PROFILE
 

Anna Leander is Professor of International Relations/Political Science. She previously held positions at Central European University in Budapest, the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, the University of Southern Denmark, the Copenhagen Business School, the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, the Collegio Carlo Alberto and the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace andConflict Studies at Cornell University and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Her research is in International Political Sociology. She has a longstanding interest in connecting sociological approaches and International Relations and in the commercialization of military and security matters. Her current research focusses on four interrelated themes: the commercial security politics of mundane material objects; of digital infrastructures; of aesthetics; and of expertise in International Relations. Anna is currently a principal investigator on the project The Future of Humanitarian Design. She co-edits Voices in International Relations (Oxford University Press).

EXPERTISE DETAILS

• Commercial security: markets, marketing and regulation of commercial security
• Internet politics: social media, cyber-security, internet governance, politics of images/videos.
• Politics of expertise: humanitarian, security and conflict resolution expertise in particular
• Academic specialization: International political sociology; critical security studies.
   

recent publications

• Austin, Jonathan Luke, and Anna Leander. 2023. "Making International Things: Designing World Politics Differently." Global Studies Quarterly 3 (4). 
• ---. 2023. "What If We Were There? A Counter-Factual Call for IR to Engage with Material-Technological Making." Global Studies Quarterly 3 (4). 
• ---. 2024. "The Active Form of Security: Technology and the Material-Aesthetic Script." Science, Technology, & Human Values 49 (4): 872-97. 
• Leander, Anna. 2023. "Composing Collages: Working at the Edge of Disciplinary Boundaries." In Introduction to International Organization Research Methods, edited by Fanny Badache, Leah R. Kimber and Lucile Maertens, 345-52. Michigan University Press.
• ---. 2024. "Militarization Matters: Rhetorical Resonances and Market Militarism." Critical Military Studies 10 (2): 147-70. 
• Leander, Anna, with Cristiana Gonzales, Luisa Lobato, and Pedro dos Santos Maia. 2023. "Ripples and Their Returns: Tracing the Regulatory Security State from the EU to Brazil, Back and Beyond." Journal of European Public Policy 30 (7): 1379-405. 
• (2022), ‘Militarization matters: rhetorical resonances and market militarism’, Critical Military Studies, pp. 1-24, https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2022.2081300
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
 

Books

• (2019) Leander, Anna, and Wæver, Ole. Eds  Assembling Exclusive Expertise: Knowledge, Ignorance and Conflict Resolution in the Global South. London et al.: Routledge (Worlding Beyond the West).
• (2016) Rita Abrahamsen and Anna Leander eds, Handbook of Private Military-Security Companies. New York Routledge (pbk: 2017).
• (2013) ed. The Commercialization of Security in Europe: Consequences for Peace and Reconciliation. New York: Routledge.
• (2010) (and Morten Ougaard) eds, Business and Global Governance. London and New York: Routledge.
• (2006) (and Stefano Guzzini) eds, Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and his critics, London and New York: Routledge.

Articles

• (2021) Jonathan Austin and Anna Leander ‘Designing-With/In World Politics. Manifestos for an International Political Design’. Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (2) 1, pp. 83-154.
• Leander, Anna. (2019) 'Sticky Politics: Composing Security by Advertising Tracking Devices'. European Journal of International Security 4 (3): 322–44.
• Leander Anna (2019) Le Souci de Soi: The Duty of Care and the Humanitarian Politics of Life. In: Græger N and Leira H (eds) The Duty of Care in International Relations: Protecting citizens beyond the border. London et al.: Routledge, pp.18-34.
• Leander Anna (2019) Making Markets Responsible: Revisiting the State Monopoly on the Legitimate Use of Force. In: Crosbie T and Swed O (eds) Sociology, Privatization, Global Conflicts Palgrave, pp.137-171.
• Leander Anna (2020) Collaging as a Method for IR in the Anthropocene. In: Chandler D, Müller F and Rothe D (eds) International Relations in the Anthropocene: New Actors, New Agencies and New Approaches. London et al: Palgrave-Macmillan, pp.353-372.
• Aalberts Tanja, Kurowska Xymena, Leander Anna, et al. (2020) Rituals of World Politics: On (Visual) Practices Disordering Things. Critical Studies in Security 8: 240-264.
• Austin Jonathan Luke and Leander Anna (2021) Designing-With/In World Politics. Manifestos for an International Political Design. Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences 2: 83-154.
• Leander Anna (2021) Locating (New) Materialist Characters and Processes in A Theory Global Governance. International Theory 13(1): 157–168.
• Leander Anna (2021) Parsing Pegasus: An Infrastructural Approach to the Relationship between Technology and Swiss Security Politics. Swiss Political Science Review 27(1): 205-213.
• Leander Anna (2021) The Politics of Neo-Liberal Rituals: Performing the Institutionalization of Liminality at Trade Fairs. In: Rai S, Gluhovic M, Jestrovic S, et al. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• (2019), Elke Krahmann and Anna Leander, 'Contracting Security: Markets in the Making of MONUSCO Peacekeeping', International Peacekeeping, 26 (2): 165-189.
• (2018) The Politics of Legal Arrangements: The “Duty of Care” Justifying, Extending and Perpetuating Public in the Private Forms of Protection Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 25 (1): 265-290.
• (2016) ‘Strong Objectivity in Security Studies: Ethnographic Contributions to Method Development’, International Studies Perspectives 17 (4): 462-475.
• (2015-2016) 'Mercados transgresores de seguridad: una mercancía en disputa y sus prácticas de mercado’ [Transgressive Security Markets: A Contested Commodity and its Market Practices], Relaciones Internacionales (30): 117-37,
• (2015) ‘Theorising International Monetary Relations: Three Questions about the Significance of Materiality’, Contexto Internacional, 37 (3): 945-973.
• (2014) Essential and Embattled Expertise: The Knowledge—Expert—Policy Nexus around the Sarin Gas Attack in Syria. Politik 17:26-37.
• (2013) ‘Technological Agency in the Co-Constitution of Legal Expertise and the US Drone Program’, Leiden Journal of International Law 26 (4): 811-831.
• (2012) ‘What Do Codes of Conduct Do? Hybrid Constitutionalization and Militarization in Military Markets’, Global Constitutionalism 1 (1): 91-119.
• (2011) ‘The Promises, Problems and Potentials of a Bourdieu Inspired Approach to International Relations’, International Political Sociology 5 (3): 294-313.
• (2010) ‘The Paradoxical Impunity of Private Military Companies: Authority and the Limits to Legal Accountability’, Security Dialogue 41 (5): 467-90.
• (2007) (and Rens van Munster) ‘Private Security Contractors in Darfur: Reflecting and Reinforcing Neo-Liberal Governmentality’, International Relations 21 (2): 201-216.
• (2006) ‘Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding World Politics’, Cooperation and Conflict 41 (4): 371-377.
• (2005) ‘The Market for Force and Public Security: The Destabilizing Consequences of Private Military Companies’, Journal of Peace Research 42 (5): 605-22.
• (2004) ‘Drafting Community: Understanding the Fate of Conscription’, Armed Forces & Society 30 (4): 571-600.

