countries, his main area focus is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is reflected in his work on both peace processes and environmental security.

Beyond these main areas of research, Jan maintains a strong interest in International Relations theory. He has published on contemporary global governance; on the use and misuse of the work of Michel Foucault in IR; on the work of Edward Said; and, together with Sussex colleague Anna Stavrianakis, on militarism and International Relations (their co-edited volume was published with Routledge in 2012).

Jan currently supervises 8 PhD students, and is interested in taking on new projects on peace processes; environmental security; and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Peace Processes (1st year undergraduate elective)

Peace Processes and Post-Conflict Reconstruction (spring term MA option course) 

I also give one-off lectures on the following courses: Issues in international Relations; Issues in International Security; New Security Challenges

Student Consultation

Office hours for autumn term 2013: Mondays and Fridays 2-3 pm.

Selby, Jan and Hoffmann, Clemens (2014) Divided environments: rethinking water security, climate change and conflict. IB Tauris.

Selby, Jan (2013) The myth of liberal peace-building. Conflict, Security and Development, 13 (1). pp. 57-86. ISSN 1467-8802

Selby, Jan (2013) Cooperation, domination and colonisation: the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee. Water Alternatives, 6 (1). pp. 1-24. ISSN 1965-0175

Selby, Jan and Hoffmann, Clemens (2012) Water scarcity, conflict, and migration: a comparative analysis and reappraisal. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 30 (6). pp. 997-1014. ISSN 1472-3425

Stavrianakis, Anna and Selby, Jan, eds. (2012) Militarism and international relations: political economy, security, theory. Cass Military Studies . Routledge, London. ISBN 9780415614917

Stavrianakis, Anna and Selby, Jan (2012) Militarism and international relations in the twenty-first century. In: Militarism and international relations: political economy, security, theory, edited by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby. Routledge, London, pp. 3-18. ISBN 9780415614917

Stavrianakis, Anna and Selby, Jan (2012) War becomes academic: human terrain, virtuous war and contemporary militarism. An interview with James Der Derian. In: Militarism and international relations: political economy, security, theory, edited by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby. Routledge, London, pp. 59-73. ISBN 9780415614917

Shaw, Martin (2012) Twenty-first century militarism: a historical-sociological framework. In: Militarism and international relations: political economy, security, theory. Cass Military Studies . Routledge, London. ISBN 9780415614917

Selby, Jan (2009) 'New security thinking' in Israeli-Palestinian water relations. In: Facing global environmental change: environmental, human, energy, food, health and water security concepts, edited by H G Brauch et al. Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace (4). Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, pp. 623-632. ISBN 9783540684879

Selby, Jan (2008) The political economy of peace processes. In: Whose peace? Critical perspectives on the political economy of peacebuilding, edited by N Cooper et al. New Security Challenges . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, United Kingdom, pp. 11-29. ISBN 9780230573352

Selby, Jan (2007) Engaging Foucault: discourse, liberal governance and the limits of Foucauldian IR. International Relations, 21 (3). pp. 324-345. ISSN 0047-1178

Selby, Jan (2006) Joint mismanagement: reappraising the Oslo water regime. In: Water for Life in the Middle East, edited by H Dweik and H Shuval. Jerusalem: Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, pp. 322-340.

Selby, Jan (2006) Edward Said: truth, justice and nationalism. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 8 (1). pp. 40-55. ISSN 1369-801X

Selby, Jan (2005) Oil and water: the contrasting anatomies of resource conflicts. Government and Opposition, 40 (2). pp. 200-224. ISSN 0017-257X

Selby, Jan (2005) Post-Zionist perspectives on contemporary Israel. New Political Economy, 10 (1). pp. 107-120. ISSN 1356-3467

Selby, Jan (2003) Water, power and politics in the Middle East: the other Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Library of Modern Middle East Studies . IB Tauris, London. ISBN 9781860649349

Selby, Jan (2003) Dressing up domination as 'cooperation': the case of Israeli-Palestinian water relations. Review of International Studies, 29 (1). pp. 121-138. ISSN 0260-2105

Selby, Dr Jan, Cochrane, F and Duffy, R, eds. (2003) Global Governance, Conflict and Resistance. London: Palgrave.

Chappells, Heather, Selby, Jan and Shove, Elizabeth (2001) Control and flow: rethinking the sociology, technology and politics of water consumption. In: Exploring sustainable consumption: environmental policy and the social sciences, edited by M J Cohen and J Murphy. Amsterdam: Pergamon, pp. 157-70.

Isaac, Jad and Selby, Jan (1996) The Palestinian water crisis: status, projections and potential for resolution. Natural Resources Forum, 20 (1). Pages 17-26. ISSN 01650203