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Dr Maja Davidovic
(she/her)
Senior Lecturer in International Relations
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I joined Cardiff University in October 2021, with research expertise in transitional justice, international law, human rights, norms and knowledge production.
I completed my PhD in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University in 2022, where I also worked as a tutor. I also hold an MA in Human Rights from Central European University.
My doctoral research, for which I was awarded the Open Society Civil Society Scholar Award, investigated prevention of conflict repetition in Bosnia and Herzegovina. My articles and essays are published in, among others, the International Studies Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Journal of Transitional Justice and Conflict, Security and Development.
My first book, Governing the Past: 'Never Again' and the Transitional Justice Project is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in August 2025.
Publication
2024
- Castrillón-Guerrero, L., Rudling, A. and Davidovic, M. 2024. Feminist constellations: Conversations about epistemic harm, gender-based violence, and (trying to hold on to) joy in academia. International Feminist Journal of Politics 26(1), pp. 173-193. (10.1080/14616742.2023.2294328)
2023
- Davidovic, M. and Turner, C. 2023. What counts as transitional justice scholarship? Citational recognition and disciplinary hierarchies in theory and practice. International Studies Quarterly 67(4), article number: sqad091. (10.1093/isq/sqad091)
- Carvajalino, J. and Davidovic, M. 2023. Escaping or reinforcing hierarchies? Norm relations in transitional justice. International Studies Review 25(3), article number: viad022. (10.1093/isr/viad022)
- Turner, C. and Davidovic, M. 2023. Transitional justice: An interdisciplinary landscape?. In: Lawther, C. and Moffett, L. eds. Research Handbook on Transitional Justice. 2nd edition. Research Handbooks in International Law Cheltenham and Camberley: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 27-44.
2022
- Davidovic, M. 2022. The uses of transitional justice as a field. In: Evans, M. ed. Beyond Transitional Justice Transformative Justice and the State of the Field (or non-field). Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 13-23.
2021
- Davidovic, M. 2021. The law of 'never again': Transitional justice and the transformation of the norm of non-recurrence. International Journal of Transitional Justice 15(2), pp. 386-406. (10.1093/ijtj/ijab011)
Articles
- Castrillón-Guerrero, L., Rudling, A. and Davidovic, M. 2024. Feminist constellations: Conversations about epistemic harm, gender-based violence, and (trying to hold on to) joy in academia. International Feminist Journal of Politics 26(1), pp. 173-193. (10.1080/14616742.2023.2294328)
- Davidovic, M. and Turner, C. 2023. What counts as transitional justice scholarship? Citational recognition and disciplinary hierarchies in theory and practice. International Studies Quarterly 67(4), article number: sqad091. (10.1093/isq/sqad091)
- Carvajalino, J. and Davidovic, M. 2023. Escaping or reinforcing hierarchies? Norm relations in transitional justice. International Studies Review 25(3), article number: viad022. (10.1093/isr/viad022)
- Davidovic, M. 2021. The law of 'never again': Transitional justice and the transformation of the norm of non-recurrence. International Journal of Transitional Justice 15(2), pp. 386-406. (10.1093/ijtj/ijab011)
Book sections
- Turner, C. and Davidovic, M. 2023. Transitional justice: An interdisciplinary landscape?. In: Lawther, C. and Moffett, L. eds. Research Handbook on Transitional Justice. 2nd edition. Research Handbooks in International Law Cheltenham and Camberley: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 27-44.
- Davidovic, M. 2022. The uses of transitional justice as a field. In: Evans, M. ed. Beyond Transitional Justice Transformative Justice and the State of the Field (or non-field). Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 13-23.
Research
I am currently working on two main projects in the areas of transitional justice, ontological security and the politics of memory.
Governing the Past:"Never Again" and the Transitional Justice Project
Preventing mass-scale atrocities has been a global imperative since the end of World War II when the international community vowed that the Holocaust would ‘never again’ be repeated. Since then, new regulatory models have been devised to tackle mass atrocities as a key threat to international security, among which a more prominent model has been that of transitional justice. Through its tools and mechanisms for ‘dealing’ with problematic pasts, the global project of transitional justice is positioned as a positive force for ensuring non-repetition of violations in post-conflict societies. Never Again challenges the idea of transitional justice as a benevolent project of global governance and reevaluates the (dis)connections between two global imperatives of dealing with the past and ensuring a peaceful future. In theorizing transitional justice as a structure of global governance with survival, legitimacy, and permanence needs, the book investigates how and why the project originally designed to put the promise of 'Never Again' into practice serves to trigger and worsen the insecurities which keep post-conflict societies anxious about the future of peace. In doing so, the book rethinks what ‘Never Again’ means for post-conflict societies.
Book manuscript forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in August 2025.
What Makes and Breaks Revisionist States? Historical Revisionism, Ontological Security and Agency
While historical revisionism is commonly used to justify offensive foreign policies and mobilise war support, little scholarly attention is paid to its scope and importance in the Western Balkans, a region that continues to test Europe's security assurances. To advance the knowledge on prevention of conflict repetition and ontological security, this project investigates how historical revisionism, particularly atrocity crimes denial, emerges, develops and diminishes in states' foreign policies during post-conflict reckoning with the past.
Underpinned by Critical Security Studies, the project aims to a) map out the use of historical revisionism by revisionist governments in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, b) establish the factors influencing revisionist behaviour and c) understand the role of 'ordinary' people in triggering, challenging and correcting such behaviour. The project employs document analysis, focus groups and interviews to trace the external/internal dynamics influencing the development and decline of revisionist states and carries significant policy-oriented implications.
This is a British Academy funded sponsored project [May 2023 - January 2025].
Teaching
2024/2025
PL9220 Gender, Sex and Death in Global Politics
PL9197 Introduction to Globalisation
PL9299 International Law in a Changing World
Past modules
PL9228 International Security - Concepts and Issues
PL9224 Global Governance
PL9331 War and Society
Supervisions
- transitional justice
- politics of memory
- politics of knowledge production
- epistemic violence and (in)justice
- human rights law and norms
Current supervision
