Dr Daniel Neep BA (Oxon), MA, PhD (SOAS)

Extension: 3175

Telephone: 01392 263175

Lecturer in International & Middle East Studies

My research interests lie in state formation, imperialism, military politics and authoritarianism in the Middle East. My work draws principally on three disciplinary areas: historical and political sociology, post-colonial critique, and the literature on governmentality which builds upon the thought of Michel Foucault. My principal empirical focus is Syria, where I have lived for several years, from the colonial period to the present day. I also have a broad interest in the comparative politics of the Middle East as a whole (especially Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Iraq and Iran).

After working on Middle East issues at a defence thinktank for several years, I developed an interest in looking at the coercive institutions of Middle Eastern states from a more critical sociological perspective. This provided the springboard for my doctoral work on the role of violence in colonial state formation in Syria, where I looked at French counter-insurgency operations, Syrian rebel movements and the spatial construction of the colonial state. A book based on my doctoral research will be published with Cambridge University Press in late 2010/early 2011. My current project, funded by the British Academy, uses ethnographic approaches to inform a sociological study of youth in contemporary Syria.

In addition to the 2nd year course on Comparative Middle East Politics, I teach a third year option on the Politics of Empire in the Middle East and a Masters-level course on State and Society in the Middle East. I am also convenor of the MA programme in International Relations of the Middle East and co-convenor (with Marjo Koivisto) of the newly-formed reading group in International Political Sociology at the Centre for Advanced International Studies.