Professor Feargal Cochrane

Professor Feargal Cochrane is an Emeritus Professor of International Conflict Analysis in the School of Politics and International Relations. He joined the University of Kent in September 2012.

He was previously Director of the Richardson Institute, a peace and conflict studies research centre at Lancaster University (2005-2012). Before this he was a Lecturer (1998-2004) & Senior Lecturer (2004-2012) in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. Professor Cochrane has also held academic posts at the Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster (1996-1998) and at Queen’s University Belfast (1994-1995). Professor Cochrane has published widely in the area of political violence and conflict transformation in leading international journals and with prestigious academic publishing houses and has presented his research at numerous conferences and through keynote addresses.

Professor Cochrane is regularly consulted by the media on issues relating to peace and conflict including BBC Radio and Channel 4 News, Time Magazine, Christian Science Monitor and others.

Professor Cochrane’s research interests centre on the dynamics of politically motivated violence and emerging peace processes within ethnically divided societies. He is particularly interested in political and cultural aspects of Diaspora communities and has conducted research on the Irish-American role in the Northern Ireland conflict. Beyond the Irish case, he is interested in how Diaspora communities intersect with peace processes and political violence within deeply divided societies and how these groups engage from the outside, with political and cultural processes taking place within their countries of origin. He is currently working on a single-authored book entitled Security and Migration in the Global Age which will be published by Routledge in 2014.

In addition to these research interests, He has also published extensively on issues relating to the political conflict in Northern Ireland and on civil society initiatives, especially non-governmental organisations and their capacity to assist conflict prevention and conflict transformation within divided societies. His most recent book Northern Ireland: The Reluctant Peace, was published by Yale University Press in 2013.

Feargal is a member of the governing council of the Conflict Research Society and has acted as an academic consultant for a number of NGOs including International Alert.