Professor Stansfield's broad research field is that of Middle East Politics, which includes the domestic politics of Middle East states; their regional inter-relations; and the policies of international actors toward the Middle East. Within this field, my research clusters around several inter-related interests.

His main research focuses on Iraq, and particularly with regard to the post-2003 situation. Hist 2003 monograph Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003) is commonly recognized as being a leading source on Iraqi Kurdish politics in the 1990s and early 2000s and analyses the operation of the political system of the de facto state on the eve of regime change. Other contributions include a joint authored book that attempted to assess the state-building measures adopted by the US in Iraq, and the reaction of Iraqis to them. The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, or Division? (2nd ed. New York: Palgrave, 2005) was one of the first books  to predict the political and security problems that now afflict today’s Iraq. Recently, Professor Stansfield has published Iraq: People, History, Politics (Polity, 2007), which applies various political science theories to formative moments in Iraq’s history. He has also written or contributed to a range of policy papers related to Iraq and Middle East politics in my capacity as an Associate Fellow of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs). Most notable of these was Iraq in Transition: Vortex or Catalyst? (2004) and Accepting Realities in Iraq (2007).

Website

Selected Publications

Books

• A History of Kurdistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008 (forthcoming).
• The Kurds in Iraq (provisional title), London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2008 (forthcoming).
• Iraq: People, History, Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.
• with Reidar Visser, editor of, An Iraq of its Regions: Cornerstone of a Federal Democracy?, London and New York: Hurst & Co. and Columbia University Press, 2007.
• with Liam Anderson, The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy or Division?, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
• Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
• The 1995-1996 Yemen-Eritrea Conflict over the Islands of Hanish and Jabal Zuqar: A Geopolitical Analysis, Durham: Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 2001

Articles

• with Liam Anderson, 'The Implications of Elections for Federalism in Iraq: Toward a Five-Region Model', Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 35, 3, 2005, pp. 1-24.
• 'The Kurdish Dilemma: The Golden Era Threatened', The Adelphi Papers, 354, 2002, pp. 131-148.