Blog Post
Lihi Ben Shitrit
RESEARCH FELLOW
Lihi Ben Shitrit joined MEI as a research fellow, and she is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, Athens. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, religion, and politics in the Middle East.
Ben Shitrit used her fellowship to work on the project, “Faithful Foes? Visions of Peace on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right,” and her book manuscript, “Women and the Holy City,” which explores and demonstrates the importance of women’s movements in and around the Sacred Esplanade in Jerusalem. While at MEI, Ben Shitrit co-organized the conference, “Feminisms in the Middle East and North Africa: Old/New Directions?” with research fellows Yuree Noh and Lillian Frost, and former fellow Hind Ahmed Zaki. She is currently planning the 2020 iteration of the conference with Marwa Shalaby, Carla Abdo, and Yuree Noh, and anticipates that it will become an annual event. Ben Shitrit received the non-resident Luce/ ACLS Fellowship in Religion, International Affairs and Journalism for the 2019-2020 academic year.
Lillian Frost
PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Lillian Frost joined MEI as a pre-doctoral fellow and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at George Washington University (GWU).
Frost used her fellowship to work on her dissertation, which examines the citizenship rights and statuses that host states grant to refugees in law and practice, focusing on different cases in Jordan over time. During her fellowship year, Frost was awarded grants from the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies, the American Political Science Association, the Project on Middle East Political Science, and GWU. She also organized a panel for the 2019 American Political Science Association and wrote two forthcoming book chapters during the 2018-2019 academic year. In addition, Frost traveled to Jordan for fieldwork in January 2019 and attended the jointly sponsored MEI and Center for Public Leadership field visit to the UAE. The United States Institute of Peace and the Minerva Research Initiative welcomed Frost as a pre-doctoral Peace Scholar in the fall.
Kimberly Guiler
PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Kimberly Guiler joined MEI as a pre-doctoral fellow and a Ph.D. candidate in government at the University of Texas, Austin. Guiler developed her dissertation and book project theory during her fellowship, pursuing research on “Trusting the Faithful: Why Ordinary Muslims Elect Islamists.”
Her manuscript explores how and when identity-based political parties build support beyond in-group supporters. Whereas her dissertation focuses on the case of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, her book project will also include data from Tunisia that was translated and readied during her MEI year. In Spring 2019, Guiler also collaborated on an op-ed for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog titled, “In Turkey, Imamoglu is a victim. Here’s why he doesn’t talk about it,” with Jonas Bergan Draege, joint postdoctoral research fellow at MEI and Evidence for Policy Design. Guiler joined Southwestern University as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Rice University as a Nonresident Scholar during the 2019-2020 academic year.
Lama Mourad
PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOW
As a pre-doctoral fellow at MEI and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Toronto, Lama Mourad continued her research on the role of municipalities in governing the Syrian refugee influx in Lebanon.
During her fellowship, Mourad finalized her dissertation and co-authored an article with Daniel Masterson, “The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in the Syrian Refugee Crisis,” for the APSA-MENA section inaugural newsletter. She also co-founded the Arab Political Science Network, which held its first research workshop in Beirut in April 2019. While at MEI, Mourad completed fieldwork in Lebanon and presented at NYU Abu Dhabi and at the Arab Council for Social Sciences' Conference in Beirut. She presented her own research as well as a collaboration with two Ash Center postdoctoral fellows at the APSA 2019 conference. Mourad defended her dissertation in Summer 2019 and joined Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania as a Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2019-2020 academic year. She also holds a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship with Harvard's Government Department for 2019-2021.
Alexandra Stark
PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Alexandra Stark joined MEI as a pre-doctoral fellow and a Ph.D. candidate in international relations at Georgetown University.
