Professional Affiliation

Professor of Middle East Studies, Al-Qasimi Chair of Arab Gulf Studies, University of Exeter, UK

Expert Bio

Gareth Stansfield is Professor of Middle East Politics and the Al-Qasimi Chair of Arab Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter. He is also a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), London. His research is two-fold, focusing upon the politics of Iraq particularly since 2003 and with a special focus upon the status of the Kurdistan Region, and the security and international relations of the states of the Gulf.

Wilson Center Project

The Future of the Middle East State System

Project Summary

Recent events in the Middle East have focused attention upon the survivability of the state system, largely put in place in the aftermath of World War One. This project addresses the challenges to the system - whether from new or non-state actors - and the durability of the extant states in the face of these new pressures.

Major Publications

The Kurdish Question Revisited, edited with Mohammed Shareef. London: Hurst & Co, forthcoming, 2016

 Iraq: People, History, Politics. Cambridge: Polity, 2nd ed., 2016

 The Remaking of Syria, Iraq, and the Wider Middle East. RUSI Briefing Papers, 17 July 2013