About Austin
Austin Knuppe is an assistant professor of political science at Utah State University. For AY 2023-2024 he is also a Newbigin Fellow through a joint initiative of the Carver Project and InterFaith America. Prior to Utah State, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. He received his Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University in 2019. His research interests include civilian survival during wartime, Middle East politics, and the role of religion in international politics.
His first book, Surviving the Islamic State: Contention, Cooperation, and Neutrality in Wartime Iraq explores how ordinary Iraqis survived Islamic State control of their communities between 2014 and 2018. He argues that individuals survive conflict by drawing on repertoires—consisting of practices, tools, organized routines, symbols, and rhetorical strategies—to navigate violent situations. He finds that Iraqis across conflict-affected communities relied on heuristics—or cognitive shortcuts—to detect and respond to insurgent threats. Local residents considered the identity and behavior of insurgents, as well as the relative risks of accommodating Islamic State governance.
Austin is also one of the co-founders of the Conflict to Peace Lab at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. C2P works with local peacebuilding and development organizations in conflict-afflicted state in order to link innovative research, effective practice, and sound policy to foster durable peace. At C2P, Austin leads a research team of American, British, and Yemeni scholars studying the determinants of community resilience in conflict-affected communities across Yemen.