Angus McNelly

Dr Angus McNelly BSc, Hons, MSc

Senior Lecturer in International Relations

Angus is a critical International Political Economy scholar whose research sits at the intersection of political sociology, political economy and critical geography. He began his professional life as a secondary school Mathematics teacher before completing his PhD in Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in 2019. Prior to arriving at the University of Greenwich, Angus was a lecturer in International Development at QMUL and has taught at King’s College London and London South Bank University. He was also a research assistant at SOAS, University of London.

Angus teaches the Level 4 Global Issues and Level 5 Approaches to Development Modules as part of the Politics and International Relations (PAIR) and Languages and International Relations (LAIR) programmes. He is a member of the Centre for Transformative and Global Justice. Outside of Greenwich, Angus is an editor of the Latin American Development Studies Journal Alternautas and co-convenes the Urban and Regional Political Economy Working Group at the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy (IIPPE).

International relations

Responsibilities within the university
  • Module Convenor Global Issues (L4) and Approaches to Development (L5)
  • Personal Tutor
  • PhD Supervisor
  • Health and Safety Rep for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Part of the Steering Group for the Centre for Transformative and Global Justice

Awards
  • Centre for Human Rights, Environment, Governance and Criminal Justice research funding, University of Greenwich, £2,500 (2023).
  • Vice-Chancellor (VC) Scholarship for PhD student working on project, Get a Better Job, University of Greenwich (2022).
  • Early Career Researcher Network Seed Funding, University of Greenwich, £1,000 (2022).
  • Conference Fund, University of Greenwich, £840.60 (2022).
  • Hallsworth Research Fellowship, University of Manchester, declined (2021).
  • Three-year ESRC studentship, £15,862 per annum (2015–2018).
  • Latin American Studies Association travel grant, $200 (2017).
  • QMUL Post Graduate Fund Grant, £2,000 for fieldwork in Bolivia (2016–2017).

Recognition
    • Co-organiser of the Urban and Regional Political Economy Working Group in the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) (2018–present).
    • Member of American Association of Geographers (2021–2022).
    • Member of the International Sociological Association (2018–2019).
    • Member of Latin American Studies Association (2017–present).
    • Member of Latin American Geographies-UK (2017–present).
    • Co-organiser of the Latin American Anthropology Seminar Series at the Institute of Latin American Studies, London (2015–2016).

Research / Scholarly interests

Angus’ research broadly centres on the politics of transformative change. There are two major strands within this research agenda. The first research strand focuses on the political economy of development in Latin America and is interested in how natural resource extraction shapes the region and the experiences of left-wing governments in power during the early twenty-first century. His first monograph, Now We Are in Power: The Politics of Passive Revolution in Twenty-First Century Bolivia was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2023.

The second research strand interrogates green transitions and attempts to mitigate climate change. Along with his colleague at SOAS, Dr Tobias Franz, Angus is interested in how financialisation and extractivism shape ongoing green transitions and how the City of London is shaping the impacts transitions in South America. They are particularly concerned with how to decolonise energy transitions and the relationship between transition debates in Europe, the United States and Latin America.

Funded Research Projects

    • Experiences of the Left in Power: State Formation, Class Formation and the Production Space in Urban Bolivia (ESRC Studentship, 2015–2018)

Media activity

Podcasts

Television

Magazine Articles

Recent publications

Peer Reviewed Articles:

  • McNelly, A., 2022. “Harnessing the Storm: Searching for Constitutive Moments and a Politics of Ch’ixi after the Pink Tide.” Alternautas 9(1): 98–128.
  • McNelly, A. 2022. “Baroque Modernity in Latin America: Situating Indigeneity, Urban Indigeneity and the Popular Economy.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 41(1): 6–20.
  • McNelly, A. 2020. The Incorporation of Social Organizations under the MAS in Bolivia. Latin American Perspectives, 47(4), pp.76–95.
  • McNelly, A. 2020, Neostructuralism and its Class Character in the Political Economy of Bolivia under Evo Morales. New Political Economy, 25(3), pp.419–438.
  • McNelly, A. 2019, Labour Bureaucracy and Labour Officialdom in Evo Morales’ Bolivia. Development and Change, 50(4), pp.896–922.
  • McNelly, A. 2017. The contours of Gramscian theory in Bolivia: From government rhetoric to radical critique. Constellations, 24(3), pp.432–446.

Books:

  • McNelly, A., 2023. Now We Are in Power: The Politics of Passive Revolution in Twenty-First Century Bolivia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
  • McNelly, A. 2022. ¿Estamos En El Poder? Experiencias de Las Clases Obreras Con La Izquierda En El Poder. La Paz: CEDLA.
  • McNelly, A., under contract. The Political Economy of Bolivia: Economic, Social and Political Development. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

Book Chapters:

  • McNelly, A. forthcoming. “In the Wake of the 2008 Crisis: New Latin American Lefts and the Legacy of the Previous Commodity Boom.” In Ideology, Post-ideology and Anti-Ideology in Latin America. Reflections from the Last Decade, edited by Pablo Baisotti and Felipe Lagos-Rojas. London: Zed Books.
  • McNelly, A. 2021. “Crisis Time, Class Formation and the End of Evo Morales.” In Bolivia at the Crossroads: Politics, Economy, and Environment in a Time of Crisis, edited by Soledad Valdivia Rivera. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

Book Reviews:

  • McNelly, A. 2022. “Hines, Sarah (2021) Water for All: Community, Property and Revolution in Modern Bolivia University of California Press (Oakland), xviii+321. £ 66 (hb); £24 (pb).” Journal of Agrarian Change 0(0): 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12509.
  • McNelly, A. 2021. “Review of Planetary Mine: Territories of Extraction Under Late Capitalism.” Society and Space. February 15, 2021. https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/review-of-planetary-mine-territories-of-extraction-under-late-capitalism
  • McNelly, A. 2020. “Goodale, Mark (2019) A Revolution in Fragments: Traversing Scales of Justice, Ideology and Practice in Bolivia, Duke University Press (Durham and London), Xv + 297 Pp. £90.00 Hbk, £22.99 Pbk.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 39 (4): 540–42.

Other Publications: