Sobhi Samour

Topics of Interest:
Political Economy, Sociology of Knowledge and Methods in Economics, Development Economics, Neoliberalism, Settler Colonialism

Countries/Regions of Interest:
Palestine/Israel, Settler Colonial States

List of Publications

“The promises and limitations of economic protest in the West Bank” in Fosshagen, K. (ed.) Arab spring: uprisings, powers, interventions. Vol. 14, 65-80, 2014, Critical Interventions: A Forum for Social Analysis, New York: Berghahn Books

“Neoliberalism and the contradictions of the Palestinian Authority’s state-building programme” in Turner, M. and Shweiki, O. (eds.) Decolonizing Palestinian political economy: de-development and beyond, 2014, New York: Palgrave MacMillan (with Raja Khalidi)

Guest co-editor with Jabary-Salamanca, O., Qato, M., and Rabie, K. “Past is present: settler colonialism in Palestine”, Settler Colonial Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2012

“After Tunisia and Egypt: Palestinian neoliberalism at the crossroads”, Jadaliyya, 14 March 2011 (with Raja Khalidi)

"Al-Niyulibiraliyyah bisifatiha taharuran: Al-Dawlah al-filistiniyyah wa i'adat takuin al-harakah al-wataniyyah", Majallat al-dirasat al-filisiniyyah, 'adat 88,Kharif 2011, 74-93 (with Raja Khalidi)

“Neoliberalism as liberation: the statehood programme and the remaking of the Palestinian national movement”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2011, 6-25, (with Raja Khalidi)

“Policy alternatives for sustained Palestinian development and state formation” 2009, UNCTAD: Geneva (main author)

“A rejoinder to Khalidi’s ‘Reshaping Palestinian economic policy discourse’: the elusive quest for change”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2006, 243-245 (Letters)

I am currently finishing my PhD in economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I expect to submit in July 2015. My thesis is titled ‘The Palestinian economy between settler colonial invasion and neoliberal management’. In my thesis, I study the historical and contemporary strategy shifts undertaken by the Zionist settler movement and Israel and the effects they had on the Palestinian economy in general, and the labour market in particular. I also provide an analysis of how contemporary economic policies of the Palestinian Authority accommodate or undermine such Israeli strategies and where they structurally intersect with Israeli policies in producing and sustaining neoliberal pressures in the Palestinian economy as well as a Palestinian surplus population.

I hold an MSc in Political Economy of Development from SOAS and a BSc in Economics from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Between and throughout my studies, I worked with UNCTAD, UNDP and the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS). I am Palestinian, born in Lebanon and raised in Germany.