The Politics of Sectarianism in the Middle East

This lecture is part of the 2014/2015 lecture series:Communalism and Sectarianism in a Globalised World

The Politics of Sectarianism in the Middle East

By Dr Toby Matthiesen
Research Fellow in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge

Biography
Toby Matthiesen is a Research Fellow in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. He was previously a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His first book “Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn’t” was published by Stanford University Press in 2013 and examines how the Gulf states responded to protests at home and in the wider Arab world. From 2007 to 2011 he wrote his doctorate on the politicisation of Saudi Arabia’s Shia community at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His second book, "The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism", which is based on his PhD, is published in 2015 by Cambridge University Press.