Dr Jessie Moritz is a Lecturer at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS), specialising in the impact of oil and gas wealth on domestic politics and economic development in the Arabian Peninsula. She joined CAIS in 2018, following the completion of a postdoctoral research fellowship with the Transregional Institute, Princeton University, where she focused on the impact of oil price falls on economic and political reform programs in the Gulf Cooperation Council and lectured on political and economic development of the Middle East.

Jessie’s research is based on in-depth in-country fieldwork and over 160 personal interviews with citizens of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, including economic development experts, government officials, private sector entrepreneurs, and civil society actors. She has previously held visiting fellow positions at the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, at the Gulf Studies Program at Qatar University, and the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.

Jessie received her PhD from the ANU in March 2017; her dissertation, “Slick Operators: Revising Rentier State Theory for the Modern Arab States of the Gulf,” received the 2017 Dissertation Award from the US-based Association for Gulf and Peninsula Studies.

Jessie’s current research focuses on the political economy of oil in the Arabian Peninsula, with a particular focus on state-society relations and diversification strategies. Her most recent research projects examine the prospects and politics of a transition to renewable energy in the oil-rich states of the Arabian Peninsula.