Research
My research interests span a wide variety of topics. I am interested in issues of culture and ideology; political discourse and its impact on policy formation; terrorism and political violence; global political economy & (under)development in Africa; dialectical and psychoanalytic theory; Revolutionary intellectual and political history in the global South; economic exploitation and inequality, and social movements and protests that look to expand democracy and equality. I am especially interested in research that combines historical and comparative case methods with social and political theory.
My Google Scholar profile is located here.
My ResearchGate profile is located here.
My research on political violence, human rights, and peacebuilding in SOMALIA:
2023. "Climate Change, Counter-Terrorism and Capitalist Development in Somalia." Review of African Political Economy. https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.1080/03056244.2023.2261256.
2023. "Does the United States owe reparations to Somalia?" Race & Class. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968231155358
2020. "Political, Economic, and Ideological Warfare in Somalia". Peace Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2019.1735174.
2018. "The Evolution of Political Violence: The Case of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab."Terrorism and Political Violence. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2016.1165213
My research re-envisioning a critical theory of anti-systemic politics and universality can be found here:
2024. "Theorising Universality in the Modern World-System: The Abstract, The Concrete, and the Case of Botswana" Third World Quarterly. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/97QVGUY9DRYVP2ZBAF8A/full?target=10.1080/01436597.2024.2403691.
2024. "The (Im)Possibility of Anti-Systemic Politics: Uprisings, Exilic Spaces, and Alain Badiou." Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis. https://doi.org/10.55533/2765-8414.1079
2024. "Subjective destitution, love, and rebellion in pandemic times: Theorizing with Hot Skull." Human Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786231190848.
2023. "Universality, Black Lives Matter, and the George Floyd Uprising." Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2023.2168717.
My research on diamond mining, elite politics, and the marginalization and dispossession of the Indigenous San in BOTSWANA:
2024. "State Strategy, Diamond Mining, and Indigenous Dispossession in Botswana." Critical Sociology. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08969205241252619.
2024. "Theorising Universality in the Modern World-System: The Abstract, The Concrete, and the Case of Botswana" Third World Quarterly. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/97QVGUY9DRYVP2ZBAF8A/full?target=10.1080/01436597.2024.2403691.
My research in various other domains of media studies, culture, ideology, and global political change:
2022. "A Sociological Analysis of 'OK Boomer'." (w/ John McCollum). Critical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205211025724.
2022. "Cultural political economy, crisis management, and COVID-19 in the United States." European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2021.1995773.
2020. "Revisiting Culture and Meaning-Making in World-Systems Analysis: A Proposal for Engaging with the Cultural Political Economy Approach" Critical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920519856074
2020. "COVID-19, The Vanishing Mediator, and Postcapitalist Possibilities." (w/ John McCollum & Steven Schmidt). Book chapter availalable at: www.rethinkingmarxism.org/Dossier2020/19_MuellerCollumSchmidt.pdf.
2019. "What can sociologists of globalization and development learn from Nicos Poulantzas?" Progress in Development Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464993419860953.
My expansive review article, placing Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s Elite Capture (2022) book in dialogue with Alain Badiou's (2022) A New Dawn for Politics book, can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231171321.
My review of Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s book, Reconsidering Reparation (2022), is here: https://doi.org/10.1177/14649934221119843
My review of Alex Hochuli, George Hoare, and Philip Cunliffe's book, The End of the End of History: Politics in the Twenty-First Century (2021), is here: https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205211067340
I also try to write shorter, widely-accessible and publicly oriented essays on topics of sociological interest, including:
2023. "How the United States Underdeveloped Somalia." available here: https://marxistsociology.org/2023/11/how-the-united-states-underdeveloped-somalia/.
2023. "Despite one of the US military’s greatest fiascoes, American troops are still in Somalia fighting an endless war." available here: https://theconversation.com/despite-one-of-the-us-militarys-greatest-fiascoes-american-troops-are-still-in-somalia-fighting-an-endless-war-206368.
2023. "Universality and the Enduring Relevance of the George Floyd Uprising." available here: https://marxistsociology.org/2023/02/universality-and-the-enduring-relevance-of-the-george-floyd-uprising/
2022. "The United States, Somalia, and the Deadlock of 'Counter-terrorism'.", available here: https://www.sublationmag.com/post/the-united-states-somalia-and-the-deadlock-of-counter-terrorism
2022. "The World-Historical Significance of Paul Robeson," available here: https://marxistsociology.org/2022/01/the-world-historical-significance-of-paul-robeson/.
2021. "Class, Generation and Meme WarThe capitalist realism of ‘OK Boomer’," available here: https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/october-2021/generations/class-generation-and-meme-war/.
2021. "Outcomes of the US “War on Terror”: The Afghanistan-Somalia Comparison." available here: https://marxistsociology.org/2021/09/outcomes-of-the-us-war-on-terror-the-afghanistan-somalia-comparison/.
2020. "The Political Economy of Peacebuilding in Somalia." available here: https://marxistsociology.org/2020/06/the-political-economy-of-peacebuilding-in-somalia/.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about my research and work!
