David Siddhartha Patel

David Siddhartha Patel is a Junior Research Fellow at Brandeis University's Crown Center for Middle East Studies. Patel’s research focuses on social order, religious authority, and identity in the contemporary Middle East. He conducted independent field research in post-Hussein Iraq on the role of mosques and clerical networks in generating order after state collapse. At the Crown Center, he is completing a book tentatively titled "Order Out of Chaos: Islam, Information, and Social Order in Iraq." He has also conducted comparative research on the transnational spread of protests during the so-called Arab Spring and on changes in the support base of Islamist movements. Prior to joining the Center, Patel was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. He received his B.A. from Duke University in economics and political science and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in political science. He studied Arabic in Lebanon, Yemen, Morocco, and Jordan.