Steffen has been researching the comparative political economy of the Gulf and Middle East for more than a decade, working with a number of local and international institutions. His expertise includes labour market regulation, support policies for small and medium enterprises, reform of public companies as well as regional development. His book about the politics of the Saudi bureaucracy, \"Princes, Brokers and Bureaucrats: Oil and State in Saudi Arabia\", based on two years of field research in the Saudi kingdom, has been published by Cornell University Press in 2010. He has a subsidiary research interest in political violence and is currently finishing a book manuscript, co-authored with Diego Gambetta, about why there are so many engineers among Islamic radicals worldwide.