Mustafa Saqib is a Visiting Research Scholar at Rutgers University in Camden, a former law lecturer at Herat University in Afghanistan, and a MESA Global Academy Fellow. He obtained a PhD in local governments, decentralization, and urban politics from Marmara University in 2022, focused on comparing local governments and elections in Turkey and Afghanistan. Before starting his master’s degree in law at the University of Washington, he pioneered clinical legal education in Afghanistan in 2011. Saqib has served in the implementation of several legal projects related to the rule of law and human rights and alternative dispute resolution at Herat University. His research interests include democratic governance, local elections, and nonprofit and civil society studies. He was awarded a fellowship by IIE-SRF and Rutgers University in 2021-2022 and was appointed a Dean’s Fellow with the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University, for 2023-2024. He is currently writing about lessons learned from the Afghanistan democratization process and the overlooked role of urban governance in the constitutions.
