Melissa Johnston

Dr. Melissa Johnston is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, where she also serves as Deputy Director of the Rotary Peace Centre. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Politics from Murdoch University, awarded the 2019 Australian Political Studies Association best doctoral thesis prize. Prior to academia, she worked for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation on Asia-Pacific development and for Women Against Violence Europe on European Union programs protecting women from severe intimate partner violence.

Johnston's academic interests center on political economy and security, examining gender-based violence, inequality, and marriage markets like brideprice as drivers of violent conflict. Her research highlights misogyny's pivotal role in the political economy of violent extremism, populism, Islamist and right-wing politics in Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Libya, with findings identifying support for violence against women and misogyny as the strongest predictors of extremism support—cited by the UN Secretary-General in 2019 and 2020. She applies feminist political economy to post-conflict rebuilding, critiquing how gender interventions such as microfinance, gender-responsive budgeting, and domestic violence laws reinforce elite dominance and gender injustices, particularly in Timor-Leste. Johnston holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (2022-2025) for her project on brideprice, conflict, and violence against women in Southeast Asia. Major honors include the 2024 British International Studies Association book prize for "Building peace, rebuilding patriarchy: the failure of gender interventions in Timor-Leste" (Oxford University Press, 2023), the 2020 Australian International Political Economy Network best article prize for "Frontier finance: the role of microfinance in debt and violence in post-conflict Timor-Leste" (Review of International Political Economy), and various seminar presentations at institutions like the London School of Economics and Texas A&M University. Key publications further include "The political economy of patriarchal accumulation" (Review of International Political Economy, 2025), "Morbid symptoms: a feminist dialectics of global patriarchy in crisis" (European Journal of International Relations, 2024, co-authored with Sara Meger), "Running on empty: depletion and social reproduction in Myanmar and Sri Lanka" (Antipode, 2024, co-authored with Jayanthi Thiyaga Lingham), and "Brideprice's relationship to conflict, class, and violence against women" (Journal of Global Security Studies, 2023).

Professional Email: melissa.johnston@uq.edu.au