Simon Mabon

Project Director and Chair in International Politics

Lancaster University Lancaster University

Professor Simon Mabon is Chair in International Politics at Lancaster University where he is also Director of the Richardson Institute, the UK’s oldest peace and conflict research centre. His research falls at the intersection of International Political Theory and Middle East Studies, with a focus on sovereignty and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. His latest book, Houses built on sand is available here and is to be released in paperback in September. 

Mabon regularly appears on international media outlets and have discussed international affairs and Middle Eastern politics with the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera CNBC, Sky News, ABC Australia, France24, Deutsche Welle, Al Arabiya, LBC, ABC Australia, CBC Canada, and others. He served as Academic Advisor to the House of Lords International Relations Committee inquiry into the UK relations with the Middle East during the 2016-17 academic year. Mabon has spoken at a range of international events including at the United Nations, the European Parliament, the LSE, Harvard University, GeorgeTown University Doha, Brookings, the University of St Andrews, King's College London, the University of Leeds, the University of Aarhus, An Najah University Palestine, the People’s College Nanded, and many others. He is a regular tweeter (@profmabon), avid snowboarder, Arsenal fan, and musician.

Key Publications

  • The Struggle for Supremacy: Saudi Arabia and Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Forthcoming 
  • Houses Built On Sand (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press/Oxford University Press, 2020).
  • 'Transnational religious networks and geopolitics in the Muslim world', Global Discourse, Vol. 9, No.4, 2019, 593-603, with Edward Wastnidge. 
  • 'Sectarian Ganes: Sovereign Power, War Machines and Regional Order in the Middle East', Middle East Law and Governance, Vol. 11, No.3, 2019, 283-318.
  • Desectarianization: Looking Beyond the Sectarianization of Middle Eastern Politics', The Review of Faith and International Affairs, Vol. 17. No. 4, 2019, 23-35. 
  • 'Egypt's unbreakable curse: Tracing the State of Exception from Mubarak to Al Sisi', Mediterranean Politics, Online ahead of print, with Lucia Ardovini.  
  • 'The world is a garden: Nomos, sovereignty and the (contested) ordering of life', Review of International Studies, Vol. 45. No.5, 2019, 870-890
  • ‘The End of the Battle for Bahrain and the Securitization of the Shi’a'. Middle East Journal, Vol. 73, No.1, 2019, 29-50.
  • ‘Sovereignty, Bare Life and the Arab Uprisings. Third World Quarterly VOl. 38 No. 8, 2017. 1782-1799
  • People, Sects and States: Interrogating Sectarianism in the Contemporary Middle East. (London: Routledge, 2017) Co-edited with Lucia Ardovini. 
  • ‘Contested spaces and sectarian narratives in post uprisings Bahrain’, Global Discourse with Sossie Kasbarrian. Vol .6 No.4, 2016. 677-696.
  • Saudi Arabia and Iran: Soft power rivalry in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013). Paperback edition published in October 2015.



Posts from Simon Mabon (Show All)
Sectarianism, sovereignty and Houses built on sand Over recent months, protesters have taken to the streets of Iraq and Lebanon, expressing anger at ongoing political, social and economic crises. Referred to by some as a ‘second wave’ of Arab Uprisings, these are merely the latest manifestation of... Read More
News: SEPAD Project Launched On Tuesday 11th September, the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-Sectarianization project (SEPAD) was launched in London at an event co-organised by the Foreign Policy Centre. The launch was comprised of two parts: the first, a workshop featuring presentations... Read More
Managing the Political: The Case of Iran A guest blogpost by Dr Samuel Mace, University of Leeds Managing politics in the modern day remains a complex task. Polities are made up of diverse groups with differing agendas that are ever changing ensuring institutional management of the political... Read More
Reports from Simon Mabon (Show All)
Iranian revolution: world’s reactions show that, four decades on, tensions remain as high as ever The 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution in February 1979 was greeted by an extraordinary tweet from US president Donald Trump. In both English and Arabic, it referred to “40 years of failure” and said the Iranian people deserved a “much... Read More
E-Conference Read More
Bahrain: The Epicentre of the Saudi-Iranian Rivalry? For many, the archipelago of Bahrain is at the epicentre of the geopolitical and sect-based struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Situated 16 kilometres from the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, linked by the King Fahd Causeway, and 768 kilometres from... Read More
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