Staff profile

I joined Durham University in 2012, after three years in Kenya (2009-12), where I built-up a programme of the German Civil Peace Service. Prior to that, I worked as Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Magdeburg (2008-09), and as research fellow at the University of Hamburg (2001-04). I also obtained my PhD from the University of Hamburg (2010), but my PhD research was additionally supported by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale) where I studied from 2006 to 2008. From 2004-05 I worked as conflict management expert in Southern Somalia.

My main research interests are on the causes, actors and dynamics of violence and war, orders of violence beyond the state, state dynamics and international interventions - often with a focus on the everyday. In the course of my research, I have developed a particular interest in the material side of both violence and international relations. In my latest monograph, Precarious Urbanism, my co-author and I explore link between displacement and city-making and shed light on the political economy that links displacement with urban reconstruction. More recently, I turned to infrastructures, and study how they shape the dynamics of capitalism and co-produce social orders. 

Currently, I am conducting three research projects. Financed by AHRC/DFID, I compare protection practices of UN and AU military peacekeepers in the DRC and Somalia. The research studies experiences of military personnel and contrasts them with experiences of civilians and aid workers. My second, Carnegie funded research project uses an infrastructural lens to examine international relations between the Arabian Gulf and the Horn of Africa, and the effects of port expansions on the everyday of city dwellers in the Horn. A third, GCRF funded research project, examines how urban poor access infrastructures. It looks into eight cities in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somaliland and Zimbabwe and works with civil society organisations to improve infrastructural services in marginalised neighbourhoods.

I have held research grants from ESRC, AHRC, GCRF, Carnegie New York, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. 

In SGIA, I am currently the Deputy Head of School for Research, and have previously held  the posts of Executive Director for the Durham Global Security Institute (2018-19), Postgraduate Research Director (2015-17), and MSc programme director of the Durham Global Security Institute (2012-15).

• Global Political Sociology
• State Dynamics and Government beyond the State
• Actors and Dynamics of Violence and Wars
• International Interventions, State- and Peacebuilding
• Displacement and Urbanization
• Infrastructures and Logistics
• Bureaucracy and Bureaucratization
• East Africa

• 2019: Steering Committee of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence:
• 2007: Speaker DVPW Working Group Orders of Violence:
• 2000: Consultancies for:
  - International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
  - Bundesministerium fuer Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit (BMZ)
  - Department for International Development (DFID)
  - International Rescue Committee (IRC)
  - Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
  - Rift Valley Institute
  - Bertelsmann Foundation
  - Danish Refugee Council

Authored book

• Bakonyi, J., & Chonka, P. (2023). Precarious Urbanism: Displacement, Belonging and the Reconstruction of Somali Cities. Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529215229.001.0001
• Bakonyi, J. (2011). Land ohne Staat: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im Krieg am Beispiel Somalias.(Country without a State: Economy and Society in Wars. The example of Somalia). Campus

Chapter in book

• Bakonyi, J., & Darwich, M. (in press). Capitalism and Infrastructural Ordering: (Re)Crafting of Statehood and Territorial Power. In H.-J. Bieling, T. Diez, R. Flemmer, & A. Futterer (Eds.), Transnational Infrastructures and the Transformation of Global Orders. Cham: Springer Nature
• Bakonyi, J., & Darwich, M. (2024). Port infrastructure and state-building in the Horn of Africa. In R. Mansour (Ed.), Borders of Conflict: Navigating Policy in a Transnational Ecosystem (51-62). Global Policy
• Bakonyi, J. (2023). Epilogue: Rhythms and space-time of violence in and of the city. In M. Albrecht, & A. Jenss (Eds.), The spatiality and temporality of urban violence: Histories, rhythms and ruptures ( 268–283). Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526165749.00021
• Bakonyi, J. (2019). Failing States and Statebuilding. In K. Larres, & R. Wittlinger (Eds.), Understanding global politics : actors and themes in international affairs. Routledge
• Bakonyi, J. (2018). Governing Endemic Crisis. Violence and Legitimacy in the Lives of Somalis. In M. Keating, & M. Waldman (Eds.), War and peace in Somalia : national grievances, local conflict and Al-Shabaab (49-60). Hurst. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190947910.001.0001
• Bakonyi, J., & Jakobeit, C. (2007). Internationale Kriminalitaet/internationaler Terrorismus (International Crime/International Terrorism). In S. Schmidt, W. Link, & R. Wolf (Eds.), Handbuch zur deutschen Ausßenpolitik (660-671). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
• Bakonyi, J. (2006). Konturen der Gewaltordnung in Somalia. In J. Bakonyi, S. Hensell, & J. Siegelberg (Eds.), Gewaltordnungen bewaffneter Gruppen. Ökonomie und Herrschaft nichtstaatlicher Akteure in den Kriegen der Gegenwart (98-112). Nomos
• Bakonyi, J., & Stuvoy, K. (2006). Zwischen Warlordfiguration und Quasi-Staat: Ansätze zu einer Typologie bewaffneter Gruppen. In J. Bakonyi, S. Hensell, & J. Siegelberg (Eds.), Gewaltordnungen bewaffneter Gruppen. Ökonomie und Herrschaft nichtstaatlicher Akteure in den Kriegen der Gegenwart (38-52). Nomos

