Internship - Middle East

The Netherlands Institute of International Affairs Clingendael is an independent think tank and academy for international relations, based in The Hague. We contribute to a secure, sustainable, and just world through our research, training programmes and by stimulating the public debate. We work with partners across public and private sectors, including policymakers, business executives, the Dutch armed forces, law enforcement agencies, diplomats, politicians and NGOs.

Clingendael offers 40 years of top knowledge and training. The Clingendael Institute is an independent foundation, unaffiliated to any political, activist, commercial, or religious movement.

The Institute has three departments:
Research, Academy and Corporate Staff. Within the Research department we are looking for:

Intern – ‘Conflict, governance and transformation in the modern Middle East’

36 hours per week (full time)

The Conflict Research Unit(CRU) is a specialised team within the Clingendael Institute, conducting applied, policy-oriented research and developing practical tools that assist national and multilateral governmental and non-governmental organisations in their efforts to develop and implement more effective policies and programming on stability, development and rule of law in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

The Clingendael Conflict Research Unit (CRU) has an opening for an Intern for the research program focused on ‘Conflict, governance and transformation in the modern Middle East’, from 1 February 2027 – 31 July 2027 (a six-month period).

This internship will help examine relationships between types of political order, types of conflict and possibilities for development and modernization. Often, this will take the form of case studies and via a mix of political economic analysis and consideration of geopolitical context. The research program operates in a general background containing at least three core elements. First, the political and socio-economic development conditions that gave rise to the extended ‘Arab Uprisings’ (2011, 2019) are worsening while improvements in the quality of governance remain modest in most places.

Second, regional conflict persists – mainly the Israel/US against Iran - while several more localized conflicts also remain active, such as the occupation of the Palestinian territories, the civil war in Yemen and risks of instability in countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. Third, there are major reconstruction challenges across the region (Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon) that intersect in part with the challenges of some GCC countries to recover from the economic damage wrought by the US/Israeli attack against Iran.

In 2027, most of the program’s work will centre on the transition in Syria; regional tensions between Israel, the US, Iran; the fallout of the conflict for the GCC states; the evolution of general socio-economic trends across the region; and the further transformation of Iran’s political order.

Relevant tasks are:

• Supporting research on key points of substantive focus of the Middle East program (as indicated above);
• Assisting with detailed research on political orders and political economies in particular countries and/or subregions;
• Assisting research on national modernization and transformation efforts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE;
• Supporting the organization of (closed door) events as part of research projects and to disseminate research findings;
• Contributing to the visualisation of research findings in the form of infographics and data dashboards, as necessary;
• Supporting research on new project opportunities and openings pertaining to political, security and/or socio-economic aspects of the Middle East.

Apart from the internship supporting a variety of…