Dr Brieg Powel

I research how democratic states can counter hybrid threats by championing a multiscalar perspective that moves beyond state‑centric models. My work reframes states, societies, infrastructures, and information environments as dynamic, relational configurations and shows how adversaries exploit ties across political, social, technological, and economic scales to destabilise polities. I identify vulnerabilities at sub‑state and societal levels and outline the conceptual and institutional reforms needed to strengthen democratic resilience. My research sits at the intersection of security, strategy, and global politics.

This builds on the conceptual framework of dynamic multiplicity, which emerged from my study of long‑term historical processes. It expands our understanding of international relations through historical sociology and interdisciplinary methods. I have a particular interest in the links between warfare, politics, and society, and in relations in the distant past.

Leadership roles

• Co‑Director, Exeter Centre of Advanced International Studies, 2025-present.
• Director of Education and Student Experience, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology, 2022–23.
• Interim Director of Education, Department of Politics, 2022.
• Director of Taught Programmes, College of Social Science and International Studies, 2020–22.
• Co‑convenor, British International Studies Association Working Group on Historical Sociology in International Relations, 2017-20.

I have held academic positions at the University of Plymouth and Aberystwyth University. Before academia I taught English as a foreign‑language teacher in Madrid. I am bilingual in Welsh and English, have advanced French and Spanish, and a very basic understanding of Farsi (Persian). I also hold a UEFA football coaching licence.

Orchid ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7103-8637

Biography

I rejoined the University of Exeter from the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, in Spetember 2018. I previously worked at Plymouth University (2008-2012) and as a Teaching Fellow at Exeter (2007-8). I was awarded my PhD in Politics from Exeter in 2009 for a thesis on EU democracy Promotion in Tunisia. Born in Swansea, I am a fluent Welsh-speaker. I'm curently working through my FA football coaching badges with the dream of turning a local children's football team into the next Swansea City.

Media and public engagement

I have been a regular contributor to Welsh- and English-language media, commenting on international affairs, security, and Middle Eastern politics for BBC Cymru and BBC Wales since 2004. I have contributed to numerous Welsh- and English-language television documentaries on subjects including the Vietnam and Korean Wars and the campaigns of MAC and the FWA in Wales during the 1960s. One of these productions, a documentary on the Welsh photographer Philip Jones Griffiths, produced with Rondo Media, won a Hollywood International Independent Documentary Award for Best Foreign Feature in 2017 (philipjonesgriffiths.org/news-events/pjg-documentary-wins-hollywood-award/).

Research supervision:

I am happy to supervise research projects in the fields of security, strategy, International Relations theory, and historical IR.