Reports & Papers

As of early January 2024, discussion of the Gaza war heavily focuses on its humanitarian costs, cease fire possibilities, hostage prospects, and “day after” options. Yet what longer-term strategy guides actions on these vital issues while offering a more positive vision for Israelis, Palestinians, and key regional players? This paper sketches such a vision and strategy, but far more importantly, highlights the formidable barriers to its realization—and the elements of a realistic path to overcoming those barriers. With old political assumptions jolted by recent events, an opening exists for a new and better regional reality to take shape.

This report summarizes a five-session study group with 25 Harvard students hosted by MEI Senior Fellow Ambassador (Ret.) Edward Djerejian on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The sessions took place in the spring of 2023. 

Between October 2020 and May 2021, the Middle East Initiative conducted a series of nationally representative surveys to measure the economic, social, and public health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.1 Designed and supervised by Tarek Masoud, Faculty Director of the Middle East Initiative, and Yuree Noh, Research Fellow, the surveys collected responses from 8,500 residents of seven countries in the region—Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Our goal is to provide the data and insights needed to develop effective policy responses to current and future public health crises.

This report summarizes our findings on how COVID-19 has disrupted employment, mental health, food security, education, and childcare in the region during its first year. We also show that the consequences of the pandemic were felt most acutely by some of the region’s most vulnerable populations: the poor, women, youth, and children.

The Social Bureaucrat: How Social Proximity among Bureaucrats Affects Local Governance

Debtscapes: the politics of social reproduction in the post-revolution city

Unequal Political Selection across the Secular-Islamist Divide: Evidence from the First Democratic Local Elections in Tunisia

The effects of diversionary foreign policy under authoritarianism: evidence from Jordan

Political Parties and the Provision of Non-State Security in Lebanon

Learning About Diversity in Healthcare Institutions Reduces Prejudice: Evidence from the COVID-19 Crises in Israel and the U.S.

This paper explores the spillover of protests across countries using data on nonviolent and spontaneous demonstrations for 200 countries from 2000 to 2020. Using an autoregressive spatial model, the analysis finds strong evidence of “contagious protests,” with a catalyzing role of social media. In particular, social media penetration in the source and destination of protests leads to protest spillovers between countries. There is evidence of parallel learning between streets of nations alongside the already documented learning between governments.