Tønnessen has a PhD in comparative politics from the University of Bergen. Her research interests include: Islamic law, women's rights and political representation, social movements including women's movements and Islamic movements, sexual and reproductive rights, and gender based violence. She has published international peer reviewed articles with publishers like Duke University Press, Routledge, Brill, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, and Taylor Francis.

Tønnessen has a track record from the Middle East and Northern Africa with long term stays in Sudan, Lebanon and Syria. She has specialized in Sudanese politics for more than a decade. Tønnessen has conducted extensive fieldworks in the country and she has lectured at Ahfad University for Women. She has a wide network of contacts within Sudanese academia, politics and civil society.

Tønnessen has headed several research projects among them a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council on sexual violence and rape legislation in Sudan. Tønnessen is also the project leader of a research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council on the effects of aid to women’s political representation in Malawi, Uganda, Sudan and Zambia. She is additionally heading a new mapping project funded by the RAFTO foundation on women’s human rights and efforts towards family and criminal law reform in Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen between 1995 and 2015.

In addition, Tønnessen has participated in several applied research projects and evaluations (funded by NORAD, SIDA, MFA, The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sudan, and the World Bank).

Tønnessen is a founding member of the Norwegian Center for Humanitarian Studies which includes the three Norwegian research institutes CMI, NUPI and PRIO. She is also in the steering committee for the Center on Law and Social Transformation, which is a joint initiative by CMI and the University of Bergen. She is also a member of the program board for development research at the Swedish Research Council.

Most recent publications

Sudan Working Paper | May 2017

Weak law forbidding female genital mutilation in Red Sea State, Sudan

Samia al-Nagar, Liv Tønnessen, Sharifa Bamkar

Newspaper Op-Ed | Mar 2017

Reform av voldtektsloven i Sudan – et spill for galleriet

Liv Tønnessen

Book Chapter | Feb 2017

Women’s Rights and the Women’s Movement in Sudan (1952-2014): Focus and Strategies for Adopting Legal Feminist Action

Samia al-Nagar and Liv Tønnessen

Women's activism in Africa

Journal Article | Jan 2017

Paper tiger law forbidding FGM in Sudan

Liv Tønnessen, Samia El-Nagar, Sharifa Gafar Bamkar

Open democracy

Newspaper Op-Ed | Jan 2017

Papirtigere beskytter ikke mot kjønnslemlestelse i Sudan

Liv Tønnessen

Journal Article | Jan 2017

Enemies of the State: Curbing Women Activists Advocating Rape Reform in Sudan

Liv Tønnessen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Book Chapter | Jan 2017

Sudan: Human rights, development and democracy

Liv Tønnessen

Politics in the Developing World

Journal Article | 2016

Ansar al-Sunna and Women’s Agency in Sudan: A Salafi Approach to Empowerment through Gender Segregation

Liv Tønnessen

Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies

CMI Report | 2016

Women and Girls Caught between Rape and Adultery in Sudan: Criminal Law Reform, 2005–2015 (in Arabic)

Liv Tønnessen and Samia al-Nagar

CMI Insight | 2016

Criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation in Sudan: A never ending story?

Liv Tønnessen and Samia al-Nagar

Newspaper Op-Ed | 2016

Bistand til kvinnebevegelser i Afrika virker

Ragnhild Muriaas, Liv Tønnessen og Vibeke Wang

CMI Report | 2016

Women’s Activism in Saudi Arabia: Male Guardianship and Sexual Violence

Liv Tønnessen

Contact Us

Liv Tønnessen

Weak law forbidding female genital mutilation in Red Sea State, Sudan

Reform av voldtektsloven i Sudan – et spill for galleriet

Women’s Rights and the Women’s Movement in Sudan (1952-2014): Focus and Strategies for Adopting Legal Feminist Action

Paper tiger law forbidding FGM in Sudan

Papirtigere beskytter ikke mot kjønnslemlestelse i Sudan

Enemies of the State: Curbing Women Activists Advocating Rape Reform in Sudan

Sudan: Human rights, development and democracy

Ansar al-Sunna and Women’s Agency in Sudan: A Salafi Approach to Empowerment through Gender Segregation

Women and Girls Caught between Rape and Adultery in Sudan: Criminal Law Reform, 2005–2015 (in Arabic)

Criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation in Sudan: A never ending story?

Bistand til kvinnebevegelser i Afrika virker

Women’s Activism in Saudi Arabia: Male Guardianship and Sexual Violence

Criminalizing FGM in Sudan: A never ending story?

