Rate My Professor Melissa Johnston

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).