Jeff Bridoux

Tel:  +44 (0)1970 623111 ext 1845
Fax:  +44 (0)1970 622709
Email:  jeb1@aber.ac.uk

Jeff Bridoux is Lecturer in International Politics/Post-Conflict Reconstruction. He joined the department in 2010 as a postdoctoral fellow on the ‘Political Economies of Democratisation' project, funded by the ERC. He holds a BA in Political Science/International Relations and a Master of Political Science from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels), and a PhD from The University of Kent (Canterbury). His research interests are located in the use of the concept of power in International Relations, especially regarding American Foreign Policy, international politics of the Middle East and East Asia, post-conflict reconstruction, democracy promotion and democratisation.

 

Research

As a postdoctoral fellow on the ‘Political Economies of Democratisation' project, funded by the ERC, Jeff Bridoux analyses democracy promotion as understood and implemented by the United States in the post-Cold War era. Currently, he is implementing the third phase of the research project, which focuses on policy recommendation, through a programme of dissemination of the project’s findings with a special focus on non-academic audiences (policy-makers, democracy promotion practitioners, general public).

 

His current and future research concentrates on US foreign policy, nation building, post-conflict reconstruction and the concept of power. More specifically, the project builds on a conceptual framework, which relies on a Gramscian concept of power and on the idea of conflicting perceptions of power, to explain outcomes of postwar reconstruction. The overall objective of the research is thus to use the concept of power as an analytical framework to identify which policies of nation building, and especially those relying on the use of the military in post-conflict societies, are the most productive while being the less damaging for local populations.  

 

Books

American Foreign Policy and Postwar Reconstruction. Comparing Japan and Iraq (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).

With Milja Kurki, Democracy Promotion: A Critical Introduction (Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming).

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

 

‘Postwar Reconstruction, the Reverse Course and the New Way Forward: Bis Repetitas?’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 5:1 (2010): 43-66.

‘It’s the Political, Stupid: National versus Transnational Perspectives on Democratisation in Iraq’, International Journal of Human Rights, 15:4 (2010): 552-71.

with Malcolm Russell, ‘Liberal Democracy Promotion in Iraq: A Model for the Middle East and North Africa?’, Foreign Policy Analysis, (forthcoming 2012).

with Milja Kurki, ‘Cosmetic Agreements and the Cracks Beneath: Ideological Convergences and Divergences in US and EU on Democracy Promotion’ Cambridge Journal of International Affairs (forthcoming).

with Anja Gebel, ‘Flexibility versus Inflexibility: Discursive Discrepancy in US Democracy Promotion and Anti-corruption Policies’, Third World Quarterly, 33:10 (2012).  

‘US Democracy Promotion: In Search of Purpose’, contribution to a roundtable on democracy promotion, International Relations (forthcoming).

Chapters in Books

with Milja Kurki, ‘Liberal democracy and its multiple meanings in US democracy promotion’ in Milja Kurki, Democratic Futures: Re-visioning Democracy Promotion and Democratization (Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming).

Work In progress

 

‘US Democracy Promotion Today: Concepts and Practices’.

‘US Democracy Promotion and the Commodification of Democracy’.

Other publications - Media

 

Interview for the Western Mail on future of democracy in the Arab world following the protests in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, 25 February 2011.

‘Why Libya Will Not Be a Second Iraq’, Open Democracy, 15 April. Available on http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/jeff-bridoux/why-libya-will-not-be-second-iraq.

'Do’s and don’ts for rebuilding Libya after Gaddafi’, Western Mail, 22 April 2011.

Jeff Bridoux, ‘Building Pyramids: Post-conflict Reconstruction in Libya’, International Studies Today, Vol. 1, No.2 (December 2011), pp. 6, 8.

Television

 

‘The Democracy Industry’, Panelist on talk show ‘Cross Talk’ on current affairs, Russia Today. Other panellists: Tariq Ali and Bruce Jentleson, 31 January 2011.