Ben Naimark-Rowse is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. His expertise in social movements and resourcing of movements draws on two decades of work in the donor, NGO, and academic worlds.

Most recently, Ben served as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID’s) social movements advisor, the first such position anywhere in the U.S. government. He has served as a program officer with the Open Society Foundations, an electoral observer with The Carter Center, a board member of the University of Chicago’s Human Rights Program, and an Advisory Committee member of the Leading Change Network. Ben is currently a term member in the Council on Foreign Relations, a Truman National Security Fellow, and a U.S. board of trustees member for Peace Direct. 

Ben’s publications include “Nonviolent Collective Action in Democratic Development,” “Dollars and Dissent,” “Nonviolent Resistance,” “Surviving Success: Nonviolent Rebellion in Sudan,” “Darfurian Voices,” and “The Founding Myth of the United States.” His scholarship and policy work has appeared in National Public Radio, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the SAGE Encyclopedia of War, Foreign Policy, the Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, the Austin American-Statesman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Boston Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, and the United States Institute of Peace - Peace Frequency.

Ben holds a B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago, a M.P.A. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and expects to complete his Ph.D. at Tufts University’s Fletcher School in 2025. He is married to Dr. Nadia Marzouki. They are the parents of twin girls.