School of Social and Political Science

Background

Oliver is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations. He is a former Hallsworth Research Fellow of the University of Manchester where he also completed his PhD. He has acted as an editor of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations and as convenor and co-convenor of BISA's US Foreign Policy working group. He was also previously a visiting research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. 

Oliver's research appears in academic journals including European Journal of International Relations, International Affairs, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Review of International Studies, as well as numerous books and current affairs outlets.  

Oliver is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Selected publications

Monographs and edited volumes

The Routledge Handbook of US Policy in the Indo-Pacific [with Nymalm, N, and Aslam, W., eds.] Routledge. 2023. 

The US in the Indo-Pacific: Obama’s Legacy and the Trump Transition [with Parmar, I., eds] **Open access via Manchester Openhive Manchester University Press. 2020.

American Images of China: Identity, Power, Policy Routledge. 2014.

 

Peer-reviewed journal articles

From frontier-making to world-making: The enduring power of frontiers in South Asia [with Manchanda, N.] Political Geography. 2024. 

Narrative alliances: The discursive foundations of international order [with Homolar, A.] International Affairs, 100:1, pp.203-220. 2024. 

Frontiering International Relations: Narrating US policy in the Asia Pacific, Foreign Policy Analysis 18:2. 2022.

‘Predictably unpredictable: Trump's personality and approach towards China’ [with Kaarbo, J.] Cambridge Review of International Affairs 34:3, pp.452-471. 2021.

Global Britain and the narrative of empire, The Political Quarterly 90:4, pp.727-734. 2019.  

Morality and progress: IR narratives on international revisionism and the status quo [with Nymalm, N.] Cambridge Review of International Affairs 32:4, pp.407-428. 2019. 

Subcontracting, facilitating, and qualities of regional power: The UK’s partial pivot to Asia, Asia Europe Journal 17:2, pp.211-226. 2018.

Neoconservatism as discourse: Virtue, power and US foreign policy [with Pan, C.] European Journal of International Relations 23:1, pp.74-96. 2016. 

China, India and the US rebalance to the Asia Pacific: The geopolitics of rising identities, Geopolitics 21:4, pp.922-944. 2016. 

Threatening China and US Security: The international politics of identity, Review of International Studies 39:4, pp.903-924. 2013. 

Finishing the job: The UN’s special committee on decolonization and the politics of self-governance, Third World Quarterly 34:7, pp.1193-1208. 2013. 

Sino-US relations then and now: Discourse, images, policy, Political Perspectives 5:3, pp. 27-45. 2011. 

China’s recovery: Why the writing was always on the wall, The Political Quarterly 80:1, pp. 111-118. 2009. 

 

Book chapters 

US Foreign Policy towards China in The Routledge Handbook of US Policy in the Indo-Pacific [with Nymalm, N, and Aslam, W., eds.] Routledge. 2023. 

Predictably Unpredictable: Trump's Personality and Approach Towards China [with Kaarbo, J.] in Bentley, M. and Lerner, A. (eds.) A Trump Doctrine? Unpredictability and Foreign Policy (London: Routledge). 2023. 

The United States and the International Law of the Sea [with Harrison, J.] in Iommi, L.G and Maass, R.W. (eds.) The United States and International Law: Paradoxes of Support Across Contemporary Issues (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). 2022.

US imperial hegemony in the American Pacific, in Turner, O. and Parmar, I. (eds.), The US in the Indo-Pacific: Obama’s Legacy and the Trump Transition (Manchester University Press). 2020. 

Conclusion: Legacies and Transitions in the twenty first century Indo-Pacific [with Parmar, I.] in Turner, O. and Parmar, I. (eds.), The US in the Indo-Pacific: Obama’s Legacy and the Trump Transition (Manchester University Press). 2020. 

Poverty Reduction [with Hulme, D.] in Weiss, T.G. and Wilkinson, R. (eds.) International Organization and Global Governance Vol.2 (London: Routledge), pp.969-706. 2018. 

The US and China: Obama’s Cautious Engagement, in Holland, J. and Bentley, M. (eds.) The Obama Doctrine: A Legacy of Continuity in US Foreign Policy? (London: Routledge). 2016. 

The US Pivot to the Asia Pacific, in Parmar, I., Miller, L. and Ledwidge, M. (eds.) Obama and the World: New Directions in US Foreign Policy, 2nd edition (London: Routledge), pp.219-230. 2014. 

Poverty Reduction’ [with Hulme, D.] in Weiss, T.G. and Wilkinson, R. (eds.) International Organization and Global Governance (London: Routledge), pp. 632-643. 2014. 

 

Teaching

International Relations of the Asia Pacific (Undergraduate), course convenor  

Writing and Publishing in Academia (PhD), seminar convenor 

Administration

Postgraduate Advisor, Department of Politics and International Relations 

Co-Director, Centre for Security Research (CeSeR)

PhD supervision

Current PhD students: 

Abdullah Alqarni

Peter Chu

Zhehao Du

Camille Schmitz

Luke Stephens

Mariana Vieira

Isep Parid Yahya 

 

Oliver is interested in supervising PhD projects on topics related to his main research interests. 

PhD in Politics at the University of Edinburgh