Professor Gareth Stansfield - Arab and Islamic Studies

Arab and Islamic Studies

Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

Professor Gareth Stansfield

BA (Hons.), MA, PhD (Durham), FRSA

Extension: 4105

Telephone: 01392 724105

Professor of Middle East Politics, Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

My BA, MA and PhD degrees were gained at the University of Durham with my PhD being awarded in 2001. My thesis addressed the political development of the de facto Kurdish state that had emerged in Iraq in 1991.My career in Exeter started in 2002 when I won a Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship to look at the possibilities for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Iraq following the sanctions regime. For this research, I continued with investigating the Kurdish aspects of Iraqi politics, and also focused upon the dynamics of Shi’i parties and organizations and the overall posture of the ‘Iraqi opposition’. I was then appointed to a Lecturership in Middle East Politics upon completion of my Leverhulme Fellowship in 2004, and was promoted to a Readership in 2005 and a Personal Chair in 2007. I am also an Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), and an Associate Fellow of the Program on Ethnic Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.

My current research is on the political development of post-2003 Iraq and particularly the interaction of religious and ethnic groups and conceptions of nationalism and federalism. I have also developed other research activities, including in Gulf Security, UK foreign policy toward the Middle East (supported by an ESRC grant obtained with Professor Tim Dunne), radicalization in North Africa (supported by an ESRC grant obtained with Dr Jonathan Githens-Mazer, Dr Lise Storm, and Professor Martin Thomas), conflict management in Kirkuk (supported by a Leverhulme Fellowship), and a five-year project to establish and develop a research cluster and centre (Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies) focusing on ‘ethnopolitics in a globalized world’ (supported by a £738,000 grant from the Leverhulme Trust).