Mr Zalmai Nishat Darayi is a Research Associate at the Asia Centre of the University of Sussex. He has a BA in Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and an MA in Ideology and Discourse Anaylsis from the University of Essex. He is interested in the history of Afghanistan, Turkey and the wider region as well as nation-building and nationalism in Afghanistan,  and Turkey. He is also interested in post-structuralist political philosophy and the debates on liberal constitutionalism with the aim in particular of using Skinner's pioneering contextualist method to explore Islamic/Persian 'intellectual history' (literary, political and philosophical texts) as well as in the analysis of the contributions that Persian thought has made to modern philosophy. Currently he is the strategic communication advisor in the Office of the Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.