Sansom Milton – författare

The Arab region has suffered over a decade of extreme conflict, with significant repercussions for the development of higher education in conflict-affected countries. Yet higher education remains marginal to recovery debates in the region. This book addresses this gap through comparative analysis of five war-affected contexts: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza. Based on extensive fieldwork and sustained policy engagement, it reveals how universities have endured protracted conflict, adapted under extreme constraints, and participated in reconstruction efforts-often with minimal external support. Challenging dominant approaches to post-conflict intervention, it foregrounds local agency, institutional adaptation, and nationally driven processes. It also documents the shift toward recognizing higher education as both a humanitarian concern and a developmental priority. This is the first study to position universities at the center of recovery discourse in conflict-affected Arab states. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

The Arab region has suffered over a decade of extreme conflict, with significant repercussions for the development of higher education in conflict-affected countries. Yet higher education remains marginal to recovery debates in the region. This book addresses this gap through comparative analysis of five war-affected contexts: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza. Based on extensive fieldwork and sustained policy engagement, it reveals how universities have endured protracted conflict, adapted under extreme constraints, and participated in reconstruction efforts-often with minimal external support. Challenging dominant approaches to post-conflict intervention, it foregrounds local agency, institutional adaptation, and nationally driven processes. It also documents the shift toward recognizing higher education as both a humanitarian concern and a developmental priority. This is the first study to position universities at the center of recovery discourse in conflict-affected Arab states. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

Charts Qatar’s key role in shaping and determining diplomatic initiatives in Afghanistan, Gaza and elsewhere.This timely monograph chronicles how Qatar transformed itself into a broker of peace in some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. In the early 2000s, Qatar made its mark by mediating an array of disputes in the Middle East. By the 2020s, it was again on the global radar for its role in high-profile ceasefires and landmark peace agreements, notably the U.S.–Taliban deal and negotiations during the 2023–5 Gaza war.Milton and Elkahlout offer a wide-ranging conceptual and on-the-ground analysis of Qatar’s emergence, retreat and reemergence in the international arena, tracing its evolving mediation strategies in conflicts across Lebanon, Darfur, Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip. Drawing on a unique qualitative dataset assembled through a major documentation project, the study illuminates how Qatar leveraged its diplomatic, political and economic resources to position itself as an influential third-party mediator. In doing so, it reveals both the motivations behind Qatar’s peacemaking initiatives and the broader implications of its rising profile for the changing global landscape of conflict mediation.

This book offers a critical review of higher education and post-conflict recovery. The first part of the book analyses the long-standing neglect of higher education in post-conflict recovery, the impact that conflict can have on the sector, and efforts to rebuild and reform higher education systems affected by violent conflict.