Thomas Brailey

Politics (2024 cohort)

I study the causes and consequences of states choosing to outsource security and violence to non-state and private actors. I collect and build a variety of datasets to uncover how norms surrounding privatising security and military operations have changed over time. I combine these data to paint a more comprehensive picture of attitudes towards, and the consequences of, states outsourcing their operations to private security actors.

In 2024, I received my MPhil in Comparative Government from the University of Oxford where I was a Clarendon Scholar. My thesis was titled “Conceptualising Non-State Security”.

From 2020 to 2022, I served as a pre-doctoral fellow with J-PAL’s Payments and Governance Research Program. I received a Bachelor of Science in political science and data analytics (highest honours) from UC San Diego in 2020.

I have also served as a research assistant for the Center for the Study of African Political Economy and as a lab assistant for the Center for Peace and Security Studies.