Ellen Lust, Founding Director
Ellen Lust is Founding Director of the Program on Governance and Local Development and Associate Professor in the Yale University Department of Political Science. Her books include Structuring Conflict in the Arab World; Political Participation in the Middle East, co-edited with Saloua Zerhouni; Governing Africa’s Changing Societies, co-edited with Stephen Ndegwa, the 12th and 13th editions of The Middle East, an edited textbook, and the forthcoming Taking to the Streets: The Transformation of Arab Activism, co-edited with Lina Khatib. She has also published articles in such journals as Comparative Political Studies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Politics and Society, and Comparative Politics. Her work broadly examines political participation and governance. She is currently writing a book examining the politics of elections in the Arab world, and a jointly authored volume (with Jakob Wichmann and Gamal Soltan) on the Egyptian transition. Ellen has conducted fieldwork, implemented public opinion polls, and led alumni tours across the region, including in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia. She also served as a founding associate editor of the journal, Middle East Law and Governance, sponsored by the University of Toronto and Yale University Law Schools, and currently serves as the President of its Board of Directors.

Visiting Scholars

Yasmine Farouk is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Council on Middle East Studies from September 2014 to May 2015. Her academic research focuses on the international relations of the Middle East, with special focus on inter-Arab relations, and the foreign policies of authoritarian regimes. Her research at CMES will focus on the foreign policies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria in reaction to the American intervention in Iraq and to the Arab uprisings. Yasmine is on leave as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in Cairo University. She is also an AUC Forum fellow at the American University in Cairo. She has previously worked as a consultant with the offices of the United Nations Development Program in Cairo and the regional office in Beirut. From September 2012 to June 2013, she was head of the Civil Society Unit at the Social Contract Center, a research unit affiliated to the office of the Egyptian Prime Minister.

Hania Sholkamy is a Carnegie Centennial Scholar and Visiting Associate Professor at the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University. She is currently engaged in collaboration with Professor Ellen Lust in the Program on Governance and Local Development at Yale University. While at Yale, she will be working on the social construction of the state through its services; a research focus that examines the practices of the state in the fields of poverty alleviation and social protection. Hania is an Egyptian anthropologist with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, The University of London. She obtained her BA and MA from the American University in Cairo (AUC). She is currently associate research professor at the Social Research Center of the AUC and is special advisor to the minister of social solidarity of Egypt working on social protection program design and implementation (on a volunteer basis). Prior to her current position she was assistant professor of anthropology in the department of anthropology of the AUC and the regional coordinator of the “Pathways to Women’s Empowerment Research Consortium” in partnership with the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex, UK. She is also a member of the board of the Arab Council for Social Sciences. Her research interests and publications are mainly in the fields of gender, women’s rights and work, social protection, health, population and qualitative methods. She has co-edited two volumes, one titled “Categories and Contexts: Anthropological and Historical Studies in Critical Demography” (OUP) with S. Szreter and A. Dharmalingam, and another titled “Health and Identity in Egypt” (AUC press) with F. Ghanam.

Sponsors

Moulay Hicham Foundation for Social Science Research in North Africa and the Middle East: The Foundation’s mission is to foster research in social sciences in the Maghreb and the Middle East. It aims to study society and political systems and to identify the factors which lead to open societies as well as the obstacles to change in the region. Within this framework, the Foundation intends to highlight the factors of change in the area and the new challenges posed by globalization and by the hegemonic regimes’ transformations. The Foundation promotes research that focuses on both endogenous and exogenous dimensions of social and political change and on the key players involved in this change. Particular attention is given to cultural and religious factors which foster pluralism in society.

Council on Middle East Studies at the MacMillan Center: As globally significant developments in the Middle East unfold daily, Middle East Studies (CMES) at the MacMillan Center continues its role as an academic platform where students and faculty can debate the myriad contemporary, historical, political, and cultural issues of relevance to the Middle East and North Africa and beyond. As a National Resource Center for Middle East Studies (funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI), CMES serves as a central resource for the Yale community, the region, and the nation on issues pertaining to the Middle East. CMES has been pivotal in the organization of major international conferences on wide-ranging topics — such as the region’s relations with the U.S., Middle Eastern immigration to the Americas, and the social and historical geography of the Middle East. To build upon the existing faculty base at Yale, CMES hosts a number of visiting scholars each year, supports expansion in the instruction of Middle Eastern languages, and assists in supporting the acquisition of new materials in the Near Eastern Collection at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library. CMES also offers a weekly lecture/luncheon series, a year-long film program, and many other educational events, all free and open to the public.

Partners

World Bank: The World Bank Group has set two goals for the world to achieve by 2030: End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to no more than 3%; Promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country. The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. It is not a bank in the ordinary sense but a unique partnership to reduce poverty and support development. The World Bank Group comprises five institutions managed by their member countries.Established in 1944, the World Bank Group is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and has more than 120 offices worldwide.