Decentralization, democratization, and the role of regional and local governments in delivering services are key issues to development across the Arab world. While the tools and processes for which decentralization is... more abstractDecentralization, democratization, and the role of regional and local governments in delivering services are key issues to development across the Arab world. While the tools and processes for which decentralization is carried out varies, the stated goals of these efforts are to create a more democratic system of governance and more effective urban management. Countries across the Arab world have been engaged in a range of decentralization efforts. This books documents and assesses the past and current decentralization policies and initiatives in five Arab states. Country-specific case studies are authored by Ali Bouabid and Aziz Iraki for Morocco, Sami Yassine Turki and Eric Verdeil for Tunisia, Myriam Ababsa for Jordan, Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj for Yemen, and Mona Harb and Sami Atallah for Lebanon. The common analytical framework is structured along three components: the rules and politics of decentralization, the legislation and practice of service delivery, and the fiscal structures of decentralization. In all three components, we seek to understand the legal framework guiding the studied issue, its evolution over time, and its actual practice. Through the examination of service delivery cases, we identify, document, and understand instances of power struggles at the regional and local levels, and features that explain their varying successes and failures.

Regional and Local Governance, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, and 7 more

More Info: with Sami Atallah (Eds.), 2015

Publisher: Beirut: LCPS and OSF

Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, Middle East Studies, Urban Anthropology, Urban Studies, and 1 more

More Info: Winner 2014 BKFS Prize in Middle East Studies (Un.Cambridge)

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: Oct 2013

Le monde occidental connaît le Hezbollah en tant que parti chiite, agent de l'Iran au Liban et force militaire qui fait la guerre à Israël. Médias et gouvernements dénoncent le rôle destructeur du "parti de Dieu" au s... more abstractLe monde occidental connaît le Hezbollah en tant que parti chiite, agent de l'Iran au Liban et force militaire qui fait la guerre à Israël. Médias et gouvernements dénoncent le rôle destructeur du "parti de Dieu" au sein du pays du Cèdre, ainsi que ses ambitions islamistes et terroristes néfastes au bon développement de la société plurielle libanaise. Ce livre s'adresse aux lecteurs et lectrices qui ne se suffisent pas d'une telle analyse réductrice. Basé sur une connaissance du terrain longue de quinze années et sur l'analyse d'une trentaine d'entretiens, ce livre propose une nouvelle grille de lecture du Hezbollah, qui l'examine non pas comme phénomène externe à la société libanaise mais comme protagoniste inscrit dans l'histoire sociale et politique du pays. Mona Harb analyse aussi comment le Hezbollah forge au sein de la communauté chiite, longtemps stigmatisée, une conscience collective et un sentiment d'appartenance territoriale qui engendrent des sentiments de fierté, d'orgueil et de confiance.

Urban Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Governance, Political Islam, Beirut, and 1 more

Urban Politics, Urban Governance, Beirut, and Hezbollah

The Cities Page is a Jadaliyya platform promoting critical understandings and investigations of urban life and space, beyond the dominant formal and physical narration on cities. The Cities Page publishes works from d... more abstractThe Cities Page is a Jadaliyya platform promoting critical understandings and investigations of urban life and space, beyond the dominant formal and physical narration on cities. The Cities Page publishes works from different fields that deepen our understanding of the social production of diverse urban geographies and the contestation around them. It aims to consolidate an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to reading and writing about space and cities, incorporating historical, social, cultural, political, legal, economic and technological dimensions. It welcomes contributions in various formats, languages, and on various urban geographies and histories.

More Info: Urban scholars & activists: Send us submissions to Cities@Jadaliyya.com

POWER2YOUTH is a consortium of research and academic institutions from different disciplines based in the EU member states, Norway, Switzerland and South East Mediterranean (SEM) countries formed to explore the dynami... more abstractPOWER2YOUTH is a consortium of research and academic institutions from different disciplines based in the EU member states, Norway, Switzerland and South East Mediterranean (SEM) countries formed to explore the dynamics of youth exclusion and the prospects for youth transformative agency in the SEM region. The project, funded under the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme, will run for three years starting in March 2014.

