Matteo Capasso received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, UK. Through an extensive collection of oral histories, his doctoral research explored the politics of everyday life in Libya during the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab al-Jamahiriyah (1977-2011). He has been working to turn this research into a book, provisionally titled, Inside Qaddafi’s Libya: Everyday Narratives of Power and Resistance.
More recently, by drawing on an interdisciplinary approach (history, political sociology and critical IPE) and the use of qualitative methodologies, his research has begun to focus on the impact of US-led imperialism (through war and sanctions) toward countries of the Global South, and resistance to it. At the EUI, he will explore these dimensions by focusing on two petro-states, Libya and Venezuela.
Before joining the EUI, he has been working for the H2020 project, EU LISTCO, as an expert in political economy, Libya and EU policies toward North Africa. He has written about state capture, informal economies and societal resilience.
Expertise for Teaching and Mentoring of Ph.D. Researchers
He taught various courses ranging from international politics, politics of the MENA region and conflict analysis, at the undergraduate and postgraduate level at Durham University. Since 2018, he has been working as Associate Editor of
Middle East Critique.