Dr Ashley Jackson is co-founder and co-director of the Centre on Armed Groups, an NGO that works to reduce violence through research, dialogue and practical engagement with armed groups and de facto authorities. Her work on understanding and engaging armed actors draws on nearly two decades of research and operational experience in conflict and humanitarian settings. She began her career as an aid worker in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan with Oxfam, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and the UN. She has since advised governments, UN agencies and NGOs, including as an adviser to the UK Parliament, the UN Secretary-General’s Office, and the US Special Representative for Afghanistan during the Doha talks.
She is the author of Negotiating Survival: Civilian–Insurgent Relations in Afghanistan (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2021), which examines civilian agency and life under Taliban rule. She is also the co-author of two forthcoming books: Al-Shabaab Reconsidered: Power, Politics and Survival in Somalia (African Arguments/Hurst, with Mohamed Mubarak) and A Guide to Armed Groups (Columbia University Press, with Centre Co-Director Florian Weigand). She has contributed chapters to several other books, including The Political Economy of Civil War and UN Peace Operations (Routledge, 2023) and The Rule is for None but Allah: Islamist Approaches to Governance (Hurst, 2023)
Ashley’s analysis has appeared in Foreign Policy, New York Times, Washington Post, Telegraph, Project Syndicate, Al Jazeera, Politico, Public Radio International, the Guardian, and other outlets. Her media appearances include the BBC World Service, CNN, New Yorker, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Washington Post, Reuters, NBC News, and the Foreign Policy Editor’s Roundtable podcast. In recognition of her work, she was also named a Foreign Policy Interrupted Fellow.
Ashley holds a PhD from the War Studies Department at King’s College London, an MSc in Gender and Development from the London School of Economics, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is also an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding at the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) and the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group at King’s College London.
She is originally from New York, but currently resides in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
