CDDRL's Current Postdoctoral Fellows
Academic Institution: Yale University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): Political Science (Fall 2020)
Short list of Research Interests: Democratization, North African politics, Political cleavages, party systems, nostalgia
Dissertation Title: Party Systems and Social Cleavages in New Democracies: Skipping Class in Postuprising Tunisia
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? CDDRL has a unique combination of scholars at the intersection of my interests in democracy, democratization, and North African politics.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? My main goal is to produce a book manuscript from my dissertation research, which uses the case of post uprising Tunisia to explore the question of why party systems in new democracies only sometimes furnish clear and appealing economic policy choices. I also hope to publish papers from my research on political nostalgia and the appeal of ties to the former regime during democratic transitions.
Fun fact: I was a starting outfielder for the 2010 champion of the Cairo (Egypt) Adult Softball League.
Hometown: Cairo, Egypt
Academic Institution: Stanford University
Discipline and degree conferral date: Political science, June 2020
Short list of Research Interests: Social Cohesion, Intergroup Conflict, Migration
Dissertation Title: Contact, Conflict, and Social Cohesion
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? CDDRL has been an important part of my intellectual journey at Stanford. My interest in social cohesion — a critical driver of economic, social, and political development — aligns well with CDDRL’s mandate, and my regional focus on the Arab world has drawn me to the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy many times over the years. The post-doctoral program seemed like a wonderful home to draw these interests together.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I hope to make headway on a book project examining the micro-foundations of social cohesion in the Arab world, and launch a series of field experiments on intergroup contact across the Arab world.
Fun fact: I have a half-Swedish toddler.
Academic Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Discipline and degree conferral date: Political Science, 2018
Short list of Research Interests: Political behavior, government accountability, political participation, inter-group relations, social norms, experimental design.
Dissertation Title: Self-Enforcing Norms and Sustained Autocrats
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? The fantastic community of interdisciplinary scholars working on important questions at the intersection of policy and research.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I hope to finish and submit my book manuscript based on my dissertation research, which asks why citizens vote in elections with foregone conclusions in semi-authoritarian states, focusing on experimental and survey evidence from Tanzania and Uganda. Moving beyond conventional paradigms, my theory describes how a social norm of voting and accompanying social sanctions from peers contribute to high turnout in semi-authoritarian elections.
Fun fact: I have climbed the two tallest mountains in Africa.