Clemens Chay is a research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, where he heads the Diffusion of Ideas-Gulf research cluster. His research focuses on the history and politics of the Gulf states, with a particular emphasis on Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Prior to joining MEI, he was the Al-Sabah fellow at Durham University, where he taught and completed his PhD.

His most recent academic publications include a chapter that examines Kuwait’s parliamentary politics in The Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics (2020) and the Journal of Arabian Studies article “The Diwaniyya Tradition in Modern Kuwait: An Interlinked Space and Practice.” His commentaries also feature across different outlets, including ISPI, the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, and the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum. Chay is currently working on a book project related to Kuwait’s diwaniyas.