East Asia: Politics, Economy, and Society

POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY

The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies is one of the leading centres of multi-disciplinary research into the politics, economics and societies of the Middle East and Islamic World. Academics within the Institute have backgrounds in the disciplines of Economics, Politics and Social Anthropology. They work in their respective disciplinary areas as well as in the fields of political economy, socio-politics and a wide range of issues and questions in the Social Sciences. In addition, the Institute benefits from collaborating with specialists in other departments within Exeter's School of Humanities and Social Sciences, including the departments of Politics, Sociology and Philosophy, and History, and from outside the School, in Business and Economics, and Geography.



Dr Hashem Ahmadzadeh's research interests include Nation building, Nationalism, Democratisation, Diaspora and migration, the question of identity and its construction in the literary discourse, Modernity and its consequences in the post-colonial condition – in addition to Sociolinguistics, Literature, Comparative literature, Novels, and Narrative discourse. He has a particular interest in the case of Kurdistan, and is Director of the Centre for Kurdish Studies.

Dr Omar Ashour's research interests are Islamist movements/ideologies, democratization, ethnic/civil conflicts and violent non-state actors. His regional interests range across the Middle East (Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia), Central Asia (Tajikistan and Afghanistan) and the Caucasus (Russian North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya, and Georgia). His current research is focused on the de-radicalization processes and programs of armed Islamist movements in the Middle East and Central Asia; on the causes of radicalization/de-radicalization in the developed world (particularly United Kingdom and Canada); and democratization and persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East.

Michael Axworthy is director of the Centre for Persian & Iranian Studies, and a historian of Iran who, following an early career in the Foreign & Commonwealth office (where he headed the Iran desk), also maintains a close interest in current Iranian politics and international relations.

Dr Kamil Mahdi specialises in the economics and political economy of the Middle East and focuses on the Gulf and Iraq including the politics and economics of sanctions and US occupation; political economy of oil; the state and economic reform; trade and development; and the socio-economics of agriculture and water.

Dr Klejda Mulaj specialises on ethnopolitics and has published widely on ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, including the cases of Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia. Her research interests include the causes of war, nationalism, state-formation, reconciliation, and post-conflict rebuilding. Currently she is working on a project entitled Violent Non-State Actors in Contemporary World Politics.

Professor Tim Niblock, Emeritus Professor of Middle East Politics (and founding director of the IAIS). Specializes in the Gulf Arab States, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, and Libya, focusing on: political economy, state and religion, liberalisation / democratisation, citizenship, civil society, and international relations.

Prof. Gerd Nonneman, Director of the IAIS, and Professor of International Relations & Middle East Politics; Al-Qasimi Chair of Arab Gulf Studies (2007-present). Specializes in the domestic, regional and international politics of the Gulf and the wider Middle East (including the three Gulf wars). Thematically, his main research interests include international relations and foreign policy, GCC-EU (and Middle East-European) relations, political economy, and political reform. Geographically he has focused particularly on Saudi Arabia and the smaller Arab Gulf States, Iraq and Yemen.

Dr James Onley specializes in 19th and 20th century Gulf Arab history, focusing on: politics; society; culture; transnationalism; British hegemony (1820-1971); expatriates in the Gulf Arab States (1800-present); and the historical connections between the Gulf Arab States, Iran, and India.

Dr Ruba Salih is a social anthropologist with research interests in women's movements; gender and civil society, political culture, political mobilization of diasporas; transnational migration; and identity constructions.

Dr Clémence Scalbert-Yücel has conducted research on the relationships between language and nationalism in the Turkish and Kurdish cases. She is more broadly interested in the field of minority cultural production in Turkey, focusing on the relationships between minority/majority fields of cultural production and on the process of integration of the minority cultural field within the national field of culture. She is currently also working on the formation and organization of trans-border territories, focusing on the Kurdish region.

Dr Gareth Stansfield specializes in contemporary Iraqi and Kurdish politics; Gulf security and geopolitics; boundary disputes in the Arabian Peninsula; political development in traumatized societies; the role of military forces in Middle East states; and the application of international relations theory to the Middle East. He has supervised PhD students across a range of subjects including the political development of the UAE, Gulf security, and Iraqi political development.

Dr Marc Valeri, PhD (IEP Paris, 2005). Specializes in modern and contemporary Oman; economic, social and political transformations in the Gulf Arab States; legitimacy, authoritarianism and democratization in the Middle East.