We are SEPAD High impact, international research from academics and policy makers working in the field

Saudi and Iran: how our two countries could make peace and bring stability to the Middle Eas Eyad Alrefai - 19th Jun 2019

Relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic o...

SWAR project featuring SEPAD fellows publishes special issue on Sectarianism and Regime Formation Morten Valbjørn - 19th Apr 2019

Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 19, 1 (2019) - Specia...

Iranian revolution: world’s reactions show that, four decades on, tensions remain as high as ever Dr. Simon Mabon - 4th Mar 2019

The 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution in February 1...

What We Do

The Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation (SEPAD) project based at Lancaster University’s Richardson Institute is a collaborative project aimed at understanding the conditions that give rise to sectarian violence and proxy conflicts.

Sepad Reports

After years of proxy war, Saudi Arabia and Iran are finally squaring up in the open

Ever since Saudi Arabia executed Shia Cleric Nimr al-Nimr for terrorist offences, tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been escalating by the day.
Relations between Riyadh and Tehran have been tense ever since the Islamic Republic ...

The Yemen War: A Proxy Sectarian War?

The diffusion of protests against authoritarian regimes across the Arab world in 2011 reinvigorated Yemen’s marginalized social movements and united different geographical and political factions in Yemen, such as the northern Houthi movement and...

Iraq and Muhasasa Ta’ifia; the external imposition of sectarian politics

In the aftermath of invasion and regime change in 2003, Iraq’s political field was deliberately and overtly restructured around an informal version of consociationalism, the Muhasasa Ta’ifia (sectarian apportionment) system. This exclusiv...

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