Shpend Kursani

External Senior Researcher

Shpend is an External Senior Researcher at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies – KCSS and currently Shpend is also a Member of Assembly at the Prishtina Council on Foreign Relations - PCFR. Shpend has previously (2011-2013) been a Senior Researcher at the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development – KIPRED. He has published more than a dozen of policy analyses and papers for various institutes in topics concerning the functioning and political developments in Kosovo and the region of the Western Balkans, as well as their relations with the European Union. Shpend is currently pursuing his PhD studies at the Department of Political and Social Sciences in the European University Institute – EUI, in Florence, Italy. He studies the post-1945 cases of contested states. Shpend holds an M.Phil degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge (2010-2011) with distinctions on his thesis topic “Using Soft Power: The EU’s Ability to Influence the Domestic and Foreign Policies of the States of the Western Balkans”. Shpend holds a B.Sc. degree in Public Policy and Management with the highest honors from the American University in Kosovo (2003-2007). Shpend's reesearch interests include: state behavior, recognition and sovereignty, foreign policy analysis, research methodologies, as well as religion and the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

Selected publications