Professor Timothy Edmunds

Personal profile

ESRC Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham 1999-2000; ESRC Research Fellow and Lecturer at King's College, London, and the Joint Services Command and Staff College 2000-03; Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) 2002-03. Lecturer at Bristol from 2003. Senior Lecturer from August 2006. Reader from August 2009. Professor from August 2012.

Research

I am currently Director of the Global Insecurities Centre in SPAIS. My research focuses on defence and security institutions in processes of political and organisational change. Using empirical studies of the postcommunist region, the former Yugoslavia, and most recently the UK, I examine how organisational responses to common challenges – including democratisation, European integration and defence reform – are shaped and conditioned by contingent factors. My work emphasises the normative and contested nature of these processes, in contrast to much literature in this area which presents them as a neutral, technocratic process of organisational betterment or strategic necessity. In so doing, it highlights the ways in which externally derived, often generic, models of reform can be in tension with local political, institutional and societal circumstances, and the manner in which local actors respond to these. Selected publications follow:

Books

• Edmunds T. and Forster A. Out of Step: The Case for Change in the British Armed Forces (London: Demos, November 2007). 
• Edmunds, T. Security Sector Reform in Transforming Societies: Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007). 
• Edmunds, T. Cottey, A. and Forster, A. (eds) Civil-Military Relations in Postcommunist Europe: Reviewing the Transition (London: Routledge, 2006).
• Edmunds, T and Malešič, M. (eds) Defence Transformation in Europe: Evolving Military Roles (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2005).
• Edmunds, T. Defence Reform in Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro, Adelphi Paper 360 (Oxford: International Institute for Strategic Studies and Oxford University Press, 2003).
• Edmunds, T. and Germann, G. Towards Security Sector Reform in Post-Cold War Europe: A Framework for Assessment (Baden-Baden: NOMOS-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003).
• Forster, A. Edmunds, T. and Cottey, A. (eds) Soldiers and Societies in Postcommunist Europe: Legitimacy and Change (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003).
• Forster, A. Edmunds, T. and Cottey A. (eds) The Challenge of Military Reform in Postcommunist Europe: Building Professional Armed Forces (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002).
• Cottey, A. Edmunds, T. and Forster, A. (eds) Democratic Control of the Military in Postcommunist Europe: Guarding the Guards (Basingstoke: Palgrave Press, 2002).

Journal Articles (selected)

• Edmunds, T. 'British Civil-Military Relations and the Problem of Risk', International Affairs, 88: 2, March 2012.
• Edmunds, T. 'The Defence Dilemma in Britain', International Affairs, 86: 2, March 2010.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Illiberal Resilience in Serbia’, Journal of Democracy, 20: 1, January 2009.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Adapting to Democracy: Reflections on “Transition” in Serbia and the Western Balkans’, Western Balkans Security Observer, No. 7-8 (October 2007 – March 2008).
• Edmunds, T. ‘Intelligence Agencies and Democratisation: Continuity and Change in Serbia after Milošević’, Europe-Asia Studies, 60: 1 2008.
• Edmunds, T. ‘What Are Armed Forces For? The Changing Nature of Military Roles in Europe’, International Affairs, 82: 5 November 2006.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Civil-Military Relations in Serbia-Montenegro: An Army in Search of a State’, European Security, 14: 1 March 2005.
• Edmunds, T. and Bellamy, A. ‘Civil-Military Relations in Croatia: Politicisation and Politics of Reform’, European Security, 14: 1 March 2005.
• Cottey, A. Edmunds, T. and Forster, A. ‘Civil-Military Relations in Postcommunist Europe: Assessing the Transition’, European Security, 14: 1 March 2005. With Andrew Cottey and Anthony Forster.
• Edmunds, T. ‘NATO and its New Members', Survival 45: 3 Autumn 2003.
• Edmunds, T. ‘A Turning Point in Yugoslavia’s Civil-Military Relations’, Defence Studies, 3: 2 Summer 2003.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Political Conditionality and Security Sector Reform in Postcommunist Europe’, Conflict Security and Development, 3: 1 2003.
• Cottey, A. Edmunds, T. and Forster, A. ‘The Second Generation Problematic: Rethinking Democracy and Civil-Military Relations’, Armed Forces and Society, 29: 1 Fall 2002.
• Cottey, A. Edmunds, T. and Forster, A. ‘Military Matters: Beyond Prague’, NATO Review, 50: 3 October 2002.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Promoting Democratic Control of Armed Forces in Central and Eastern Europe’, Defence Studies, 1: 1 2001.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Searching for a Nationalism: Foci for Kazakh Identity in the 1990’s’, Central Asia Monitor, No.2 2000.
• Edmunds T. ‘Power and Powerlessness in Kazakhstani Society: Ethnic Problems in Perspective’, Central Asian Survey, 17: 3 1998.

Other Publications (selected)

• Edmunds T. and Milosevic, M. 'Contributer Profile: Republic of Serbia', Providing for Peacekeeping Project, (New York: International Peace Institute, 2012)
• Edmunds T. 'Security Sector Reform', in The Routledge Handbook of Civil-Military Relations (London: Routledge, 2012).
• Edmunds, T. 'This New Military Covenant May be Law but will it be Honoured?', Parliamentary Brief, June 2011.
• Edmunds, T. ‘A Tough Shake-Up that Just Might Pay off in 2015’, Parliamentary Brief, 17 January 2011.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Where Next for British Defence’, Public Servant, September 2010.
• Edmunds, T. ‘Informal Institutions of Political Participation in the Serbian Security Sector', in Denisa Kostovicova and Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic (eds), Persistent State Weakness in the Global Age, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).
  
• Edmunds, T. 'Security Sector Reform: Concepts and Implementation', DCAF Working Paper no. 86 (Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2002).

Teaching

I am currently on study leave and am not teaching. However, in previous years I have taught Conflict, Security and Development (at MSc level), Foreign Policy Analysis (final year undergraduate and MSc level), the Dissertation (final year undergraduate), British Politics and Policy Making (second year undergraduate) and Study Skills (first year undergraduate). I have lectured to both Higher and Advanced Command and Staff Courses at the UK Defence Academy and am currently external examiner to the Defence Studies MA at King's College London.

I supervise or have supervised PhD students on a wide range of topics, including: Kazakh-Russian relations; Pakistani civil-military relations; military intervention; NGO accountability in Georgia; European defence and security policy; ethnic politics in Kazakhstan; western security interventions in Kenya; humanitarian aid and conflict. I welcome new PhD supervision on themes of defence and security policy, civil-military relations and security sector reform, intervention and development and security.  I am particularly interested in the UK, the western Balkans and Central Asia.

During 2009-12 I was Director of Teaching and Learning in the Department of Politics and latterly SPAIS.

Full publications list in the University of Bristol publications system