Matthieu Rey is director of contemporary studies at the Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO), Beirut, and a CNRS researcher specializing in contemporary Middle Eastern history, with a special focus on Syria's and Iraq's political systems. He is also an associate researcher at the Collège de France and the Wits History Workshop. He obtained his PhD from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHSS), Collège de France in 2013. His research interests include state-building and policymaking in the contemporary Middle East and Southern Africa. He is the author of Histoire de la Syrie XIX-XXIe siècle (A History of Syria, 19th-21st centuries, 2018).