Middle East Centre

This talk delves into the multifaceted challenges Palestinian women activists face, revealing how intersecting oppressions within a settler-colonized society shape their organizing efforts and experiences, challenging singular analyses of patriarchy. How can we understand the multiple, intersecting webs of oppression that Palestinian women activists face in their everyday organizing? The talk is going to illuminates the context and complexity of the lived experiences of women activists in Palestine, aiming to contribute to feminist perspectives on organizing and how activists’ daily practices and interactions ‘inhabit’ institutions, creating, maintaining and transforming them. The analysis exposes a ‘simultaneity of oppressions’ which highlights the challenges faced by Palestinian women attempting to organize to challenge the social structure, within their quasi-state, settler-colonized context. The talk aims to uncover multiple intersecting inequalities produced by dominant institutional and societal structures, yet experienced differently by women activists, in an oppressed, colonized setting. This distinctive political context, aligned with the collaborative security setting with the occupier, elucidates how violations of the quasi-state, colonizer and other social structures like patriarchy and family manifest and intersect institutionally to violate and undermine women. Dr. Nazzal challenges the singular monolithic analysis of patriarchy, revealing how different patriarchal positions towards women expose different modes of oppression, while serving at times as a protective, supportive system.

This lecture explores how parliamentary activity affects the candidacy list placements of MPs in closed-list PR systems, particularly focusing on the interaction between gender and candidacy list decisions. While it is generally argued that the parliamentary activities of the MPs will increase their chances for re-election, this link is not straightforward in closed-list PR systems, where the party leaderships dominate the candidate selection processes. The determinants of the centralized candidate selection processes are highly ambiguous, making it hard to understand how accountability works for MPs in such settings. Furthermore, existing research pays little attention to how politicians' gender interacts with these processes. This article aims to answer these questions by analyzing the determinants of candidacy list placements using a novel dataset containing over 200,000 parliamentary speeches in Turkey. We present evidence that (1) parliamentary activity has a statistically significant positive effect on the candidacy list placement decisions of the party elites, and yet, (2) this effect is conditional upon politicians' gender. We found that speech is associated with higher candidacy list placements in the next election for women politicians while no such effect exists for men. We suggest that this heterogeneity is driven by intra-party competition and the perception that women MPs would be less threatening for existing party leadership positions compared to men MPs. Dr Tugba Bozcaga joined EIS as a lecturer in politics with a specialisation in political methodology. She earned a PhD in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020. Before coming to King's, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University. She is also a faculty fellow at the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS). Her research focuses on political economy of development, with a substantive focus on local governance, bureaucracy and state capacity, distributive politics, social welfare, and migration. Her work has been awarded Mancur Olson Best Dissertation Prize in Political Economy (Honorable Mention) from American Political Science Association (APSA). She also received the Best Comparative Policy Paper Award from APSA Public Policy Section, APSA MENA Politics Section Best Paper Award, and APSA Religion and Politics Section Best Paper Award.

In this podcast, Oxford Emeritus Professor Avi Shlaim compares notes with Exeter University Professor Ilan Pappé on the prospects for a binational state in the aftermath of the events of 7 October and the Gaza War.

A discussion of European initiatives to recognize the State of Palestine to advance the prospects for a two-state solution. In this episode, former Israeli Ambassador and Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alon Liel speaks with Haizam Amirah-Fernández, Senior Analyst for Mediterranean and Middle Eastern affairs at the Elcano Institute in Madrid, and Chris Doyle, Director of CAABU, the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, to consider European initiatives to recognize the State of Palestine to advance the prospects for a two-state solution. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of 'Political Options Following the Gaza War.' The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War.

Prof Noura Erakat explores the significance of South Africa's application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip before the International Court of Justice, and the Court's decision to hear the case. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of 'Political Options Following the Gaza War.' The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War.

Dr Hagar Kotef from SOAS examines the current situation of Israeli settlers both in the West Bank and in the Cabinet to assess the impact of the settler movement in political options following the Gaza War. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War.’ The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War.

