Stephen McLoughlin joined the Centre for Peace and Security at Coventry University in August 2020. His research interests include mass atrocity prevention, the role of the UN in conceptualising and carrying out prevention, the causes of genocide and mass atrocities, and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). He is the author of The Structural Prevention of Mass Atrocities (Routledge 2014) and Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention (with Alex Bellamy)(Palgrave 2018, with Alex Bellamy). He has published articles in Journal of Genocide Research, Global Governance, International Peacekeeping and International Affairs, among others.

Stephen is particularly interested in why it is that mass atrocities do not occur in places where the risk factors associated with such violence are salient. He is also interested in the role that political leaders play in mitigating the risk associated with these crimes. Stephen is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. He has been writing about mass atrocity prevention and pillar one-related issues for more than a decade, and has published extensively in this area.

Stephen’s current research is focussed on three distinct strands. The first is an investigation of the ways that opposition parties and leaders successfully challenge authoritarian populist regimes. The second is an exploration of the ways that local perspectives can shape the structure and content of peace education. The third is exploring the ways risk associated with genocide and other mass atrocities has been managed over the long term, and what insights such dynamics have for prevention.

Mass atrocity and conflict prevention, mass atrocity early warning, peace education, peacbuilding, comparative genocide studies