The Strategic Studies Unit is tasked with producing in-depth critical studies on sensitive strategic and security issues in the Arab region and the world. The Unit presents its findings in the form of strategic briefings, reports, peer-reviewed papers and books for the use of decision-makers and specialist academics and journalists as well as the reading public. It also holds an annual conference covering different issues relating to regional and global security and strategy as well as occasional seminars. The Unit publishes a yearly report observing the qualitative and quantitative developments in armed non-government organizations in the Arab World.
For inquiries, contact us at: ssu@dohainstitute.edu.qa
Omar Ashour | Unit Director
Professor of Security and Military Studies and the Chair of the Critical Security Studies Programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and Director of the Strategic Studies Unit at the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies. Professor Ashour is the author of The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements(Routledge, 2009) and How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and the editor of Bullets to Ballots: Collective De-Radicalisation of Armed Movements (Edinburgh University Press, 2021). He was a tenured faculty member at the University of Exeter (UK) for ten years (2008-2018) and lectured at McGill University (Canada) for two years (2006-2008). He previously served as a senior consultant for the United Nations on counter-terrorism, security sector reform, and de-radicalization issues and a research fellow at Chatham House (UK) and the Brookings Institution (US). He specialises in small state defence; military adaptations, innovations and transformations; asymmetric, conventional, irregular and hybrid warfare; combat and military effectiveness; weapon systems analysis; counterinsurgency and counterterrorism; radicalisation and collective de-radicalisation and transformations from violence to non-violence.
Muhanad Seloom | Researcher
Assistant Professor in Critical Security Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter (UK). His research focuses on government security policies, strategy and defence studies, anti-terror policies and legislations, and securitisation of ethno-nationalist conflicts. His most recent study “Transitional Justice and counter-terrorism in Iraq”, was published in the Wolverhampton Law Journal (2019).
Sidahmed Goudjili | Researcher
Assistant Professor at the Critical Security Studies program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He obtained his PhD in International Relations from the University of Algiers III. His research focuses on Critical Security Studies, International Relations Theory, and State Theories. He has written three books, including: Conflict Over the Interpretation of War and Peace: Studies on Scientific Investigation in International Relations (2019); Critical Security Studies: New Approaches to Re-define Security (2014); and The Evolution of Security Studies and the Dilemma of Application in The Arab World (2012). His many articles have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
Imad Mansour | Researcher
Assistant Professor on the Critical Security Studies program, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He previously worked at McGill University in Canada, Qatar University, and Sciences Po Paris (Menton). He also was a Non-Resident Scholar with the Middle East Institute (Washington, DC). His research expertise encompasses critical security studies, foreign policy analysis, strategic rivalries, regional orders, non-state actors, and the social roots of politics especially through narrative analysis. He is the author of Statecraft in the Middle East: Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics and Security (IB Tauris, 2016), and co-editor of Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa (Georgetown University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in Siyasat Arabiya, The Journal of North African Studies, Middle East Journal, The China Quarterly, International Studies Perspectives, MERIP, Middle East Policy, and International Journal, among others.
Majd Abuamer | Unit Rapporteur
Assistant Researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. Editorial Secretary of Omran Journal. He received a Master's degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. His research interests focus on democratic transition, social movements, the Arab state, and issues of identity and diaspora.