In the opening meeting of the Middle East Centre’s Hilary Term seminar series, the Fellows of the Centre led a panel discussion to set out the agenda for the series examining the political options following the Gaza War. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War.’ The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War. With presentations by Eugene Rogan, Raihan Ismail, Maryam Alemzadeh and Walter Armbrust, the opening panel set the stage for the next seven sessions to follow. The session attracted an overflow audience that filled the lecture theatre to capacity.

Professor Yuli Tamir considers Israeli public opinion following the 7 October 2023 attack and the constraints that public opinion imposes on the political options moving forward. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War.’ The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War. In the second seminar in the Hilary Term series, ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War,’ the Centre welcomed Professor Yael (Yuli) Tamir, President of Beit Berl College, former Member of the Knesset, and former Cabinet Minister, to consider Israeli public opinion following the 7 October 2023 attack and the constraints that public opinion imposes on the political options moving forward. Once again, the lecture theatre was filled to overflow and generated extensive exchange between the audience and the speaker.

Adam Mestyan argues that post-Ottoman Arab political orders were not, as many historians believe, products of European colonialism but of the process of "recycling empire." Adam Mestyan is Associate Professor of History at Duke University. His works include Modern Arab Kingship - Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2023), Primordial History, Print Capitalism, and Egyptology in Nineteenth-Century Cairo (Ifao, 2021); and Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2017). He is the PI of the collaborative Islamic digital humanities project, Digital Cairo - Studying Urban Transformation through a TEI XML Database, 1828-1914, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and L'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire (Ifao). In this groundbreaking book, Adam Mestyan argues that post-Ottoman Arab political orders were not, as many historians believe, products of European colonialism but of the process of "recycling empire." Mestyan shows that in the post-World War I Middle East, Allied Powers officials and ex-Ottoman patricians collaborated to remake imperial institutions, recycling earlier Ottoman uses of genealogy and religion in the creation of new polities, with the exception of colonized Palestine. These polities, he contends, should be understood not in terms of colonies and nation-states but as subordinated sovereign local states-localized regimes of religious, ethnic, and dynastic sources of imperial authority. Meanwhile, governance without sovereignty became the new form of Western domination.

Join Professor Ghassan Salamé for his Lecture on 'Lessons from 2003 Iraq: Twenty Years Later.' Jointly organised by Invisible East and St Antony's College, University of Oxford, with the generous support of the Middle East Centre, the Reza Hosseini Memorial Lecture Series connects individual stories to larger questions on the history and contemporary issues of the Middle East. The series aims to recognise and promote, in particular, micro-histories, oral and documentary history, and fieldwork analysis. The series honours the life and work of Reza Hosseini (1960-2003) who last served as Humanitarian Officer in Iraq. The series is launched on the 20th anniversary of the attack on the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 which killed Reza and 21 colleagues. Guest Speaker: Ghassan Salamé (Professor of International Relations at Sciences-Po)

Professor Yoav di Capua offers a comprehensive empirical, theoretical, and methodological reassessment of the Arab 60s as a global pursuit with lessons that transcend the geography of the Middle East - the fruit of a decade of research on Arab thought. A common understanding of the 1960s is that of an integrated global era marked by a revolutionary quest for self-liberation, transnational solidarity, sexual revolution, radical self-fashioning, anti-imperialism, a renewed understanding of gender and race relationships as well as an intellectual drive to articulate universal ethics of emancipation. But in the Arab world, with few exceptions, most narratives portray a radically different image: one of a failed revolutionary project marked by ideological bigotry, political messianism, personality cults, ethnocentric particularism, economic ruin, and an overall sense of a cultural defeat. Are these two images reconcilable?

