Dr Ahmad Barakat joined POLSIS Department as a teaching fellow in 2015. He previously worked as a diplomat of Syria, a UN staff and a human rights expert in the League of Arab States. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham in 2019, and his MA from the University of Leeds in 2005.
His primary areas of interest are the politics of the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, refugees and media, ISIS, Islamism and extremism. He is especially interested in the refugee crisis. His journal article: ‘The Images of Syrian Refugees in the Mainstream Narrative – Case study of Lebanon’, documents how mainstream media in countries hosting Syrian refugees, communicated a negative image of Syrian refugees. Through overreaction, panic, and focus on the most controversial and sensitive problems in the host communities, the media has communicated an image of the Syrian refugee as ranging between being pitiful and being ISIS affiliates.