Staff profile

I am an Assistant Professor in Politics and Islam at the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham, where I work on the comparative politics of the Middle East. I have two current projects. First, I study the dilemmas of Islamism in the wake of the Arab uprisings, looking at the ambiguities and internal dynamics of contemporary Islamist mobilizations, with fieldwork funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and the Project on Middle East Political Science. Second, I write about the politics of protest in the Middle East through a comparative analysis of contentious politics.

Before coming to Durham I spent three years as a Fellow by Examination at Magdalen College, Oxford. Previously, I worked as a foreign correspondent with the Guardian, with postings in Islamabad, Baghdad, Beirut, and Jerusalem. I have a BA in History from Cambridge and an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies and a DPhil in Oriental Studies from Oxford. I am a Fellow of the HEA.

Twitter: @rmccarthy

Research Grants:

2022-24: BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, 'Islamist Dilemmas: Investigating Dynamics of Islamist Party Change in North Africa'

2021-22: POMEPS Travel, Research and Engagement Grant, 'Islamist Party Change: Strategies after Electoral Setbacks'

2020-24: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Savoir Grant, 'Loyalties of the Faithful: Attitudes and Values of Islamist Party Members' (PI Prof. Francesco Cavatorta)

2017-18: APSA Small Research Grant, 'Tunisia and the Politics of Protest' 

• Islamism
• Comparative Politics of the Middle East
• Contentious Politics

Authored book

• McCarthy, Rory (2018). Inside Tunisia's al-Nahda: Between Politics and Preaching. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
• McCarthy, Rory (2006). Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated: Stories from the New Iraq. London: Chatto & Windus.

Book review

• McCarthy, Rory (2023). The Unfinished Arab Spring: Micro-dynamics of revolts between change and continuity. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 50(1): 214-215.

Chapter in book

• McCarthy, Rory (2023). Hizb al-Tahrir Tunisia. In Encyclopaedia of Islam. Fleet, Kate, Kramer, Gudrun, Matringe, Denis, Nawas, John & Stewart, Devin Leiden: Brill.
• McCarthy, Rory (2016). The Tunisian uprising, Ennahdha, and the revival of an Arab-Islamic Identity. In Political Identities and Popular Uprisings in the Middle East. Holliday, Shabnam J. & Leech, Philip Rowman & Littlefield International. 157-176.

Edited book

• Roberts, Adam, Willis, Michael J., McCarthy, Rory & Garton Ash, Timothy (2016). Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Journal Article

• McCarthy, Rory (2023). Autonomous Activism and Accountability in a Democratic Transition: Evidence from Tunisia. Democratization
• McCarthy, Rory (2022). Transgressive Protest after a Democratic Transition: The Kamour Campaign in Tunisia. Social Movement Studies 21(6): 798-815.
• McCarthy, Rory (2019). The Politics of Consensus: Al-Nahda and the stability of the Tunisian transition. Middle Eastern Studies 55(2): 261-275.
• McCarthy, Rory (2018). When Islamists Lose: The Politicization of Tunisia's Ennahda Movement. The Middle East Journal 72(3): 365-384.
• McCarthy, Rory (2015). Protecting the Sacred: Tunisia's Islamist Movement Ennahdha and the Challenge of Free Speech. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 42(4): 447-464.
• McCarthy, Rory (2014). Re-thinking Secularism in Post-Independence Tunisia. The Journal of North African Studies 19(5): 733-750.

Other (Print)

• McCarthy, Rory (2021). Political Mistrust and the Islamist Impasse. 4(2): 57-60.
• Green, Daryl & McCarthy, Rory (2020). Lawrence of Oxford.