The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
This project focusses on the politics of trade protection in the Middle East. Trade policy is often an important medium for rent creation, and can help to explain the micro-foundations of authoritarian rule in labour-abundant economies of the Middle East. Investigating the variation in average tariff rates across more than 4,500 sectors and over time in Egypt and Tunisia, we ask whether sectors with politically connected actors are systematically predisposed to higher levels of trade protection. Carefully distinguishing between the business presence of military and political cronies in Egypt, we demonstrate that both elites tend to operate in sectors shielded from external competition. The empirical analysis is being carried out using a unique compilation of data on cronies, which was subsequently merged with detailed sectoral data on industrial and trade statistics.
The project will also enrich our understanding of non-tariff barriers, which largely remain a black box. Their form, function, and broader political economy implications are relatively understudied. We aim to furnish new empirical evidence on the politics of NTBs, exploring both their determinants and impact. The proposed research aims to achieve the following: