May Darwich is Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in International Relations of the Middle East at the University of Birmingham. She was Assistant Professor at Durham University (2016-2019) and a Research Fellow at GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, within the IDCAR-Network ‘The International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes’(2014-2015). She was Teaching Assistant at the University of Edinburgh (2012-2014) and Cairo University (2010-2011). She holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Edinburgh (2015), an MA in International Politics from SciencePo Bordeaux (2010), and a BA in Political Science from Cairo University (2009).

Her research attempts to bring Middle East cases to debates within IR theory while surmounting the challenge to the study of state behaviour in the Middle East through theoretical lenses. Her research has appeared in internationally renowned journals, namely Foreign Policy Analysis, the Journal of Global Security Studies, Democratization, Mediterranean Politics, Global Discourse and in volumes on the international relations of the Middle East. She is the author of Threats and Alliances in the Middle East: Saudi and Syrian Policies in a Turbulent Region (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Co-organised by the IEMed as part of the Aula Mediterrània 2022-23 programme in collaboration with IBEI Master’s in International Relations.

The inter-university programme Aula Mediterrània aims to foster studies on the Mediterranean with an as wide and interdisciplinary perspective as possible. It is the result of the collaboration between the IEMed and the academic world, including IBEI.

In the academic year 2022-23, the programme celebrates its ninth edition. International experts from various professional backgrounds will address key issues of the Mediterranean and international agenda. For instance, the management of energy resources, the global governance of the environment, border management, sectarianism in the Middle East, the political situation of countries such as Sudan or Iran, or the growing Chinese influence in the Maghreb.

We strongly recommend our students to take part in this programme in order to broaden their knowledge in the MENA region. Check the programme