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Imad El Anis

Imad El-Anis

Associate Professor

School of Social Sciences

Staff Group(s)
Social and Political Sciences

Role

Dr Imad El-Anis is an Associate Professor in International Relations and is the Director of the Centre for Policy, Citizenship, and Society. He has teaching responsibilities at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, and also supervises and examines PhD candidates.

Imad is the module leader for the following undergraduate and postgraduate modules:

The International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa

The Political Economy of International Security

He also teaches on a range of modules in the following areas: International Relations Theory, International Political Economy, Foreign Policy and International Security.

Along with teaching responsibilities and related administrative roles, Imad is also a member of a number of School and university-wide working groups and committees. He is Director of the Centre for Policy, Citizenship and Society, and sits on the School of Social Sciences' Research and Innovation Committee, and the Department of Social and Political Sciences' Research Committee. Imad is also a member of the university's Africa and Middle East Network steering group.

Career overview

Dr El-Anis has a BA (Hons) degree in International Relations (Nottingham Trent University, 2003), an MA in International Political Economy (University of Sheffield, 2005), a PhD in International Political Economy (Nottingham Trent University, 2008) and a PGCHE (Nottingham Trent University, 2009). Imad has taught in higher education for over seventeen years and is a fellow of the British Higher Education Academy as well as a number of international academic associations including:

  • The International Studies Association
  • The British International Studies Association
  • The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies
  • The European International Studies Association
  • The European Consortium for Political Research
  • The World Economics Association

He appears regularly in major British and international media (including BBC News, Channel 4 News, the British Press Association, Reuters, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian) commenting on Middle Eastern affairs and has acted as a consultant for government and private sector actors.

Research areas

Dr El-Anis is an active scholar and his current research focuses on several aspects of the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa, including the following: economic integration and political cooperation in the region; energy security and nuclear energy proliferation; freshwater scarcity and foreign policy; economic neoliberalism and public dissent; and climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. Dr El-Anis' work is most closely associated with critical versions of liberal institutionalism, commercial institutional peace theory, and small states theory. He is currently writing a monograph on the political economy of Jordan.

Dr El-Anis has supervised academic research at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the following areas: the international relations of the Middle East and North Africa; International Political Economy; multilateral and bilateral trade liberalisation; globalisation; international institutions; crisis management; conflict resolution; and IR theory.

He has previously supervised 15 PhD candidates to completion for the following projects:

  1. 2020, Food Security Resilience in Post-Conflict Libya.
  2. 2019, A Critical Investigation of Power and Ideology in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
  3. 2019, Inside Outside: The role of the Maghreb in migratory routes to Southern Europe.
  4. 2019, The Long Road Back from Camelot: The Minerva Initiative and the United States Quest for Lasting Peace.
  5. 2018, The Influence of US Foreign Aid on Jordan’s Foreign Policy Making.
  6. 2018, An Assessment of the Economic and Political Impacts of the Agadir Agreement: Promoting peace and stability in the Middle East and North Africa.
  7. 2016, The Impact of Globalisation on the Libyan Oil and Gas Sectors.
  8. 2016, Interrogating Frustration-Aggression from Environmental Degradation in the Niger Delta Conflict.
  9. 2016, Constructing a Tacit Alliance: The political economy of Iranian-Chinese relations.
  10. 2015, The Role of the Central Bank of Libya in an Era of Globalisation.
  11. 2015, National and International Crisis Management: A case study of Darfur.
  12. 2015 The United States Variable in the Security of the Persian/Arabian Gulf from 2000-2012.
  13. 2014, Libya and Britain: A Study of the History of British-Libyan Relations 1969-1979.
  14. 2013, A Critical Evaluation of the Securitization Process of EU-Russian Energy Relations: Actors, audiences and consequence.
  15. 2009, US-Jordanian Relations in the 2000s.

He is currently supervising five PhD candidates working on the following projects:

  1. Mediation in the foreign policy arsenal of a small state: the Qatar case study, 1995-2021
  2. The Political Economy of Energy Security and Nuclear Energy Proliferation in the Middle East.
  3. An Analysis of Qatar’s Cyber Security Policies in the Changing Security Environment in the Middle East
  4. Examining Public Awareness of Climate Change in Central Asia: the role of media, political and scientific narratives
  5. Immigration Management Within Europe: social-political perspectives of Finland’s Immigration system

Current PhD Students

  • Ali Al-Otaibi
  • Jan Nathrath
  • Alina Bychkova
  • Amen Gokah
  • Nawaf Al-Thani

