Dear ATASP-Team members and friends,

We are very sad to have to inform you about the sudden death of our friend and esteemed colleague, Dr. Ahmed Badawi, who passed away on 18 March 2020, after a medical crisis. We extend our condolences to his partner Colinda Lindermann, his long-time companion Michaela Birk, and his family. His death is a great loss for us. Ahmed Badawis unexpected death leaves a huge circle of friends and collaborators in many countries in pain. They have set up a website in his name: http://ahmed-badawi.de/.

Dr. Ahmed Badawi was a senior researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics, Freie Universität Berlin between 2016 and 2019, and joined our Center for Transantional Relations, Foreign and Security Studies in late 2019. We are mourning the death of a highly independent thinker and researcher. Ahmed was always eager to engage in debates, happy to throw in thought-provoking comments and to turn common wisdom on its head (or feet) not matter whether in meetings, seminars or at common lunches at the department cafeteria. He was a distinguished expert of Middle Easter and MENA affairs with a impressively complete education and knowledge also in the field of political and IR theories.

Ahmed held an MSc in Development Studies from SOAS (University of London) and a PhD in Political Science from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2011 and subsequently joined the Leibnitz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), he engaged within a research project at the German SWP, and later at the University of Duisburg-Essen before turning his activities to the above mentioned FU Centers. His research interests included state theory and the dynamics of state failure in the Arab world, power relations, institutional change and distributional conflict and the political economy of development beyond the Washington and the post-Washington consensus. He worked with the Oxford Research Group and was a senior analyst in the Middle East and North Africa programme for the International Crisis Group in Jerusalem. Ahmed Badawi co-founded and co-directed the NGO “Transform e.V.: Centre for Conflict Engagement and Political Development” since 2007 together with Michaela Birk.

Beyond his scholarly engagment, Ahmed has always been concerned about societal and political developments and crises and the MENA region in general and in Egypt in particular. This found its expression in his longstanding engagement in NGOs, support for informed policy making, and scientific support for activists, hence testifying to his deeply rooted feeling of responsibility for the greater good in society. Ahmed Badawi loved to teach and his students – as we know from some of our student assistants who attended his classes – admired his way of encouraging critical thinking, evidence-base research and independent student research. 

We are mourning a great loss and will always cherish his memory

 On behalf of the ATASP team,

 

Thomas Risse & Ingo Peters