Publications

"The Paradox of Power-sharing: stability and fragility in postwar Lebanon." Ethnic and Racial Studies. 2017. 40(12) 2058-2076.

"The Effects of Civil War on Post-War Political Development." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. 2018.
(with Pellumb Kelmendi)

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Working Papers 

The Electoral Legacies of War

This paper explores the long-term consequences of civil war for political competition and accountability. Focusing on Lebanon, it investigates how legacies of wartime armed group control interact with the conflict resolution process to shape post-war electoral outcomes and competition. I argue that in the process of consolidating control over territory, armed groups develop or co-opt patronage networks that connect them to the population. If a territory-holding group wins the war or is brought into the government as part of the settlement, its leaders are able to use state resources to transform these wartime clientelist networks into a peacetime political machine, allowing the group's post-war party to win uncompetitive elections and establish a dominant party system in their regions of control. This is in contrast to fragmented territories where elections will be more competitive, and new political groups more likely to emerge. To test these hypotheses, I leverage variation in experiences of armed group rule during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and originally-compiled data on margins of victory in the five post-war parliamentary elections in Lebanon. I find support for the connection between wartime territorial control and post-war electoral outcomes.

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Civil War Displacement and Post-War Politics in Beirut

This paper explores the long-term consequences of civil war for local political competition and accountability. Through a comparison of the densely-populated southern and eastern suburbs of post-war Beirut, it investigates how patterns of displacement and wartime armed group control at the local level interact with the macro-level outcome of the war to shape post-war political life. Both suburbs share similar pre-war characteristics and underwent similar wartime political changes. In the process of consolidating control over territory during the Lebanese civil war, armed organizations in both areas developed or co-opted networks that linked them to the population. Displaced populations that sought refuge in an armed group's territory developed particularly strong ties to the organization, whereas ''original'' residents remained more closely linked to pre-war local familial elites. Despite these similar paths, the macro-level outcome of the war affected the two suburbs differently. In the southern suburbs, the controlling group was a beneficiary of the war's final settlement, allowing it to monopolize political power in its localities and empower its core constituents, the displaced. In the eastern suburbs, the territory-holding group lost the war, creating a vacuum of political power in its localities. This produced a competitive and pluralistic post-war political environment and allowed pre-war elites to reassert their role in local politics and empower their constituents, the ''original'' residents. I base these conclusion on evidence from over thirty in-depth interviews with local elites and long-time residents of both areas.


Transcending Sectarian Politics: The Case of Beirut Madinati

In May 2016, Lebanon held its first municipal elections since the beginning of the Syrian civil war and the domestic trash crisis. For the first time in the city’s recent history, an independent nonsectarian volunteer-based campaign called Beirut Madinati presented the city’s voters with an alternative to sectarian political parties and their candidates. While the group did not win, it did succeed in winning about 40% of the vote. This paper examines the rise of this movement. In a moment when regional politics have polarized the Middle East along sectarian lines, and in a place where sect is the institutionalized currency of the political system, how did movements of cross-sectarian unity and resistance to the status quo emerge? To answer this question, this study traces the development of the municipal campaign. The article compares the municipal election of 2016 to previous ones that took place in 2010 in order to gain insight into how changes in key structural and organizational variables opened a window of opportunity for new political parties. Data are drawn from election results as well as structured in-depth interviews with key players in the movements, including founding members, candidates, volunteer coordinators, and legal advisers.

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Other Writing

What can we learn from Lebanon's elections? The Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog 11 May 2018

Beirut’s election was surprisingly competitive. Could it shake up Lebanese politics? The Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog 11 May 2016.
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Works in Progress

The Effect of Displacement on Political Identities and Attitudes: Evidence from Lebanon (In Design Stage)

​Popular Support for Electoral Reform in Lebanon: a Survey Experiment (In Design Stage)
with Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl

From Civil Society to Electoral Participation
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