Dr. Andrew Vincent

Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics

Department of Politics and International Relations
Division of Humanities, Macquarie University

Contact:

• Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics & International Relations in the Division of Humanities at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
• Director of the Macquarie University Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at Macquarie University
• President Australian Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry, NSW Branch

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

• PhD. University of Pennsylvania, 1988 (Department of Political Science). Examination Fields Comparative Politics and International Relations. Dissertation title Religion and Nationalism in a Traditional Society: Ideology and Leadership and the Role of the Umma Party as a Force for Social Change in the Northern Sudan. Supervisor Professor D. E. Smith.

• M.A. University of Pennsylvania, 1984 (Department of Political Science). M.A. Thesis entitled National Development vs. Regional and Sectarian Loyalties: The Case of Syria Supervisor Professor Francine F. Frankel.

• M.A. American University of Beirut, 1982 (Middle Eastern Studies, drawn from Departments of History; Arabic and Political Science and Public Administration). M.A. Thesis entitled: The Peasantry of the Hauran in the Nineteenth Century: Tenuous and Peripheral Existence. Supervisor Professor Hanna Batatu.

• B.A. University of Sydney, 1977 (Departments of History and Arabic).

FOREIGN SERVICE POSTINGS

• Spouse of Petra Canard, First Secretary, Australian Embassy Berlin (2000-2003).
• Second Secretary, Australian Embassy Beirut (1977-81).
• Second Secretary, Australian Embassy Damascus (1977-81): dual accreditation, (also accredited to Australian Embassy Amman, but non-resident in Jordan).
• Attache, Australian High Commission Nicosia (1976-77).
• Local Staff Officer, Australian High Commission London, (1975-76).

OTHER EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE

• Consultant, Associates for Middle East Research (AMER), Inc., Philadelphia, (1986-87). Provided advice and assistance on projects and publications relating to water scarcity in the Middle East.
• Consultant, International Tele-Education (INTEL-ED), Inc., Philadelphia, (1986-87).
• Research Asst., Middle East Research Institute (MERI), Uni. of Pennsylvania, (1986).
• Civil Servant, Australian Public Service, Canberra: concerned with policy coordination regarding refugee admission to Australia, (1984-85).
• Editorial Assistant, The American University of Beirut, Beirut Lebanon, (1982-84), working on Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East. (AUB, 1984)
• Freelance Middle East Radio Correspondent: Macquarie Broadcasting Network and Australian Broadcasting Commission; Beirut, (1982-84; included reporting the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon).
• Civil Servant, Australian Public Service, Sydney, employed by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration (1972-74).
• Bookseller, Buchhandlung am Schweitzerhof, Lucerne Switzerland, (1969-71).

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS

• Visiting Professor, University of Hamburg, 2003.
• Landy Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania, 1986-87.
• Mumford Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 1981-82.
• Walter Reed Memorial Prize, University of Sydney, 1974.

RELEVANT ORGANISATIONAL EXPERIENCE

As Director of the Macquarie Middle East Centre (1993 - present), I have:

• Reported both orally and in writing to the Board of the Macquarie Middle East Centre and also to senior University executives to whom the Centre is answerable.
• Prepared and administered budgets for the Centre, and undertaken financial forward planning exercises.
• Selected and supervised paid staff, and organised voluntary assistance for the Centre when required.
• Supervised the academic activities of the Centre, including public lectures, seminars, publications and Outreach activities.
• Organised and delivered training seminars to government (including the Australian Intelligence community), industry and the media, and delivered briefings on the Middle East.
• Provided Radio and Television commentaries on the Middle East in particular and on international affairs in general for the Australian, New Zealand, Singapore and US media, and for Radio Australia.
• Organised the two-day 1995 Australasian Middle East Studies Association (AMESA) Conference, which included overseas guests such as Professor Michael Hudson from Georgetown University. The conference was attended by about 150 delegates from Australia and New Zealand
• Organised a public lecture on "The Middle East and the New World Order" by Professor Noam Chomsky to an audience of over 3,000 at Macquarie University in January 1995 - the largest address ever staged by the University.
• Administered and taught a fee-paying Masters Degree on the Political Economy of the Modern Middle East.
• Represented Macquarie University at various functions and forums in Australia, including Joint Ministerial visit from Saudi Arabia and high profile visits from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• Represented Macquarie University on recruitment trips to the Middle East and the Gulf region.
• Been appointed Associate of Macquarie University's International Office, 2001.

