Miriam M. Müller-Rensch (Joint PhD) received her doctorate jointly from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and the University of Victoria, Canada, in Political Science and International Relations. With her interdisciplinary dissertation on East German Foreign Policy in Southern Yemen, she especially addressed the role of Marxism-Leninism with regard to “Socialist state- and nation-building” in the Global South during the Cold War. Specialized in the politics of the Middle East, she focuses on religious and political ideologies, statehood, international security and foreign policy. Her current research project is part of the research group on macro-violence at the Hamburg Institute of Social Research and is occupied with the role of religion, violence and identity in the manifestations of the »Islamic State«..”