Working Papers

Bringing the War on Terror Home: Courts, Jurisdiction, and Exceptional Procedure

How did the global War on Terror reshape the domestic institutions used to prosecute terrorism? This paper argues that its influence extended beyond the spread of new counterterrorism laws. It also provided states with a legal and institutional repertoire for reallocating jurisdiction over terrorism cases and introducing exceptional judicial procedures. Governments adapted this repertoire in different ways: some retained terrorism cases in ordinary criminal courts, while others shifted them toward specialized civilian, military, or security institutions and altered rules governing detention, evidence, trial, and appeal. These changes did not simply reflect domestic security needs. They were shaped by a broader international environment that encouraged legal convergence while allowing substantial local adaptation. The paper evaluates this argument using comparative case studies from the Middle East and North Africa from 2001 to 2014. Together, the evidence shows how global security pressures were translated into varied domestic judicial arrangements.

The Rise of the Madani Party: The Evolution of Political Parties in the Middle East (with Marsin Alshamary)

What explains the rise of madani parties in the Middle East and North Africa? After the Arab Spring, there was a proliferation of political parties across the region. Many of these parties self-identified as “madani” parties, a designation organic to the Middle East that typically connotes a mild political secularism and a focus on anti-corruption, institutions, and the rule of law. In this paper, we argue that madani parties emerge in response to the perceived governing failures of Islamist parties. As a result, madani parties define themselves through the rejection of ideological conflict. They prioritize a procedural and technocratic vision of governance and eschew positive ideological projects. In practice, these parties have proliferated in number in recent years but have generally been weak and fragmented due to their lack of clear political programs. Empirically, we examine the establishment and trajectory of parties in the Middle East through the construction of a novel dataset and, subsequently, through comparative analysis of parties in Egypt and Iraq. We conclude with a discussion of the consequences of madani party proliferation for opposition politics in the region.

Islam, the War on Terror, and Pitfalls of the Moderate-Radical Dichotomy

This paper reassesses the inclusion-moderation literature, which examines the impact of political inclusion on Islamist moderation. I first show that Global War on Terror narratives shaped how scholars study Islamist organizations. I then examine 53 works of scholarship from the literature published between 1994 and 2022. I find that existing conceptualizations of moderation overwhelmingly center normative preferences for democracy, pluralism, de-Islamization, non-violence, or “working within the system.” I explore how commitment to “democracy” or non-violence in corrupt and violent authoritarian regimes serves to bolster authoritarianism rather than lead to democratization. I recommend that scholars move away from normative conceptualizations towards relational ones that prioritize the extent to which actors seek to transform existing political systems. This approach simplifies the moderate-radical dichotomy, limits normative bias, and contextualizes changes in actors’ commitments to democracy, pluralism, and non-violence.

Mobilization without Organization (with Alexei Abrahams and Dana El Kurd)

Since their rise in the 2000s, social media have had a complicated relationship with social movements. Although they offer unprecedented connectivity, they may also facilitate “mobilization without organization” (Tufekci 2017) or “mobilization without movement” (Yom 2022), generating fragile movements that lack organizational maturity. This paper contributes original evidence from the Palestinian struggle, which is reliant on social media because of geographical diffuseness, the co-optation of formal institutions, and the repression of political parties. We investigate by scraping Twitter and Instagram, conducting face-to-face interviews with activists, and documenting protest data. Our analysis suggests that movements heavily reliant on social media are not necessarily doomed to this trap, as civil society organizations have acquired a growing online footprint. Yet this new de facto structure is emerging organically, without a formal process for conferring authority or ensuring accountability.