Dr. Peter Mandaville

Dr. Peter Mandaville is the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies and Professor of International Affairs at George Mason University. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. In 2011-12, during the Arab Spring, he served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. He was the Founding Director of GMU’s Center for Global Studies and his visiting affiliations have included American University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Pew Research Center. Born and raised in the Middle East—the third generation of his family to live in the region—his recent research has taken him to a wide range of Muslim settings such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and West Africa. He is the author of, among other titles, Islam and Politics (Routledge, 2007; 2nd edition, 2014), a broad global overview of Islamic social and political movements, and Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (Routledge, 2001), a study of Muslim communities in the United Kingdom. He also is co-editor of several volumes of essays in the fields of international relations and Islamic Studies, including Politics from Afar: Transnational Diasporas & Networks (Columbia University Press, 2012). In addition to his numerous book chapters and journal articles, he has contributed to publications such as Foreignpolicy.com, the International Herald Tribune, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. He has also consulted widely for government, media and nongovernmental organizations on contemporary Muslim world affairs, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on political Islam. Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, much of his recent work has focused on the comparative study of religious authority and social movements in the Muslim world, with an emphasis on youth groups, transnational networks, and new media.