Peer-reviewed book chapters

• (2020) Composing Collaborationist Collages about Commercial Security. In Eklektiske Analysestrategier: Problemorienteret Samfundsvidenskab På Tværs Af Perspektiver, edited by Justine Grønbæk Pors and Emil Husted. Copenhangen: Akademisk Forlag, in press.
• (2019), ‘Making Markets Responsible: Revisiting the State Monopoly on the Legitimate Use of Force’, in Tom Crosbie and Ori Swed (eds) Sociology, Privatization, Global Conflicts. (London: Palgrave), pp. 137-71.
• (2018), 'International relations expertise at the interstices of fields and assemblages', in Andreas Gofas, Innana Hamati-Ataya and Nicholas Onuf (eds.) The SAGE Handbook on the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations (London et al.: Sage), pp. 386-98.
• (2017), ‘From Cookbooks to Dictionaries in the Making: Methodological Perspectives for Research of Non-State Actors and Processes’, in Andreas Kruck & Andrea Schneiker Methodological Approaches for Studying Non-state Actors in International Security. Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, pp. 233-245.
• (2016) Afterword: The Commercial in /for International Political Sociology, in Pinar Bilgin and Xavier Guilllaume, (eds.) Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology. London and New York, pp. 376-386.
• (2015) ‘Afterword: Engendering Knowledge and Shifting the Spaces of “Private Security” and “Global Politics”’, in Maya Eichler (ed.) Gender and Private Security in Global Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  236-243.
• (2014) ‘Understanding US National Intelligence: Analyzing Practices to Capture the Chimera’, in Jacqueline Best & Alexandra Gheciu (eds.) The Return of the Public in Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197-220.
• (2013) ‘Marketing Security Matters: Undermining De-Securitization through Acts of Citizenship’, in Xavier Guillaume & Jef Huysmans (eds.) Security and Citizenship: The Constitution of Political Being. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 147-13.
• (2010) ‘Habitus and Field’, in Robert A. Denemark (ed.) Blackwell: International Studies Compendium Project, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 3255-70.
• (2009) ‘Securing Sovereignty by Governing Security through Markets’, in Rebbecca Adler-Nissen & Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen (eds.) Sovereignty Games: Instrumentalising State Sovereignty in Europe and Beyond. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 151-70.
• (2008) ‘Thinking Tools: Analyzing Symbolic Power and Violence’, in Audie Klotz & Deepa Prakash (eds.) Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11-28.
• (2007) ‘Regulating the Role of PMCs in Shaping Security and Politics’, in Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt (eds.) From Mercenaries to Markets: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 49-64.
•  (2006) ‘Enduring Conscription: Vagueness and Värnplikt in Sweden’, in Pertti Joenniemi, ed., The Changing Face of European Conscription. London: Ashgate, pp. 112-30.
• Leander, Anna and Donatella della Ratta (2019), 'Art as Expertise? Creative Expression in Syrian Conflict Resolution', in Anna Leander and Ole Wæver (eds.) Assembling Exclusive Expertise: Knowledge, Ignorance and Conflict Resolution in the Global South (London et al.: Routledge (Worlding Beyond the West), pp. 190-212.

ACTIVITIES

• “Network on Drones and Aesthetics” (2017–2020), Danish Research Council Network Grant.
• “VioIence Prevention (VIPRE): Towards a Material-Semiotic Approach to the Prevention of Violent Human Rights Abuses” (2017–2021), project CRSII5_170986 of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
• Project no. 67741 (2015–2018), subproject “ICT and Democratic Security Politics”, Nordic Centre of Excellence for Security Technologies and Societal Values (NordSTEVA).
• “The Duty of Care: Protecting Citizens Abroad” (2015–2018), Doc:PRO project no. 238066 funded by the Research Council of Norway.