Dr Dave Sloggett

Dr Sloggett is a member of the American Psychological Association and the International Institute of Strategic Studies [IISS]. He holds the visiting titles of Adjunct Professor of Behavioural Sciences at the Behavioural Dynamics Institute (BDI), a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Mathematics of Human Behaviour at the University of Reading and an Associate Research Fellow at the Advanced Research and Assessment Group [ARAG] at the Royal College of Defence Studies at Shrivenham.

At BDI Dr Sloggett is engaged upon a series of studies that explore the subject of strategic, operational and tactical persuasion of target audiences in both a civilian and military context. Dr Sloggett’s main research area is the topic of behavioural transformation and its use in helping shape political and economic recovery in countries be-set by a series of multi-faceted and complex natural and human-orientated disasters. He has also been researching its application to the political reconciliation process in Iraq and Afghanistan; from where he has recently returned.

Dr Sloggett has lectured and written widely on this subject publishing both in the United Kingdom and the United States. His focus is upon how to develop messaging that resonates with specific and ethnically-mixed target audiences and through gaining empathy enabling them change their current behaviours. His early studies focused in detail on Rwanda and the ethnically and tribally motivated confrontations that plagued its history in the latter part of the 20th century.

Dr Sloggett’s more recent studies have looked the issues of narrative creation and dissemination against the kind of complex multi-ethnic backdrops that are seen in countries in Africa and the Middle East. His current studies are focused on the issues political, diplomatic and economic issues emerging in: Sudan from the creation of the separate state; the Democratic Republic of the Congo – with its legacy of colonial exploitation and recent conflicts; Libya – in the aftermath of the replacement of the regime and Eritrea.

Dr Sloggett has a wide and varied career supporting law enforcement and military organisations both in the United Kingdom and on the international stage, notably in cooperation with the United States State Department and Department of Defence. This has lasted for over 40 years. His interests and field work cover a range of subjects with his principle interests laying in the study of social networks and the societal landscape against which they operate.

This had led Dr Sloggett into several detailed studies on the nature of the human terrain in a number of operational civilian and military theatres and into detailed studies of the reasons for state failure in a number of African countries. In those studies his has looked at connections between psychological, anthropological, theological, linguistic and sociological elements of the societal landscape.

His work in the United Kingdom has developed these areas in consideration of the ways in which people become radicalised and groomed to become terrorists. This research work has been widely acclaimed in the United Kingdom and overseas, in countries such as Iraq where Dr Sloggett works alongside the counter-terrorism teams in the country through NATO sponsorship.

Dr Sloggett is also well versed in the organisation and operation of international criminal groups. His knowledge of the societal landscape in Somalia has been used to brief NATO and European Union Task Forces attempting to address the problems of piracy off the coast of Somalia and into the Indian Ocean. Dr Sloggett has also recently completed an assignment for Janes updating terrorist group profiles for Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda in the Maghreb [AQIM], The Islamic State of Iraq [ISI] and the Mahdi Army.

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The Behavioural Dynamics Institute (BDI) was founded in 1989 and was formed out of the Behavioural Dynamics Working Group. Read more