Bernard Haykel, a Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton, and Roger Stern, a research fellow at the Oil, Energy & Middle East Program at the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Princeton Environmental Institute, will present a public talk titled "Imperialism without Empire in the Middle East: History and Consequences of Oil Scarcity Assumptions in U.S. National Security Policy" at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28, in Bowl 002, Robertson Hall on the Princeton University campus.

Americans believe in oil scarcity, strongly.  A 2008 poll indicates that 76% of Americans believe “that their government should make long term plans based on the assumption that oil is running out”.  Surprisingly, this is exactly what the U.S. government has done for the past hundred years.  Bernard Haykel and Roger Stern considers the long history and profound security consequences of U.S. oil scarcity belief. 

Bernard Haykel teaches Middle Eastern, Islamic and energy studies. His main research focuses on Islamic political movements and legal thought. He is author of "Revival and Reform in Islam" (2003), largely based on an extensive period of research and fieldwork in Yemen in the 1990s. He is presently completing a book on the religious politics of Saudi Arabia since the early 1950s, when the Saudi regime developed institutions and strategies for projecting its version of Islam, known as Salafism or Wahhabism, throughout the world.

Roger Stern co-teaches Princeton’s Oil, Energy and the Middle East course with Professor Haykel.  Stern’s research interests are the history of US oil scarcity belief, national security policies adopted to prevent scarcity, and the role of energy in Iranian domestic and foreign policy.  His research on energy and national security has appeared twice in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This event is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Near Eastern Studies. It is free and open to the public.