Wendy Wagner

Wendy is a political scientist specializing in international security, conflict processes, and foreign intervention. She earned her PhD from the University of California San Diego. She also holds a M.A. in Government, Conflict Studies and Counterterrorism from Reichman University in Israel. 

Wendy’s research explores questions around rebel-state coexistence, hybrid governance, and foreign influence. Her dissertation and book project, No War, Yet No Peace, shows that most civil conflicts terminate with informal political arrangements rather than victory or peace and how actors manage to sustain these arrangements for years and even decades. Her original dataset on rebel-state coexistence highlights empirical patterns that challenge conventional wisdom about the role of formality for peace and the prospects of territorial decentralization. In other work, she also examines why states share authority with other actors, including foreign interventions and proxy warfare. 

Before her PhD, Wendy also worked for the NATO Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk. And she has two dogs: Maxwell and Nanshe.