School of Social and Political Science

Dr Jamie Allinson

Senior Lecturer

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J.Allinson@ed.ac.uk
+44 (0)131 650 9925
Rm. B25
19 George Square
Edinburgh
UK
EH8 9LD

Research interests

International Relations Research Group Middle East Research Group Political Theory Research Group Politics and political violence

Historical sociology, International relations, International theory, Marxism, Middle East politics, Political theory, Revolutions, politics of the Capitalocene

I am a scholar of politics and international relations with a particular interest in the contemporary Middle East. I am especially interested in how forms of political power - within, across and beyond borders - interact with people and movements originating in the realms more commonly thought of as 'society' and 'the economy.' I am also interested in how such questions inform our present political condition in what Jason Moore calls 'the Capitalocene.'

My most recent book The Age of Counter-revolution: States and Revolutions in the Middle East addresses these questions by looking at the fate of the 'Arab Spring.' In the book, I argue that the Arab Spring should  be seen not merely as a series of failed revolutions but as a series of successful counter-revolutions. By comparing the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, the book shows how these profoundly revolutionary situations were overturned by counterrevolutions.

My previous book The Struggle for the State in Jordan: The Social Origins of Alliances in the Middle East was awarded the Jadaliyya 2016 Political Economy Book Prize. I am also the recipient of the 2022 Fred Halliday Award given to recognize an outstanding mid-career scholar researching the Middle East/ Mediterranean region.

I am a member of the Salvage editorial collective and the author with Rosie Warren, Richard Seymour, and China Mieville of The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene (Verso, 2021) in the Verso Salvage books series.

I am currently developing a new project on the intertwined histories of energy extractivism and modern state sovereignty, provisionally entitled The Birth of Fossil Sovereignty.

I have also served as an external consultant for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Germany and as a member of the Historical Materialism editorial board.

Topics interested in supervising

I am interested in supervising PhD applicants working on Middle Eastern politics and International Relations, especially those working within critical theoretical approaches and historical sociology.

If you are interested in being supervised by Jamie Allinson, please see the links below (open in new windows) for more information:

Works within

Wednesdays 10-12

Publications by user content

Publication Research Explorer link
Allinson J. The actuality of counter-revolution. Salvage. 2022 Jul 1;(12).
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Allinson J. The Age of Counter-Revolution: States and Revolutions in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 302 p. doi: 10.1017/9781108633062
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The Salvage Collective. The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene. London: Verso, 2021. 112 p. (Salvage Editions).
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Allinson J. On Generations of Revolutionary Theory: A response. Journal of Historical Sociology. 2021 Apr 5;34(1):150-160. doi: 10.1111/johs.12316
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Davidson N, Allinson J. De-provincialising 1820: The west of Scotland general strike in the mirror of uneven and combined development (part 1). Scottish Labour History Society Journal. 2020;(55):143-174.
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Allinson J. The Middle East and North Africa in the lens of Marxist international relations theory. In Hinnebusch R, Gani J, editors, The Routledge Handbook to the Middle East and North African State and States System. 1 ed. Routledge. 2019. p. 211-224 doi: 10.4324/9780429342486-15
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Allinson J. The war economy: Towards a Marxist critique. 2019.
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Allinson J. Counterrevolution as international phenomenon: The case of Egypt. Review of International Studies. 2019 Apr 30;45(2):320-344. Epub 2019 Jan 25. doi: 10.1017/S0260210518000529
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Allinson J. A fifth generation of revolution theory? Journal of Historical Sociology. 2019 Mar 10;32(1):142-151. Epub 2019 Mar 10. doi: 10.1111/johs.12220
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Allinson J. Disaster Islamism. Salvage. 2017 Feb 20;(4):127-155.
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Allinson J. Revisiting the Transformation of the Ninenteenth Century and the ‘Eastern Question': Uneven and Combined Development and the Ottoman Steppe. In Anievas A, Matin K, editors, Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée. London: Rowman and Littlefield, Inc. 2016. 6. (Global Dialogues: Developing Non-Eurocentric IR and IPE).
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Allinson J. Class forces, transition and the Arab Uprisings: A comparison of Egypt, Syria and Tunisia. In Hinnebusch R, editor, After the Arab Uprisings: Between Democratization, Counter-revolution and State Failure . 1st ed. London: Routledge. 2016. (Democratization Special Issues).
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Allinson J. The Struggle for the State in Jordan: The Social Origins of Alliances in the Middle East. London; New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2016. 224 p.
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Allinson J. Don't mourn, accelerate. Salvage. 2015 Aug 17;(1).
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Allinson J. Necropolitics of drones. International Political Sociology. 2015 Jun 2;9(2):113-127. doi: 10.1111/ips.12086
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Allinson J. Class forces, transition and the Arab uprisings: A Comparison of Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria. Democratization. 2015 Mar 25;22(2):294-314. doi: 10.1080/13510347.2015.1010812
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Allinson J. When Ernest met Leon: Symposium Contribution on Buzan and Lawson (2014) The Global Transformation: the Nineteenth Century and the Making of Modern International Relations The Disorder of Things. 2015.
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Allinson JC. Approaching ‘the international’: Beyond political marxism. In Anievas A, editor, Marxism and World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism. 1 ed. Taylor & Francis. 2012. p. 197-214 doi: 10.4324/9780203861868
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Allinson JC, Anievas A. The uneven and combined development of the Meiji Restoration: A passive revolutionary road to capitalist modernity. Capital & Class. 2010 Oct 1;34(3):469-490. doi: 10.1177/0309816810378723
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Allinson JC, Anievas A. The uses and misuses of uneven and combined development: An anatomy of a concept. Cambridge Review of International Affairs. 2009 Mar;22(1):47-67. Epub 2009 Mar 31. doi: 10.1080/09557570802680132
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Jamie Allinson's Research Explorer profile