Dr Liam O’Shea

Dr Liam O'Shea is an expert on police integrity, violence and corruption, security sector reform and politics and security in the former Soviet Union.

His research examines how to address prominent problems in Western policing, including police brutality, racism and misogyny. Dr O’Shea also focuses on how to address and manage corruption and state capture within aid and security assistance. He leads RUSI’s Organised Crime, Terror and Insecurity in Africa project, developing policy options to address these issues in Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria.

From 2018-2020, Dr O’Shea was an adviser in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the UK's Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. He also led a team coordinating the FCDO's response to Covid-19 in vulnerable countries.

Dr O’Shea has consulted various organisations on security and justice in developing countries, including the Overseas Development Institute and Saferworld. He was the 2020/22 Dinam Fellow at the London School of Economics. From 2014-2015, he participated in the Alfa Fellowship, a professional leadership programme in Russia and he 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