Publications

Hanau Santini, Ruth, and Andrea Novellis. 2026. “Paradigm Lock-In and Strategic Surprise: Explaining Israel’s October 7 Intelligence Failure.” Middle East Policy.

Explains how political assumptions about Hamas became embedded in Israeli intelligence routines, leading analysts to discount credible warnings before October 7. The article traces how institutionalised interpretations of an adversary can prevent recognition of changes in its strategy.

Corradi, Edoardo, and Andrea Novellis. 2026. “Earning, Allocating, Providing: The Financial and Budget Management of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.” Civil Wars. Published online 8 September.

Reconstructs the DAANES’s revenue sources and spending priorities to examine how rebel coalitions finance governance. It argues that budget allocation can sustain coalition cohesion, but that centralised control over strategic resources and informal patronage can undermine formal financial power-sharing.

Novellis, Andrea. 2026. “Syria: Food Security and Stability in the Post-Assad Transition.” In Food Sovereignty and Food Security: The Increasing Weaponisation of Food, edited by Ruth Hanau Santini, 105–124. Naples: UniorPress.

Examines how control over wheat procurement, bread distribution and water shapes political authority in Syria’s post-Assad transition. The chapter connects food insecurity to administrative fragmentation and environmental pressures, identifying risks when existing food-governance arrangements are dismantled before replacements can function.

Novellis, Andrea. 2026. “The Divided Self: How Ideological Compartmentalization Drives Rebel-to-Party Success in Sri Lanka.” Democratization, 1–27.

Analyses the JVP’s public communications between 2015 and 2024 to explain its electoral adaptation after insurgent defeat. It develops the concept of ideological compartmentalization: separating a protected ideological core from a flexible electoral front, allowing broad appeals without requiring linear ideological moderation.

Novellis, Andrea. 2026. “Programmatic Incompatibility: Ideology, Trust and the Limits of Rebel Cooperation Among Syria’s Kurdish Actors.” Civil Wars. Published online 17 June.

Explains why the PYD and Kurdish National Council failed to sustain cooperation in Syria between 2011 and 2015 despite common threats. Interviews and documentary evidence show how incompatible plans for political order undermined trust and credible commitments, limiting the effects of material incentives to cooperate.

Hanau Santini, Ruth, Andrea Novellis, Rajni Gamage, and Devyani Chaturvedi, eds. 2026. Humanitarianism, Development Assistance, Early Warning and Political Violence in South Asia in a Post-Liberal International Order. ISAS Special Report 37. Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, and University of Naples “L’Orientale”.

This edited report examines humanitarian action and early warning amid overlapping crises and the politicisation of aid in South Asia. It includes my chapter, “Early Warning and Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis,” on international organisations’ failure to recognise the crisis despite observable warning signs.

Novellis, Andrea. 2025. “Le relazioni esterne del DAANES nell’interregno siriano.” In La guerra civile siriana. Rome: Carocci.

Examines how the DAANES uses external relations to seek legitimacy, support and negotiating influence without recognition as a state. The chapter considers how Assad’s fall and changing regional relationships require the administration to reassess its diplomatic priorities and strategies for preserving autonomy.

Grasso, Davide, and Andrea Novellis. 2025. “Introduction – Exploring the Kurdish Movement: Power Relations, Historical Dynamics and Theoretical Perspectives.” Partecipazione e Conflitto 18(2): 384–394.

Introduces a special issue connecting state coercion, Kurdish political thought and the internal organisation of mobilisation. The editorial examines how historical power relations, democratic confederalism and activists’ everyday practices inform the study of Kurdish politics during a period of institutional change.

Novellis, Andrea. 2018. “The Rise of Feminism in the PKK: Ideology or Strategy?” Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies 2(1): 115–133.

Traces the development of the PKK’s feminist agenda and the role of women’s autonomous organisation within the movement. It argues that women militants used the party’s emancipatory commitments and their own organisational capacity to challenge patriarchal practices and press for ideological change.

Novellis, Andrea. 2018. “An Alternative to Nationalism: The Kurdish Movement in Turkey.” Occhialì. Rivista sul Mediterraneo islamico 3: 69–84.

Interprets the Kurdish movement’s adoption of democratic confederalism as an attempt to move the Kurdish question from military confrontation into ordinary political negotiation. The article connects its rejection of separatism and nationalism to the pursuit of local self-government within existing state borders.

Novellis, Andrea. “Early Warning Failure in Sri Lanka: Institutional Knowledge Filters and the 2022 Polycrisis.” Review of International Studies. Conditionally accepted.

Examines why international early-warning systems failed to assemble a timely assessment of Sri Lanka’s 2022 crisis. The study focuses on how institutional mandates, analytical tools and procedural rules separated economic, political and humanitarian warnings.

Novellis, Andrea. 2024. Why Fight When You Can Rule Together? Rebel Power-Sharing During Civil Wars. PhD dissertation, University of Milan.

Investigates why rebel organisations establish power-sharing institutions during civil wars. Comparing cases in Nepal, Sri Lanka and northeast Syria, the dissertation examines how ideology, alliances and relations with local constituencies shape the development of shared wartime governance.