Durham UniversityMay Darwich is Assistant Professor in International Relations of the Middle East in the School of Government and International Affairs (SGIA) at Durham University, in the United Kingdom. She hold 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). She was a Research Fellow at GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, within the IDCAR-Network ‘The International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes’ (2014-2016).
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 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. Her current research projects focus on regional military interventions in the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen since 2015, the spread of sectarianism to not so sectarian societies in the Middle East, and the concept of 'shame' in international relations and its impact on state identity formation. She is co-editor of the APSA (American Political Science Association) MENA Newsletter.