Sayed Madadi

Sayed Madadi is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute. He was previously Director of Foreign Relations at Afghanistan’s State Ministry for Peace and a Senior Member of the Joint Technical Secretariat of Afghanistan Peace Negotiations in Doha, Qatar. Prior to that, he was Director of the Afghanistan Civil Service Institute and an advisor with the Afghanistan Independent Elections Commission.

His writings and analysis have appeared in Stanford International Policy Review, Journal of Strategic and Security Studies, the Atlantic, War on the Rocks, Al-Jazeera English, the National Interest, Foreign Policy, Diplomat, BBC Persian, and numerous European and Afghan publications. He is also the author of a book chapter on post-conflict development in In Search of Peace for Afghanistan: A Collection of Essays, published in 2020 by Kakar History Foundation and Heart of Asia Society.

Education
Madadi has a MA in International Policy with a focus in political economy from Stanford University, where he was also named a Graduate Fellow at the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation; an MA in International Relations from New York University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar; and a BA in Political Science and Public Administration with a Minor in Law from the American University of Afghanistan.

Areas of Expertise
Madadi’s areas of interest and focus include peace and conflict studies, democracy and political economy of governance, macroeconomic policy, political risk and data analysis, Afghanistan history, and U.S. foreign policy in South-Central Asia and the Middle East.