Steffen Hertog is an associate professor of comparative politics at the London School of Economics. His research interests include Gulf and Middle East political economy and public policy. He has undertaken a wide range of public policy work in the Middle East and North Africa region on issues like labor market and migration reform, public sector governance, industrialization, and economic diversification, working with institutions like the World Bank, the International Labour Organization, the  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. His book about Saudi state building, Princes, Brokers and Bureaucrats: Oil and State in Saudi Arabia, was published by Cornell University Press in 2011. He is the co-author, with Diego Gambetta, of Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection Between Violent Extremism and Education (Princeton University Press 2016). His most recent book is Locked Out of Development: Insiders and Outsiders in Arab Capitalism (Cambridge University Press 2022).