Jan Claudius Völkel is Marie Sk?odowska Curie Fellow for a research project on “The role of national parliaments in the Arab transformation processes”. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and had teaching/research appointments at the Universities of Freiburg, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Duhok (Iraqi Kurdistan), Al-Quds (Abu Dis), the Royal Scientific Society Amman and the European University Institute Florence. From February 2013 until January 2017, he was DAAD longterm lecturer for Euro-Mediterranean Studies at Cairo University. He spent visiting research stays at the Universities of Montréal, Dundee, and Bahçe?ehir (Istanbul) and is member of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (www.agya.info).