Dr Giulia Piccolino

PhD (University of Florence)

Pronouns: She/her
  • Senior Lecturer in Politics & International Relations
  • Associate Research Fellow at GIGA (German Institute of Global and Area Studies)
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Giulia Piccolino

Giulia joined Loughborough University in September 2016 as a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations and was promoted Senior Lecturer in May 2021. She was awarded her PhD at the University of Florence in Italy in 2012, with a dissertation where she explored the political use of nationalism during the conflict and peace process in Côte d’Ivoire. After her PhD, she held post-doctoral positions at the GIGA Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg and at the University of Pretoria. Prior to joining Loughborough, she also worked in the field of electoral assistance and observation for the United Nations and the Carter Center, an experience that has greatly strengthened her understanding of international conflict management. She sits in the editorial boards of the journals Third World Quarterly and African Security.

Giulia's main research interests lie in the field of peace and conflict studies: in particular, she is interested in understanding the transition from war to peace and the long-term legacies of violent conflicts. She has also interested in international responses to internal conflicts, and how they have evolved through history. She has published widely on the legacies of rebel governance and on non-liberal forms of post-conflict reconstruction in leading journals such as African Affairs, Comparative Political Studies, Democratization and Third World Quarterly. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) UK, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Santander UK and the Alexander Von Humboldt foundation. She has conducted research in Côte d’Ivoire, Colombia, Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Giulia has applied a wide range of research methods in her research, such as structured and open-ended interviews, focus groups and quantitative surveys. She is currently working on a book monograph about the international intervention in Côte d’Ivoire during and after the 2002-2011 Ivorian crisis. Together with Jeremy Speight (University of Alaska at Fairbanks), Phil Martin (George Mason University) she is also conducting research on post-conflict politics in Côte d’Ivoire as holder of a Harry Guggenheim Foundation Research Grant. 

Giulia convenes the undergraduate modules Politics of Developing Countries and International Conflict Management. Giulia is a fellow of the High Education Academy since July 2018. She has also supervised over thirty undergraduate and post-graduate dissertations. 

Current Postgraduate Research Students

  • Tomas Halgas: ‘Soft Power in Small States: Presidents’ Influence in Contemporary Slovakia and Iceland’.

Recent Postgraduate Research Students

  • Ibrahim Magara (2023) ‘Regional Peacemaking in Africa: a study of the Intergovernmental Authority On Development (IGAD)-Led Peace Process for South Sudan, 2013-2018’.
  • Dorina Baltag (2018) ‘Practice and performance: EU diplomacy in Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus after the inauguration of the European External Action Service, 2010–2015’.
  • Martin, Philip A., Giulia Piccolino, and Jeremy S. Speight, 2022, ‘The Political Legacies of Rebel Rule: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Côte d’Ivoire’, Comparative Political Studies, 55(9): 1439-1470.org/10.1177/00104140211047409.
  • Vélez-Torres, Irene, Kate Gough, James Larrea-Mejía, Giulia Piccolino and Krisna Ruette-Orihuela, 2021, ‘”Fests of Vests”: The Politics of Participation in Neoliberal Peacebuilding in Colombia’, Antipode, 54(2): 586-607. org/10.1111/anti.12785.
  • Piccolino, Giulia and Krisna Ruette-Orihuela, 2021, ‘The turn from peacebuilding to stabilisation: Colombia after the 2018 presidential election’, Third World Quarterly, 42(10): 2393-2412. doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1951201.
  • Martin, Philip A., Giulia Piccolino, and Jeremy S. Speight, 2021, ‘Ex-Rebel Authority after Civil War: Theory and Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire’, Journal of Comparative Politics, 53 (2): 209-232, doi.org/10.5129/001041521X15923094954447.
  • Piccolino, Giulia 2019, ‘Local Peacebuilding in a Victor’s Peace. Why Local Peace Fails Without National Reconciliation’, International Peacekeeping, 26(3): 354-379. doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2019.1583559.
  • Piccolino G. 2018, ‘Peacebuilding and statebuilding in post-2011 Côte d’Ivoire. A victor’s peace?, African Affairs, vol. 117(468), pp. 485–508. doi.org/10.1093/afraf/ady020.
  • Piccolino G. 2016 ‘Infrastructural state capacity for democratization? Voter registration and identification in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana compared’, Democratization, 23(3): 498-519. doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2014.983906.
  • Piccolino G. 2012, ‘David against Goliath in Côte d’Ivoire? Laurent Gbagbo’s war against global governance’, African Affairs, 111 (442): 1-23. doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adr064.