On March 6–7, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a working group on “Pluralism and Community in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, a number of distinguished scholars discussed issues related to ethno-linguistic and religious pluralism in the Middle East, identified gaps in the existing literature, and pointed to potential…
Reem Al-Ansari received her LLM from the University of Michigan Law School–Ann Arbor, and earned her Doctorate degree from Georgetown University’s Law Center in Washington D.C., marking her as the youngest Qatari lawyer and doctorate degree holder in the state. In addition to lecturing, Al-Ansari is the Director of the Legal Research and Studies division at Role of Law and Anti-Corruption Center (ROLACC) in Doha, Qatar. Previously, she worked at the World Bank headquarters in the Governance and Anti-corruption (GAC) unit, and is the recipient of two EED awards for education excellence. She is currently working on a book tackling the issue of money laundering and corruption, and tweets under @ReemaAlAnsari.
Shantayanan Devarajan, Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on “How the Arab World Can Benefit from Low Oil Prices” on March 24, 2016, in which he proposed that the widespread concern about plummeting oil prices, particularly among rentier states, is not a predicament to…
Uday Chandra is an Assistant Professor of Government. He received his B.A. in economics from Grinnell College and his PhD in political science from Yale University in 2013. He received the 2013 Sardar Patel Award for writing the best dissertation in a US university on any aspect of modern South Asia. Before coming to Doha, he held a prestigious research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Goettingen, Germany. Uday's research lies at the intersection between critical agrarian studies, political anthropology, postcolonial theory, and South Asian studies He is interested in state-society relations, power and resistance, political violence, agrarian change, rural-urban migration, popular religion, and the philosophy of the social sciences. Uday's work has been published in the Law & Society Review, Social Movement Studies, New Political Science, The Journal of Contemporary Asia, Contemporary South Asia, and the Indian Economic & Social History Review. He has coedited volumes and journal special issues on the ethics of self-making in modern South Asia, subaltern politics and the state in contemporary India, caste relations in colonial and postcolonial eastern India, and social movements in rural India today.
On April 3-4, 2016, CIRS held a second working group under its research initiative on “Geopolitics of Natural Resources in the Middle East.” On the course of two days, working group participants presented draft papers on a number of related topics including, amongst other things, on the politics of natural resources in the Middle East;…
Mehran Kamrava, Professor and Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture to discuss the findings of his most recent book, The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geography and the Road Ahead (Yale University Press, 2016), on April 5,…
Dr. Gerd Nonneman, Professor of International Relations & Gulf Studies, holds an M.A. in Middle East Politics (1985) and Ph.D. in Politics (1993) from the University of Exeter. He also holds Licentiates in Oriental Philology (Arabic) (1980) and Development Studies (1981) from the University of Ghent, Belgium. Prior to his appointment as dean, he served as Professor of International Relations & Middle East Politics, and Al-Qasimi Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter, where he has also directed the Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies and the Center for Gulf Studies. A former Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), he is also a Council member of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES). Aside from his academic work, he has worked in the private sector in the Gulf region, and acted as a consultant to a range of companies, NGOs, governments and international institutions. Dean Nonneman is Associate Editor of the Journal of Arabian Studies (Routledge). Among his recent publications are: Al-Mamlaka Al-'arabiyya al-sa'udiyya fi-l-mizan (updated Arabic edition: Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2012); ‘Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States: Elite Politics, Street Protests and Regional Diplomacy’ (Chatham House, 2011); ‘Europe, the US, and the Gulf after the Cold War’, in V. Mauer & D. Möckli (eds.), European-American Relations and the Middle East: From Suez to Iraq (Routledge, 2010); ‘Terrorism and Political Violence in the Middle East and North Africa: Drivers and Limitations’, in A. Siniver (ed.), International Terrorism post 9/11 (Routledge, 2010); ‘Political Reform in the Gulf Monarchies: From Liberalisation to Democratisation? A Comparative Perspective’, in A. Ehteshami & S. Wright (eds.), Reform in the Middle East Oil Monarchies (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2008); Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs (New York University Press, 2006); 'EU-GCC Relations', (Gulf Research Center, 2006); and Analyzing Middle East Foreign Policies (Routledge, 2005).
On June 1-2, 2016, The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted a working group on “Highly Skilled Migrants: The Gulf and Global Perspectives.” This working group is an outcome of a joint research project on Highly Skilled Migrants in Qatar that Zahra Babar, CIRS Associate Director, and two co-collaborators, Nabil Khattab of the Doha…
On August 22-23, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the first working group meeting under its research initiative on the topic of “Leading the Faithful: The Role of Religious Authorities in the Middle East.” During the course of the two days, scholars identified a number of key gaps in the literature…
On September 18–19, 2016, CIRS held a second working group under its research initiative on “Pluralism and Community in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, working group participants presented draft papers examining pluralism and diversity within the contemporary Middle East, addressing amongst other things: how governance and legal regimes incorporate or engage…
On September 25, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University in Qatar in collaboration with the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University hosted a one-day workshop under the title “Strategic Forum on Gulf Security.” A number of distinguished scholars, experts, and policy-makers…
Ibrahim Mohamed Jaidah, renowned Qatari Architect and Group CEO & Chief Architect of the Arab Engineering Bureau, was invited to deliver the inaugural CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the 2016-2017 academic year with a lecture on “Transitions in Qatar’s Architectural Identity” on September 26, 2016. The talk focused on the definitions of Qatari architecture; its history,…