About Me
I’m a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. My work bridges international relations and comparative politics, with a substantive focus on the internal dynamics of armed groups. My research interests include political violence, international security, and conflict processes.
My dissertation, Running a Rebellion: Essays on Insurgent Leader Selection, Violence, and Institutional Change, asks: why are certain types of rebel leaders selected and to what extent do they affect the organizations they lead? To answer this question, I employ an array of quantitative and qualitative methods, including design-based causal inference, original data, and process-tracing of media and archival data. My work demonstrates that resource wealth systematically impacts the variation in the type of leader rebel groups select, and that assassinating rebel leaders produces sustained negative effects on the violent behavior of the group. However, I find that assassination does not necessarily reduce overall levels of violence in a conflict or change the institutions of the militant group.
I have received generous financial support from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), UBC, and York University.
Feel free to contact me at j.weiner@alumni.ubc.ca for more information about my research or teaching. I’m also on Twitter.