Professor Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab offers some reflections on the challenges that a post-2011 Arab critique might be facing. What have the Arab Uprisings done to "Contemporary Arab Thought"? It is an undisputable fact that the Arab uprisings since 2011 have been a most dramatic turn in the Arab region since the founding of the modern Arab states: an unexpected and explainable event that continues to impact Arab life on all levels, including the intellectual. In my talk I look at the new light that that event might have shed on was/is known as "contemporary Arab thought," the aspects of continuity and discontinuity that it might have revealed about that thought? I ask to what extent we, inhabitants of that region, are still contemporaries of that thought? And to what extent that "contemporary Arab thought" was contemporaneous to the societies it came from? Guest Speaker: Professor Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar)

Professor Avi Shlaim gives the George Antonius Memorial Lecture 2023, examining the Jewish exodus from Iraq in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and arguing the Zionist movement played an active part in the uprooting of Iraqi Jews. This annual lecture is also a launch for Avi Shlaim’s new book, 'Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew' which will be published by Oneworld on 8 June. The three worlds of the title are Baghdad to the age of 5, Ramat Gan, Israel, 10 to 15, and school in London, 15 to 18. The book uses a family history to tell the bigger story of the Jewish community in Iraq, its rich culture, its integration into Iraqi society, and its contribution to nation-building at various levels. The lecture revolves round the central concept of the Arab-Jew. It examines the circumstances surrounding the Jewish exodus from Iraq in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It challenges the Zionist narrative which claims that antisemitism was the main driver of the exodus. It argues that the Zionist movement played an active part in the uprooting of Iraqi Jews, and it presents new evidence to support this argument. Avi Shlaim is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (1988); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995); The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000, updated edition 2014); Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (2007); and Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (2009). Speakers: Emeritus Professor Avi Shlaim, FBA (University of Oxford) Chair: Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College) Recorded Thursday, 15 June 2023

The Director and Fellows of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College convened a memorial in honour of Derek Hopwood OBE, Emeritus Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies (1933-2020) and Celia Kerslake, Emeritus Fellow in Turkish (1946-2023). Guest Speakers and times: 0:00 - 4:17 Eugene Rogan, Middle East Centre Director (moderator and opening remarks) 4:17 - 15:30 Roger Goodman, Warden of St Antony's College 15:30 - 21:40 Rosie MacGregor, sister of Celia Kerslake 21:40 - 32.33 Michael Willis, Muhammad VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies, tribute to Derek Hopwood 32:33 - 42:29 Laurent Mignon, Professor of Turkish, tribute to Celia Kerslake 42:29 - 55:20 Linda Schilcher ('69 Antonian), tribute to Derek Hopwood 55.20 - 1:12:18 Ahmed Al-Shahi ('65 Antonian), tribute to Derek and Celia 1:12:18 - 1:21:43 Dimitris Antoniou ('03 Antonian), student of Celia Kerslake 1:21:43 - 1:29:44 Gina Rowland ('85 Antonian), student of Derek Hopwood Closing remarks by Eugene Rogan

Women's Rights Research Seminar where guest speaker, Dr Roel Meijer (Guest Lecturer in Islam Studies, Radboud Universiteit) presents on Women’s movements and citizenship in the Middle East. Citizenship is not often mentioned in relation to women in the Middle East. Mostly women’s movements are analyzed in relation to nationalism, Islamism, law, and civil society. Citizenship, however, predates nationalism and Islamism. Moreover it is broader than law and more fundamental than political or religious ideologies, especially when it comes women’s movements and the sense of rights. Although I will concentrate on Egypt, I want to demonstrate in this talk how concepts of citizenship can help to analyze historical and present women’s movements in the Middle East. Biography: Roel Meijer was previously Associate Professor at Radboud University, Nijmegen) and has co-edited three volumes on citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa and is currently working on a Dutch history of the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr Haytham Alhamwi draws on his personal experiences to explain the story of the conflict in Syria. Through his personal story as a previous political prisoner, he starts by describing the situation in Syria before the Arab Spring in 2011, followed by how the Syrian uprising began, and his personal involvement in the non-violent movement. The presentation will cover how Assad’s regime reacted with lethal force to organised movements asking for change. The uprising escalated to a military conflict causing the death of approximately half a million people and the displacement of over half of the population. The presentation will highlight the involvement of different rebel factions (including perceived Jihadists and other terrorist groups) in the Syrian conflict, the heavy military-cum-financial support of the Syrian regime’s allies including Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, and the inadequate action of regional and international actors to support the Syrian uprising and the aspiration of the Syrian people. Finally, there will be an explanation of the current de facto partitions of Syria and a discussion on possible avenues for reaching a political solution in the near future. Dr Haytham Alhamwi graduated from the University of Damascus' Medical School in 1999. He was detained in Syria as a political prisoner from 2003 to 2005 for his civic activism in his hometown Daraya. He came to Manchester in 2007 to do his PhD, and upon graduation in 2012 he helped to establish Rethink Rebuild Society, a Manchester-based charity supporting Syrian refugees and asylum seekers. In 2019 he co-founded the Syrian British Consortium, a political body amplifying the voices of Syrians in the UK and advocating for an inclusive and democratic Syria. Dr Haytham Alhamwi is the Chairman of the Syrian British Consortium, a London-based advocacy body for British Syrians. He is also a co-founder and the manager of Rethink Rebuild Society, a charity established in Manchester in 2013 to support Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

