Martin Ottovay Jørgensen

Dr Martin Jørgensen

Small Group Project 2020-21

Managing Conflicts in the Age of Global Governance: Insights from Twentieth-Century History

This project unites five international historians to develop an empirical and context-sensitive approach to present-day challenges of global governance and humanitarian politics. The ongoing conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela illustrate the alarming inability of the international community to effectively address—let alone resolve—complex political and humanitarian crises. Our aim is to study and compare historical cases from the interwar period and the Cold War to identify patterns and dynamics of international conflict management that have been overlooked by recent scholarship. We intend to use these historical insights to help experts and policymakers assess more accurately the chances and risks of foreign involvement—and of non-involvement.

More information

Research outcomes

Ottovay Jorgensen, M. (2025).

Evaluating UN peacekeeping deployment problems: the case of the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956–1967. Interventions, 27(6), 941–963.

Prott, V., Chen, Y., Cosemans, S., Jørgensen, M. O., & Warnock, B. (2025).

Introduction: League of Nations and United Nations interventions in post-imperial crises and conflicts. Interventions, 27(6), 835–859.

Areas of interest

Military United Nations Palestine Gaza Cyprus International Politics Memory Imperialism Colonial History Middle East History

Cohort

FG6

Biography

Martin Ottovay Jørgensen is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark, and an affiliated member of the Communities, Comparisons and Connections (CCC) research group at Ghent University. He holds a joint PhD in History from Aalborg University and Ghent University (2016), supervised by Professor Eric Vanhaute and Associate Professor Marianne Rostgaard.

His research examines Cold War-era UN peacekeeping operations through the overlapping lenses of postcolonialism, global history, and memory studies. Drawing on privileged archival sources and oral history interviews, his work traces how local populations in post-conflict societies experienced and were shaped by international military presences — and how those encounters connect to broader global processes.

Biographical details correct as of 29.04.26