Social Change, Social Movements, Youth Studies, Palestine, Lebanon, and 7 more

While there has been considerable literature looking at policy mobilities including issues of transfer of policy ideas, models and techniques, these studies have remained somewhat narrow in their scope, stopping shor... more abstractWhile there has been considerable literature looking at policy mobilities including issues of transfer of policy ideas, models and techniques, these studies have remained somewhat narrow in their scope, stopping short of conceptualizing changing forms and scales of governmentality in cities and regions, and considering how planners and experts learn and contribute to these transformations and transfers. In our project, we are keen to embed a critical approach to policy mobilities in a wider reflection on regionalism, refugee policies, and planning. Indeed, while ideas of regionalism and refugee policies have come to Lebanon through international donors and humanitarian agencies, there are actual local and regional practices and policies incorporating a range of actors—municipalities, municipal unions, NGOs, experts, activists and scholars—taking place on the ground. Some of these actors are operating as planners, elaborating spatial strategies at a large territorial scale, trying to identify productive sectors of development. Others are operating in a crisis-response mode providing shelter, basic services and small scale infrastructure to refugees and host communities, to help contain and manage the urgent humanitarian crisis. The project thus seeks to understand how international aid and policy mobilities affect, on the one hand, refugee policies, the delivery of shelter and services, and on the other hand, spatial planning and scales of urban governance in Lebanon. We are also keen on understanding what are the socio-spatial and political effects (planning-relevant) of these changing planning practices in Lebanon? How does aid help us rethink the forms and entanglements of sovereignty between actors such as the EU, UN, international donors, municipalities, municipal unions, NGOs and political parties? How is this changing and negotiating the hegemonic political configurations dominating the Lebanese territory?

Social Networks, Urban Politics, International organizations, Urban Planning, Lebanon, and 11 more

To assess youth exclusion at the macro institutional level in Lebanon, this paper proposes a methodology that critically investigates discourse production on youth, as well as policy making targeting youth. Two types ... more abstractTo assess youth exclusion at the macro institutional level in Lebanon, this paper proposes a methodology that critically investigates discourse production on youth, as well as policy making targeting youth. Two types of discourse that dominate knowledge production on youth in Lebanon are identified and investigated: a policy-led discourse, and an academic discourse. Factors of youth exclusion are further explored through four policy sectors (employment, migration, family, spatial planning). Our findings demonstrate that Lebanese youth are constructed through fragmented lenses and policies that lack an interdisciplinary and integrated understanding of their complex, dynamic and highly differentiated livelihoods. Youth are actively excluded from politics, economics, society and the built environment, through policies that do not prioritize their needs and desires.

Policy Analysis/Policy Studies, Youth Studies, Lebanon, Middle East, and Youth Policy

More Info: Working Paper, Power2Youth Consortium

Publication Date: 2016

Established in 1985 in Lebanon, Hezbollah (alternative spellings: Hizballah or Hizbullah) is a political party run by Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, which leads an armed resistance against Israel, and manages a large networ... more abstractEstablished in 1985 in Lebanon, Hezbollah (alternative spellings: Hizballah or Hizbullah) is a political party run by Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, which leads an armed resistance against Israel, and manages a large network of organizations providing an array of social services to Shiʿite groups.

Lebanon, Political Islam, Resistance Movements, Hezbollah, and Islamist movements

Publication Date: 2015

Publication Name: Oxford Bibliographies

The urban scholarship on Beirut often focuses either on the reconstruction of its downtown area controlled by the private real estate company Solidere, or on its poor southern suburbs (Dahiya) dominated by the Shi’i I... more abstractThe urban scholarship on Beirut often focuses either on the reconstruction of its downtown area controlled by the private real estate company Solidere, or on its poor southern suburbs (Dahiya) dominated by the Shi’i Islamic political party, Hizbullah. Downtown is strongly associated with an urban ‘modern’ model that generates pride for Lebanese, while Dahiya is defamed as a less modern urban space, unworthy of consideration as part of Beirut’s urban modernity. This article explores the contested urban modernity of Beirut through an investigation of the new moral leisure sector that has spread across the southern suburb. It challenges the simplistic distinction and valuation of urban spaces in Beirut, and argues for a more complex understanding of urban modernity that encompasses spaces of the city where the features that produce urban modernity are multiple and contested.