This lecture examines the resilience of the Iraqi state and nation before and after the 2003 invasion. Since 1980, Iraq weathered the longest conventional war of the 20th century, the Iran-Iraq War, followed by one of the shortest, the 1991 Gulf War, and the subsequent uprisings that swept through 15 of its 18 provinces, and a decade of sanctions. Since the 2003 war, Iraq has witnessed an occupation, the collapse of its national military, an insurgency, a civil war, the ensuing terrorist statelet of ISIS, which led to genocide against the Yezidi population, an aborted bid for Kurdish independence, a sustained protest movement, a pandemic, and a proxy war between the US and Iran that continues to this day. Iraq has endured despite numerous forecasts of its imminent collapse into three states. Nevertheless, Iraq’s future during the Anthropocene still looks uncertain, and climate change will have uneven effects on the nation from a geographic, generational, and gendered perspective. Biography Ibrahim Al-Marashi is Associate Professor of Middle East history at California State University San Marcos and visiting professor at the IE University School of Global and Public Affairs in Madrid, Spain, and formerly at Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. He obtained his doctorate in Modern History at University of Oxford, completing a thesis on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, part of which was plagiarized by the British government prior to the 2003 Iraq War, otherwise known as the “Dodgy Dossier.” His research focuses on 20th century Iraqi history, and currently is focusing on the effects of climate change on the nation. He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (Routledge, 2008), The Modern History of Iraq (Routledge 2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (Routledge, 2018).

The Rt Hon Sir Peter Gross (Formerly, Lead Judge for International Relations) shares his insight into the Judicial and Rule of Law developments in Iraq. Abstract: IRAQ 2018-2019: The Rule of Law: a perspective At the invitation of the President of the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq, Chief Justice Dr Faiq Zidan, and supported by the FCDO, I visited Iraq in early 2018 and again in 2019, on each occasion to attend the Iraqi Judiciary Day. The visits embodied the success of peer-to-peer Judicial Engagement. Short stays can only present snapshots, but these timely visits (as Iraq was emerging from its Ba’thist past under Saddam) symbolised a wider and enduring yearning for the Rule of Law, together with the good governance it underpins. For my part, it entailed a combination of both pride and humility in the honour the visits accorded to the UK Judiciary. The visits generated mutual benefits. They affirmed the UK as the Iraqi Judiciary’s international partner of choice. On the Iraqi side, they assisted in boosting the position of the Judiciary in Iraqi society, also facilitating increased standing for the Iraqi Judiciary in the region and the integration of the Iraqi Judiciary into the international Judicial community, notably, in SIFoCC (the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts). Furthermore, the visits enhanced the focus on women in the Iraqi Judiciary, benefited the relationship between Bench and Bar in Iraq and promoted improved relations between Judges in Baghdad and Erbil. Perspective is essential. The Judicial system in Iraq (as elsewhere) faces continued challenges in dealing with terrorism, human rights and corruption. This is a work in progress. The visits prompt a focus on Judicial and Rule of Law developments and reforms in the region. In a broader context, the principal need is to institutionalise arrangements for Judicial Engagement of this nature, so that they do not hinge on the individuals in post or office at the time and, on a continuing basis, harness the UK’s world-class reputation in the Rule of Law sphere. Biography: Practised in commercial chambers at 3 Essex Court (now Twenty Essex). Queen’s Counsel 1992. Appointed Judge of the Queen’s Bench Division 2001, Presiding Judge of the South-Eastern Circuit 2005-2008, Judge in Charge of Commercial Court 2009-2010. Appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2010. Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales 2013-2015. Lead Judge for International Relations 2018-2019. Worked extensively internationally, including in the Middle East, on international Judicial relations. On retirement from the Court of Appeal, appointed President of the Slynn Foundation in November 2019, dedicated to advancing the Rule of Law internationally. In 2020, appointed by the Lord Chancellor to chair the Independent Human Rights Act Review (IHRAR) examining whether the Human Rights Act 1998 is working effectively. Judicial Commissioner of IPCO. Sir Peter practises as an Arbitrator and is a Judge of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts. Treasurer of Gray’s Inn 2022.

