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Hello and welcome to my website. These pages provide access to my academic research, some of my previous publications and my more current media work. Most of the material here relates to my work on the political conflict in Northern Ireland and the peace process since 1998, on Brexit and its implications for political stability in Northern Ireland and more recently the history of the city of Belfast. Most of my media contributions can be found on the News page of the site.

New Book Alert! Belfast: the story of a city and its people Yale University Press published 24 July 2023

I am Professor (Emeritus) in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent and Senior Research Fellow in the Conflict Analysis Research Centre, (CARC) at the University of Kent. From 2012-2020 I was Director of CARC and Professor of International Conflict Analysis as well as Deputy Head in the School of Politics and International Relations at University of Kent. https://www.kent.ac.uk/politics-international-relations/people/507/cochrane-feargal

I am also Professor (Research Focused) in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at the University of Warwick, working with colleagues on the Inclusive Peace Project. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/cochrane/ This is funded by an Open Research Area (ORA7) grant, in collaboration with the ESRC (UK) SSHRC (Canada) ANR (France/New Caledonia) and JSPS (Japan) https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/projects/inclusivepeace/

I have also held academic positions at Lancaster University, Ulster University and Queen’s Belfast.

I have written extensively about political violence in deeply divided societies and efforts to negotiate and implement peace settlements. My work has also examined the roles of civil society and Diasporas as key partners in peacebuilding activities. I have written 12 books, numerous journal articles and chapters in edited collections. I have also written extensive media commentary in my areas of research expertise and some of that material is archived on this site -along with extracts from my various academic publications. The News section of the site is the most frequently updated with new media related content.

I was Vice Chair of the Political Studies Association (PSA) UK from 2017-2020 and a Trustee of the Oxford Research Group (ORG

My only social media engagement is on Bluesky where I post at @feargalc.bsky.social

https://bsky.app/profile/feargalc.bsky.social