Cultural Studies, Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, Middle East Studies, Lebanon, and 4 more

Location: online first, check link below.

More Info: with Lara Deeb

Publication Date: Aug 2013

Publication Name: European Journal of Cultural Studies

Urban Geography, Middle East Studies, Spatial Practices, and Urban Studies

More Info: authored with Mona Fawaz & Ahmad Gharbieh

Publication Date: 2012

Publication Name: City and Society

Challenging both polarized depictions of Muslim youth and scholarship that over-privileges piety as a focal point in Muslims’ lives, this article highlights the complexity of the moral worlds of Shi‘i youth in Lebanon... more abstractChallenging both polarized depictions of Muslim youth and scholarship that over-privileges piety as a focal point in Muslims’ lives, this article highlights the complexity of the moral worlds of Shi‘i youth in Lebanon. Through ethnography of youth choices when going out, we argue that youth practices and discourses of morality are multiple and flexible in their deployments, perhaps especially when it comes to ideas about leisure. This interpretive flexibility may work to redefine ideas about leisure within a framework of religiosity such that some of the rules of piety itself are perceived as flexible.

Cultural Geography, Urban Anthropology, Urban Studies, Social Norms, and Religious Studies

More Info: with Lara Deeb

Publication Date: 2013

Publication Name: Ethnos 78(1): 1-22

Urban Geography, Recreation & Leisure Studies, Lebanon, Morality (Social Psychology), Anthropology of ethics and morality, and 2 more

More Info: co-authored with Lara Deeb

Publication Date: 2011

Publication Name: Kalamon -- كلمن

With explosions and abductions in Beirut, accusations fly at both the Syrian regime and its primary ally in Lebanon, the Shi'i Islamist party Hizballah. But the allegations against Hizballah miss the real story of rec... more abstractWith explosions and abductions in Beirut, accusations fly at both the Syrian regime and its primary ally in Lebanon, the Shi'i Islamist party Hizballah. But the allegations against Hizballah miss the real story of recent months -- the continued erosion of the party's vaunted security capabilities amidst signals that the party is preparing for life after the patronage of Damascus.

Middle East Studies, Lebanon, and Political Islam

More Info: with Lara Deeb

Publication Date: Oct 30, 2012

Publication Name: Middle East Report

Transportation Studies, Urban Planning, Transport Planning, Lebanon, Urban Studies, and 1 more

More Info: co-authored with Isam Kaysi and Amer al-Dour

Publication Date: 2010

Publication Name: Proceedings of the 12th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR), Lisbon, paper no. 01641.

Identity construction and cultural production, Islamism, Hezbollah, and Mleeta museum

More Info: co-authored with Lara Deeb, Arab Studies Journal, 19(1): 12-45 (2011).

Islamism and Hezbollah

More Info: co-authored with Lara Deeb, Review of Middle East Studies, 43(2):198-206 (2010).

Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009

Publication Name: Review of Middle East Studies

The New Urban Agenda must take into account the threats of implementation in authoritarian and corrupt states.

Urban Planning, United Nations, Urban Studies, Urban And Regional Planning, Decentralisation processes and development issues, and 2 more

Recently, Dr. Bilal Hamad, the head of the Municipality of Beirut, or mayor, made statements defending his record. His comments revealed a profound sense of frustration at the mayor’s subordinate position to that of t... more abstractRecently, Dr. Bilal Hamad, the head of the Municipality of Beirut, or mayor, made statements defending his record. His comments revealed a profound sense of frustration at the mayor’s subordinate position to that of the mohafez, or governor, who can veto and delay the municipality’s initiatives. Having heard this explanation for the deplorable performance of the city’s municipality for over a decade, and being involved in researching and teaching the institutional mechanisms that sustain public urban and regional planning, we wish to highlight the deeply problematic conception of the job of mayor implicit in Hamad’s statements.