Dr El-Anis has also acted as an Examiner for the following 15 PhD projects:

  1. Online Activism in Iraq. Nottingham Trent University, 16th December 2020.
  2. Penetration Through Fragmentation: A Model for Authoritarian Resilience in the Middle East: The Case of Syria. The University of Durham, 22nd July 2020.
  3. The Role of the Private Sector in Countering Terrorism, a Corporate Social Responsibility Analysis. Manchester Metropolitan University, 19th March 2019.
  4. Vision 2020 and the Private Sector: An analysis of late rentier development strategy in Oman. University of Durham, 10th September 2018.
  5. The Disputed Areas from Powder Keg to Stability: The case of Kirkuk – applying territorial separation, University of Nottingham, 8th March 2018.
  6. The Impacts of Social Networks on Saudi Arabian Media and Society, and Their Implications for Professional Journalism, Nottingham Trent University, 19th January 2018.
  7. The GCC Common Market and the Internationalisation of SMEs: The case of Oman. King’s College London, 23rd November 2017.
  8. A History of Saudi Foreign Policy – From Reaction to Proactivity. University of East Anglia, 29th August 2017.
  9. The Politics of the International Law of Conflict Management: A case study of the India-Bangladesh land border dispute. Nottingham Trent University, 8th May 2017.
  10. China’s Relations with the Arab Gulf Monarchies: Three case studies. University of Leicester, 16th December 2016.
  11. Saudi Arabia and Communism During the Cold War: King Faisal’s foreign policy to the Soviet Union 1962-1975. University of Durham, 6th December 2016.
  12. The Role of Renewable Energy Options in Easing Energy Security Concerns in Saudi Arabia. Nottingham Trent University, 24th November 2016.
  13. The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood: From Participation to Boycott. University of East Anglia, 13th July 2015.
  14. US Trade Policy in the Middle East: A comparative analysis between Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. King’s College London, 10th December 2014.
  15. The Impact of the Collapse of the Soviet Union on Libyan Foreign Policy Between 1991-2003. Nottingham Trent University, 10th September 2014.

External activity

Dr El-Anis is a Fellow of the British Higher Education Academy and is a member of the following associations and research centres:

  • The International Studies Association
  • The British International Studies Association
  • The European International Studies Association
  • The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies
  • The European Consortium for Political Research
  • The World Economics Association
  • International Security and Sustainability (NTU).

Dr El-Anis is also a reviewer for Oxford University Press, I. B. Tauris, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Wiley Blackwell, the University of Michigan Press, Sage, and Political Studies Review.

Sponsors and collaborators

Current and previous sponsors include:

  • The International Studies Association
  • The British International Studies Association
  • The European International Studies Association

Current and previous collaborators include:

  • Professor Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University, Qatar
  • Dr Mohammed Al-Khraisha, The University of Jordan, Jordan
  • Dr Tarik Tell, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
  • Dr Wisam Hazimeh, The University of Jordan, Jordan
  • Dr Shun Watanabe, Oxford University
  • Dr Ali Sen, Inonu University, Turkey
  • Dr Ashraf Hamed, Al-Khoms University, Libya
  • Dr Christopher Farrands, NTU, UK
  • Dr Olga Khrushcheva, Manchester Metropolitan, UK
  • Dr Ashraf Mishrif, University of Qatar, Qatar
  • Professor Lloyd Pettiford, Independent Researcher, UK
  • Dr Roy Smith, NTU, UK
  • Dr Islam Mofakarul, University of Greenwich, UK
  • Dr Selahhadin Bakan, Inonu University, Turkey
  • Professor P. R. Kumaraswamy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
  • Dr Angelo Bisignano, University of Nice, France
  • Dr Tarik Oumazzane, University of Nottingham, UK
  • Dr Emel Parlar Dal, Marmara University, Turkey
  • Dr Artur Malantowicz, Network on Humanitarian Action, Belgium
  • Dr Marianna Poberezhskaya, NTU, UK
  • Dr Natasha Underhill, University of Cork, Republic of Ireland
  • Dr Sahra Joharchi, NTU, UK
  • Jan Nathrath, NTU, UK
  • Dr Rashd Swesi, NTU, UK

Press expertise

  • Politics and international relations of the Middle East and North Africa
  • International security
  • Political and economic affairs in Jordan

Dr El-Anis has been interviewed by, and has written pieces for, UK and international media outlets in the following formats: Print, Online, TV and Radio formats. In particular, he is able to comment on the politics and international relations of the Middle East and North Africa, especially issues related to security, conflicts and foreign policy.

Course(s) I teach on