Dr Neil Russell
Lecturer in Politics; Programme Leader of the BA in Social Sciences
Department of Social Sciences
Dr Neil Russell joined GCU in 2021 as Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Social Sciences, having previously taught at Newcastle University and the University of Edinburgh. He is am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and took over as Programme Leader of the BA in Social Sciences in 2023.
His disciplinary background is in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Middle East and other Muslim-majority contexts. he has an MSc in Politics Research from the University of Oxford and completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh under an ESRC 2+3 studentship, which included intensive Arabic-language training.
His research interests include religion and politics, Islamist political movements, and authoritarian regimes. Neil's latest article, titled Reconstituted authoritarianism: Islam, service provision and the state in al-Sisi’s Egypt, is published in Democratization.
He has published book chapters on Islam and politics in the Middle East and Islamist movements in Egypt since 2011, in volumes by Routledge and Edinburgh University Press. He is currently revising my PhD dissertation, which examined relations between the state and Islamist movements since 2011 in revolutionary Egypt, into a book, which is under contract with I.B. Tauris - Bloomsbury publishing.
Neil is module leader on the first-year module, Politics 1: Structures and Institutions, the third-year module, International Politics: Structures, Theories, and Issues, and co-module leader on the MSc module, Politics and Practice in Global Justice.