Welcome!

My name is Ahmed Ezzeldin Mohamed. I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), Toulouse School of Economics.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University for the academic year (2022-2023). I was also a predoctoral research fellow at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School for the academic year (2021-2022).

I hold a Ph.D. (with distinction) in Political Science from Columbia University. I am also a junior fellow of the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS).

My primary research focuses on the role of religion in the political and economic development of less democratic societies, with a special focus on the Middle East and the Muslim World. My book project examines how religious norms influence distributive politics and government responsiveness in the Muslim World, contributing to the question of how policy responsiveness and political accountability might be attained in non-democratic settings.

My other research projects investigate various themes including the politics of religious reform, gender discrimination in Muslim societies, violence in autocratic elections, the economic roots of religious voting cleavages, the long-term effects of religious violence, and the effects of conspiracy theories and online misinformation on political behavior.

I utilize a diverse set of quantitative and qualitative tools for data collection and analysis such as web-scraping, machine learning, automated text analysis, causal inference, experiments, survey analysis, historical analysis, ethnography, and extensive fieldwork.

My work received multiple awards: the APSA 2022 Weber award for best conference paper on religion and politics, the APSA 2022 Kenneth D. Wald award for best graduate student paper on religion and politics, the MPSA 2019 Kellog/Notre Dame award for best paper in comparative politics, the APSA 2020 politics and history section’s award for best paper, and the APSA 2020 European politics and society section’s award for best paper. My dissertation received an honorable mention for best dissertation by the MENA Politics Section at APSA in 2023.

I am also passionate about using scientific methods to inform policymaking, acting as an Algorithm Engineer and Data Analyst at Pairity, a Canadian startup that provides technological solutions for global refugee resettlement in Europe and the United States.