Research at the Department of Politics and International Studies

SOAS is the leading university in the world to study the Middle East, and the Politics Department is unique and known for its research into the national and international politics of the region. Our research cluster (Salwa Ismail, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Reem Abou El-Fadl, Sarah El-Kazaz, Hagar Kotef, Tolga Sinmazdemir, Lina Khatib, Nathaniel George, Karabekir Akkoyunlu) explores questions of power and resistance, the politics of revolution, identity, artificial intelligence and migration, as well as urban politics, international relations, religion and human rights.

Our research portfolio is aided and abetted by a vibrant PhD student cohort and a unique knowledge infrastructure, featuring regular region-specific exhibitions and events, also through our close links with the SOAS Middle East Institute (SMEI) and its centres for Palestine Studies and Iranian Studies. These resources also benefit our students, including our well-respected MSc Politics of the Middle East degree. In addition, the Department houses two prestigious book series in the field published by Cambridge University Press, namely Cambridge Middle East Studies and The Global Middle East.

The African Politics cluster explores ideology, power and relationships across the continent: from state-building to social protest, philosophies of liberation and race to gender and inter-generational dynamics.

These themes are not only central to the continent’s politics, but to understanding how the world works and how political ideas are shaped – from the history of international trade and aid to the politics of international justice, human rights, military intervention and the climate emergency. In these, and many other areas, the politics of Africa cannot be seen as separate from or peripheral to the rest of the world, but at its core in contributing to our understanding of the most important political ideas and forces that shape our world.

All members of the cluster (Awino Okech, Julia Gallagher, Daniel Mulugeta, Stephen Chan, Alastair Fraser, Phil Clark, Innocent Ncube, Abdul Wando, Jo Tomkinson and Pallavi Roy) share a commitment to fieldwork-based research that centres marginalised voices and perspectives. Our current research projects focus on post-conflict justice, African feminisms, the politics of rule and resistance, and urban politics.

This research flows into our teaching and doctoral supervision - including our convenorship of the UK's only Masters degree in the Politics of Africa.

The Department’s South Asia research cluster is dedicated to the study of the politics and international relations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and Myanmar.

It brings together scholars (Rochana Bajpai, Shirin Rai, Matt Nelson, Manjeet Ramgotra, Simona Vittorini, Avinash Paliwal, Hanns Kendel) working on a range of topics such as political ideologies, politics of Islamic institutions, foreign and security policy analysis, gender, politics and performance, and economic development, among others. The cluster organises a regular South Asia seminar series and is associated with SOAS South Asia Institute (SSAI), the most extensive and diverse community of scholars working on South Asia of any university in Europe.

Through their work, the Department’s South Asia research cluster seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the region and its global connections, while also engaging with local communities and promoting cross-cultural exchanges. We share and develop this expertise with our students at both undergraduate ad postgraduate level, including through the South Asia pathway of MSc Politics of Asia degree.

The East Asia and Southeast Asia cluster explores international relations and politics of the region, from state-society relations, ideas/ideologies, security, to norms and institutions; questions of status and transition in international order.

An important thread underpinning the research is the ‘voice from the region’, with many of the members conducting fieldwork and bringing questions from the field to the discipline, including theoretical questions that push the boundaries of politics and international relations. Academics in the Department composing the cluster are Michael Buehler (Indonesia, comparative politics/state-society relations), Carlo Bonura (Thailand, comparative political thought), Ralf Emmers (Southeast Asia, ASEAN, maritime order), Dafydd Fell (Taiwan, elections), Yuka Kobayashi (China, world order), Tat Yan Kong (Korean Peninsula, political economy, regional security), Maya Nguyen (Vietnam, security/children in international relations), Mike Charney (Asian military history), and Julia Strauss (China, state-society relations).

The cluster is also linked to the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Japan Research Centre, SOAS China Institute (SCI), Centre for Taiwan Studies, and the London Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Science. The cluster’s expertise also informs the East Asia stream of the MSc Politics of Asia degree.

The Political Economy Research Cluster (PERC) fosters creative dialogue in research and teaching to understand why and how the capitalist world takes its existing forms.

In a time of interrelated crises, PERC is consciously eclectic in promoting the critical analysis of capitalism across domestic, comparative, and international contexts. Academics in the cluster (Matthew Eagleton-Pierce, Sarah El-Kazaz, Tat Yan Kong, Shirin Rai, Kerem Nisancioglu, Ulas Ince, Yuka Kobayashi, Harald Heubaum, Tobias Franz, Ben Whitham, Alastair Fraser, Jo Tomkinson and Pallavi Roy) examine the relationship between capitalism, the urban condition and infrastructure; Marxism and imperial history; racial capitalism; international development policy; the political economy of energy transitions and climate change; as well as the politics of care and social reproduction.

