Luciano Zaccara is Research Assistant Professor in Gulf Politics at the Qatar University, Gulf Studies Center, Qatar, and Director of the Observatory on Politics and Elections in the Arab and Muslim World in Spain. He has been Assistant Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, a visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Iranian Studies at Princeton University, and Visiting Researcher at Exeter University, Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies. He holds PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain.