Roland Bleiker is Professor of International Relations and Coordinator of the Visual Politics Research Program at the University of Queensland. From May to December 2026, he is in Stockholm as the Olof Palme Professor at the Swedish Defence University.
His research explores how images and emotions shape political phenomena, including humanitarianism, security, peacebuilding, protest movements and the conflict in Korea. Professor Roland’s books include Visual Global Politics (Routledge, 2018); Aesthetics and World Politics (Palgrave, 2009/2012); Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press, 2005/2008) and Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (CUP, 2000). His main current research project is an interdisciplinary ARC Linkage collaboration (2022-2026) on The Politics and Ethics of Visualising Humanitarian Crises.
Professor Roland also worked for two years in a Swiss diplomatic mission in the Korean DMZ and held visiting affiliations at Harvard, Cambridge, Humboldt, Tampere, Yonsei and Pusan National University as well as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
