Institute for African Development
Decentralization in the Middle East and North Africa
Ellen Lust in World in Focus
Einaudi Center director Ellen Lust is coeditor of a new open-access book examining how decentralization affects communities in the Middle East and North Africa.
“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).
Featured in World in Focus Briefs
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Topic
- World in Focus
Program
What Does USAID's Demise Mean for Western Allies?
Rachel Beatty Riedl, IAD/Migrations
“Undercutting long-established relationships … weakens America's diplomacy and ability to compete with other global powers,” past Einaudi Center director Rachel Beatty Riedl told CBC News.
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USAID Cuts in Kenya Reveal Risks to Lives and American Influence Worldwide
Rachel Beatty Riedl, IAD
“Undercutting long-established relationships with partner countries around the world weakens America’s diplomacy and ability to compete with other global powers, such as Russia and China, for critical resources, markets, and geostrategic alliances,” says Rachel Beatty Riedl, director of the Center on Global Democracy.
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China’s Belt and Road Could Fill ‘Vacuum’ After Trump’s USAID Freeze: Analysts
Chris Barrett, IAD/SEAP
Chris Barrett, professor of agricultural and development economics, discusses the USAID freeze.
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Africa Needs Climate-Proof Cows
Mario Herrero, IAD
Mario Herrero, professor of global development, discusses creating “sustainable intensification.”
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Swahili Conversation Hour
May 6, 2025
6:00 pm
Join on Zoom to practice your Swahili skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are open to any learner, including the public.
Join the Swahili Conversation Hour via Zoom.
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Program
Institute for African Development
Collaborative Reforestation in Malawi Supports Ag, Climate Adaptation
Rachel Bezner Kerr, IAD
Malawi is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to extreme weather, and climate change is exacerbating droughts, floods, cyclones and other natural disasters throughout the country. To help impoverished farming communities alleviate some of these impacts, Cornell researchers are collaborating with a network of academics, nongovernmental colleagues and communities in Malawi to strengthen forests.
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Ware Rotary Award for International Graduate Professional Development
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International students: Do you plan to travel to a U.S. conference or networking event related to your field of study?
The W. Barlow Ware Rotary Award for International Graduate Student Professional Development provides three awards annually to international graduate and professional students at Cornell. The awards ($650 maximum) support domestic travel and attendance costs for conferences or professional events promoting international graduate students' professional development.
Amount
Up to $650. Award recipients will have funds directly deposited through the Cornell Bursar system. Per U.S. Internal Revenue Service guidelines, 14% of the funds may be withheld for tax purposes.
Eligibility
Graduate students and students enrolled in Cornell’s professional schools are eligible. In addition, you must be:
- An international student with citizenship outside the United States (nonresident on a Cornell-sponsored student visa)
- Actively engaged with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies or one of our regional and thematic programs
Requirements
- In your application, you must clearly explain the value of your proposed conference or networking experience—as well as the alignment of your research or professional studies—with one or more of the Seven Rotary Causes:
- Promoting peace
- Fighting disease
- Providing clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
- Saving mothers and children
- Supporting education
- Growing local economies
- Protecting the environment
- Ware Rotary awards support domestic airfare or train/bus, hotel, and other associated costs for attendance at an event directly related to your dissertation, thesis research, or planned professional career.
- The proposed conference, meeting, or event must be held in the United States, with your travel beginning and ending in the U.S.
- You must attend the conference or event described in your application. Awards are not transferable.
- Travel must take place between March 1 and August 15, 2025, and cannot be funded retroactively.
Reporting
Post-event reporting is mandatory for all award recipients. By applying, you agree to complete the following reporting no later than August 29, 2025:
- Provide proof of event attendance, such as a registration email and a copy of the conference program.
- Provide a testimonial stating how your attendance benefited your professional development and promoted one or more of the Seven Rotary Causes.
- Photos of you attending your event are appreciated! Please sign this multimedia release before submitting photos.
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- Student
Program
How To End a War? Conflicts and Transitions to Peace in Africa
January 22, 2025
11:00 am
Uris Hall, G08
Roland Marchal, CNRS, SciencesPo
For a longtime observer of armed conflicts in Central and Eastern Africa, it is striking that we are witnessing a higher number of conflicts than in 1991. This presentation will address several recurrent aspects. First, Marchal will address the intricacies of violence and local politics. Second, the organization of armed groups frequently does not correspond to the kind of violence they are exercising on the population. And third, paradoxically, the international community has often been unable and unwilling to frame its understanding of conflict, with the consequence that transitions to peace are becoming more problematic, while international support for conflict grows.
Hosted by Brooks Center on Global Democracy with support from the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and the Institute for African Development.
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Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Institute for African Development
Nuclear Colonialism and Its Discontents
February 6, 2025
12:00 pm
Nuclear weapons and associated technologies have been primarily developed by and for Global North nations, often using the labor and natural resources of indigenous populations around the world, and often doing violence to those populations and their environments. As a result, many scholars analyze the development of nuclear technologies–including uranium mining, the processing and production of fissile materials, nuclear weapons testing, and use–as a form of colonialism. But as a state-centric framework, colonialism does not always capture practices that transcend national boundaries; radioactivity does not respect borders. This panel will elucidate the uses and limitations of the colonial framework for understanding the social and political implications of nuclear technologies. The panel will discuss how nuclear technologies have been developed in ways that are both locally specific and globally-interconnected, and the implications of this history for social and environmental justice.
Virtual panel discussion with-
Vincent Intondi, PACS Domestic Affiliate Scholar
Myrriah Gomez, Associate Professor at University of New Mexico
Mary Mitchell, Assistant Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers Newark
Magdalena Stawkowski, Assistant Professor at University of South Carolina
Hirokazu Miyazaki, Former Director of the Einaudi Center, Professor at Northwestern University
Register here.
Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
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Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
East Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies