Dr. Delovan Barwari is a Middle East scholar and U.S. foreign policy researcher specializing in Kurdish political dynamics across Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Born in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and raised as a refugee in Iran before immigrating to the United States in 1986, he brings a rare combination of lived experience and academic rigor to his work. He holds a Ph.D. in Government and International Affairs (“Planning, Governance, and Globalization “) from Virginia Tech, served as a political adviser to U.S. forces in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, directed public opinion research for the Kurdistan Region Presidency, including the KRG’s 2017 independence referendum survey, and spent five years as a Director at the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Washington, DC representation, engaging the USAID, Academic Institutions, including Universities, and media outlets, He was the host of the Kurdistan in America podcast for five seasons.
During his residency at GW, he will be developing a standalone journal article: “Combat, Diplomacy, and the Social Foundations of Alliance: A Constructivist Account of US Partnerships with Non-State Actors,” that proposes an alternative account of alliance formation through a constructivist and affective-turn approach. His framework explains why some non-state actors are elevated into trusted partners while closely linked organizations with identical goals are simultaneously designated as threats or terrorists, a puzzle that existing accounts cannot fully explain. Examining Joint Combat Operations and Diplomatic Interactions as the two key factors, it argues that both are social practices, and not merely strategic instruments through which shared risk and continued positive interaction generate affective trust, consolidating partners into a shared political identity. Working with faculty advisor, Professor Michael Barnett, he will refine the theoretical argument, engage the relevant IR literature, and prepare the article for submission to a leading IR journal.