Professor Gareth Stansfield
Research Interests
My broad research field is that of Middle East Politics, which includes the domestic politics of Middle East states; their regional inter-relations; and the policies of international actors toward the Middle East. Within this field, my research clusters around several inter-related interests.
My main research focuses on Iraq, and particularly with regard to the post-2003 situation. My first contribution to the field came in 2003, with a research monograph addressing the political development of the de facto Kurdish state in the north. Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003)is commonly recognized as being a leading source on Iraqi Kurdish politics in the 1990s and early 2000s and analyses the operation of the political system of the de facto state on the eve of regime change. My second contribution came in 2004 with a joint authored book that attempted to assess the state-building measures adopted by the US in Iraq, and the reaction of Iraqis to them. The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, or Division? (2nd ed. New York: Palgrave, 2005) was one of the first books to predict the political and security problems that now afflict today's Iraq. My most recent book Iraq: People, History, Politics (Polity, 2007) applies various political science theories to formative moments in Iraq's history. I have also written or contributed to a range of policy papers related to Iraq and Middle East politics in my capacity as an Associate Fellow of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs). Most notable of these was Iraq in Transition: Vortex or Catalyst? (2004) and Accepting Realities in Iraq (2007).
My work on Iraq developed from my PhD research on Kurdish politics there in the 1990s. I had the good fortune to live and work in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 1997 to 2001. My experiences placed me in an excellent position to research Kurdish politics at close quarters. I have continued to remain a close follower of political developments in Kurdistan-Iraq in particular, in addition to the Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran, and Syria. From 2005 to 2007, I held a USIP research grant enabling me to continue my research into political mobilization in Kurdistan-Iraq. Reflecting these interests, I am in the process of finalising A History of Kurdistan for Cambridge University Press, and will revisit post-2003 Kurdish politics in Iraq in a revised edition of my earlier Routledge book thereafter. I have also been commissioned to edit a book project entitled The Kurdish Policy Imperative for Chatham House, and am in the process of co-convening an International Kurdish Studies Conference with the Centre for Kurdish Studies cluster in Exeter.
A third area of research which I have pursued in my academic writing has been with regard to conflict resolution and management measures in divided societies. With Iraq as a focus, I have written extensively on the dynamics of political mobilization in the post-2003 period. The most notable of these publications was my co-authored (with Liam Anderson) peer-reviewed journal article on 'The impact of elections for federalism in Iraq' that appeared in the US political science journal Publius - perhaps the leading journal in the field of 'federalism' studies. I have since been contracted by UPenn Press to write a book on Iraq's 'disputed territories', the research of which is to be supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.
A fourth area of research that I am developing is in the field of military intervention and security, with particular reference to US and UK foreign policy formulation. I have undertaken a series of research seminars with military officials, and have been awarded an ESRC grant, with Professor Tim Dunne, to further develop this into a full research programme. This work culminated with a symposium held in Exeter in September 2007 entitled Dis-United Kingdom.
Finally, I have, in recent months, been promoting other research agendas, particularly in the areas of comparative ethnopolitics, and Gulf security. With regard to the latter, I was invited to present a paper on Gulf Security at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research - a prestigious venue in Abu Dhabi - which will soon appear in an edited collection, with additional papers targeted at peer-reviewed journals. The former initiative is a development of my work on Kurdistan and Iraq, and is now supported by a Research Leadership Award from the Leverhulme Trust and a share of an ESRC grant that will assist in the building of a research cluster under my direction. The cluster will work under the auspices of the newly-founded Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies (EXCEPS), which I will direct as a University-Supported Centre.
