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Dr Leila Simona Talani joined the department in September 2009. She was previously at the University of Bath and at the London School of Economics. In 2001 she spent a year as Associate Expert on migration issues at the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Cairo. She gained a PhD with Distinction from the European University Institute in Florence in 1998. In 2012 she was awarded the Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Economy. She is a native speaker of Italian but is also fluent in English, Spanish and French, has a working knowledge of German, and is learning Arabic.

• The Arab Spring in the Global Political Economy
• The political Economy of the Euro-Zone crisis
• The future of the City of London
• The political economy of migration flows from southern Mediterranean countries to the EU

Dr Talani’s research interests lie firmly within the context of International Political Economy. Her primary field of research is the Political Economy of global finance, with a special attention to European Monetary Integration. Her research experience in this field dates back to her PhD Program at the European University Institute of Florence. There she obtained a doctorate in International Political Economy with distinction in 1998 with a thesis on an International political economy approach to the making and credibility of exchange rate agreements. Within this research stream, she published extensively.

She is currently working on a second edition of her textbook on European Political Economy (Ashgate, forthcoming).

In the field of European Political Economy she was awarded the Jean Monnet Chair in 2012 as well as a Jean Monnet action grant for a project on the Euroisation of Bulgaria and Romania.

Her latest monograph deals with the future of the City of London in the context of Globalisation. Based on the theory of British exceptionalism in its capitalist development, the research assesses whether globalisation modifies the balance of power within the British capitalist elite. The ultimate goal is to verify whether the hegemonic position of the City of London will continue unhindered. She has also finalised the econometric testing of her model of credibility of exchange rate agreements based on an interpretation of Frieden’s (1991) distributional consequences on socio-economic sectors of the adoption of fixed exchange rates.

Dr Talani’s other research interest is the Middle East and Northern Africa in the Global political economy. Interest in this field of research was developed when she was a research officer of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention of Cairo between September 2000 and September 2001. Her current research project assesses the political economy of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia and Lybia. She is also working on migration from the MENA to the EU. Adopting a qualitative definition of globalisation, the author assesses the impact of globalisation on international migratory flow, especially illegal migration from the MENA area to the EU. Currently she is in the process of devising an econometric model to test the validity of her hypotheses on this issue.

Talani, L.S., (2011), Globalisation, Hegemony and the future of the City of London, Palgrave

Talani, L.S. and Cafruny, A., (2011), Europe in the Financial crisis, International Political Economy Yearbook, Volume 18 (Lynne Rienner, 2011)

Talani, L.S., (ed) (2011), Insiders and Outsiders, Routledge

Talani, L.S., and Della Posta, P., (ed) (2011), Europe in crisis, Palgrave

Talani, L.S., "The impact of the global financial crisis on the City of London: Towards the end of Hegemony?", Competition and Change, Vol. 15 No. 1, February, 2011, 11–30

Dr Talani has taught widely on a number of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level at the London School of Economics and University of Bath including EU Policies and policy making, Comparative European Politics, European and International Political Economy, International Relations Theory. Within European & International Studies she currently teaches the undergraduate courses ‘European Political Economy” and ‘Integration of the European Union’ as well as the postgraduate course ‘The political economy of International migration'.