Brand

Projects

Social Institutions, Political Governance and Integration (SIPGI)

Migration is primarily an urban phenomenon, and one that creates new economic, social and political challenges. This program asks how urban municipalities address forced migration, considering how it not only changes the social composition of neighborhoods but also influences norms and behaviors within them. The program will implement collaborative research projects in cities hosting influxes of Syrian refugees in Jordan, Sweden, and Turkey.

Governance under Decentralization: Oman in the Arab Region

This two-year study of Omani governance under decentralization seeks to better understand the many challenges facing the decentralization process in transitioning states. The study will employ a multi-method approach to explore how and when citizens turn to state and non-state institutions. The goal is not only to expand our understanding of decentralization in the context of strong social institutions, but also to establish sustainable scholarly and policy-relevant networks and dialogues around these issues. We aim to work with scholars, policy experts and officials from elsewhere in the Middle East, Europe, United States, and sub-Saharan Africa, whilst also bringing out and utilizing local knowledge and voices.

Transitional Governance Project

The Transitional Governance Project (TGP) is a portal for gathering and disseminating research and data on governance in transitional societies in the Middle East and North Africa and beyond. It exists to build community, enhance scholars’ understanding of the pressures and processes of governance, and support policymakers engaged in improving development across a range of political contexts. The TGP spans several subject areas—service delivery, representation, electoral and identity politics (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity), transparency, and methodology—and contributes to a range of important research questions in the social sciences.

Gender and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa: A Decade after the Arab Uprisings

The momentous upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2011 have had substantial implications for gender politics. This project explores how the old paradigms, realities, and contexts for studying gender and politics in the region have been shaped and reshaped by unfolding political transformations since the onset of the uprisings. It is time to take stock of the state of the field and chart the research agenda ahead. To do so, we will convene a workshop to examine gender and politics across regimes and cultural contexts of the MENA compared with other regions. The workshop is a collaborative effort by researchers at the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD), the Quality of Government (QoG) Institute, and the Working Group on Gender and Politics in the MENA. It will bring together 43 international, interdisciplinary scholars to discuss cutting-edge research. 

From Revenge to Forgiveness: Strengthening Durable Peace in Post-Conflict Societies

Civil conflicts gravely damage the state’s legitimacy. Institutions are rendered incapable of providing security; social trust among its citizenry diminishes; and non-state actors step in to fill the vacuum of power. Following conflict, the state needs to re-establish itself as the legitimate arbiter of processes aimed at bringing former rebel collaborators to justice. This project employs innovative tools to identify both the subnational drivers of violent resentment towards the state and the drivers of reconciliation. This project develops and tests a novel framework in Iraq integrating political science theories of legitimacy with psychological theories of forgiveness, feelings of (in)justice and desire for revenge