The key is the Einaudi community’s energy for collaboration, says Middle East specialist Ellen Lust.

Lust joined the Einaudi Center in January as director and John S. Knight Professor of International Studies. Her research examines the role of social institutions and local authorities in governance, particularly in Southwest Asia and North Africa.

"There are a lot of things we don't control. What we do control is how we work together, how we reinforce each other, how we combine forces."

She is also a professor in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and Department of Government (College of Arts and Sciences) and University of Gothenburg Department of Political Science and the Governance and Local Development Institute’s founder and director.

On this page: Read and listen as Ellen Lust explains how the Einaudi Center is convening experts, preparing to respond rapidly to global problems, and creating opportunities for students. 

A Conversation with Ellen Lust

How can the Einaudi Center contribute right now?

If you think about the issues of nationalism, climate change, threats to humanitarian aid—a lot of the things that are foremost on our minds these days are affecting not only the U.S. They really are very global. And at the same time as they’re global threats and interests, the forms they take and the abilities to address them differ a lot across different regions and across different peoples and places. 

Einaudi brings people who have deep knowledge in different regions together—to highlight challenges that might be faced in one place or solutions that might have been found in one place—to help us to understand possibilities elsewhere. 

What are your plans to support collaboration across the university?

I think it's worth thinking not only about how we address the issues we know exist. We also need to be ready to address issues that emerge in the future. In 2018 you never would have expected COVID to be on the table. What we want to be able to do is respond quickly to new issues and problems that emerge.

We want to facilitate and advance the work of faculty. We’re going to create an infrastructure that allows people to come together relatively quickly—to address new and emerging problems as researchers become aware of them.

Is there a place for researchers who work internationally but aren’t regional specialists?

Not everybody engaged in a project has to be an area specialist, but combining area knowledge with some of the disciplinary and other types of international work can, I think, enrich everybody. 

To bring researchers together, I'm planning to create seed grant programs that encourage cross-regional work, as well as work across the different colleges and Cornell Global Hubs.

How can students get involved?

On a nuts-and-bolts level, Einaudi offers many opportunities aimed at helping students gain the language skills and other knowledge and expertise they need to be able to move forward and make an impact on the world.

From my own student experience: I did an MA in modern Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan. I would go to a seminar, and it would sort of create an “a-ha moment.” I’d realize that some of the assumptions I was making in the work I was doing didn't necessarily make sense. Einaudi has a lot of programming that provides students the opportunities to get those a-ha moments. Another thing we do is give students a sense of community.

What would you say to students considering international experiences?

My advice to students is to go!

The Laidlaw program at Einaudi is nicely structured to allow students to get experience abroad. There are a lot of ways students can get those first experiences—which both show why it's so exciting to be abroad and just the numbers of things you can learn—and give them confidence to do it again in the future.

What do you find special about Einaudi?

There is a real energy to the community engaged in Einaudi—and I would like to see that community expand! It gives me a lot of hope at a time when we recognize that there are increasing constraints at the national level. There are increasing constraints at the Cornell level. There are a lot of things we don't control. 

What we do control is how we work together, how we reinforce each other, how we combine forces. And I think Einaudi is very, very well poised to make a difference in that respect.

Learn more about Ellen Lust's new edited volume, Decentralization, Local Governance, and Inequality in the Middle East and North Africa, featured in World in Focus Briefs.

“Particularly during political transitions, citizens are accustomed to the central state playing an outsized role in governance; the state has encouraged their passivity and even ignorance.... For decentralization policies to strengthen democratic governance, all must reconceptualize their relationship with each other and actively participate in governance.”

Policymakers and development practitioners often view decentralization as a path to increased political participation and social welfare. Decentralization, Local Governance, and Inequality in the Middle East and North Africa (University of Michigan Press, 2025) gathers new research on communities in Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia to explore the ways decentralization policies affect citizens’ everyday lives. 

Governance processes and outcomes vary significantly, even within countries. Focusing on changes on the ground since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, this edited volume shows how citizens of the MENA region are experiencing decentralization locally today.

The book's chapters demonstrate the influences of individual factors like gender and education and local contexts—including relationships between central and local actors, how citizens engage in political processes, and whether representatives reflect communities' interests. 

The volume offers important insights into governance, participation, and representation in the MENA region and suggests new questions for researchers. Policymakers and development practitioners will find practical directions for program design and implementation.

“We call for close attention to the design of decentralization policies—considering local networks, social structures and institutions, and the resultant power balances, as well as education for citizens and officials alike to understand their rights and responsibilities,” write Lust and coeditor Kristen Kao (University of Gothenburg). “Only by unpacking governance at the local level can we understand how decentralization policies affect citizens’ lives and, ultimately, the welfare and stability of their nation-states and communities.”

The project was supported by the Hicham Alaoui Foundation. The introduction and chapter five are available in Arabic.

Ellen Lust joined the Einaudi Center as director in January. She is Einaudi's John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and a professor in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and Department of Government (College of Arts and Sciences). Read and listen to a Meet the Director Q&A.

Download the book

Featured in World in Focus Briefs