2013 Workshops
February Workshop: Cairo, Egypt
“States in Transition, Constitutional Engineering and Political Science Research”
APSA’s inaugural MENA workshop was hosted by the American University in Cairo (AUC) from February 9-14, 2014. The workshop was co-led by John Huber (Columbia University, USA), Nolan McCarty (Princeton University, USA), Nadine Sika (The American University in Cairo, Egypt), and Bahgat Korany (The American University in Cairo, Egypt) and attended by 16 political and social scientists. Substantively, the one-week program focused on conceptualizations of democracy/democratization and how these concepts are measured, studied, and analyzed in political science research. Participants drew on an extensive set of readings as well as their own research to discuss democracy and democratic changes in the Middle East. Afternoon sessions were devoted to spo specialized training in quantitative methods and in-depth introduction to the statistical analysis software Stata. Participants also made time to visit the Pyramids of Giza and enjoy the beauty of Al-Azhar Park. See the ReadingList.pdf and Schedule.pdf for more information on the Cairo workshop program.Following the February workshop, participants had the opportunity to be paired with a senior scholar to review their research and offer feedback/comments. For the next three months they revised their research for presentation and further feedback at a follow-up workshop in June.
2013 Fellows
• Ms. Jinan Al-Habbal – St. Andrews University, UK
• Ms. Nermin Allam – University of Alberta, Canada
• Mr. Guy Burton – University of Nottingham, Malaysia
• Ms. May Darwish – Edinburgh University, UK
• Ms. Wafaa Dawoud – Beni Suef University, Egypt
• Ms. Nermin El Molla – Cairo University, Egypt
• Ms. Mona Farag – University of Exeter, UK
• Ms. Tereza Jermanova – University of Exeter, UK
• Mr. Abdul-Wahab Kayyali – George Washington University, USA
• Mr. Lucas Leemann – Columbia University, USA
• Mr. Karim Sadek – American University in Beirut, Lebanon
• Ms. Ilham Sadoqi – Mohammed V University-Souissi, Morocco
• Ms. Dima Smaira – Durham University, UK
• Ms. Yossra Taha – Cairo University, Egypt
• Ms. Sarah Wessel – University of Hamburg, Germany
• Ms. Karen Young – American University of Sharjah, UAE
Alumni leaders and participants pose for a photo after the closing dinner in Al-Azhar park.
June Workshop: Tunis, Tunisia
“The Political Economy of Economic Development”
As a follow-up to the February workshop in Cairo, participants were invited a workshop organized in cooperation with Le Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT) from June 4-9, 2014. The workshop was co-led by Amaney Jamal (Princeton University, USA), Helen Milner (Princeton University, USA), and Nisreen Salti (American University in Beirut, Lebanon). The one-week program combined approaches from International Relations, Comparative Politics, and Economics to address “big questions” in the political economy of development. The program included a panel presentation on Tunisia’s National Electoral Commission given by local academics and politicians, as well as significant time for participants to present and receive feedback on their own research projects. The group also visited the ancient sites of El Jem and Kairouan. See the Syllabus.pdf and Schedule.pdf for more information on the Tunis workshop program. Concluding their participation in the 5-month MENA Workshop Fellowship, alumni were given three years’ complimentary membership to APSA and are now eligible to apply for small grants to support their further research.
Alumni participants and leaders pose at the steps of the El Mouradi Hotel in Gammarth, where the conference was held.
*Originally scheduled to take place in 2013, the Cairo and Tunis workshops were postponed to 2014 due to unrest in the region.