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About Barbara F. Walter

Barbara F. Walter is a political scientist who has researched and written about civil wars, including why they start, how they escalate, and how they can be prevented. She is the Rohr Professor of International Affairs at the University of California, San Diego and the author of How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them (2022).

Walter's research centers on the structural conditions that make societies vulnerable to internal conflict, with a particular focus on anocracy—the fragile, transitional space between autocracy and democracy where political instability is most acute. Her work has influenced discussions about political risk, early warning systems, and democratic resilience. She has briefed U.S. government agencies, spoken at TED2023, and advised international organizations on conflict prevention.

She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the recipient of the Susan Strange Award from the International Studies Association and the Peacemaker of the Year Award from the National Conflict Resolution Center. In 2012, she co-founded Political Violence @ a Glance, a blog about political science research aimed at a broad public audience.

Barbara F. Walter writes about Civil war, World politics, Political violence, Low-intensity conflicts (Military science), Insurgency, and late 20th/early 21st century. Their best-known work is How Civil Wars Start.

On FindMyTBR we track 2 books by Barbara F. Walter, 2 of them confirmed as audiobooks on Spotify or Apple Books — including Cómo empieza una guerra civil and How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. Full availability across Spotify, Apple Books, Audible, and Amazon is below.