Laia Balcells

Person

Professor at Georgetown University

Laia Balcells is Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Government and Professor in Georgetown University’s Conflict Resolution MA programme. Her research explores the determinants of political violence and civil wars, warfare dynamics during conflict, and nationalism and ethnic conflict. Her first book, entitled Rivalry and Revenge: the Politics of Violence during Civil War was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017 and it was a runner up for the 2018 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year Prize.

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Project

Spain case study (part of the ‘Inequality and Governance in Unstable Democracies’ programme)

The case of Spain offers an interesting context to test the relationship between inequality, trust, and governance in a democracy. After almost four decades of authoritarian rule, preceded by a bloody civil conflict in the late 1930s, democracy was restored in Spain in 1975. Ever since, the...

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Working Paper

Secession and Social Polarization: Evidence from Catalonia

WIDER Working Paper;2021/2

Does secessionism lead to social polarisation? Despite much research on independence movements, their relationship to polarisation, a key mechanism theorised as increasing the chances of violent conflict, remains less understood. We argue that secessionist conflicts can polarise along both...

Laia Balcells & 2 others

22 January 2021

Journal Article

The Double Logic of Internal Purges: New Evidence from Francoist Spain

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 26.3

States often engage in internal purges to eliminate political dissidents within their own ranks. However, partly because of the absence of reliable data, we know little about the logic and dynamics of these purges, particularly of lower-rank members of the state. Why do state authorities...

Laia Balcells

Francisco Villamil

9 October 2020

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