Frederick Deknatel is a journalist, editor and fellow at Century International, where he writes about Middle Eastern affairs. From 2021 to 2025, he was the founding executive editor of Democracy in Exile, the journal of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). He was previously the managing editor of World Politics Review and a staff editor at Foreign Affairs. His research focuses on urbanism, political economy and cultural heritage in Syria and Egypt. His writing and reporting on the Middle East have been published in Foreign Policy, The Nation, The New Republic, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among other outlets. A former Fulbright fellow in Syria, he has an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from St. Antony’s College at Oxford University and a BA in history and Arabic from Vassar College.