Edited book

• Bakonyi, J., & Bliesemann de Guevara, B. (Eds.). (2011). A Micro-Sociology of Violence: Deciphering patterns and dynamics of collective violence. Routledge
• Bakonyi, J., Hensell, S., & Siegelberg, J. (Eds.). (2006). Gewaltordnungen bewaffneter Gruppen. Ökonomie und Herrschaft nichtstaatlicher Akteure in den Kriegen der Gegenwart (in English: Violent Orders of Armed Groups. Economy and Authority of Non-state Actors in Current Wars). Nomos

Journal Article

• Bakonyi, J., & Darwich, M. (2024). Infrastructures and International Relations: A Critical Reflection on Materials and Mobilities. International Studies Review, 26(4), Article viae046. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viae046
• Bakonyi, J. (2022). Modular Sovereignty and Infrastructural Power: The Elusive Materiality of International Statebuilding. Security Dialogue, 53(3), 256-278. https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106211051943
• Bakonyi, J. (2022). War's Everyday: Normalizing Violence and Legitimizing Power. Partecipazione e conflitto, 15(1), 121-138. https://doi.org/10.1285/i20356609v15i1p121
• Bakonyi, J., Kappler, S., Nag, E.-M., & Opfermann, L. S. (2021). Precarity, Mobility and the City: Introduction to the Special Issue. Global Policy, 12(S2), 5-9. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12946
• Bakonyi, J. (2021). The Political Economy of Displacement: Rent Seeking, Dispossession and Precarious Mobility in Somali Cities. Global Policy, 12(S2), 10-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12849
• Stuvøy, K., Bakonyi, J., & Chonka, P. (2021). Precarious spaces and violent site effects: experiences from Hargeisa’s urban margins. Conflict, Security and Development, 21(2), 153-176. https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1920230
• Chonka, P., & Bakonyi, J. (2021). Precarious technoscapes: forced mobility and mobile connections at the urban margins. Journal of the British Academy, 9(s11), 67-91. https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/009s11.067
• Bakonyi, J., Chonka, P., & Stuvoy, K. (2019). War and City-Making in Somalia: Property, Power and Disposable Lives. Political Geography, 73, 82-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.05.009
• Bakonyi, J., & Chonka, P. (2019). Precarious labour – Precarious lives. Photographic glimpses from displaced people in Somali cities. Afrique Contemporaine, 2019(1-2), 205-224. https://doi.org/10.3917/afco.269.0205
• Bakonyi, J. (2018). Seeing like Bureaucracies: Rearranging Knowledge and Ignorance in Somalia. International Political Sociology, 12(3), 256-273. https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/oly010
• Bakonyi, J. (2018). Der Alltag des Krieges. Herrschaftserfahrungen in Somalia / The war everyday : experiencing authority in Somalia. Mittelweg 36, 27(2), 32-57
• Bakonyi, J. (2015). Ideoscapes in the World Society: Framing Violence in Somalia. Civil Wars, 17(2), 242-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2015.1070456
• Bakonyi, J. (2013). Authority and administration beyond the state: local governance in southern Somalia 1995–2006. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 7(2), 272-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2013.776278
• Bakonyi, J. (2012). Drogen und Krieg: die Bedeutung von Qaat im somalischen Kriegsgeschehen. = Drugs and War: Relevance of Qaat for the war in Somalia. INAMO-Beiträge, 18(71), 27-30
• Bakonyi, J. (2010). Between Protest, Revenge and Material Interests: A Phenomenological Analysis of Looting in the Somali War. Disasters, 34(2), 238-255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01156.x
• Bakonyi, J. (2009). Zwischen Leidenschaft, Protest und Interesse – Eine phänomenologische Untersuchung kriegerischer Plünderungen. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 43, 362-385
• Bakonyi, J., & Bliesemann de Guevara, B. (2009). The Mosaic of Violence - An Introduction. Civil Wars, 11(4), 397-413. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698240903411298
• Bakonyi, J. (2009). Moral Economies of Mass Violence: Somalia 1988-1991. Civil Wars, 11(4), 434-454. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698240903403790
• Bakonyi, J. (2008). Asymmetrische Betrachtung der Welt. Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 19(1), 44-45
• Bakonyi, J., & Stuvøy, K. (2005). Violence & social order beyond the state: Somalia & Angola. Review of African Political Economy, 32(104-105), 359-382. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056240500329379
• Bakonyi, J., & Abdullahi, A. (2005). Somalia – no central government, but still functioning. Entwicklung + ländlicher Raum, 6, 14-16
• Bakonyi, J. (2002). Somalia im Visier der Anti-Terror-Allianz. Hintergründe des Staatszerfalls. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 2, 229-236
• Bakonyi, J. (2002). Die Ordnung der Ordnungslosigkeit. Die Anti-Terror-Allianz macht Somalia als Ziel aus. Blätter des IZ3W, 260, 30-32

Report

• Bakonyi, J. Kenya and the International Criminal Court Process: Challenges and Opportunities. [No known commissioning body]
• Bakonyi, J., Cohen, G., & Bedard, P.-O. (2015). An Evaluation of Hogaan iyo Nabad: A Community Driven Governance Programme in Somalia/Somaliland. [No known commissioning body]

Working Paper

• Bakonyi, J., Flaspöler, A., Lugano, G., & Thill, M. (2023). Performing the Protection of Civilians Mandate: Experiences of African Military Peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Federal Republic of Somalia
• Bakonyi, J. (2001). Instabile Staatlichkeit. Zur Transformation politischer Herrschaft in Somalia
• Bakonyi, J. (2001). Terrorismus, Krieg und andere Gewaltphänomene der Moderne