About

Laurie A. Brand is the Robert Grandford Wright Professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from Columbia University in 1985 and has held various academic positions at USC, including director of the Center for International Studies and the School of International Relations, as well as chair of the Department of Middle East Studies. Her research specializes in Middle East international relations, regional and domestic political economy, and inter-Arab politics, with a current focus on the politics of academic freedom in the Middle East and North Africa region, as well as state-expatriate relations. She has authored several books, including 'Palestinians in the Arab World: Institution Building and the Search for State,' 'Jordan’s Inter-Arab Relations: The Political Economy of Alliance Making,' 'Women, the State and Political Liberalization,' 'Citizens Abroad: States and Migration in the Middle East and North Africa,' and 'Official Stories: Politics and National Narratives in Egypt and Algeria.' Her fieldwork has been conducted across Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Kuwait. Fluent in Arabic and French, highly proficient in Spanish, and with intermediate Turkish skills, she is actively engaged in research on topics such as national narrative construction, migration, citizenship, diaspora, and the politics of academic freedom. She has been recognized with numerous awards and fellowships, including Fulbright scholarships, Carnegie Scholar, and Rockefeller Fellowship, and has served on advisory boards related to Middle East studies and international affairs.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Computer Science
• Social Science
• Political economy
• Gender studies
• Art
• Psychology
• Development economics
• History
• Philosophy
• Environmental ethics
• Economics
• Aesthetics
• Geography
• Economic geography

Selected publications

• Scholarly Community, Threats to Academic Freedom, and MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom

  Review of Middle East Studies · 2026-02-26

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In the US, engaging in scholarship and advocacy on Middle East issues, certainly on Palestine, has long attracted attacks from campus and off-campus organizations and individuals. However, a near consensus has emerged that the threats to academic freedom that we are witnessing today are unprecedented, as it is now the US government that is leading the assault. The weaponization of charges of antisemitism against those engaged in teaching about Palestine and/or in pro-Palestine advocacy has become a battering ram utilized by the political right to achieve a central goal: taming or destroying American higher education as a locus of critical inquiry and potential opposition to the Trump administration’s authoritarian project. What does the current moment mean for us as members of a Middle East studies community? How have the challenges we face evolved and how are today’s attacks different from those of the past? This essay addresses the evolution of these growing threats in the US as well as longer-standing threats in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region in the context of the role and work of MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) in responding to them.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Israel: <i>Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom</i> , by Maya Wind (book review)

  The Middle East Journal · 2024-09-15

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Contesting the classroom: Reimagining education in Moroccan and Algerian literatures <b>Contesting the classroom: Reimagining education in Moroccan and Algerian literatures</b> , by Erin Twohig, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2019, x + 190 pp., £80/$143 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-78962-021-4

  The Journal of North African Studies · 2023-04-05

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Politics of Immigration Beyond Liberal States: Morocco and Tunisia in Comparative Perspective. By Katharina Natter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 280p. $99.99 cloth.

  Perspectives on Politics · 2023-09-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The Politics of Immigration Beyond Liberal States: Morocco and Tunisia in Comparative Perspective. By Katharina Natter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 280p. $99.99 cloth. - Volume 21 Issue 3

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Educating Egypt: Civic Values and Ideological Struggles <i>by Linda Herrera</i>

  Political Science Quarterly · 2023-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Egypt’s perennially under-resourced educational sector embodies many of the complex challenges facing education policymakers and practitioners. Linda Herrera’s book, based on fieldwork spanning more than three decades, engages some of the most difficult issues facing Egyptian students, parents, teachers, and state officials as this critical sector struggles under the accumulated weight of failed policies promoted by both Egyptian officials and international development “experts.” Herrera’s book brings together work from a number of previously published articles and chapters. The first half of the book is based on ethnographic research she conducted in 1990-91 for her master’s thesis. Drawing on her research at a public middle school for girls in downtown Cairo, she recounts in alternatingly humorous, angering, and heart-breaking detail the stories of a former villa, clearly past its prime, converted into a school; of teachers—the young, the enthusiastic, the seasoned, the jaded, the cruel, and the corrupt; and of a principal, a determined woman, on a mission of reform. Also central to the story, of course, are the students, the young women whom the system seeks to mold into the kind of future wives and mothers the Egyptian state and society expect. They come from different socioeconomic classes, with varying levels of prior academic preparation and interest; and, sadly, despite some teachers’ and the principal’s best efforts, by the end of Herrera’s research stint, 70% of them fail their end-of-year exams.

