SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

The Department of Politics and International Studies accepts students for research work leading to a PhD. The central feature of PhD work is the close relationship between the research student and his or her supervisor, in which they meet regularly and consult closely. This relationship is supported and strengthened in various ways.

Every research student has an adjunct supervisor, another member of staff with a close interest in the student’s region and/or sub-field of the discipline. There is a research tutor with overall responsibility for research students who is available for a discussion of general problems. In addition there are a number of other activities which contribute to a research student’s work and training.

All incoming PhD research students are required to take PhD training courses in their first year. Within the Department regular seminars are held to which political scientists working on Africa and Asia or on other relevant aspects of the discipline are invited to give presentations or lead discussions. Students are encouraged to suggest themes for such meetings, and may in due course present papers. During term-time many other seminars on African and Asian themes are held within the School. New research students are often encouraged, and may be required, to attend MSc courses relevant to their research.

Almost all SOAS research students spend some time doing field work in the regions of their research. The Department and the School, through their various connections with individuals and institutions in the universities and governments of Asia and Africa, facilitate this work with personal contacts and introductions.

The School’s language training facilities are available to students in order to develop their facility in an appropriate language for research purposes. Applicants must normally have an advanced degree equivalent in level and content to the Department’s MSc in Politics.

The Department has approximately 30 MPhil and PhD students and more than 70 MSc students at any one time.

Some Recent Research Theses

Simona Vittorini – Representing the Nation: Competing Symbolic Repertoires in India
William Judson Dorman – The Politics of Neglect: The Egyptian State in Cairo 1974–1998

Academic Staff and their Research Areas

Dr Arshin Adib-Moghaddan BA MA(HAMBURG) PHD(CAMBRIDGE)
International politics of West Asia; Iranian foreign and domestic politics; Critical theories of international relations; US foreign policy in the “third world”; Islamic political and intellectual history

Dr Fiona Adamson BA(STANFORD) MA PHD(COLUMBIA)
International Relations Theory; International Security; Migration and Diaspora Mobilisation; Globalisation and Global Governance; Transnational Identity Movements

Dr Rochana Bajpai BA(BARODA) MA(JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIV) PHD(OXON)
Postgraduate Admissions Tutor / Programme Convenor (PhD)
Contemporary political theory, particularly multiculturalism; methodology, particularly political ideologies; modern Indian politics

Dr Felix Berenskoetter MA (RUTGERS), PHD (LSE)

International Relations Theory, concepts of identity and power, politics of space and time, Cold War history, critical security studies, special relationships, international institutions, European foreign and security policy and transatlantic relations

Professor Stephen Chan BA MA (AUCKLAND) MA (LONDON) PHD (KENT)
Politics of southern Africa, normative values and non-Western methodologies

Dr Bhavna Davé BA MA(BOMBAY) PHD(SYRACUSE)
Kazakhstan: politics of language, ethnicity and nationalism in post-Soviet countries

Dr Dafydd Fell BA(LEEDS) PHD(LONDON)
Domestic politics in Taiwan, particularly party politics, election campaigning, gender politics and political corruption

Dr Stephen Heder BA MA(CORNELL) PHD(LONDON)
South East Asia, particularly Cambodia: political violence

Dr Stephen Hopgood BSC(BRISTOL) DPHIL(OXON)
Postgraduate Admissions Tutor / Programme Convenor
International relations theory; anthropology of the international; international politics of human rights

Dr Salwa Ismail BA(CAIRO) MA(MCMASTERS) PHD(MCGILL)
Urban politics and state-society relations in the Middle East; the study of islamism; Islamist movements; modern Arab and Islamic politic thought; political ethnography

Dr Laleh Khalili BSC(TEXAS) PHD(COLUMBIA)
Policing and incarceration, gender, nationalism, political and social movements, refugees and diasporas in the Middle East

Dr Yuka Kobayashi LLB (Kyoto) MPhil DPhil (Oxford) 

Human Rights, WTO, Environment, with reference to China and East Asia

Dr Tat Yan Kong BA(NEWCASTLE) MPHIL DPHIL(OXON)
Head of Department
Korea and Taiwan: government-business relations; comparative political economy; late industrialisation; development theory

Dr Mark Laffey BA MA(CANTERBURY, NZ) PHD(MINNESOTA)
Postgraduate Admissions Tutor / Programme Convenor (International Politics)
International relations theory; international political economy

Dr Matthew J Nelson BA(BOWDOIN) PHD(COLUMBIA)
South Asian politics with special reference to the politics of Islamic identity in North India and Pakistan

Dr Lawrence Saez BA(CALIFORNIA) MALD(FLETCHER) MA PHD(CHICAGO)
Comparative and international politics: international political economy, comparative political economy, emerging markets, South Asi

Dr Julia C Strauss BA(CONNECTICUT COL.) MA PHD(CALIFORNIA)
China and Taiwan: public administration and civil service, regulation, state and society, and environmental politics in China

Professor Charles R H Tripp BA(OXON) MSC(POL) PHD(LONDON)
Middle East: states and ideologies, war, Islamic political thought

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri BA(WESLEYAN) MSC(ECON) PHD(COLUMBIA)
International Relations Theory: International Organisations, Post conflict Reconstruction and State building, the Politics of International Criminal Justice, and Civil Liberties and Human Rights in the war on terror

Dr Tom Young BSC MA PHD(LONDON)
Southern Africa: international politics; South African domestic politics; political theory