People
Federico Varese (Director) is Professor of Criminology at Oxford. His main research interests are the study of organised crime, corruption, Soviet criminal history, and the dynamics of altruistic behaviour. He is working on the application of network analysis to criminal behaviour, a comparative study of Mafia groups and the rescue of persecuted minorities during the Nazi occupation of Europe. You can keep up to date with his events on his Facebook page.
Heather Hamill (Deputy Director) is University Lecturer in Sociology at Oxford. Her main research interests are signalling theory and its applications, delinquency and deviance, and organised crime groups. She is currently working on recruitment into organised crime groups, specifically how ‘wannabe’ criminals signal their fitness for the job and progress through the ranks within organised crime groups.
David Anderson is University Lecturer in African Politics and a Fellow at St Cross College, Oxford. His primary interests are in the history and politics of Eastern Africa. He has recently published a monograph, The Controversy of Khat, concerning drugs and trafficking in the East Africa region.
Paolo Campana is Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Nuffield College, and member of the Said Business School. His work specialises in organised crime and forms of extra legal governance. Other areas of interest include corporate crime, terrorism, news media, public opinion and quantitative research methods. He is currently working on the Neapolitan Camorra, on trafficking/smuggling of drugs and human beings into Europe, on the application of network techniques to the study of organised crime, on issues of trust within criminal groups, and on corporate frauds.
Paul Collier is the Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. His main research interests are macroeconomics, microeconomics and political economy in Africa. He headed a Development Research group at the World Bank between 1998 and 2003 and served as a senior advisor to Blair’s Commission on Africa. His recent book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done about it, concerns poverty in the developing world.
Diego Gambetta (Founding member) is Professor of Sociology and Official Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford (on leave). In addition to organised crime, his research interests include trust, signalling theory and violent extremists. His new book, Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate, was published by Princeton University Press in September 2009.
Andrew Hurrell is the Director of the Department of Politics and International Relations and holds the position of Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Balliol College, Oxford. His research concerns global institutions, inequality and the emerging economic powers. His book On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society won the International Studies Association Annual Best Book Award for the year 2009.
Mark Philp is University Lecturer in at the Department of Politics and International Relations and Politics Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. His research interests are political theory, political thought and political sociology. He has written widely on political corruption and published Political Conduct in 2007. He is currently running a research project on the Godwin Diaries.
Valeria Pizzini-Gambetta is a Research Fellow at the Dept of Sociology. Her interests are organized crime and extra-legal political groups. She is currently working on an ESRC-funded project, 'Recruitment into Extra-Legal Organizations' in collaboration with Heather Hamill.
Marina Tzvetkova received her doctorate in Sociology from the University of Oxford in 2008. From October 2008 until June 2009 she was Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in Sofia. Marina also worked on a research project of the Centre for the Study of Democracy which studied the links between organised crime and corruption in Europe and has continued to assist Prof. Diego Gambetta's research on violent extremists. She is now working to transform her thesis, 'Wrestling for supremacy. The evolution of extra-legal protection in Bulgaria 1989-99', into a book.
Laurence Whitehead is Official Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford. His research interests are economic liberalization and democratization with a focus on Latin America.