University of Aberdeen

Graduate Student, Politics and International Relations

PhD Candidate

College of Arts and Social Sciences

Thesis Title: "Democratisation Unplugged: Knowledge, Policy, and Practice"

About

The primary concern of my PhD research is to explain the evident gap between knowledge and understanding of democratisation as an emancipatory process (transition of states from ‘bad’ regime types (authoritarian) to the “good” regime type of liberal democracy) and the seemingly contradictory outcomes of democratisation in practice – EG Hybrid Regimes such as “illiberal” or “Arab” democracy. To account for this “gap” I am employing an analytical framework based upon the “knowledge-policy-practice” cycle. This will demonstrate the hegemony of liberally modelled categories of democratisation, and how these are so deeply ingrained in discourse (academically and in policy) that there is little attention paid to the political role or function the homogenised discourse has had in creating the gap that exists between knowledge and the reality of democratisation.

Precisely, that the analytical tool box provided by the dominant paradigm is implicated in creating the increasingly evident non-democratic outcomes in target states it claims to be merely observing.

In the past I have written on critical (Gramsci) and post-structural theory, the War on Terror, US Foreign Policy, Democracy, and Public International Law. My current focus is on Foucauldian theory, Democracy and Democratisation practices.

Contact Information