I am a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. I have previously held faculty, research, and leadership roles at Georgetown’s University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University the Council for British Research in the Levant, the University of Exeter, and the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI) in London. I am currently Senior Editor at the Arab Center Washington DC.
Trained to study history from the perspective of politics and international relations, my research looks at conflict and state-building in the Middle East, with a focus on Syria and the Levant. I lived in Damascus for five years and in Jordan for nearly 2 years; I have also spent long periods in Lebanon and have travelled widely across the region.
I have a PhD in Politics & International Studies and a MA in Middle East Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and a first class BA (Hons) in Arabic and French from St John’s College, Oxford University. I am research proficient in Arabic and French, with intermediate Turkish and beginner’s Kurmancî Kurdish.
My work has been published in journals such as Journal of Democracy, International Affairs, New Political Economy, Journal of Historical Sociology, and International Journal of Middle East Studies. My first book, Occupying Syria under the French Mandate: Insurgency, Space, and State Formation, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. I also co-edited Power, Resistance, Ideology and the State: Charles Tripp and the Comparative Politics of the Middle East (Gingko Press, 2025). My new book, A History of Modern Syria (with a slightly different title for the US market) will be published in early 2026 by Basic Books (US) and Allen Lane (UK). The book analyses the development of Syria’s politics, economics, and society from the 1800s to the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
As a scholar who is committed to both research and institution-building, my career has spanned universities, think tanks, and NGOs in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. As Research Director (Syria) at the Council for British Research in the Levant (2011-13), I piloted a new Arabic language training program for British academics, established a scholarship scheme for displaced Syrian researchers, and worked with local institutions to build capacity for social science research in Jordan. I am especially interested in undertaking similar projects in partnership with research organizations in the region.
I was previously Head of the Middle East & North Africa Program at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI), a leading London thinktank, and have been assistant professor and research fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University and lecturer at the University of Exeter. I have also been an affiliated researcher at the Institut Francais du Proche-Orient a Damas (IFPO) and at the Center for Arab and Middle East Studies at the American University of Beirut. I sit on the editorial board of two journals, Contemporary Levant and Critical Military Studies.
My research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Andrew L. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, and the American Druze Foundation, the British Academy, and the Council for British Research in the Levant.
I am skilled at communicating expert knowledge to non-specialist audiences. I have in the past given briefings on Middle East politics to policy audiences at the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute and the UK Defence Academy, among others. I have also worked as a consultant providing politics & security analysis, primarily on Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, for Oxford Analytica, Proximity International, Jane’s Information Group, BBC Monitoring, and Menas Associates, among others, and have had extensive broadcast experience on television and radio with the BBC World Service, BBC News 24, CNN International, and Sky News. I regularly give talks to universities, diplomats, policymakers, and the general public.
I’ve taught a variety of classes at undergraduate and graduate level on the politics, history, and international relations of the Middle East, including specialist courses on topics such as the Syria crisis, war, empire, and disciplinary approaches to studying the Middle East across history and the social sciences.
Daniel Neep 