Regional and Local Governance, Local Government and Local Development, Urban Governance, City and Regional Planning, and Municipalities

Khaled Malas is a Syrian architect who curated a series of events on the production of the landscape in Syria from before the First World War until today, entitled “excavating the sky” (12-14 August, 2014), at the 14t... more abstractKhaled Malas is a Syrian architect who curated a series of events on the production of the landscape in Syria from before the First World War until today, entitled “excavating the sky” (12-14 August, 2014), at the 14th Venice International Architecture Biennale (7 June to 23 November 2014). In this interview, he talks with Mona Harb about his trajectory, the project’s threads, processes and goals, building wells as resistance, the support of colleagues and friends, next stages and future plans, and the role of architecture in the face of war, power and conflict.

Resistance (Social), Architecture and politics, Syria, Venice Biennale, and Syrian Civil War

Publication Date: Nov 13, 2014

Publication Name: Jadaliyya

Decentralization is a key pillar for consolidating democracy, improving local political participation and ensuring better service delivery. The state of decentralization in the Arab World falls well behind other regio... more abstractDecentralization is a key pillar for consolidating democracy, improving local political participation and ensuring better service delivery. The state of decentralization in the Arab World falls well behind other regions. Most countries, which were established by colonial powers, remain highly centralized and, at best, deconcentrated. LCPS led a study of five Arab countries—Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen—which highlights five major themes. First, colonial legacies and regional histories determine contemporary decentralization policies to a great extent. Second, states often advocate but simultaneously subvert decentralization efforts. Third, urban management and service delivery are usually centralized, while infrastructural and technical services are increasingly decentralized to a local scale, but without sufficient human and fiscal resources. Fourth, municipalities are reluctant to collect local taxes to secure political loyalty and interests. Finally, and despite these obstacles, some local governments are performing rather well and benefiting from opportunities brought forth via decentralization initiatives.

Urban management, Governance, Decentralization, Middle East, Arab world, and 2 more

More Info: co-authored with Sami Atallah

Publication Date: 2014

Publication Name: LCPS Policy Brief & Jadaliyya Essay

Middle East Studies, Commons, Collective Action, Lebanon, Civil Society and the Public Sphere, and 7 more

Publication Date: Oct 25, 2013

Publication Name: Jadaliyya Cities

Urban Geography, Security, Lebanon, Surveillance Studies, Urban Studies, and 3 more

More Info: co-edited with Mona Fawaz and Ahmad Gharbieh

Publication Date: 2009

Publication Name: Newspaper Supplement to Al-Akhbar Lebanese Daily

Urban Geography, City and Suburban Integration, Middle East Studies, Stigmatization, Urban Studies, and 2 more

Publication Date: 2009

Publication Name: Beiroutes (Guide to Beirut), supplement to Volume 22

Dans ce cadre, ce rapport s'articule autour d'une question centrale : les politiques d'aide extérieure, et notamment celles qui visent à la mise en place de la décentralisation, favorisent-elles, ou non, l'autonomisat... more abstractDans ce cadre, ce rapport s'articule autour d'une question centrale : les politiques d'aide extérieure, et notamment celles qui visent à la mise en place de la décentralisation, favorisent-elles, ou non, l'autonomisation des municipalités et de leurs élus ? Dans quelle mesure ces politiques autorisent-elles, ou au moins participent-elles à la construction d'un champ politique local ? Cette question, qui prend son sens dans l'analyse des réalités locales palestiniennes et libanaises, est finalement une déclinaison des interrogations plus globales de l'ensemble du projet de recherche concernant la mise en dépendance des acteurs du pouvoir local décentralisé par les institutions donatrices internationales. Au total, il s'agit d'analyser les effets, dans le champ politique local, de l'action des donateurs, comme des directives des pouvoirs centraux, pour tenter de déterminer comment, et dans quelle mesure, l'action des donateurs contribue à la mise en forme des pratiques et des positions du pouvoir local municipal. L'un des angles d'approches revient finalement à prendre au sérieux le discours normatif des institutions donatrices pour se demander si l'implication croissante des bailleurs de fonds dans le pouvoir local débouche effectivement sur la promotion de pratiques de gestion structurellement différentes des relations clientélistes prééminentes à ce niveau. Pour tenter d'apporter une réponse à ces questions, notre rapport s'articule autour de trois axes problématiques : i) Les politiques de décentralisation au Liban et en Palestine, ii) Les normes de la " good governance " telles qu'elles sont élaborées et véhiculées par les donateurs internationaux, et enfin iii) Les systèmes d'acteurs et les formes de régulation à l'échelle municipale.

