Joshua Fawcett Weiner is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science, specializing in International Relations with a minor in comparative politics. His research areas include political violence, international security, and conflict processes, with a substantive focus on the political economy of conflict and armed group behavior.

His dissertation, Running a Rebellion: Essays on Armed Group Behavior, asks: why are certain types of rebel leaders selected and to what extent do they affect the organizations they lead?

To answer this question, he employs an array of quantitative and qualitative methods, including design-based causal inference, original data, and process-tracing of media and archival data. His work demonstrates that resource wealth systematically impacts the variation in the type of leader rebel groups select, and that assassinating rebel leaders produces sustained negative effects on the violent behavior of the group. However, he finds that assassination does not necessarily reduce overall levels of violence in a conflict or change the institutions of the militant group.

External Methods Funding Award – IQMR, University of British Columbia (2021)

External Methods Funding Award – ICPSR, University of British Columbia (2020)

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral, SSHRC (2019-2022)

Faculty of Arts Graduate Award, University of British Columbia (2019)

Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship, University of British Columbia (2017-2021)

Political Science Department Entrance Award, University of British Columbia (2017)