Fatim-Zohra El Malki

Fatim-Zohra El Malki is a DPhil candidate at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. Her thesis, Governance without Accountability: The Politics of Education Reform in Neoliberal Morocco, examines how participatory reform narratives have concealed deepening inequality, governance fragmentation, and the coercive restructuring of Morocco’s public education system since the late 1990s. Framed within the lens of authoritarian neoliberalism, her work explores how education policy operates simultaneously as a tool of political legitimation and social control.

Her research highlights the precarious conditions of Moroccan teachers, particularly under the rise of contractual employment, and interrogates the broader implications of education reform for state-society relations. Drawing on social movement theory and critical policy analysis, she challenges the privatisation of public services and argues for reform models rooted in equity, accountability, and local realities.

Fatim-Zohra holds a legal background and has completed advanced studies in law, public policy, and governance. She earned master’s degrees in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (2016) and in Violence, Terrorism, and Security from Queen’s University Belfast (2013). Her academic and professional experience spans legal analysis, policy research, and critical perspectives on institutional accountability, civic space, and the role of the state in shaping reform across North Africa.

Alongside her academic work, she served as Senior Researcher at the Rabat Social Studies Institute on a multi-country project examining decentralisation and inclusive citizenship in North and sub-Saharan Africa. She has also held research positions at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, contributing to work on EU-Maghreb security cooperation, transitional justice, and human rights in post-uprising contexts. Her writing has featured in Jadaliyya, Sada, TIMEP, and the European Council on Foreign Relations, among others.

Research interests: State-society relations in North Africa; the politics of knowledge and reform; education as a site of contestation and governance; criminal justice reform; access to fair judicial systems in the global south.