Samantha Twietmeyer

Research Interests

Conflict settlement processes in diverse and divided societies; ethics in international intervention and peacebuilding; institutional state-building; political sectarianism; nationalism; ethnic cleansing and genocide; power-sharing and federalism; the Northern Ireland Peace Process; interventions in Cyprus, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Brief Bio

Samantha's thesis critically analyzes the impact of third-party actors in the settlement negotiations in Northern Ireland and Cyprus, arguing that the external negotiation environment dictates the negotiation agenda and settlement content, producing a successful negotiation process in Northern Ireland and destabilizing the process in Cyprus. Her MA work focused on the failure of external intervention to produce legitimate post-conflict institutions in Afghanistan (“International Agendas and the Legitimacy of the Liberal Peace: Statebuilding in Fragile Societies, Afghanistan and Somaliland”).

Samantha is currently the Project Coordinator for The Politics of Complex Diversity in Contested Cities project, as well as an RA for the project working on the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. In September 2019, Samantha assisted in presenting the Indigenous Land Rights and Reconciliation workshop at Queen’s University. She has coordinated and produced a podcast resulting from the panel presentations from this workshop which will begin airing in Winter, 2020. In 2017, Samantha was a visiting researcher at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict, Queen's University, Belfast.

After completing various training courses in international conflict management and peacebuilding processes, Samantha spent four years working in provincial politics in Saskatchewan before returning to academia to pursue her PhD.

Teaching

Pols 457: Issues in Global Justice (Winter 2019, 2020, TF)

Pols 366: The United Nations (Fall 2018, 2019, TF)

Pols 264: World Politics in Historical Perspective (Winter 2017, 2018, TA)

"Indigenous Politics: An Exploration of Canada’s First Peoples," Queen’s University Political Studies Summer Institute (Summer 2016, Lecturer)

Pols 243: Comparative Politics: State, Nation, and Democracy (Fall 2014, 2016, TA)

Awards and Accomplishments

2017/2018 Huntley Macdonald Sinclair Travelling Scholarship
2017/2018 James M Flaherty Research Scholarship - Ireland Canada University Foundation (ICUF)
2017/2018 R.S. McLaughlin Fellowship
2016/2017 Timothy C.S. Franks Travel Scholarship
2016-2018 Department of Political Studies Field Research Award
2015-2017 Morgan Brown Graduate Scholarship for Academic Achievement

Publications

2018. "Jenne, Erin K. (2015) Nested Security: Lessons in Conflict Management from the League of Nations and the European Union. Ithaca: Cornell University Press." Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics, 3(4).

2017. "Challenges to Conceptualizing Security in a Context of Change, Governance, and Globalization: A structural analysis of arguments presented in the Internal and External Borders and Security panel." In Perspectives on The Politics of Borders and Belonging, edited by Marin Ingalise Beck, Bailey Gerrits, Alexandra Liebich, and Rebecca Wallace, 47-56. Kingston, Canada: Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen's University. Martello Paper Series.

Selected Conference Presentations

2019. “‘Peace for Dummies:’ Confronting Comparative Research and Prescriptive Practice”, Re-visioning International Studies: Innovation and Progress, ISA 60th Annual Convention, Toronto. March 27-30, 2019.

2018. “Domestic Perceptions of Third-Parties and Power-Sharing Settlements: Evaluating Intervention in Northern Ireland and Cyprus” The Power of Rules and the Rules of Power, ISA 59th Annual Convention, San Francisco. April 4-7, 2018.

2017. "Balancing Third-Party Guarantors in Conflict Settlement Processes" Political Studies Association of Ireland Annual Conference, Dublin. October 13-15, 2017.

2017. "Third Parties and the Institutionalisation of Political Settlements: Implications from the "Brexit" Experience in Northern Ireland" Democratization and Constitutional Design in Divided Societies Colloquium of the International Political Science Association. University of Cyprus, Nicosia. June 24-27, 2017.

2017. “Climate Change as an Emerging Hurdle for Externally Incentivised Conflict Settlements” Understanding Change in World Politics, International Studies Association 58th Annual Convention, Baltimore. February 22-25.

2016. “Addressing the legitimacy dilemma in intervention: A relational approach to perceptions of legitimacy in multilateral interventions” Problems Abroad? Revisiting the Intervention Trap in an Era of Global Uncertainty, Carleton University, October 6-7.

2016. "Analyzing the 'Local Turn' in Peacebuilding Literature: New Paths or Old Debates?" Intersections/Cross-Sections, York University. March 11-12.