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.”
Following the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks, numerous Western policymakers and scholars have socially and ideologically constructed and homogenized Islam with violent practices of suicide-terrorism. They covertly propagate Islam as a violent religion despite its deep moral denouncement against the criminality of such practices. This paper investigates how and when religious diplomacy influences modern-day khawarej within the Islamic world. Drawing from two case studies — Taliban and Al Qaeda – I argue that religious diplomacy is an essential diplomatic instrument to effectively undermine the khawarej by significantly improving coercive tactics if constructive diplomacy fails. By employing a hermeneutical approach, I examine the conditions under which jihad (jus ad bellum/jus in bello) become reasonably permissible, while analysing Islamic fatawa on suicide-terrorism and the limitation of these religious verdicts. These critical assessments are significantly relevant, as religious ignorance, wrongful possession of modern technology, and hidden geopolitical interests erroneously promote anti-Islamic ideologies globally.