Education

PhD, George Washington University
MA, Baylor University
BA, Baylor University

Profile

Timothy D. Sisk is Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.  He specializes in civil wars and political violence, and United Nations conflict prevention, management, and peacebuilding in fragile and post-war contexts.  Sisk directs the Program on Fragile States of the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the Korbel School; he is also an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy, Geneva Switzerland.

Professor Sisk’s research focuses on the management of conflict in deeply divided societies, especially those emerging from civil war.  He has conducted extensive research on the role of international and regional organizations, particularly the United Nations, in peace operations, peacemaking, and peacebuilding with a particular focus on the role of democracy and governance and electoral processes in conflict-affected countries.   He is also the editor of the journal of the Academic Council of the United Nations System (ACUNS), Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations.    

Sisk is the author of seven major books and dozens of chapters in books and journal articles.  Single-authored books of recent appearance include Statebuilding: Consolidating Peace after Civil War (Polity, 2013) and International Mediation in Civil Wars: Bargaining with Bullets (Routledge 2009).  He is the editor of the 2012 edited volume, Between Terror and Tolerance: Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Georgetown University Press).  Other recent books for which he is co-editor are: From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (with Anna Jarstad, Cambridge University Press 2008) and The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (with Roland Paris, Routledge 2009). 

Prior to joining the University of Denver in 1998, Sisk was a Program Officer and Research Scholar in the Grant Program of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington and, before that, a professional staff member for United States Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas.  Sisk earned a Ph.D. “with distinction” in political science (comparative politics, research methods) from The George Washington University, in 1992, and an MA in International Journalism (1984) and a BA in Foreign Service and German (1982) from Baylor University.

Research and Expertise

International peace and security; negotiations and peace processes; UN peace operations and post-settlement implementation of peace agreements; conflict amelioration, governance and human development. 

Courses

INTS 4495: Civil Wars and International Responses I: Causes and Consequences
INTS 4595: Civil Wars and International Responses II: Postwar Peacebuilding
INTS 4501: Comparative Politics: States and Societies in the 21st Century
INTS 4975: Democratization in Africa: Between Liberation and Consolidation
INTS 4517: The Politics of Deeply Divided Societies
INTS 3030: Sport and International Politics: Power, Culture, and Capitalism
INTS 3090: The Nobel Peace Prize: From Henry Kissinger to Mother Teresa

Programs, Centers and Institutes

Program on Fragile States, Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy

Geneva Center for Security Policy