As a member of the Australian Foreign Service working as Second Secretary in Australian Embassies in Beirut, Damascus and Amman in the late 70s and early 1980s, I have:

• Selected and supervised a group of about eight locally engaged staff in the Embassy.
• Managed the public areas of the Beirut and later Damascus Embassy at a time of high tension and danger.
• Undertaken normal representational and reporting duties, as well as consular activities.
• Liaised with other friendly embassies in the increasingly hostile environment of Beirut in the late 1970s early 1980s.
• Managed the destruction of restricted documents prior to the evacuation of the Beirut Embassy to Damascus.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Visiting Professor, University of Hamburg, March-July 2003.
• Director, Macquarie University Centre for Middle East and North African Studies and Senior Lecturer, Middle East Politics, Division of Humanities, Macquarie University (1993 to present). Includes teaching undergraduate Middle East courses and supervising postgraduate research theses.
• Lecturer Middle East Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne (1989-1992). Also provided the Middle Eastern segment in a course on Comparative Legislatures at the University of Melbourne.
• Lecturer "Comparative Politics of the Middle East" (PS 161), Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania (1988).
• Teaching Assistant, "American Foreign Policy", 1986-87; "European Attitudes to International Terrorism", 1987; and "International Relations of the Middle East" 1982- 83, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania.

TEACHING INNOVATIONS

I have developed a technique of teaching Middle East Politics by using international computer simulations, alongside the more conventional methods. These simulations have attracted considerable Australian and international publicity and are extremely popular with students. They have been described in Tracey LaQuey and Jeanne C. Ryder, The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, with a Forward by then US Vice President Al Gore, (Reading Ma: Addison-Wesley, 1993), as well as in other more recent publications.

The Simulations were recognised by the Committee for the Advancement of Undergraduate Teaching (CAUT), which awarded them a $38,000 Grant in 1994, which enabled me to employ computer programmers and survey students who have completed simulations. In 1995 I was awarded a $35,000 Teaching Development Grant to continue this process.

PUBLICATIONS

• Numerous Op. Ed. Pieces in the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, The Canberra Times, The Australian Etc., and commentaries on recent developments in the Middle East on radio and television in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the US, Malaysia and Japan (including Bloomburg television).

• Wolfgang Schaeche, The Australian Embassy Berlin, (Berlin: Braun Verlag, 2003). A commissioned volume on the history and background of the new Embassy building, in which I was responsible for the English version.

• "Winners or Losers? Iraq's Kurds Continue to Face an Uncertain Future", in Eureka Street, vol 13 no 4, (May 2003).

• "The Yesterday Men: Can the Middle East Ever Find Peace While Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon Hold Leadership?" in The Diplomat, vol 1, no 2, (June 2002), pages 16-19.

• "September 11 and the War Against Terrorism", in Australian Outlook, December 2001

• "Transnationalism on Campus: Simulating the Politics of the Middle East", paper given to the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, Amman Jordan in June 2001 and to be published in their journal.

• "Internet Technology in the Teaching of Political Science", in New Frontiers in Teaching, Macquarie University: Sydney, 2001.

• (With John Shepherd), "Experiences in Teaching Middle East Politics via Internet-based Role-Play Simulations", in Journal of Interactive Media in Education, www-jime.open.ac.uk/98/11, 1998

• "Britain and the Sudan: The Making of an Image", in Journal of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, volume 4, number 2, (1998), pages 1-24.

• "Pre-Modern Syria and the Condition of the Peasantry in the Hawran, 1800-31", in the Journal of Arabic Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, (1996), pages 127 - 137.

• "The Routinization of Charisma in the Sudan: The Case of the Mahdi Family", in Journal of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, volume 2, number 1, (1995).

• "Imperilled are the Peacemakers", in Eureka Street, volume 4, number 7, (September 1994).

• "The European Discovery of Southern Syria in the Nineteenth Century: A Changing Perspective", in Asian Affairs, (June, 1993).

• Forward, A Road From Damascus, by David Balderstone (The Poppy Press: Melbourne, 1992).

• "The Gulf Crisis: Alternatives to War", in Arena, (December, 1990).

• "Projections for the Middle East in the Event of a Diplomatic Solution to the Present Crisis", and "Observations on the Gulf Crisis as it Enters its Fourth Month", monographs privately printed by Macquarie Equities, Sydney Australia (1990).

• Editor, The Struggle Over Lebanon, by Tabitha Petran, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987).

• "The Jew, the Gipsy and el-Islam: An Examination of Richard Burton's Consulship in Damascus and his Premature Recall 1868-71", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, (Autumn 1985), pages 155-173.

• Editorial Assistant, Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, (Beirut; AUB Press, 1984).

MEMBERSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

• Australia Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc (AACCI), NSW Branch. Vice President and member of Management Committee, 1998-2003, President, 2003.
• Australasian Middle East Studies Association (AMESA), President, 1992-3.
• American Political Science Association (APSA).
• Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA).
• The Middle East Institute (Washington DC).
• Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, (Life Fellowship).
• Royal Overseas League, London, (Life Member).
• St. Hilda's College Senior Common Room, Melbourne, Victoria, President, 1990-1993.

PERSONAL

• Born: Sydney, 7th April 1950.
• Citizenship: Australian.
• Marital Status: married to Ms. Petra Canard.
• Languages: English (native); Arabic and German; French (reading only).