Emerging Powers and the Middle East
Speakers
Parag Khanna: Empires, Influence and the Middle East in the New Global Order
Parag Khanna is Director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow
in the American Strategy Program at the New American Foundation, where he leads an
effort to find innovative strategies for governmental, corporate, and civil society
collaboration to resolve pressing global problems and redefine diplomacy for the 21st
century. He has just published his new book The Second World: Empires and Influence in
the New Global Order (2008).
Hermann Schwengel: Free Geo-Strategical Shifts: How to Ease Emerging Powers
into the Global System
Hermann Schwengel is the head of the Institute for Sociology at Albert-Ludwigs-University
in Freiburg/Germany. He specializes in transformation processes and differential responses
to processes of globalization. Among his latest publications is Globalization with a
European Face (2006).
Osama Al Ghazali Harb: The Middle East in the Post-Unipolar Era
Osama Al Ghazali Harb is Editor in Chief of the Cairo-based magazine El Syassa El
Dawliya, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament and a frequent commentator for Arab
and Foreign media on issues related to Egypt and regional relations.
Alexej Maleshenko: Russian Foreign Policy in the Putin Era
Alexey Malashenko is Scholar-in-Residence at the Moscow Office of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace and a Professor at Moscow State Institute of
International Relations. He specializes in Russian relations to the Islamic world. His latest
book (with Anatole Lieven) is Russia's Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-
Soviet Russia (2004).
Chu Shulong: China and the Middle East
Chu Shulong is Professor of Political Science and International Relations and the deputy
director of the Institute of International Strategic and Development Studies at Tsinghua
University in Beijing, China. He is an expert in Chinese foreign policy, Sino-U.S. relations
and Asian security. He is the author of a forthcoming book with the title The Peaceful Rise
and Development: China’s Foreign Strategy and Policy, in addition to seven other books on
international relations.
M.K.Bhadrakumar: India and the Middle East
M.K.Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service who devoted much
of his career to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. He has served as ambassador to Turkey
and Uzbekistan and has held high posts at Indian missions around the world. Since his
retirement from the Foreign Service he has been writing on Russia, Central Asia, China
and the Middle East as well as on energy issues and regional security for publications in
India and abroad. He is a regular columnist for The Asia Times and The Hindu.
Tarik M. Yousef: New Economic Flows and their Effects on the Region
Tarik M. Yousef is the founding Dean of the Dubai School of Government, after holding
positions in Economics and Arab Studies at Georgetown University. He received his Ph.D.
in economics from Harvard University and specializes in development economics and
economic history with a particular focus on the Middle East. He is a Senior Fellow in the
Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution and the Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Sven Behrendt: Sovereign Wealth Funds from Emerging Economics: Drivers of
Systemic Change?
Sven Behrendt is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. He is an
expert in global policy issues, international negotiations, corporate strategy, and diplomacy.
Prior to his appointment at Carnegie, he served in various management positions at the
World Economic Forum and the Bertelsmann Group on Policy Research. He earned a
Ph.D. from the University of Konstanz/Germany.
Gudrun Wacker: Emerging Powers and Energy Security: Competition, Conflict or
Cooperation?
Gudrun Wacker is a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security
Affairs in Berlin and specializes in China's foreign and security policy and domestic
development. Among her latest publications is China's Rise: The Return of Geopolitics?
(2006).
Marina Ottaway: Power Politics Challenged: The Crisis of US Power in the Middle East
Marina Ottaway is the Director of the Middle East Program of the Carnegie Foundation for
International Peace. She specializes in democracy and post-conflict reconstruction issues,
with special focus on political transformation in the Middle East and reconstruction in Iraq,
Afghanistan, the Balkans, and African countries. Among her recent publications are Beyond
the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World (edited with Julia Choucair-Vizoso, 2008)
and Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism (2003).
Guo Xuetang: New Rules for Old Games: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and
the New World Order
Guo Xuetang is an Associate Professor of the Department of Political Science and Deputy
Director of the Institute of International Politics at Tongji University in Shanghai, China. His
main areas of expertise are Chinese foreign policy and strategy, Sino-US relations and
Asia-Pacific security. He is the co-author of Is China a Threat: Interpreting China Threat
Theory (2004), and the editor of International Relations: Theory and Practice (2004).
Vitaly Naumkin: Back from the Cold: Russia’s Choices in the Middle East
Vitaly Naumkin is the president of the Moscow-based International Center for Strategic and
Political Studies and Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Moscow State
University. He is an internationally renowned scholar of the Arab and Muslim world, from
ancient to modern times, and is known for his scholarship in such areas as international
relations, strategic studies, Islamic Studies, conflict management and resolution, and
Eurasian Studies.
Karim Sadjadpour: Iran at the Center of the Next Storm?
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He
has collected inside experience on Iran during four years as the chief Iran analyst for the
International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington. His most recent publication is
Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran's Most Powerful Leader (2008).
Christopher Boucek: "Soft" Responses to Terrorism
Christopher Boucek is an associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security
Studies. Before joining Carnegie, he pursued postdoctoral studies at Princeton University,
and was security editor for the Jane Information Group. Most recently, he has published
Saudi Arabia’s "Soft" Counterterrorism Strategy: Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Aftercare,
and The Counseling Program: Extremist Rehabilitation in Saudi Arabia.
Li Mingjiang: Soft Power and the Chinese Approach
Li Mingjiang is Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in
Singapore. His main research interests include the rise of China in the context of East Asian
regional relations and Sino-US relations, China’s diplomatic history, and domestic sources
of China’s international strategies.
Praful Bidwai: Delinking Real Security from False Notions of Prestige: Lessons from
South Asia's Anti-Nuclear Movement
Praful Bidwai is a former senior editor of The Times of India, a fellow of the Transnational
Institute (tni.org) and a regular columnist for several leading newspapers in India. He is an
expert on Indian foreign policy and nuclear disarmament and the author of (together with
Achin Vanaik) New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament (Interlink
1999).
Ziad Abdel Samad - International Solidarity Movements and the Arab World
Ziad Abdel Samad is the Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development
(ANND), a regional network of Arab NGOs active in the fields of social development, human
rights, gender, and the environment. He sits on the boards of international organizations
such as the International Council of the World Social Forum and the World Alliance for
Citizen Participation.