Luca Raineri

Books:

• Varieties of securitization: Migration Governance along the Central Mediterranean Route (with Cusumano, E., Stambol, E.), London: Palgrave MacMillan 2026 (forthcoming)
• Governance digitale e migrazioni: persone e dati alle frontiere d’Europa (with Biondi F., Forti M.), Rome: Carocci 2024
• La crisi libica e l’ordine internazionale, Rome: Carocci 2022.
• Jihad in Africa: Terrorismo e controterrorismo nel Sahel (with Baldaro E., eds.), Bologna: Il Mulino 2022.
• Fringe regionalism. When peripheries become regions (with Mattheis F., Russo A.), London: Palgrave 2018.

Peer-reviewed journal articles:

• Comparing Jihadist Governance in the Sahelian Branches of the Islamic State (with Nagarajan, C., Albert, I., Ndiaye, B., Stoddard, Ed), African Affairs, 2025 (forthcoming).
• What is deradicalization? Translating security practices in the Maghreb and the Sahel (with Cissé, A., Berlingozzi, L.), Terrorism and Political Violence, 2025. DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2025.2558162
• From firearms to facemasks: The visual securitization of migration in Italy, Malta, Libya and Niger (with Caballero-Velez, D., Cusumano, E., Loschi, C.), Ethnicities, 2025. DOI: 10.1177/14687968251364357
• The Politics of Geopolitics: Italy’s Engagement in the Sahel and the Geopolitical Imaginary of the Wider Mediterranean (with Baldaro, E.), Geopolitics, 2025. DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2025.2510321
• Reiteration or reinvention? Jihadi governance and gender practices in the Sahel (with Berlingozzi, L.), International Feminist Journal of Politics 25(5), 2023.
• The data that we do (not) have: studying drug trafficking and organised crime in Africa (with Strazzari, F.), Trends in Organised Crime 26, 2023.
• Imagined Libya: geopolitics of the margins, L’Année du Maghreb 28(2), 2022
• The place of Africa in international relations: the centrality of the margins in Global IR (with Baldaro, E.), Italian Political Science Review 52(2), 2022
• Drug Smuggling and the Stability of Fragile States. The diverging trajectories of Mali and Niger (with Strazzari, F.), Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 16(2), 2021
• The Bioeconomy of Sahel Borders: Informal Practices of Revenue and Data Extraction, Geopolitics 27(5), 2021.
• Explaining the Rise of Jihadism in Africa: the Crucial Case of the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara, Terrorism and Political Violence 34(8), 2020.
• Responding to Hybridity in an Unstable Neighborhood: The Efficiency of the EU State-centric Approach to the Crisis in Libya and Ukraine (with Ivashchenko-Stadnik, K., Petrov, R.), Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal, 6/2020
• Goldmining in the Sahara-Sahel: the political geography of state making and unmaking, International Spectator 55(4), 2020.
• Azawad: a Parastate between Nomads and Mujahidins? (with Baldaro, E.), Nationalities papers 48(1), 2020.
• Security and informality in Libya: militarisation without military?”, Conflict, Security & Development 19(6), 2019
• (B)ordering hybrid security? EU stabilisation practices in the Sahara-Sahel region (with Strazzari, F.), Ethnopolitics 18(5), 2019.
• The Malta Connection: a corrupting island in a corrupting sea? European Review of Organised Crime 5(1), 2019.
• Human Smuggling across Niger: State-Sponsored Protection Rackets and Contradictory Security Imperatives”, Journal of Modern African Studies 56(1), 2018.
• ISIS and Al-Qaeda as Strategies and Political Imaginaries in Africa: A Comparison between Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (with Martini A.), Civil Wars 19(4), 2017.
• Mali: the short-sightedness of donor-driven peacebuilding”, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 11(1), 2016.
• State, Secession and Jihad: The Micro-Political Economy of Conflict in North Mali” (with Strazzari F.), African Security8(4), 2015.