Our regional expertise in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East cuts across these themes, and we encourage researchers to draw a wide disciplinary canvas to envisage and paint the kaleidoscopic colours of political economy. To support our conversations and research agendas, PERC activities include an annual seminar series, dedicated high-profile lectures, and other social gatherings.

The cluster provides a welcoming space for students from all levels – undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral – who are interested in the study of political economy. The cluster is also linked to the Centre for Energy and Climate Policy and the associated MSc Energy and Climate Policy degree.

Research in the Department explores how violence, conflict and security are experienced and expressed in politics from comparative, transnational and global perspectives. Academics and doctoral researchers study the causes and consequences of wars, how understandings of (in)security are created in space and time, and how they are connected to geopolitics, economic interests, ideology, gender, racism and conceptions of justice.

The cluster (Mark Laffey, Fiona Adamson, Ralf Emmers, Tolga Sinmazdemir, Bhavna Dave, Phil Clark, Felix Berenskötter, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Mike Charney, Tat Yan Kong, Dan Plesch, Lina Khatib, Maya Nguyen, Abdul Wando) investigates these phenomena not only at the level of states but also pays attention to the everyday, societal networks, as well as international institutions. Research projects are concerned with, for instance, the violence of (post)colonial structures and authoritarian rule and resistance to them; Artificial Intelligence and human security, civil-military relations; secrecy; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the role of children in military conflict; torture, trauma and memory; and the politics of post-conflict reconciliation and peacebuilding.

This expertise is shared with our students in the classroom, supported by the Department’s research centres, and informs past and current editorial work for highly regarded journals such as the Journal of Global Security Studies and Security Studies.

The Department has long been home to a rich variety of research projects exploring how representations of political community, their past and future, are formed and contested.

We study how collective images of Self and Other are expressed in nationalism and state-building projects, in diaspora communities and regional organisations, and in foreign policy, how they shape violent conflict and its aftermath, and how they inform transnational solidarity networks and practices of friendship. Our academics in this cluster (Julia Gallagher, Felix Berenskötter, Daniel Mulugeta, Fiona Adamson, Bhavna Dave, Shirin Rai, Stephen Chan, Simona Vittorini, Matt Eagleton-Pierce, Reem Abou El-Fadl, Ben Whitham, Nathaniel George) explore these themes within and across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, as well as Europe.

We pay particular attention to the political stakes and projects linked to identity claims and struggles, including the impact of colonial legacies, its expression in border disputes, global power configurations and practices of discrimination, highlighting both their existential nature and their instrumentalisation for governing.

Our research on these themes is methodologically committed to a nuanced, qualitative understanding of the context in which political identities are created, their ideational, visual and material manifestations, and how they are challenged and changed.

Enabling UK Asylum Protection for Tamil Diaspora Activists after Sri Lanka’s Civil War

Dr Sutha Nadarajah’s research on post-civil war relations between the Tamil diaspora and the Sri Lankan state directly contributed to a ‘radical change’ – according to legal experts – in UK asylum law and policy in 2013: namely, recognition of participants in lawful Tamil diaspora-based political activity as a key and novel category of persons ‘at risk’ of harm if returned, despite the war’s end.

Recognition of this ‘at risk’ category has provided thousands of Tamils who engage in lawful protests and advocacy against the Sri Lankan authorities with new or additional grounds for seeking protection, thus also enabling their continued participation in democratic political life in the UK. The research also directly contributed to positive outcomes in dozens of individual Tamils' asylum claims, and the UK’s recognition of the ‘at risk’ category influenced asylum claims by Tamils in other countries, in particular Australia and France.

• Read the full Impact Case Study 

Informing Court Cases against Rwandan Atrocity Suspects

Professor Phil Clark’s research on post-genocide Rwanda increased accountability for crimes committed during the genocide against the Tutsi, and enhanced public and practitioner awareness of legal and historical issues raised in court.

Providing expert testimony in nine criminal proceedings concerning Rwandan genocide suspects in the UK, the US and Sweden, Clark helped to establish sufficient grounds to pursue extradition where none existed; challenged negative perceptions of the workings of the gacaca community-based courts; informed courts about the capacity of the Rwandan judiciary to maintain political independence; and provided vital historical and regional context to help judges understand and analyse crimes committed.

• Read the full Impact Case Study