Urban management, Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development, State Formation, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, and 7 more

More Info: avec B. Dewailly, A. Favier, K. Karam, T. Khayat et A. Signoles

Publication Date: Feb 2004

The Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut organized panel discussion on the newly released book Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shi'ite South Be... more abstractThe Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut organized panel discussion on the newly released book Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shi'ite South Beirut (Princeton, 2013) by Lara Deeb & Mona Harb. The panel took place on March 28, 2014 in West Hall and featured: Mona Harb (Author), Associate Professor of Urban Studies at the American University of Beirut; Laleh Khalili (Moderator and Discussant), Professor in Middle Eastern Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies; Jean-Baptiste Pesquet (Discussant), PhD student, Paris V; fellow at Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO)-Beirut; Rasha Al Atrash (Discussant), Managing Editor of Al Modon electronic newspaper.

Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, Middle East Studies, Recreation & Leisure Studies, Evolution of Morality, and 7 more

Lebanon, Sectarianism, Political Mobilization, Schooling, and Shiism

Publication Date: 2014

Publication Name: Revues des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerrannée

Urban History, Urban Planning, and Beirut

Publication Date: Oct 2013

Publication Name: H-Med

"Has Mar Mikhael rejuvenation spelled its downfall?"

Urban Regeneration, Lebanon, Gentrification, Urban Policy, Beirut, and 1 more

Publication Date: Feb 23, 2015

Publication Name: Executive

"Pour apaiser les tensions entre communautés, les deux principaux partis libanais ont décidé d’ôter tout signe politique des rues de Beyrouth."

Identity politics, Lebanon, Middle East Politics, and Political posters

Publication Date: Mar 3, 2015

Publication Name: Le Monde

"Even though the Lebanese capital is a bustling and even glamorous place, the heart of Beirut is empty. That's because the ghosts of this otherwise vibrant city's past still play out in Beirut's neighborhoods. Decades... more abstract"Even though the Lebanese capital is a bustling and even glamorous place, the heart of Beirut is empty. That's because the ghosts of this otherwise vibrant city's past still play out in Beirut's neighborhoods. Decades after Lebanon's civil war in the 1980s, those divides still carve up the city and help determine who lives where and who interacts with whom. To understand why, we'll first head west to my neighborhood, the Hamra area. My neighbor, Mona Harb, is an architecture professor with the American University of Beirut. And, like me, she likes Hamra because it's mixed in terms of sect, class and education levels. But that's rare, she says — much of Beirut is divided. "It is a fragmented city, made of more or less self-sufficient neighborhoods, or sets of neighborhoods, with clear, segregated lines," Harb says."

Middle East Studies, Conflict, Civil War, Lebanon, Urbanism, and 1 more

Publication Date: Oct 20, 2014

Publication Name: NPR

Publication Date: Sep 5, 2013

Publication Name: Le Monde

Publication Date: Jul 25, 2013

Publication Name: Financial Times

Publication Date: Jan 16, 2013

Publication Name: The Daily Star

Publication Date: Apr 3, 2011

Publication Name: Executive Magazine

Publication Date: Aug 31, 2009

Publication Name: The Electronic Intifada

Publication Date: Aug 21, 2008

Publication Name: Slate

Published as part of the DIWAN publications on the occasion of International Architecture Biennial of Rotterdam 2009.

Urban Geography, Architecture, Security, Urban Planning, Urban Studies, and 8 more