Joakim Berndtsson

Peace and Development Research
PhD, Associate Senior Lecturer

About

I currently work as Assistant Senior Lecturer here at the School of Global Studies. Besides my work as a teacher and researcher, I am Director of Studies for the Swedish Master Program in Human Rights. I finished my PhD in 2009 and worked as a researcher for two years after that. During my undergraduate studies, I majored in International Relations and Political Science. I also hold a Master degree in English Literature.

Areas of interest

The privatisation of war and security, security studies, the history of state formation, civil-military relations, the transformation of war, UN peacekeeping. The doctoral dissertation from 2009 was entitled: The Privatisation of Security and State Control of Force: Changes, Challenges and the Case of Iraq.

Abstract/full text

Current research

Currently, I am working on a project entitled Security for Sale: Perceptions of Threat among Private Security Companies together with Associate Professor Maria Stern. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and it will investigate the role of private security companies as security experts. More specifically, it aims to analyse the ways in which security companies in different settings frame their understandings of security and risk and how they conceptualise the links between insecurity and the services they provide.

Abstract

I am also working on a pilot study on the use of private security companies in international operations, focusing on identifying challenges and on mapping attitudes to the private security sector among Swedish military officers. The study is part of a larger project at Gothenburg Research Institute at the School of Business, Economics and Law and is funded by the Swedish Armed Forces. The pilot study will be presented in December 2011.

Pressrelease, (in Swedish)

Teaching and tutoring

At the undergraduate level, I am course coordinator for a course in International Relations on peace, war and security. I also lecture on the programs in Global Studies as well as other courses on MA level. Finally, I am course coordinator (together with Peter Johansson) and teacher on the methodology course on the Swedish Master Program in Human Rights. In terms of tutoring and supervision, I am interested in all aspects of security privatisation, but also more broadly on topics related to international security, war and warfare, peacekeeping and civil-military relations.