Kathleen Cunningham

Guy holding posters of Indiana Jones captioned “Professors: Good; Nazis bad”

I made signs expressing points of disagreement with the government

Rights violations and international public opinion Victims of human rights violations and their activist allies often attempt to rally external solidarity for aggrieved groups in order to end repression. We conduct a nation-wide survey experiment t...

Which types of repression are more likely to elicit foreign sympathy and support for victims? @kgcunnin.bsky.social and I find that US respondents are more sympathetic and supportive of those facing religious and language rights violations, but that these effects are not felt uniformly by partisans.

Just got my paper copy of this great book by Sherry Zaks. Recommend for anyone interested in rebel groups and rebel governance.

Rebel Governance in an Age of Climate Change In Myanmar’s resource-rich Kachin State, deforestation linked to illegal logging and mining has surged over the past decade. While the national government struggles to assert control, the Kachin [...]

www.newsecuritybeat.org/2025/07/rebe...

first one leaving this month!

First adventure in dog fostering!

Tactics of survival: Strategies of Resistance Data Project update - Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Ted Ellsworth, Harriet Goers, Michael Cowan, Oja Pathak, Ellin Chung, 2025 This article presents an update on the Strategies of Resistance Data Project. It extends the original coding of organizations seeking greater self-determination...

This update took longer than I anticipated, but it's out now! New data on organizational use of violent and nonviolent tactics. Using a diversity of nonviolent tactics is linked to longer survival for orgs.

journals.sagepub.com/eprint/SXPRW...

Rebel Governance in the Age of Climate Change Cambridge Core - Climatology and Climate Change - Rebel Governance in the Age of Climate Change

Excited to share our new book! Rebel groups can play key roles in addressing environmental and climate related challenges. w/ @dfjung.bsky.social @cloyle.bsky.social @lisgilmore.bsky.social @reyhuang.bsky.social & Leo Gentil Fernandes

www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Internal drivers of self-rule referendums - Harriet Goers, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Laia Balcells, 2025 From Catalonia to Kurdistan to Scotland, referendums have increasingly become popular strategies of self-rule movements. Despite this, many referendums are cons...

Strategic use of referenda by nonstate actors... referenda can be used as a way to gain or uphold status within a movement. w/ Harriet Goers & @laiabalcells.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

This isn't going to get the attention of Columbia, but it's at least as bad: the University of Maine is having its funding cut off because the governor of Maine dared to challenge Trump.

Armed rebel groups engage in climate governance - Climatic Change An estimated two billion people live in areas presently affected by fragility, armed conflict, and violence. In many of these locations armed non-state actors (e.g. rebel groups) rather than the state...

Climate change matters for security
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Pentagon guts national security program that harnessed social science Dozens of U.S. academics lose grants from Minerva program for studies related to terrorism, drug trafficking, and other threats

www.science.org/content/arti...