Dr. Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a German–Iranian political scientist and author focusing on Iran, the Middle East, and the post-unipolar world order. He is Founder and Director of the Center for Middle East and Global Order (CMEG), a think-tank devoted to exploring transformations and promoting a foreign policy that reconciles interests and values. He currently teaches Middle East politics and international security at the Hertie School – The University of Governance in Berlin and is also a Fellow with the University of Bonn’s Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS). Among his publications are, most recently, The Islamic Republic in Existential Crisis: The Need for a Paradigm Shift in the EU’s Iran Policy (2023, European Union Institute for Security Studies, Chaillot Paper), the much-acclaimed book Iran in an Emerging New World Order (2021, Palgrave), The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On: The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisis (2020, Brookings), where he suggested the start of a long-term revolutionary process in Iran. His forthcoming book is titled Iran – How the West is Betraying its Values and Interests (in German). Ali is also the former Iran expert of the Brookings Institution in Doha (BDC, 2017–20), the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP, 2015–18), and the American University of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (AUB-IFI, 2022–24) as well as a 2022 McCloy Fellow on Global Trends of the American Council on Germany (ACG). He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Department of Development Studies at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) and was the winner of the 2016/17 post-doctoral fellowship of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Iran Project. He has taught, among others, at universities in London, Berlin, Doha, Tübingen, and Prague. The author of some 300 articles in English, German and French, with translations into a dozen other languages, Ali is also a regular commentator for major outlets across the globe.