Austin Knuppe

Expertise

Foreign Policy, International Politics, Middle East Politics, War

Biography

Austin Knuppe is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Utah State University. Prior to USU, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. He received his Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University in 2019. His research interests include civilian survival during wartime, Middle East politics, and the role of religion in international politics.

In his current book project, he explore how Iraqis survived Islamic State governance between 2014 and 2018. He argues that individuals survive conflict by drawing on repertoires—consisting of practices, tools, organized routines, symbols, and rhetorical strategies—to navigate violent situations. My key finding is that Iraqis across conflict-affected communities relied on heuristics—or cognitive shortcuts—to detect and respond to threats. Local residents considered the identity and behavior of IS insurgents, as well as the relative risks of accommodating insurgent governance.

Austin is also one of the co-founders of the Conflict to Peace Lab at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. C2P works with local peacebuilding and development organizations in conflict-afflicted state in order to link innovative research, effective practice, and sound policy to foster durable peace. At C2P, Austin leads a research team of American, British, and Yemeni scholars studying the determinants of community resilience in conflict-affected communities across Yemen.