Middle East Centre Emirates PhD Award Winners 2015-16

Mohanad Hage Ali, Department of Government

Thesis title: Nationalism and Islamic Movements

Mohanad is a final year PhD candidate at the Department of Government at LSE. Prior to joining the LSE, Mohanad worked for more than a decade in journalism, covering mainly the Middle East, with a special focus on Islamic movements and the Iraq war. While spending most of his journalism career in al-Hayat pan-Arab newspaper, Mohanad worked for CNN, NBC’s investigative unit, and published in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and Foreign Policy. His PhD research focuses on nationalism and Islamic movements, proposing an alternative methodology in the study of political Islam.

Pinar Dinc, Department of Government

Thesis Title: Competition over collective memory and identity in contentious politics: The case of Dersim 1937-38

Pinar is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government, LSE, under Dr. Bill Kissane’s supervision. Her research focuses on the competition over collective memory and identity in contentious politics, by looking at the case of Dersim. The definition of collective memory and collective identity of Dersim during the 1937-38 massacre have been contested upon by various groups since the 1970s, and this ongoing competition causes further fragmentation, marking Dersim as a case of unsuccessful production of collectivity. This research aims to explain the causes and outcomes of this competition by outlining the mechanisms of the interplay of macro, meso, and micro dynamics.
Pinar can be reached at: p.dinc@lse.ac.uk

Yasmine Laveille, Department of Government

Thesis title: Contestation in Marginalised Spaces: Dynamics of Popular Mobilisation and Demobilisation in Upper Egypt Since 25 January 2011

Yasmine is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at LSE. She holds an MA in International Affairs from Sciences-Po Paris and an MSc in Middle East Politics from SOAS. Her research explores the forms of contentious politics in the distant Upper Egyptian regions of Luxor and Aswan since 2011. It aims to contribute to studies of popular mobilisations taking into account the role of space, networks, local activists and sociocultural features. Yasmine’s PhD thesis studies how ordinary citizens' discontinuous activism is partly structured by the remote context and perceptions of Upper Egyptian identity, as well as how national events since the 2011 uprising have affected mobilisation in these provincial, rather rural areas.

Nawal Mustafa, Department of International Relations

Thesis title: The Empire Chants Back: Revolutionary Movements, Protests, and the Arts of Discontent in Colonial Egypt

Nawal is a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at LSE. Her research interests include the study of revolutions, social movements, and other forms of contentious politics in the Middle East, critical International Relations approaches, and global historical sociology. Her thesis is concerned with explaining how and why revolutionary movements adopt nonviolent tactics of resistance and mobilize for self-limited democratic reform as opposed to radical projects of social transformation and total regime change. In this respect, she focuses on the case study of Egypt's anticolonial revolution of 1919-1922 against the British occupation.

Anastasia Nosova, Department of Government

Thesis title: The Dynamics of Political Participation of Business Sector in Kuwait 

Bugra Susler, Department of International Relations

Thesis title: Foreign Policy Cooperation Between Turkey and the EU During the Arab Spring

 Bugra is a PhD Candidate in the International Relations Department at LSE. His research is on Turkish foreign policy and Turkey-EU relations during the Arab Spring. He holds an MSc in Politics and Government in the EU from LSE and a BSc in Politics from the University of Bristol. As a Teaching Assistant, he has taught courses on Foreign Policy Analysis, emerging powers and Africa, and the diplomacy of war.