Dr Liam O’Shea

Dr Liam O'Shea is an expert on police and security sector reform in developing countries, politics and security in the former Soviet Union and police violence and corruption across the globe. He was previously the 2020/22 Dinam Fellow at the London School of Economics, where he led on a project to synthesise the evidence on what works to reduce police violence.

From 2018-2020, Dr O’Shea was a Governance Adviser in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the UK's Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, where he advised on regional strategies and programming in fragile and conflict-affected states. He also led a team coordinating the FCDO's response to Covid-19 in vulnerable countries and on the production of a High-level Event at the UN General Assembly, which raised over $11b in vaccine development for developing countries.

Dr O’Shea has also consulted a number of organisations on security and justice in developing countries, including the Overseas Development Institute and Saferworld. From 2014-2015, Liam won a place on the Alfa Fellowship, a professional leadership programme in Russia, where he led a project developing policy recommendations for police reform in Russia for a local NGO. He also wrote his PhD (St. Andrews) on police reform in the former Soviet Union.

• Democratic Police Reform, Security Sector Reform, Anti-Corruption and Spoilers: Lessons from Georgia – Conflict, Security & Development, (Taylor & Francis Online, 29 September 2022)
• Why Democratic Police Reform Mostly Fails and Sometimes Succeeds: Police Reform and Low State Capacity, Authoritarianism and Neo-Patrimonial Politics (in the Former Soviet Union) – Policing & Society, (Taylor & Francis Online, 25 August 2022)
• What does Russia Offer Ukraine and Its Neighbours? – International Affairs (Chatham House) Blog (February, 2022)
• Nigerian Police Reform: 5 Key Measures and Why Civil Society is Key to Achieving Them – International Affairs (Chatham House) Blog (November, 2020)
• Who Do We Want to Coerce?: Security Sector Reform and State Building – International Security Sector Advisory Team blog (March 2017)
• Security Sector Reform in Patrimonial and Low-Capacity States – SSR Resource Centre (August 2016)
• Informal Economic Practices Within the Kyrgyz Police (Militsiya) – in The Persistence of Informal Economic Practices in Post-Socialist Societies, Ed. J. Morris and A. Polese (2015), London: Palgrave Macmillan
• Why Does Police Reform Appear to Have Been More Successful in Georgia than in Kyrgyzstan or Russia? – The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies (Winter 2012), Issue 13, With K. Kakachia, Tbilisi State University
• Improving the UK’s Contribution to International Policing – Policing (2010), 4 (1): 38-46