Biography

BA Political Studies at the University of Leeds (2004 - 2007)

MSc Comparative Politics (Research) at the London School of Economics (2007 - 2008)

Currently studying for a DPhil in International Relations at the University of Sussex (2009 - )

Role

I am an associate tutor and postgraduate student in International Relations. 

Critical realism; historical sociology; Marxism; International Relations theory; global political-economy; globalisation; uneven and combined development; modern China; and 20th century international history.  

My doctoral research uses the idea of 'uneven and combined development' (UCD) as a framework to explain why Chinese leaders took the path of market reform in the late 1970s. UCD is concerned with how and why contradictory social forms, such as industrial manufacturing and semi-feudal agricultural relations, come to co-exist with one another in unique social formations. Few polities have brought together such a puzzling amalgam of social forces and cultural influences as modern China. In my thesis, I seek to explain its turn to market-led development as the latest stage of the country's struggle to reconcile itself to the forces of global modernity. 

Supervisors: Justin Rosenberg  and Kamran Matin

Papers:

'Theorising Necessity and Contingency in Social Change: The Potential of "Critical Realism" for the Law of Uneven and Combined Development', paper presented to the Historical Materialism annual conference, November 2010  

'Marx’s method and "the international": what role should historical materialism play in theorising ‘the international’ dimension of the social?', paper presented to Sussex International Relations Uneven and Combined Development workgroup, November 2010

Workgroups: 

I am a member of the Sussex Uneven and Combined Development workgroup and the BISA Workgroup on Historical Sociology and International Relations.

Classical Political Theory and International Relations (L20214, level 2, autumn term) 

The Short Twentieth Century and Beyond (L2005, level 1, spring-summer terms)