Enemies of the State: Curbing Women Activists Advocating Rape Reform in Sudan

Ansar al-Sunna and Women’s Agency in Sudan: A Salafi Approach to Empowerment through Gender Segregation

When Rape Becomes Politics: Negotiating Islamic Law Reform in Sudan

Exploring the relationship between democratization and quota policies in Africa

The Women's Quota in Conflict Ridden Sudan: Ideological Battles for and against Gender Equality

Nye utfordringer til islamsk feminisme: Kvinneaktivismens mange ansikter i Sudan og Iran

Beyond numbers? Women's 25% parliamentary quota in post-conflict Sudan

Feminist interlegalities and gender justice in Sudan: The debate on CEDAW and Islam

Is Islam a threshold for escape or an insurmountable barrier? Women bargaining with patriarchy in post-Islamist Sudan

Democratizing Islam and Islamizing democracy: An inquiry into Hasan al-Turabi's conception of Shura in light of Western democratic theory

Gendered Citizenship in Sudan: Competing Debates on Family Laws among Northern and Southern Elites in Khartoum

Islamisme og demokrati hånd i hånd

Women’s Rights and the Women’s Movement in Sudan (1952-2014): Focus and Strategies for Adopting Legal Feminist Action

Sudan: Human rights, development and democracy

Substantive Representation in Africa: From Timing to Framing of Family Law Reforms in Morocco, South Africa, and Uganda

Entre la Sharia y la CEDAW en Sudan: Mujeres islamistas negocian la equidad de género

Sudan

Hasan al-Turabi

Between Sharia and CEDAW in Sudan: Islamist women negotiating gender equity

Al-Banna, Hasan

Bistand til kvinners rettigheter og likestilling: Hva sier forskningen?

Complex realities and astute actors: Sudanese women's activism and UN Security Council Resolution 1325

From impunity to prosecution? Sexual violence in Sudan beyond Darfur

Sudan country case study: Child rights

Women and Girls Caught between Rape and Adultery in Sudan: Criminal Law Reform, 2005–2015 (in Arabic)

Women’s Activism in Saudi Arabia: Male Guardianship and Sexual Violence

Women and Girls Caught between Rape and Adultery in Sudan: Criminal Law Reform, 2005–2015

The Politics of Women's Representation in Sudan: Debating Women's Rights in Islam from the Elites to the Grassroots

Discrimination in the Name of Religious Freedom: The Rights of Women and Non-Muslims after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan

Weak law forbidding female genital mutilation in Red Sea State, Sudan

The Women's Quota in Conflict Ridden Sudan (in Arabic)

Women’s Equal Rights and Islam in Sudanese Republican Thought: A Translation of Three Family Law Booklets from 1975, Produced and Circulated by the Republican Sisters

Islamic Feminism, a public lecture

Criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation in Sudan: A never ending story?

Women’s Right to Abortion after Rape in Sudan

Curbing Women Activists in Darfur in the wake of the International Criminal Court

Marriage is Politics: Prospects for Women's Equality after the Arab Spring

The Paradox of Representation in Sudan: Muslim Women's Diverging Agendas

Competing Perceptions of Women's Civil Rights in Sudan

The many faces of political Islam in Sudan: Muslim women's activism for and against the state

Islamism and Democracy: An Inquiry into the Political Thought of the Sudanese Islamist Hassan al-Turabi

Paper tiger law forbidding FGM in Sudan

What does Islam have to do with it? A close look at the facts: FGM in the Horn of Africa

Kvinnekamp og kongemakt i Marokko

Law Reform in Post-Conflict Sudan: Are Female Members of the National Assembly Acting in the Interest of Sudanese Women?

Why tradition is distinct from religion: Explaining variation in counter-mobilization against child marriage reform in Africa

Redefining the Traditional and Religious State: Framing Child Marriage Reform in Sudan and Zambia

Islamic lawfare and women's rights

Hva sier forskningen om bistand til likestilling?

Islamisme i Sudan. Top down military style

Engineering gender equality: A presentation of research design on the effects of aid to women's political representation

Sexual Violence in Conflict Torn Darfur: Local Activists’ Perspectives

Impunity and the conflation of rape and adultery in Sudan’s Criminal Act: Women’s Mobilization to Reform Sudan’s Rape Laws

Gender and Political and Economic Inequality

Health effects of criminalization of abortion

Caught between rape and adultery in Sudan

Family Law Reform in Sudan

Law reform in Sudan after the comprehensive peace agreement

Gender and protection of civilians

Gender Based Violence: Emerging Research Agendas

The Politics of Sexual Violence in Sudan: Between Rape and Adultery

Criminal Law Reform in Sudan. Between Sharia and Human Rights

The Politics of Salafism in Sudan: Women’s Empowerment through Gender Segregation?

Child marriages in Sudan: What's Islam got to do with it?

When Rape Becomes Politics: Negotiating Islamic Law Reform in Sudan