International Workshops: Alumni Networking Grants

In an effort to further support International Workshop alumni along their scholarly careers, APSA offers over $75,000 in small grants each year to members of the Africa Workshops (with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and MENA Workshops (with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York) alumni communities. Funding is used to support alumni participation in professional development opportunities, facilitate networking potential, and encourage regional collaboration among scholars and academic institutions. From November 2014 to July 2015, small grants were awarded to the following alumni:

AFRICA WORKSHOPS (ALUMNI YEAR) TOTALING $44,337.00

Samuel Olugbemiga Afolabi (2014) – $2,000

Celso Monjane (2014) – $1,985

Edmond Mballa Elanga (2013) and Willy Kalala Kankonde (2013) - $11,500

Felicia Safoa Odame (2012), Agnes Apusigah (2010), and Dominic Degraft Arthur (2014) - $11,400

Sulaiman Balarbe-Kura (2009) and Mashood Omotosho (2009) - $10,000

Aremu Fatai Ayinde (2012) - $916

Rasel Madaha (2010) - $1,000

Maryam Quadri (2014) - $1,936

Abdullahi Abubakar (2014) - $1,200

Naomi Moswete (2012) - $1,200

Peace Medie (2010) - $1,200

MENA WORKSHOPS (ALUMNI YEAR) TOTALING $41,364.00

Abdeslam Badre (2014) – $1,000

Magdalena Karolak (2014) – $1,000

Ammar Maliki (2014) – $1,000

Arin Ayanian (2014) – $800

Selim Hmimnat (2014) – $1,000

Aida Essaid (2014) – $1,000

Imad AlSoos (2014) – $1,000

Abdeslam Badre and Salim Hmimnat (2014) – $12,564

Karen Young, Guy Burton, May Darwich, Nermin Allam, and Ilham Sadoqi (2013) – $12,000

Ayfer Erdogan, Ghada Almadbouh, Lourdes Habash (2014) – $10,000

Application and program information can be found on the Africa Workshop (www.apsanet.org/africaworkshops) and MENA Workshop (www.apsanet.org/menaworkshops) websites. Questions should be directed to Andrew Stinson at astinson@apsanet.org (for Africa Workshop grants) and Ahmed Morsy at amorsy@apsanet.org (for MENA Workshop grants).

APSA Workshops in the Middle East and North Africa

APSA’s MENA Workshops program continued this summer with a conference held at Qatar University’s Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) in Doha, Qatar, from May 17–21. The event was part of a multi-year initiative to support political science research and networking in the Arab Middle East and North Africa. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the MENA Workshops program is a major component of APSA’s efforts to engage with political science communities outside the United States and support research networks linking US scholars with their colleagues overseas.

The Doha workshop is the first in a two-part series entitled, “The Resource Curse in Middle East and North Africa.” A follow-up workshop in December will be held at the Alsalam Center for Development and Strategic Studies in Kuwait. Together, the 2015 program explores the rentier state literature to debate questions including the following: How does rent influence citizenship and other policies of the Gulf States and how can we understand this in a wider comparative perspective? How does aid from rich oil states affect political outcomes in aid recipient states in the region? What has been the impact on rentier states of recent fluctuations in oil prices? In places like Qatar and Kuwait, oil has a deep and profound effect on virtually every aspect of politics and society, but scholars have not arrived at a consensus about just what factors oil-rich countries around the world reliably share in common. Context matters in determining the impact of oil, and results can differ even in countries as otherwise similar as Qatar and Kuwait. More broadly, the workshops also focus on issues of research design, modes of and approaches to political science inquiry, and issues associated with manuscript preparation and publication.

Co-leading the workshop program are Justin Gengler (Qatar University), Michael Herb (Georgia State University, USA), Ghanim Alnajjar (Kuwait University), Alanoud Al Sharekh (Kuwait University), and Mark Tessler (University of Michigan, USA). Participating are 22 PhD students and early scholars from the United States, Europe, and across the MENA region. For more information on the 2015 workshops or the overall program, please visit APSA’s MENA Workshops website at www.apsanet.org/menaworkshops.