Welcome!
I am a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. My research investigates political violence, conflict processes, and peace with a focus on three main areas: 1) the strategic decision-making of non-state armed groups, 2) the causes and impacts of local agreements in civil wars, and 3) the international dimensions of civil wars, including the role of organizations, sanctions, and the political economy of conflict. My projects employ a combination of machine learning, forecasting, network analysis, text-as-data, and quantitative methods.
My book project, Local Peace Agreements in Civil Wars: Legitimacy, Violence, and Conflict Trajectories, examines why non-state armed groups and communities negotiate and sign local agreements during ongoing wars and how these settlements shape intrastate conflict dynamics. Drawing on an original network dataset of local peace agreements in the Central African Republic, I demonstrate how these agreements recalibrate power balances, influence patterns of civilian victimization, and reshape interactions among armed actors.
I pursue related research on international security and international political economy. In collaboration with Timothy Peterson, Dursun Peksen, and Kee Hyun Park, I am working on a project on international economic restrictions covering the years 1992 to 2024. I also study how military and economic interventions influence conflict processes and termination.
I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 2025. Previously, I completed an M.A. in International Relations at Koç University and a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University.
Please contact me at mkeskin1@asu.edu.
Research
Publications
[1] Boyes, Christina, Tiina Hyyppä, Merve Keskin, Dana M. Landau, Rachel A. Schwartz, Megan A. Stewart, Alex Waterman, and James Worrall. 2025. “Civil Wars ISA Roundtable 2025 Civil War and Intrastate Conflict: Reimagining a Field of Study.” Civil Wars, 27(2), 416–439
[2] Zhang, Xiaozhong, Jiawei Xu, Merve Keskin, Michael Colaresi, Vladimir Zadorozhny, and Panos Chrysanthis. 2022. “HR-VEAW: A Human Rights Violation Exploration, Analytics, and Warning System” International Workshop on Big Data Visual Exploration and Analytics."
Under Review
[1] Forecasting Local Agreements in Civil War: A Machine Learning Perspective
[2] A Rebel with a Sanction: UN Sanctions against Non-state Armed Groups and Civil Conflict Duration (with Omer Zarpli)
Working Papers
[1] Mitigating Violence Locally: The Effects of Local Agreements on Violence in Civil Wars [Draft Available Upon Request]
[2] Peace or Retribution? The Role of Warfare on Public Opinion Toward Peace in Colombia
[3] Linking Forecasting and Conflict Data: Peace Agreements and Violence Dynamics (with Michael P. Colaresi, Qing Chang, Laura Chelidonopoulos, Zhejun Qui)
[4] Between Peacebuilding and Peacemaking: China’s Evolving Role in Conflict Management (with Monalisa Adhikari)
[5] Children in Armed Conflict Dataset (with Isil Idrisoglu and Rebecca Cordell)
[6] Child Recruitment and Rebel Groups' Legitimacy Seeking in Civil Wars (with Isil Idrisoglu and Rebecca Cordell)
[7] International Rival, Military Intervention, and Duration of Civil War (with Jungmin Han)
Teaching
My teaching interests focus on international relations, international law and institutions, international security, intrastate conflict, peacekeeping, and international political economy.
Instructor of Record