Publications

Why has higher education remained peripheral to post-conflict recovery debates in the Arab region? What role can universities play in rebuilding fractured societies after years of war, siege, and political collapse? 

Higher Education in the Arab Region: Resilience, Rebuilding, and Recovery addresses these questions through a regionally grounded, comparative analysis of five conflict-affected contexts: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza. 

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, primary research, and long-term engagement in the region, the book examines how higher education systems have endured conflict, contributed to rebuilding efforts, and navigated prolonged instability. It challenges short-term and externally driven approaches to post-conflict recovery, foregrounding local agency, institutional resilience, and the generative role of universities in recovery processes. 

Offering both empirical depth and conceptual clarity, this is the first comprehensive study to centre higher education within the recovery discourse in the conflict-affected Arab world.

This timely monograph chronicles how Qatar transformed itself into a broker of peace in some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. In the early 2000s, Qatar made its mark by mediating an array of disputes in the Middle East. By the 2020s, it was again on the global radar for its role in high-profile ceasefires and landmark peace agreements, notably the U.S.–Taliban deal and negotiations during the 2023–5 Gaza war.

The book offers a wide-ranging conceptual and on-the-ground analysis of Qatar’s emergence, retreat and reemergence in the international arena, tracing its evolving mediation strategies in conflicts across Lebanon, Darfur, Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip. 

Drawing on a unique qualitative dataset assembled through a major documentation project, the study illuminates how Qatar leveraged its diplomatic, political and economic resources to position itself as an influential third-party mediator. In doing so, it reveals both the motivations behind Qatar’s peacemaking initiatives and the broader implications of its rising profile for the changing global landscape of conflict mediation.
Book Link

This book offers a critical review of higher education and post-conflict recovery. It provides the first systematic study with a global scope that investigates the role of higher education systems in conflict-affected contexts. 

The first part of the book analyses the long-standing neglect of higher education in post-conflict recovery, the impact that conflict can have on the sector, and efforts to rebuild and reform higher education systems affected by violent conflict. The second part of the book considers the positive and negative contributions that higher education can make to a range of areas of recovery including humanitarian action, forced displacement, post-conflict reconstruction, statebuilding, and peacebuilding. 

With its reasoned defence of the importance of higher education for post-conflict recovery, the book will appeal to researchers, university students, and humanitarian and development policy-makers and practitioners.

Book Link

Sansom Milton & Ghassan Elkahlout. 2025. 'Qatar's multifaceted humanitarian role in Afghanistan since August 2021'. Development Policy Review. Article link.

Sansom Milton, Ghassan Elkahlout & Sana Tariq. 2025. 'Qatar’s Evolving Role in Conflict Mediation'. Mediterranean Politics. Article link.

Ghassan Elkahlout & Sansom Milton. 2024. 'The evolution of the Gulf states as humanitarian donors'. Third World Quarterly. Article link.

Sultan Barakat & Sansom Milton. 2020. 'Qatar: Conflict Mediation and Regional Objectives'. Chapter in The New Politics of Aid: Emerging Donors & Conflict-Affected States. Edited by Agnieszka Paczyńska, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Chapter link.

Sansom Milton & Haythem Dellai. 2025. Strengthening Domestic Resource Mobilisation in Post-conflict Contexts: Integrating Public and Private Finance Sources. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.

Sansom Milton, Manoug Antaby, Haythem Dellai & Ahmad Idrees. 2025. Counting the costs of war: A holistic, multi-level assessment of the impact of conflict on Sudan. African Security Review.

Sansom Milton' 2024. 'Rethinking the “Day After” in the Gaza Strip: Learning from Previous Rounds of Reconstruction.' Chapter in Gaza’s Cycle of Destruction and Rebuilding: Understanding the Actors, Dynamics and Responses. Edited by Ghassan Elkahlout, Palgrave Macmillan. Chapter link.

Sansom Milton, Ghassan Elkahlout & Saba Attallah. 2024. 'Shrinking reconstruction space in the Gaza Strip: rebuilding after the 2021 and 2022 wars'. Conflict, Security and Development. Article link.

Sansom Milton & Mohammad Alhamawi. 2024. 'Peace-centred Sustainable Development: An Analysis of SDG 16 in the Arab States'. World Development Perspectives. Article link.

Sultan Barakat & Sansom Milton. 2020. 'Localisation Across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus'. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. Article link.

Sultan Barakat, Sansom Milton & Ghassan Elkahlout. 2020. 'Reconstruction under Siege: the Gaza Strip since 2007'. Disasters. Article link.

Sultan Barakat, Sansom Milton & Ghassan Elkahlout. 2018. The Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism: Old Wine in New Bottlenecks. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. Article link.

