Kars de Bruijne

Kars de Bruijne is a Senior Research Fellow with the Clingendael's Conflict Research Unit. He is the Head of the Sahel programme focusing on the role that local and customary authorities can play on governance provision and stability. His academic research on West Africa explores the effect of information asymmetry on political violence, how armed actors target customary authorities, and how regimes control subnational power.

Kars obtained a PhD in Conflict Studies at the University of Groningen (2016). He has held various positions that revolved around understanding and mitigating violent conflict, including leading various desks at ACLED (Syria, South America, West Africa). He is also a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sussex on African regimes and elite violence (since 2018). His work is driven by a commitment to evidence-based research where he prefers mix-method research with a quantitative twist. Kars controls a wide range of research-methods including oral history interviewing, deep hanging out, FGDs, process-tracing, archival research, regression analysis, content analysis, and game theory. He carried out fieldwork in Ghana (2012), Turkey (2008/2009), and Slovenia (2014) and extensive research in Cote d’Ivoire (2019), Vanguard members of the Revolutionary United Front (2012-2015), Sierra Leone street gangs, and party militias (2018-2019).

Publications:

Molenaar, F., Demuynck, M., and De Bruijne, K. Acteurs Coutumiers dans un Contexte Singulier - La Résilience des Autorités Traditionelles et Religieuses Face à l’Extrémisme Violent au Mali, au Niger et au Burkina Faso. Report, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Clingendael, and USAID, 23 March 2022

Molenaar, F., Demuynck, M., and De Bruijne, K. Customary Characters in Uncustomary Circumstances - Traditional and Religious Authorities’ Resilience to Violent Extremism in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Report, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Clingendael, and USAID, 23 March 2022

De Bruijne, K. Méthodologie de l'Étude Acteurs Coutumiers dans un Contexte Singulier. Report, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Clingendael, and USAID, 23 March 2022

De Bruijne, K. Customary Characters in Uncustomary Circumstances - Methodology. Report, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Clingendael, and USAID, 23 March 2022

Willeme, A., Schmauder, A. and De Bruijne, K. Acteurs Coutumiers dans un Contexte Singulier: Le Cas de la Région du Sahel au Burkina Faso. Report, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Clingendael, and USAID, 16 February 2022

Willeme, A., Schmauder, A. and De Bruijne, K. Customary Characters in Uncustomary Circumstances: The Case of Burkina Faso's Sahel Region. Report, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Clingendael, and USAID, 16 February 2022