The goal of this partnership was to enhance political economy teaching and research in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). This was carried out in two ways. The first involved exchange teaching between LSE and Birzeit University. The second involved a research project that filled an important gap in knowledge about the political economy of the oPt, and fed into teaching on political economy research methods.

The research project critically examined the role of the Palestinian business elite in the political economy of the occupied West Bank since the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994. This is based on the observation that influential business groups have become increasingly central to understanding a wide range of issues associated with the current state of affairs in the oPt, Israeli–Palestinian relations, as well as internal Palestinian dynamics and its dependency on regional and international configurations.

The rising influence of certain business actors can be seen in multiple ways ranging from the restructuring of the PA political elite away from the old political parties towards businessmen and pro-business technocrats, being frequent guests of international media outlets, to being active attendees of international peace initiatives, and involvement in formulating and presenting peace initiatives at the international level.

This project forms part of the Academic Collaboration with Arab Universities Programme, funded by the Emirates Foundation.

Project Activities

In April 2016, Dr Jason Hickel in the Department of Anthropology at LSE travelled to Birzeit University for the first of a series of teaching visits organising through the collaboration project. During his trip, Dr Hickel led workshops for MA and PhD students at Birzeit University and gave two public lectures. 

Research Team

Mandy Turner | Principal Investigator

Mandy is Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and Director of the Kenyon Institute (Council for British Research in the Levant) in East Jerusalem. 

 

Tariq Dana | Co-Principal Investigator

Tariq is Director of the Center for Development Studies at Birzeit University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies.

Dana Erekat | Researcher

Dana is a Research Fellow at the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies at Birzeit University. Her research focuses on development and planning in conflict areas.