Rethinking security in the Middle East

Robert Springborg is a Research Fellow of the Italian Institute of International Affairs and Adjunct Professor, Simon Fraser University. Formerly he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and Program Manager for the Middle East for the Center for Civil-Military Relations; the holder of the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute; the Director of the American Research Center in Egypt; University Professor of Middle East Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia; and assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the College of Europe, Warsaw; the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po; and the University of Sydney. In 2016 he was Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar, Middle East Initiative, Kennedy School, Harvard University. His most recent books are Egypt (2018) and Political Economies of the Middle East and North Africa (2020), both published by Polity Press. He is the editor in chief of The Handbook of Contemporary Egypt, published by Routledge in 2021. He is the co-editor of The Political Economy of Arab Education (2021) and Security Assistance in the Middle East (2023) published by Lynne Rienner; and The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 (2023), published by I.B. Tauris.

Ziya Meral is a Lecturer in International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Cambridge, a MSc in Sociology from the LSE and a 1st Class BA Hons in Theology from the Brunel University. He is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute and of the European Leadership Network, and a co-founder and Senior Associate of the Climate Change and (In)Security Project. His research interests include climate change and security, global trends in defence and security, foreign policies of Turkey and Middle Eastern countries, interaction of religion with global affairs including violence, diplomacy, policy and human rights. He is passionate about bridging the gap between scholarly research and policy responses. He is frequently interviewed by international media; lectures and gives briefings at leading diplomatic, political and military institutions around the world and supports multiple charitable and educational initiatives.

Nomi Bar Yaacov is an associate fellow of the International Security Programme at Chatham House. She is an international negotiator, arbitrator and mediator, and a convenor of Track II negotiations, principally but not exclusively in the Middle East. Prior to joining Chatham House, she was the Head of the Middle East Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Nomi is a former speechwriter to the UN Secretary General, a former Associate-Spokesperson for the UN Secretary General and a former political adviser in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General in the Organisations headquarters in New York where she covered the Security Council.

She has also worked as legal adviser to the UN Mission in Haiti, political adviser to the UN Mission in Guatemala, and on elections in Mozambique and South Africa. Nomi also worked as legal adviser to various missions of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Balkans, including Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and in Montenegro. She has been awarded a number of prestigious awards, including the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Research and Writing Grant, USIP Grants, a Ford Foundation grant and a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) grant. She is a frequent media commentator on global affairs and geopolitical trends.

Chair

Lina Khatib (Director, SOAS Middle East Institute)

This event will take place in-person and will not be recorded. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.