Profile

Nadine Sika is assistant professor of comparative politics at The American University in Cairo. She was Humboldt Foundation Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin (2014-2015). Before joining AUC, she was guest scholar at the Political Science Institute at Tuebingen University in Germany and a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Regional Arab Office on good governance. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Partners in Development, an independent Egyptian think tank. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Institution for Public Opinion Polling “Baseera."

Sika is the author of "Youth Activism and Contentious Politics in Egypt: Dynamics of Continuity and Change" (Cambridge UP, 2017) and co-editor with Eberhard Kienle of the Arab Uprisings: Transforming and Challenging State Power (I.B. Tauris2015). Her recent articles appeared in journals such as Mediterranean Politics, Journal of North African Studies and the British Journal of Middle East Studies. Her research interests are in democratization, contentious politics and youth civic and political engagement in the MENA region. She has been team leader and principle investigator of two international collaborative research programs on youth civic and political engagement in the MENA.

She holds a PhD in Political Science from Cairo University (2008) and MA (2000) and BA (1997) from The American University in Cairo. She teaches courses on comparative Middle East Studies, Comparative Democratization and State-Society relations.

Selected Publications

• “Student Activism in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings:  Exploring the Similarities and Differences between Egypt and Morocco," Journal of North African Studies vol. 22, no.1 (2017), pp. 35-59.
• “Varieties of Youth Civic and Political Engagement in the South East of the Mediterranean:  A Comparative Analysis,” Power2Youth Working Paper, 2017 online at:  http://www.power2youth.eu/
• With Philippe Schmitter, “Democratization in the Middle East and North Africa:  A More Ambidextrous Process,” Mediterranean Politics (2016), Online first:.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2016.1220109
• “Arab States, Regime Change and Social Contestation Compared:  The Cases of Egypt and Syria,” in eds. Eberhard Kienle and Nadine Sika, The Arab Uprisings:  Transforming and Challenging State Power (London:  I.B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 150-176.
•  “The Arab League: Dynamics of Reform and the Resilience of Authoritarianism,” in The Democratization of International Organizations. Ed.  Giovanni Finizio  (London:  Routledge, 2014), pp. 391-396.
• “Dynamics of Development and Uprisings in the Arab World,” Mediterranean Quarterly 24 (2013), p. 43-67
• “Youth Political Engagement in Egypt:  From Abstention to Uprising,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39, no.2 (2012), pp.181-199.