Welcome

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. I am working in the Lab’s Migration and Development Initiative to find policy solutions for the challenges of displaced persons in developing countries.

My research is situated at the intersection between conflict studies and migration research. I want to understand how individuals and households make decisions to move under high risk like conflict, poverty and climate-induced stress. I am particularly interested in questions such as: how do civilians make the choice to flee, how do governments and other actors respond to displacement on the local level, how can we predict (forced) migration in light of changing conflict patterns, and what impact does human mobility have on societies in developing countries? I am also interested in how vulnerable populations - the displaced but also women, stateless populations and ethnic minorities - engage with the state after conflict and reclaim their rights to housing, documentation and access to economic opportunities in fragile settings. I predominantly use quantitative methods - spatial statistics, machine learning but also survey experiments and randomized control trials - in my work. I have conducted several surveys in the context of Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and East Africa.

I have received a PhD in Political Science at the Department of Political Science, University College London (UCL) in 2023. I have previously worked as consultant for the World Bank-UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement. I completed a MSc in Security Studies at UCL and a BA in Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz, Germany. You can contact me at sigweber@stanford.edu. My CV can be downloaded here.

Research

My research more generally addresses issues in International Relations, comparative politics, migration and conflict research.

Causes and consequences of human mobility

I want to understand how individuals and households decide to move during conflict and disaster, when they flee and in what type of host communities they want to live. I am also interested in how host communities in developing countries receive displaced persons.

Conflict dynamics

I am interested in a better understanding of conflict as a cause of population movements. This includes understanding patterns of violence against civilians and thinking through how armed actors interact with displaced persons that move through their territories.

Citizen-state interactions after conflict

A branch of my research focuses on how vulnerable populations navigate the post-conflict state and access rights to housing, documentation, and economic opportunities.

Publications & Working papers

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Weber, Sigrid. “Controlling a Moving World: Territorial Control, Displacement and the Spread of Civilian Targeting in Iraq”. 2024. Journal of Peace Research. Article

Turkoglu, Oguzhan and Sigrid Weber. 2023. “When to go? - A Conjoint Experiment on Social Networks, Violence and Forced Migration Decisions in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey”. International Studies Quarterly 67(2). Article

Hartman, Alexandra, Benjamin Morse, and Sigrid Weber. 2021. “Violence, Displacement and Support for Internally Displaced People: Evidence from Syria”. Journal of Conflict Resolution 65(10): 1791-1819. Article

Oswald, Christian, Melanie Sauter, Sigrid Weber, and Rob Williams. 2020. “Under the Roof of Rebels: Civilian Targeting After Territorial Takeover in Sierra Leone.” International Studies Quarterly 64 (2): 295–305. Article


Working papers

Weber, Sigrid and Alexandra Hartman. “Property Rights and Post-Conflict Recovery: Theory and Evidence from IDP Return Movements in Iraq”. Under review. Working paper

Weber, Sigrid, Ala’ Alrababa’h, and Alexandra Hartman. “The Politics of State Supply: Legal Identity in Post-Conflict Societies”. Under review.

Rickard, Kit, Giovanni Hollenweger, Sigrid Weber, and Kristin Bakke. “Contentious Rituals and Inter-group Relations: Parading in Northern Ireland”. Under review.

Stoop, Nik, Peter van der Windt, and Sigrid Weber. “Forced Displacement: Understanding Preferences for Host Communities”. Under review

Weber, Sigrid, Nik Stoop, Peter van der Windt, Haoyu Zhai. “A Meta-Analysis of Attitudes Towards Migrants and Displaced Persons”. Under review. Working paper

Teaching

I have experience teaching various courses in International Relations, conflict studies and quantitative methodology. As teaching assistant, I have taught several undergraduate seminars at the Department of Political Science at University College London and at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz:

  • Spread of Conflict in International Relations (UCL)
  • Causal Analysis for Q-Step (UCL)
  • International Security (UCL)
  • Introduction to International Relations and European Integration (Konstanz)
  • Introduction to Policy Analysis (Konstanz)
  • Methods of Empirical Social Science Research (Konstanz)
  • Introduction to Comparative Politics (Konstanz)