Rory Mccarthy

• Associate Professor in Politics and Islam, Durham University

I am an Associate Professor in Politics and Islam at the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, where I research and teach the comparative politics of the Middle East. I work on politics in authoritarian contexts, with a focus on political parties and contentious politics. I am writing a book on Islamist political parties in Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan which explains party dynamics and competition under authoritarian regimes.

My work has been supported by several grants, including a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 2024-25, a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant, and a POMEPS Travel Research Engagement Grant. Recent work has appeared in Democratization, Social Movement Studies, Party Politics, Politics and Religion, the Middle East Journal, and the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

I wrote Inside Tunisia's al-Nahda: Between Politics and Preaching (Cambridge University Press, 2018), which was chosen as a Foreign Affairs best book of the year, and Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated: Stories from the New Iraq (Chatto & Windus, 2006). I co-edited Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Before coming to Durham I was a Fellow by Examination in Oriental Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford. Previously, I spent a decade as a foreign correspondent with the Guardian, with postings in Islamabad, Baghdad, Beirut, and Jerusalem. I have a BA in History from Cambridge and an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies and a DPhil in Oriental Studies from Oxford. I am a Fellow of the HEA.

• 2024–present Associate Professor in Politics and Islam, Durham University
• 2019–2024 Assistant Professor in Politics and Islam, Durham University
• 2016–2019 Fellow by Examination, Magdalen College, University of Oxford

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