Pamir H. Sahill, Ph.D.

Pamir H. Sahill holds a doctorate in International Relations from Prague University of Economics and Business (Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze). He is an Anglo-American University (AAU) alumnus and has been serving as a lecturer and researcher at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy since 2018. 

He began university teaching in 2015 at Prague University of Economics and Business during his doctoral studies where he co-taught several courses including International Security Relations, International Security Relations after the End of the Cold War, and Asia in International Relations. In the last course he was responsible for the modules covering Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and India as well as fragile states in Asia. 

In addition to teaching at AAU, he has been serving as Associate Editor at the Elsevier journal Women’s Studies International Forum since 2024. In this capacity he assesses scholarly submissions on and originating from Central Asia, South and Southwest Asia, the Gulf, and the Middle East, including manuscripts addressing gender-based persecution, political repression, and human rights in those regions. 

His recent publications critically assess the U.S.-led War on Terror in Afghanistan, offer an in-depth analysis of regional security and political dynamics, and examine the Taliban’s governmental discourse and its consequences for Afghans, particularly women. Earlier, his doctoral research focused on the discourses of the U.S. War on Terror and state-building in Afghanistan. In the dissertation, he developed two Foucauldian-inspired notions: the politics (and spaces) of confinement and abiopower. With the help of these concepts, he offers a contextual and critical understanding of the U.S. war and state-building discourses and their far-reaching implications for post-2001 Afghanistan and the region. His dissertation received the prestigious Josef Hlávka Award for 2021.

He is presently investigating how abiopower has been (and is) penetrating our societies, in what way this new technology of power will alter near-future security practices and warfare, and what its political and social implications are.

His current research interests revolve around reinterpreting Taliban ideology and theorizing the group’s foreign policy, the discourses and dynamics of right-wing violent extremism in Europe and North America, big data and surveillance capitalism in the age of artificial intelligence, the politics of the Anthropocene and climate change, and gender studies in the Global South.

International security, (critical) terrorism studies, qualitative and interpretive research methodologies (e.g., (Critical) Discourse Analysis, textual analysis, situational analysis approach to Grounded Theory, archival research, and genealogy), state-building theory and practice, theories of globalization, post-colonialism and developmentalism, big data and surveillance capitalism, post-Marxism, (Foucauldian) poststructuralism, political Islam and Islamist revivalist ideologies, Taliban ideology and governmentality, and politics and security in Afghanistan, Iran, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa (MENA).