Tarek Masoud

About

Tarek Masoud is the Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Governance at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research focuses on governance and development in Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority countries. He is the co-Editor of the Journal of Democracy of the National Endowment for Democracy and serves as the Faculty Director of the Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative and the Initiative on Democracy in Hard Places. His scholarly work includes authoring the book 'Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt' and co-authoring 'The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform.' Masoud holds an AB from Brown University and a Ph.D. from Yale University, both in political science. He teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics and leadership and is actively involved in sponsored research projects related to Egypt and Middle Eastern governance.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Political economy
• Economics
• Philosophy
• Geography
• Anthropology
• Development economics

Selected publications

• The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform

  2015-02-19 · 157 citations

  book

  Introduction: The Third Arab Spring 1. Theorizing the Arab Spring 2. Lineages of Repression 3. Breakdowns and Crackdowns 5. Why Breakdowns Did Not Always Produce Transitions 6. Limits and Legacies of the Arab Spring

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• Using the Qur’ān to Empower Arab Women? Theory and Experimental Evidence From Egypt

  Comparative Political Studies · 2016-03-30 · 79 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A growing body of scholarship on the political and economic subordination of women in the Muslim world has argued that widespread patriarchal attitudes toward women’s roles in public life can be ameliorated by offering progressive reinterpretations of Islamic scriptures. In this article, we explore this hypothesis with a large-scale survey experiment conducted among adult Egyptians in late 2013. In the study, a subset of respondents were exposed to an argument in favor of women’s political equal…

  PublisherDOI

• Poverty and Divine Rewards: The Electoral Advantage of Islamist Political Parties

  American Journal of Political Science · 2019-07-08 · 37 citations

  article

  Abstract Political life in many Muslim‐majority countries has been marked by the electoral dominance of Islamist parties. Recent attempts to explain why have highlighted their material and organizational factors, such as the provision of social services. In this article, we revive an older literature that emphasizes the appeal of these parties’ religious nature to voters experiencing economic hardship. Individuals suffering economic strain may vote for Islamists because they believe this to be a…

  PublisherDOI

• Arab Responses to Western Hegemony

  Journal of Conflict Resolution · 2016-07-21 · 13 citations

  articleCorresponding

  Scholars have long held that Islamism—defined as a political ideology that demands the application of Islamic holy law and the deepening of religious identity—is in part a response to Western domination of Muslim lands. Drawing on the literatures on nationalism and international relations theory, we argue that Islamism is one of a menu of options that Muslims may adopt in response to Western hegemony—a menu that includes Arab nationalism and pro-Western accommodation. We hypothesize that a Musli…

  PublisherDOI

• Religions and Social Progress: Critical Assessments and Creative Partnerships

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2018-07-05 · 12 citations

  book-chapter

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Frequent coauthors

• Kathleen Thelen

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  64 shared

• Sheri Berman

  64 shared

• Kathleen Thelen Is Ford

  University of Iowa

  64 shared

• Sara McLaughlin Mitchell

  University of Iowa

  64 shared

• Luis Ricardo Fraga

  64 shared

• Christopher Gelpi

  The Ohio State University

  64 shared

• Jason Brownlee

  The University of Texas at Austin

  13 shared

• Elizabeth R. Nugent

  12 shared

Awards & honors

• 2009 Carnegie Scholar

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