Bitte Hammargren is a Senior Associate Fellow at UI's Middle East and North Africa programme.
With a background in journalism, Bitte has more than 40 years’ experience from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as more than 30 years’ experience from Turkey. She has covered the region in different aspects in books, essays, articles, reports, and lectures, and is a frequent commentator on Middle East related issues in the media.
In 2001–2012 she was the Turkey and Middle East Correspondent of the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, for some period based in Beirut and Istanbul, respectively. She worked as an analyst and headed the UI's Middle East and North Africa Programme in 2017–2018. In 2018–2020 she worked as a Security Policy Analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). She has also been an analyst and consultant for other government and public agencies. Since 2020 she is self-employed and works as a journalist and writer.
Bitte is the author of Drama utan slut: Turkiet 100 år (Never-ending Drama: Turkey at 100, Bokförlaget Atlas 2023), with pictures by Stefan Bladh. On the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula, she wrote Gulfen: En framtida krutdurk (The Gulf: A Future Tinderbox, Leopard förlag, 2014). She is the co-author of several other books in Swedish, and reports in English.
She has a B.A. from 1981, an academic degree in journalism from 1985 and additional academic courses in Arabic.
She is the recipient of the Swedish Publishers Great Award (Publicistklubbens stora pris) in 2008 as well as the Argus Prize of Humanities (Arguspriset) by the Royal Society for Human Sciences in Uppsala, 2017.
Field of expertise: Security policy and geopolitics in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa