Mona Harb
Mona Harb is Professor of Urban Studies and Politics at the American University of Beirut, where she also co-leads the inclusive urban governance platform of the Beirut Urban Lab. She received her PhD in Political Science in 2005 from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques at Aix-Marseille (France). She is the author of Le Hezbollah à Beyrouth (1985-2005): de la banlieue à la ville (Karthala-IFPO, 2010), co-author of Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shi'ite South Beirut (Princeton University Press, 2013, with Lara Deeb,), co-editor of Local Governments and Public Goods: Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World (Beirut: LCPS, 2015, with Sami Atallah), and of numerous journal articles, book chapters, and other publications. Her ongoing research investigates local governance and displacement, as well as urban activism and oppositional politics. Harb is the recipient of grants from IDRC, Ford Foundation, LSE-Emirates Fund, EU-FP7, Wenner-Gren, ACLS, and the Middle-East Awards. She serves on the editorial boards of IJMES, Environment and Planning C, IJURR and CSSAME, and is a trustee of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences. She is the founder and co-editor of the Cities Page on Jadaliyya e-zine. She served as the coordinator of the AUB graduate programs in Urban Planning, Policy and Design, as Associate Dean of her faculty, and as the chairperson of the department of Architecture and Design. She provides professional advice on urban development issues for several international organizations (ESCWA, WB, EU, UNDP).
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Books by Mona Harb
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.
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.
Editorial Work by Mona Harb
Research Grants by Mona Harb
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?
Papers by Mona Harb
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.
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.
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?
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."