Irene Costantini & Sansom Milton. 2021. 'Doing Research in Conflict and Post-conflict Contexts'. Chapter in Research Methods for Middle East Studies: Conceptual, Theoretical, and Practical Issues. Edited by Lorraine Charles, et al. Edinburgh University Press. Chapter link.

Sansom Milton et al. 2023. 'Protecting higher education from attack in the Gaza Strip'. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Article link.

Sansom Milton. 2022. 'Higher education, post-conflict democratization and the legacies of authoritarian rule: The Tripoli University Programme for Rebuilding Libya'. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. Article link.

Sansom Milton. 2021. 'Higher education and sustainable development goal 16 in fragile and conflict-affected contexts'. Higher Education. Article link.

Sansom Milton. 2021. 'Universities in Post-2003 Iraq: Coalition and Iraqi Responses to Violence and Insecurity'. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change. Chapter link.

Sansom Milton. 2019. 'Syrian higher education during conflict: Survival, protection, and regime security.' Journal of International Educational Development. Article link.

Sansom Milton. 2017. 'Higher education, conflict causation, and post-conflict peacebuilding.' Chapter in Universities and Conflict: The Role of Higher Education in Peacebuilding and Resistance. Edited by Juliet Millican. Routledge. Article link.

Sansom Milton & Sultan Barakat. 2016. 'Higher education as the catalyst of recovery in conflict-affected societies'. Globalisation, Societies and Education. Article link.

Ghassan Elkahlout, Sansom Milton & Ruba Hawa. 2025. 'Mud brick houses as a suitable alternative to emergency shelters for internally displaced persons (IDPs): evidence from Northern Syria.' International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. Article link.

Ghassan Elkahlout, Sansom Milton, Taha Yaseen & Elham al-Raweh. 2022. 'Localisation of humanitarian action in War-torn Countries: The experience of local NGOs in Yemen'. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Article link.

'How Qatar Became a Conflict Mediation Heavyweight'. World Politics Review,  6 November 2025. Article link.

'After Israel's strike, will Qatar continue Gaza mediation?.' Middle East Eye, 13 September 2025. Article link.

'Trump Gaza Plan: The juries are out but here’s an expert verdict'. The New Arab, 2 October 2025. Article link.

'Syrians cannot afford another decade of violence and despair'. Middle East Eye, 6 December 2024. Article link.

'Netanyahu's 'new Middle East' has arrived - but it's not what he envisioned'. Middle East Eye, 7 October 2024. Article link.

'The key issues that will define Middle East politics in 2024'. Middle East Eye, 25 December 2023. Article link.

'Redefining reconstruction: a new path for Gaza post-2023'. Humanitarian Practice Network. 21 November 2023. Article link.

'Libya floods highlight need for national unity'. Middle East Eye, 13 September 2023. Article link.

'Localisation of Yemen's Humanitarian Response'. Humanitarian Practice Network, 15 June 2023. Article link.

'Nakba at 75: No more excuses for western inaction on Israeli brutality'. Middle East Eye, 18 May 2023. Article link.

'Why Turkey's earthquake is a grim wake-up call for the Middle East'. Middle East Eye, 21 February 2023. Article link.

'Why the international response to Syria's tragedy is a disgrace and what to do about it'. The New Arab, 17 February 2023. Article link.

'Saudi Arabia-Yemen: The truce holds, but will it lead to a peace agreement?' Middle East Eye, 22 September 2022. Article link.

'Israel-Palestine: There are no more excuses for Palestinian divisions'. Middle East Eye, 12 August 2022. Article link.

Ghassan Elkahlout & Sansom Milton. 'Unblocking the Pathway to Transition in Sudan'. CHS Policy Briefing. Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. 28 December 2022. Briefing link.

Sansom Milton & Abdulrauf Elgeroshi. Libya's Conflict Stalemate:Towards a multitrack approach to stability and peace. CHS Policy Briefing. Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. 13 October 2022. Briefing link.

Sultan Barakat, Sansom Milton & Ghassan Elkahlout. 'Rebuilding Gaza: the Need for a Radical Shift in Reconstruction Strategy'. CHS Policy Briefing. Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, 7 July 2021. Briefing link.

Sultan Barakat & Sansom Milton. 'Houses of wisdom matter: The responsibility to protect and rebuild higher education in the Arab World'. Policy Briefing. Brookings Doha Center. 9 July 2015. Briefing link.

Sansom Milton. 2022. 'Higher education for peace, justice, and citizenship: A global, comparative study of university programmes and formal transitional justice mechanisms'. Centro Nacional Chega!I.P,  giz, and German Cooperation. 

Sultan Barakat & Sansom Milton. 2011. 'Qatar’s Role in Conflict and Peace: An Assessment of Motivations and Impact'. Report, University of York and Saferworld. Report link.