Book chapters:

• Sectarianism in Mali, Syria and Iraq: a resource for jihadist mobilization, counterinsurgency, or regime survival? (with Powers C., Lacroix S.). In: Bøås M., Ben-Nun G., Engel U., Osland K. (eds.) Resisting Radicalization; Exploring the Non-Occurrence of Violent Extremism. Boulder (CO): Lynne Rienner 2025.
• Localising Africa in international relations: the (double) realist bias of Global IR (with Baldaro E.). In: D’Amato S., Dian M., Russo A. (eds.) International Relations and Area Studies. London: Springer 2024.
• The Bioeconomy of Sahel Borders: Informal Practices of Revenue and Data Extraction. In: Vammen I., Cold-Ravnkilde S. M., Lucht H. (eds.) The Long Shadow of the Border. Migrants, Brokers and European Border Governance in Africa. London: Routledge 2023.
• Smuggling migrants from Africa to Europe: threat, resource, or bargaining chip?. In: Achilli L., Kyle D. (eds.) The World of Human Smuggling. New York: Johns Hopkins University Press 2023.
• Sex, Drugs and Rocket Launchers: Traffics and Conflicts in the Sahara-Sahel. In: Carbone G., Casola C. (eds.) Sahel: 10 years of Instability. Local, Regional and International Dynamics. Milan: Ledi Publishing ISPI Dossier, 2022.
• Drought, Desertification and Displacement: Re-Politicising the Climate-Conflict Nexus in the Sahel. In: Dessì A., Fusco F. (eds.) Climate Change and Security in the Mediterranean: Understanding the Nexus, Unpacking International Policy Responses. Rome-Barcelona: NewMed Research Network 2022.
• Introduzione: Da Bono Vox al «Sahelistan»: la faglia saheliana e le figure dell’eccezione nella geografia politica africana. Prospettive teoriche e metodologiche (with Baldaro E.). In: Baldaro E., Raineri L. (eds.) Jihad in Africa: Terrorismo e controterrorismo nel Sahel. Bologna: Il Mulino 2022.
• La crisi che non c’era: analisi dei fattori di radicalizzazione e mobilitazione jihadista in Sahel. In: Baldaro E., Raineri L. (eds.) Jihad in Africa: Terrorismo e controterrorismo nel Sahel. Bologna: Il Mulino 2022.
• Sands. In: Faleg G., Narbone L. (eds.) African Spaces. The new geopolitical frontlines. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies Chaillot Paper 2022.
• Dissecting the EU response to the ‘migration crisis’ (with Strazzari F.). In: Pogodda S., Richmond O., Mac Ginty R. (eds.) The EU and Crisis Response. Manchester: Manchester University Press 2021.
• Migrant smuggling and the social organisation of cross-border mobility. In: Gallien M., Weigand F. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Smuggling. London: Routledge 2021.
• The collateral damage of the war on smugglers along the Central Mediterranean Route. In: Fargues P., Rango M., (eds.) Migration in West and North Africa and across the Mediterranean: Trends, risks, development and governance. Geneva: IOM Publications, 2020.
• Niger, recent political history. In: Frame I. (ed.) Africa South of the Sahara yearbook 2020, 50^th ed.. London: Routledge 2020.
• Resilience to what? The EU fostering capacity-building in the Sahel through CSDP-missions (with Baldaro E.). In: Cusumano E., Hofmaier S. (eds.) Projecting resilience across the Mediterranean. London: Palgrave 2019.
• Fous de Dieu ou indignés ? Crise de gouvernance, polarisations identitaires et populisme religieux au Mali. In: Lecocq B., Niang A. (eds.) Identités Sahéliennes en temps de crise. Histoires, enjeux et perspectives. Berlin: LIT Verlag 2019.
• Cross-border smuggling in north Niger: the morality of the informal and the construction of a hybrid order. In: Polese A., Russo A., Strazzari F. (eds.), Governance Beyond the Law: the immoral, the illegal, the informal. London: Palgrave 2019.
• Hybrid governance and mobility in the Sahel: stabilisation practices put to the test (with Ba Y.). In: Venturi B. (ed.)Governance and Security in the Sahel: tackling mobility, demography and climate change. FEPS/IAI: Rome 2019.
• Drug trafficking in the Sahara Desert: follow the money and find land-grabbing. In: Chiodelli F., Hull T., Hudson R. (eds.) Corrupt Places: The Illicit and illegal in the Regional and Urban Governance and Development. London: Routledge 2017.
• La mobilitazione della società civile africana contro land e water grabbing. Conflittualità interne ed esterne. In: Rognoni M., Vasconi E. (eds.) Democrazia, società civile e sviluppo in Africa subsahariana. Bologna: AIEP 2017
• Sahara Desert: the centre of all concerns at the periphery of the world. A contestation of geopolitical partitions from a nomadic perspective. In: Peeren E., Stuit H., Van Weyenberg A. (eds.) Peripheral Visions in the Globalising Present: Community, Contestation, Critique. Leiden: Brill 2016.

