Robert Mason is a Fellow of the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation project at Lancaster University and currently sits on the International Studies Association (ISA) Foreign Policy Analysis Section Executive Board. He was associate professor and director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo 2016-2019, Visiting Scholar in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in 2019, and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford in 2016. His research focuses mainly on the international relations of the Middle East, including Gulf politics, Euro-Med and Middle East - Asia relations. He is author or editor of numerous books, including Reassessing Order and Disorder in the Middle East: Regional Imbalance or Disintegration? (2017), Egypt and the Gulf: A Renewed Regional Policy Alliance (2016), Muslim Minority-State Relations: Violence, Integration and Policy (2016), International Politics of the Arab Spring: Popular Unrest and Foreign Policy (2014) and Foreign Policy in Iran and Saudi Arabia: Economics and Diplomacy in the Middle East (2014).