My interest in working towards realizing more inclusive, equitable, and peaceful societies is informed by my upbringing in an American military family in Copperas Cove, Texas. In addition, my experience traveling and working in the U.S., Central America, Europe, the Balkans, Caucasus, the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, and Turkey has shaped my understanding of the frameworks necessary to ensure people can live a life of dignity, free from fear and want.
Originally from Copperas Cove, Texas, Christina Bache has built a career shaped by extensive work and research across Central America, Europe, the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, and Turkey. This breadth of experience has grounded her commitment to the frameworks that enable people to live lives of dignity, free from fear and want. Her work sits at the intersection of responsible business practices, livelihood security for vulnerable groups, forced migration, and gender and power dynamics — with sustained focus on the meaningful inclusion of women in fragile and conflict-affected environments.
Since 2018, Christina has been based in Brussels, where she is an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Migration, Diversity, and Justice at the Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She previously held Visiting Fellowships at the London School of Economics and Political Science, IDEAS — where she was a member of the Human Security Business Partnership — and at the Wilfred Martens Centre for European Studies.
From 2005 to 2018, Christina lived and worked in Istanbul, holding positions at the Istanbul Policy Center, Sabanci University, and the Centre for European and International Studies at Kadir Has University. Deeply engaged in civil society during this period, she co-founded the Women in Foreign Policy Turkey Chapter, co-administered the Syria Support Network, and served on the Advisory Board of the CIPE LIFE project, supporting food entrepreneurs from both Syrian and host communities in Turkey.
Her academic contributions span teaching, research, and policy engagement. Courses have included Global Governance, Crisis Management, Peace and Conflict, Responsible Business Practices, and Non-Traditional Security Threats. Alongside supervising dissertations and publishing in academic journals, she has consistently worked to translate research into practical relevance — presenting findings to policymakers, multilateral organisations, donor governments, civil society, and the private sector.
As a practitioner, Christina has conducted peace and conflict assessments and strategic evaluations in humanitarian assistance and development coordination for organisations including the ILO, IOM, the European Parliament, GIZ, SPARK, the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, and Verite. She serves on the OSCE's International Roster on Gender Issues and the European Institute's List of Experts on Gender Mainstreaming.
Her policy contributions include serving as a civil society representative on the EU's working group on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, contributing to a European Parliament-supported study on progressive foreign policy, and co-authoring policy briefs on equity and inclusion in development assistance for the Biden-Harris administration as a member of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security.
Christina holds a number of pro bono roles reflecting her broader commitments: Co-Chair of the International Crisis Group's Ambassador Council, Chair of the UN PRME Working Group on Business for Peace, Trustee of the United Nations Association-UK, and Member of the International Solidarity Committee for the Uccle Commune in Brussels. She is also an active member of several research networks, including the Middle East Research Network on Internal Displacement, the Research Centre for Gender, Diversity, and Intersectionality at VUB, and the Academic Friends of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office. She additionally supports Belgium Battles and Books, a book club on the history of the World Wars, founded by her father, William Bache, in 2023.
Christina holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, where her dissertation examined the impact of the Turkish private sector on economic security and peace in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She received her M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution and B.A. in International Relations from American University in Washington, DC. From high school through her university years, she volunteered on construction projects building affordable homes for low-income communities in Mexico, Honduras, and Costa Rica — an early and formative engagement with socioeconomic development and inequality.
— Skills
Academic
Advisory
Organizational Development and Institutional Partnerships
— Academic Contributions
Christina teaches executive courses on Crisis Management and Positive Business Engagement in Complex Environments, and has taught undergraduate and graduate courses spanning Peace and Conflict Management, International Organizations, Comparative Politics, Research Methods, the United Nations and Global Governance, Non-Traditional Security Threats, and Introduction to International Relations. She has advised 28 Master's students and 23 Bachelor's students on their theses at Queen's University, the Brussels School of Governance, and UBI.
As a Visiting Fellow at LSE IDEAS, she contributed to the development and promotion of the Human Security Business Partnership Framework Towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Her research on responsible business practices, livelihood security of marginalised groups, forced migration, and women's meaningful inclusion in fragile and conflict-affected environments has been published and cited in academic and policy outlets including War on the Rocks, the Journal of Career Development International, the Journal of Middle East Critique, and Routledge. She also regularly undertakes peer review of colleagues' scholarly and policy-oriented work prior to publication.
— Advisory Contributions
Christina has advised a wide range of stakeholders — including businesses, civil society, policy institutions, and multilateral bodies — on peace economics, conflict sensitivity, human security, livelihood security, positive business engagement, migration, gender mainstreaming, and the meaningful inclusion of women in fragile and conflict-affected environments. Organisations she has worked with include the ILO, IOM, the European Parliament, GIZ, CIPE, Verite, GICHD, and SPARK.
Her policy contributions include co-authoring briefs for the incoming Biden-Harris administration on advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in development policy as a member of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS); preparing a report for the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on the meaningful inclusion of women in peace and transition processes; and advising the UN Global Compact UK Network on a report examining the nexus between business and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.
— Organizational Development and Institutional Partnerships
Christina has fostered institutional partnerships and supported the organisational development of bodies spanning academia, business, philanthropy, and policy — including the European Parliament, GIZ, the UN PRME Working Group on Business for Peace, ICRC, DCAF, CIPE, Synergos, the Atlantic Council, CSIS, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, NARUC, and the IFC.
She has represented organisations in the media and spoken on complex issues for outlets including Euronews and Arab News. She has also successfully identified, applied for, and secured funding and in-kind contributions for programming and research activities on behalf of academic, civil society, and policy organisations, including the UN PRME Working Group on Business for Peace, LSE IDEAS, the Istanbul Policy Center, and the Centre for International and European Studies.
