Ahmet T. Kuru is the director of Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. His recent book, Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019) co-won the American Political Science Association's International History and Politics Section Award, received honorable mention of SSSR’s Award, and was included in Times Literary Supplement’s Books of the Year. He is also the author of Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2009), which received Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR)’s Book Award. He is the co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press, 2012). Kuru’s works have been translated into Arabic, Bosnian, Chinese, French, Indonesian, Malay, Persian, and Turkish.