Ahmed Hamza Social Scientist

    Ahmed Hamza

    Dallas, Texas
    ahmedhamza@my.unt.edu | LinkedIn | ahmedhamza.org
    Authorized to work in the U.S.; no sponsorship required

    Education

    PhD Candidate in Political Science (Expected 2026)
    University of North Texas, 2022–Present

    • Dissertation: The Causes and Consequences of Party Ethnicization
    • Research focus: Ethnic politics and democratization

    MA in International Affairs
    Missouri State University, 2018–2020

    BA in International Relations
    American University of Iraq, 2014–2018

    Work Experience

    Consultant (Peacebuilding and Democratization)
    Effective Peacebuilding Initiative (EPI), August 2025–Present

    • Conducting structured literature reviews for five major conflicts as part of the What Works Project.
    • Producing case reports with annotated bibliographies, summary matrices, and narrative syntheses.
    • Supporting the pilot phase of EPI’s Evidence for Violence De-escalation and Action (EVIDA) platform, which integrates human-coded evidence with AI-assisted validation.

    Teaching and Research Assistant
    University of North Texas, August 2022–Present

    • Teaching Introduction to Comparative Politics (PSCI 3600) (Fall 2025).
    • Graded and provided feedback on undergraduate assignments.
    • Supported faculty research on ethnic and immigration politics, including survey design, data collection, and quantitative analysis.

    Graduate Research Assistant
    Missouri State University, August 2018–May 2020

    • Assisted in grading and assignment development.
    • Conducted research on international and communal conflicts.

    Political Journalist
    2012–2018

    • Published extensively on Middle Eastern politics, with a focus on Iran and Kurdish affairs.
    • Reported on human rights issues, particularly related to ethnic and minority rights.

    Publications

    • Peer-Reviewed
    • Hamza, Ahmed, and Ko Maeda. 2025. “Beyond Binary: A New Measure of Party Ethnicization.” Party Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688251376485.
    • Book Chapters
    • Hamza, Ahmed. 2020. “A Contemporary Political History of the Kurds in Iran.” In The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, eds. David Romano and Muhmet Gurses, pp. 207–227. Lexington Books.
    • Policy/Popular Press
    • Hamza, Ahmed, and Afolabi Toye. 2025. “The Secret Peace in Turkey: How Aging Leaders Are Ending a War.” War on the Rocks, July 1.

    Working Papers

    • Determinants of Party Ethnicization: Evidence from Afrobarometer Data — Uses the ethnicization measure to examine factors driving the ethnicization of parties in Africa.
    • Party Ethnicization and Electoral Violence: Evidence from CSES, Latinobarometer, and Afrobarometer Data — Examines how ethnicization of mainstream parties influences the risk of electoral violence across multiple survey datasets.
    • Teaching Violent Pasts and Racial Attitudes: Evidence from a Survey Experiment — Investigates how teaching violent pasts, such as civil war, affects students’ ethnic and racial attitudes.

    Languages

    • English – Fluent
    • Persian – Fluent
    • Kurdish – Native
    • Skills
    • Quantitative Methods: Multiple regression, survey experiments, mixed methods
    • Software: R, Stata, SPSS, Qualtrics
    • Other: Data visualization, qualitative interviewing, policy memo writing