  PublisherDOI

• Developing ecological endpoints for valuation of semi-arid riparian ecosystem services

  Figshare · 2022-01-01

  datasetOpen access

  Creating measurable ecological accounting units has become a point of emphasis in valuing ecosystem services. Understanding which ecological endpoints, which emanate from biophysical production functions, are important to individuals could help to create measurable ecological accounting units. Using two semi-arid riparian ecosystems we create a suite of ecological endpoints and using benefits transfer techniques compare their ability to be transferred to similar riparian ecosystems. If clearly defined, ecological accounting units can be developed for ecosystem services. This could lead to ecosystem services being properly incorporated into benefit cost analyses that maximize economic product of both market and non-market goods and services.

  PublisherDOI

• Developing ecological endpoints for valuation of semi-arid riparian ecosystem services

  Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · 2022-06-21

  articleOpen access

  Creating measurable ecological accounting units has become a point of emphasis in valuing ecosystem services. Understanding which ecological endpoints, which emanate from biophysical production functions, are important to individuals could help to create measurable ecological accounting units. Using two semi-arid riparian ecosystems we create a suite of ecological endpoints and using benefits transfer techniques compare their ability to be transferred to similar riparian ecosystems. If clearly defined, ecological accounting units can be developed for ecosystem services. This could lead to ecosystem services being properly incorporated into benefit cost analyses that maximize economic product of both market and non-market goods and services.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Migration and Displacement

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract This chapter shows why the large-scale movement of human populations in the MENA has manifest importance to states and societies across the region. Whether driven by economic concerns, violence, or some combination of the two, the migration of peoples—which, in its most tragic form, produces refugee crises—has become an indelible part of the regional landscape. The chapter traces the history of such migration prior to the Arab uprisings and locates the applicability of outside literatures to help understand the experiences of migrants and refugees. Research on the relationship between conflict and migration, labor migration, state-level governance of migration, global governance and international institutions, and the nexus between diasporas and states all receive close attention. The ethics of studying displaced communities also invokes discussion. Key debates, notable cases, and avenues for future research are hence mapped out in systematic detail.

  PublisherDOI

• Police, Protests, and State Power: Confronting Order and Disorder in Jordan (review article)

  The Middle East Journal · 2022-12-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Protesting Jordan: Geographies of Power and Dissent , by Jillian Schwedler. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022. 372 pages. $90 cloth, $30 paper, e-book. Creating Consent in an Illiberal Order: Policing Disputes in Jordan , by Jessica Watkins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 230 pages. $99.99 cloth, $80 e-book.

  PublisherDOI

• 3 Education and Human Security: Centering the Politics of Human Dignity

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John Y. Takekawa

  16 shared

• Craig D. Broadbent

  Brigham Young University - Idaho

  15 shared

• David C. Goodrich

  Southwest Watershed Research Center

  13 shared

• David S. Brookshire

  University of New Mexico

  10 shared

• Nicole D. Athearn

  National Park Service

  10 shared

• Mark D. Dixon

  University of South Dakota

  9 shared

• Lacy M. Smith

  United States Geological Survey

  8 shared

• Joel M. Shinn

  United States Geological Survey

  8 shared

Awards & honors

• Book Award: Official Stories was named a Choice 2016 Outstan…
• Rockefeller Fellowship Recipient, Bellagio Center Writing Re…
• Carnegie Corporation Scholar, 05/2008 – 12/2011
• Winner of the Concours National of the Alliance Francaise of…
• Fulbright Award, Regional Research Award for Morocco, Tunisi…