Open-access research reports:

• The impact of climate change on security and conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire (with De Simone, S., Boldrini, M.), Technical Report, ACRES-WA project, 2025.
• Advancing Climate Change Resilience and Enhancing Security in West Africa (with D’Amico, V., De Simone, S., Sellitti, S., Boldrini, M.), Policy Brief, ACRES-WA Project, 2025
• Russia’s strategic narrative in Mali: enhancing soft power via informative influence. In Narbone L. (ed.). Russia’s soft power strategies in the MENA region and Africa. LUISS Mediterranean Platform report, 2024.
• Protecting the planet and preventing conflict. Exploring the impact of environmental conservation policies in the WAP Complex, Policy Report, International Alert, 2024.
• Religious dialogues, community resilience and peacebuilding in the Sahel, Policy Brief, ETRA-ID project, 2024
• Natural resources and the political economy of jihadism in the wider Sahel (with Stoddard E., eds.), Chatham House Workshop Report, 2022.
• Drought, Desertification and Displacement: Re-Politicising the Climate-Conflict Nexus in the Sahel, Paper 22/04, IAI, 2022
• Lessons learnt on EU’s measures to prevent violent extremism in North Africa and the Sahel (with Strazzari F.), Policy Brief, PREVEX 2021.
• Enabling environments, drivers, and occurrence/non- occurrence of violent extremism (with Bøås M., Osland K., Iocchi A., Haavik V., Cissé A., Mahamane L., Lounnas D., Benmrahar A.), Working Paper, PREVEX 2021
• The EU and other stakeholders’ prevention strategy towards violent extremism in the Maghreb and the Sahel (with Cissé A., Kalpakian J., Lounnas, D. Strazzari F.), Policy Brief, PREVEX 2020.
• Sahel Climate Conflicts? When (Fighting) Climate Change Fuels Terrorism, Policy Brief, EUISS, 2020.
• Dogmatism or Pragmatism? Violent extremism and gender relationships in central Sahel, Policy Report, International Alert and UNICRI, 2020.
• EU pressure on Niger to stop migrants is reshaping cross-border economies (with Lucht H.), Policy Brief, DIIS Copenhagen, 2019.
• Navigating borderlands in the Sahel: border security governance and mixed migration in Liptako-Gourma (with Golovko E.), Policy Report, Mixed Migration Centre Dakar/Geneva, 2019.
• Fulfilling Implausible Expectations. Reducing Migratory Flows From Libya Amidst Porous Borders, Policy Brief 2018/14, Robert Schuman Centre, EUI, 2018.
• If victims become perpetrators. Factors contributing to vulnerability and resilience to violent extremism in the central Sahel, Policy Report, International Alert and UNICRI, 2018.
• The implementation of EU Crisis Response in Libya: Bridging theory and practice (with Loschi C., Strazzari F.), Working Paper, EUNPACK, 2018.
• The Security-Migration-Development Nexus in the Sahel: A Reality Check (with Rossi A.), Working Paper 17, IAI, 2017.
• Perceptions about the EU’s Crisis Response in Libya (with Loschi C.), Policy Brief, EUNPACK, 2017.
• Jihadism in Mali and the Sahel: evolving dynamics and patterns (with Strazzari F.), Policy Brief 21, EUISS, 2017.
• How the EU is facing crises in its neighbourhood: Evidence from Libya and Ukraine (with Ivaschenko K., Petrov R., Rieker P., Russo A., Strazzari F.), Working Paper, EUNPACK, 2017.
• Organized Crime and fragile states: African variations (with Strazzari F.), Policy Brief 8, EUISS, 2017.
• Organized crime in Mali: why it matters for a peaceful transition from conflict (with Galletti C.), Policy Brief 09/2016, International Alert, 2016
• The Sahel as Ungoverned Space? Smuggling and Trafficking in a Hybrid Security Order (with Strazzari F., Shuck G.). Interim Report for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. College Park, MD: START, 2014.