Stark used her fellowship at MEI to work on her dissertation manuscript, “Gun at a Knife Fight: Regional power intervention in civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 1957-2017,” which examines the conditions under which states in the MENA region intervene in civil wars. During her time at MEI, Stark published numerous op-eds and co-authored two reports, “Characteristics of Successful U.S. Military Interventions” and “The ‘Consensual Straitjacket’: Four Decades of Women in Nuclear Security,” with the RAND Corporation and New America, respectively. She was also awarded a USIP-Minerva Peace and Security Fellowship for 2018-2019. Stark defended her dissertation and joined New America as a senior researcher on the Political Reform project in Summer 2019.
Yuree Noh
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
Yuree Noh joined MEI as a postdoctoral fellow, having completed her dissertation in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. During her time at MEI, Noh continued her research on authoritarian elections and their effects on citizens. In her current book project, Noh explores the circumstances under which autocrats use extensive electoral fraud, focusing on the cases of Algeria and Kuwait.
During her fellowship at MEI, Noh co-organized the conference, “Feminisms in the Middle East and North Africa: Old/New Directions?” with research fellows Lihi Ben Shitrit and Lillian Frost, and former fellow Hind Ahmed Zaki. Noh will continue as a research fellow at MEI during the 2019-2020 academic year, where she is working with MEI faculty director Tarek Masoud to develop a new project on Kuwaiti public opinion and public policy. She also joined Rhode Island College as an Assistant Professor of Political Science in August 2019.
Jonas Bergan Draege
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
Jonas Bergan Draege used his joint postdoctoral research fellowship at MEI and the Evidence for Policy Design at the Center for International Development to research political behavior and party politics in the MENA region.
During the 2018-2019 academic year, Draege worked on the project, “Does Doctrine Matter? Analyzing Shifts in Official Islam through Friday Sermons,” with Kristin Fabbe, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School.
The collaboration focused on the relationship between religious doctrine and public opinion by analyzing Friday sermons in Turkey between 2001 and 2016. Draege also collaborated with MEI fellow Kimberly Guiler for the Washington Post Monkey Cage blog piece, “In Turkey, Imamoglu is a victim. Here’s why he doesn’t talk about it.” In addition, he was invited as a keynote speaker on the series, “Democracy in Crisis,” at the Minnesota Peace Initiative in Minneapolis. Draege was also a postdoctoral fellow at MEI during the 2017-2018 academic year, when he worked on his book manuscript titled, How Opposition Fails: Movements, Parties, and Voters in Times of Democratic Backsliding in Turkey.
Andrew March
VISITING SCHOLAR
As a visiting scholar at MEI during the 2018-2019 academic year, Andrew March continued his research in political philosophy, Islamic law and political thought, religion, and political theory.
March used his time at MEI to complete his book manuscript, The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought, which was published by Harvard University Press (Belknap) in September 2019. The book addresses the concepts of divine and popular sovereignty in modern Islamic thought to explore the future of democracy in the MENA region. While at MEI, March presented his research at Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, and the University of Virginia, among other institutions. He also traveled to the MENA region to present research in Tunisia and to further collaboration with Tunisian party leader and intellectual Rashid al-Ghannushi on a book of translated essays and philosophical dialogues. During his fellowship year, March also took up a tenured appointment at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as an Associate Professor of Political Science.
Bruce Rutherford
RESEARCH FELLOW
Bruce Rutherford used his research fellowship at MEI to explore the future political trajectories of MENA states. Focusing on the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, his project examines why the public demonstrations of the Arab Spring produced such a wide array of political outcomes.
Rutherford will complete an article on the Egyptian component of his project in the coming months. He also published two articles about Egyptian politics in Fall 2018, titled, “Will Egypt Have Another Uprising?” and “To Stop Sisi, Strengthen Egypt’s Judiciary: Why Restoring the Rule of Law is the Best Way Forward,” with Oxford University Press and Foreign Affairs, respectively. His co-authored book (with Jeannie Sowers), Modern Egypt: What Everyone Needs to Know, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2018. While at MEI, Rutherford also began a project examining China’s expanding role in the Middle East and he spoke on a panel about China and the Middle East at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Spring 2019. He also gave a presentation to the State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council on this topic. Upon leaving MEI, Rutherford returned to his position as an Associate Professor of Political Science at Colgate University.