Why did Iraq fail to prove its WMD absence before the 2003 invasion? This seminar examines new evidence from Iraq and United Nations sources to shed light on the internal debates leading up to the 2003 war. Why did the Iraqi regime fail to demonstrate it no longer had WMD prior to the 2003 invasion? For the past twenty years, there has been surprisingly little debate about this key question. In this seminar I draw on primary sources that I have collected from Iraqi sources and the United Nations inspectors investigating Iraqi WMD disarmament between the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion. Drawing on this new evidence, I argue that two factors were vital in shaping Iraqi WMD disclosures during the 2002-2003 period. First, a crucial strategic dilemma was that new admissions of past deception would bolster the case for war. Second, the Iraqi regime faced far greater difficulties in ensuring that its subordinates cooperated with the United Nations inspectors, despite the growing threat of war, than was recognized at the time. Drawing on these rich new primary sources, I highlight the debates and disagreements about what to disclose and to deny that unfolded inside the Iraqi state apparatus during these fateful months. Biography: Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, and heads the Oslo Nuclear Project. She has previously been a Junior Faculty Fellow at CISAC, Stanford University (2012-13), and a pre- and post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University (2008-10). She received her doctoral degree from London School of Economics in 2010, which received the Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize from BISA the following year. She published Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2016) based on her dissertation research. Her work has been published in numerous outlets including International Security, The Middle East Journal, the New York Times (online), International Herald Tribune, Monkey Cage and War on the Rocks.

This talk examines the Shi‘ite political parties linked to Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) and their influence over the state, exploring their strategies for legitimacy in politics, religion, and society. Despite their modest performance at the ballot box in comparison to the 2018 parliamentary elections, the Shi‘ite political parties associated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) have remained important brokers with sufficient power to steer the government’s decision-making. Having been recognised as a state-sanctioned paramilitary umbrella since November 2016, the PMU regard themselves as entitled to co-shaping not only the political process, but also the very nature of Iraqi statehood. Their continued leverage over the contested Iraqi state and its institutions raises the question of how such an array of hybrid auxiliary forces has managed to consolidate its position and reap the benefits of its alliance with the country’s ruling elites. To provide an answer, Rudolf will present her analysis of how the PMU and their affiliates have sought to attain legitimacy within the political, religious, and civic fields – the main arenas of competition underlying the power dynamics within the fragmented Iraqi state. Biography: Dr. Inna Rudolf is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) and a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies. Within the XCEPT consortium, she is analysing the implications of identity politics and the mobilisation of violent memories in conflict-affected borderlands. As part of her PhD thesis at the War Studies Department of King’s College London, Rudolf focused the hybridization of security sector governance, examining Iraq’s paramilitary umbrella – the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) – and their quest for legitimacy within the state. She received her master’s degree in political science and Islamic studies in 2012 at the University of Heidelberg, specialising in Conflict Resolution, Peace Building and Political Islam. In addition to her field work in Iraq, she lived in Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and Palestine for several years. Prior to joining the research team at ICSR, she represented the BMW Foundation in the Middle East and North Africa region. She is also a partner at the Candid Foundation – an independent Berlin based think tank working on political, social and cultural challenges facing Muslim communities in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and beyond.