Successful Viva Voce of Ali Bakir Hamoudi.
Ali Bakir (opens in a new window)Hamoudi defended his PhD thesis successfully with minor corrections on 20 November 2023. Thanks to his external examiner Prof. (opens in a new window)Rana Jawad (University of Birmingham) and Dr. (opens in a new window)Naonori Kodate as internal examiner for a thorough questioning and constructive debate. Dr. (opens in a new window)Matthew Donoghue chaired the viva examination.
Ali Hamoudi’s thesis examines Iraq’s changing social policy environment and how civil society organisations (CSOs) are developing within this landscape. Specifically, it investigates CSO initiatives to address social disadvantage through the provision of social services. Examining three aspects of the CSO landscape: geography, structure and accountability, the thesis provides an original multifaceted exploration of how and why CSOs address disadvantage in the context of Iraq, a country with high levels of poverty, underdeveloped social policies and a heavy reliance on international donors.
The supervisors Dr. (opens in a new window)Stephan Köppe and Dr. (opens in a new window)Nessa Winston were also present at the viva to celebrate with Ali.
Some chapters of Hamoudi’s thesis are already published. His chapter on ‘(opens in a new window)Measuring the values of civil society in the Middle East and North Africa region’ has been published in (opens in a new window)A Research Agenda for Civil Society, edited by Kees Biekart and Alan Fowler. This chapter lays the conceptual foundations to measure the structure and accountability of CSOs in MENA and specifically in Iraq.
His first empirical chapter, entitled ‘(opens in a new window)Poverty at a distance: Supply and demand side factors and the formation of civil society organizations in Iraq’ has been published in the Journal of International Development. Within this article, Hamoudi utilises official CSO register data to understand where CSOs are forming in relation to district level poverty rates. Based on his thesis, further articles on the structure and accountability of CSOs are in preparation. Together, these findings have important implications on how CSOs may fill a specific niche of social service provision not only in Iraq’s developing social policy landscape but on an international level.