School of Social and Political Science

Background

Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh, I was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University (2016-2018). I received my PhD from the New School for Social Research, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University and a visiting fellow and research associate at The European University Institute. I taught at New York University, the University of Toronto and the New School for Continuing Education. I also worked as a consultant with a number of NGOs including the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Center for Transitional Justice. I was the recipient of a number of honors and awards including fellowships from the United States Institute of Peace, The Mellon Research Fellowship in Security and Humanitarian Action and a number of New School awards and fellowships, including the Frieda Wunderlich Memorial Award for an outstanding dissertation.

Administrative Role

Programme Director MSc The Middle East in Global Politics. E-mail address for inquiries related to the MSc: pdmegp@ed.ac.uk. 

Select Publications

• Book manuscript State Matters: Theorising state consolidation from Iraq [under review].
• America Broke Up Iraq Into Sectarian Pieces. Review of Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's A Stranger in Your Own City. Catalyst Review (July 31 2023). 
• State, Oil, and War in the Formation of Iraq. Book chapter in Joel Beinin, Bassam Haddad, and Sherene Seikaly [eds.] A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Stanford University Press (2020)
• The Iraqi State: methodological and theoretical considerations. Middle East Centre Blog, LSE. Nov 14 (2019)
• Illuminating a State: Statebuilding and Electricity in Occupied Iraq. Humanity Journal 8 (2) (2017)
• A Perspective from the Middle East: Governance and the problem of knowledge. Book chapter in Anna Triandafyllidou [ed.] Global Governance from Regional Perspectives: A Critical View. Oxford University Press (2017).
• Rewiring a State: The techno-politics of CPA’s Iraq. Middle East Report 266, Spring (2013).
• A War of Multiple Fronts. Co-authored with Arang Keshavarzian. Middle East Report 257 (2010).
• The Politics of Oil and State Survival in Iraq (1991-2003). Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 14:4 (2007).

Recent Interviews and Conversations

• Book discussion with Adam Shatz. The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. Listen here. (March 2024)
• Interview in Atalayar on the politics of oil [in Spanish]. (Nov 2021)
• My interviews on State, Oil, and War in the Formation of Iraq. Book chapter in Joel Beinin, Bassam Haddad, and Sherene Seikaly [eds.] A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Stanford University Press (2020)
  • See my interview about this chapter in Jadaliyya.
  • نص المقابلة باللغة العربية عن هذا الفصل في موقع جدلية