Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou (Arabic: محمد محمود ولد محمدو; 3 April 1968 – 17 September 2024) was a Mauritanian diplomat, political historian and public intellectual.

Supervised by Howard Lentner, his doctoral dissertation was on "State-Building and Regime Security: A Study of Iraq's Decision-Making Process during the 1991 Second Gulf War".

In 1997, he was a Post-doctoral Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University working with Roger Owen, and in 1998 was appointed Research Associate at the Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations in New York, then directed by Benjamin Rivlin.

From 2004 to 2008, Mohamedou was associate director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University[10] where he founded the Transnational and Non-State Armed Groups Project.

Reviews of the book highlighted its innovative nature,[20] "refreshing and rational" approach, and sharp language reminiscent of critical theorist Slavoj Žižek.

Unlike most writers, he insists on understanding the changing significance of Al Qaeda's discourse against a historical backdrop",[22] while Emory University's Abdullahi An-Naim pointed out Mohamedou's "sober analysis" as "essential reading".

[25] In 2017, Mohamedou expanded his analysis of Al Qaeda by examining the case of the Islamic State in A Theory of ISIS: Political Violence and the Transformation of the Global Order.

[27] Others pointed out the book as a "refreshingly nuanced text...[an] essential reading to anyone who wishes to understand the ISIS phenomenon beyond the day-to-day military and national security thinking which has come to dominate much discussion regarding the group...This forcing of thought and reflection is Mohamedou’s greatest strength".

[30][31] Mohamedou contributed chapters to other books, notably The Handbook of Political Science: A Global Perspective (Sage, 2020) The Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations (Routledge, 2019), Orientalismes/Occidentalismes: A Propos de L'Oeuvre d'Edward Said (Hermann, 2018), The UN and the Global South, 1945 and 2015 (Routledge, 2017), Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of Change (CIGI, 2016), La Guerre au Mali (La Découverte, 2013), The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West (Palgrave, 2012), Violent Non-State Actors in Contemporary World Politics (Columbia University Press, 2010),[32] Rethinking the Foreign Policies of the Global South – Seeking Conceptual Frameworks (Lynne Reinner, 2003), and Governance, and Democratization in the Middle East (Avebury Press, 1998).

[61] A regular public speaker,[62][63] Mohamedou served on the advisory council of the Dart Center for Journalism[64] and Adviser to the Small Arms Survey.

Directed by Dan Davies of Blackleaf Films, the 26-minute documentary travels around the world with Mohamedou as he meets with scholars, experts, and students to discuss the question of violent extremism.

In the documentary, Mohamedou offers a critical look at the securitizing logic at play globally since 9/11, and specifically the police state surveillance architecture and construction of terrorism/violent extremism.