Steven Heydemann

Steven Heydemann serves as vice president of the Grants and Fellowships program and as special adviser to the Muslim World Initiative.

His research and teaching have focused on the comparative politics and the political economy of the Middle East. His interests include authoritarian governance, economic development, social policy, political and economic reform and civil society. Heydemann has also researched the relationship between institutions and economic development and philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

From 2003 to 2007, Heydemann directed the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University. From 2001 to 2003, he was director of the Social Science Research Council’s Program on Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector, with additional responsibility for development of new programs. Prior to that, he was a program director at the SSRC, where he ran the Council’s Program on International Peace and Security and its Program on the Near and Middle East (1990-1997). From 1997 to 2001, he was an associate professor in the department of political science at Columbia University.

Heydemann has held visiting faculty positions at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence (2001) and as a senior fellow at the Yale University Center for International Studies (1997). He has served on the board of directors of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America and is currently a member of MESA’s Committee on Public Affairs.

Publications:

• Globalization, Philanthropy, and Civil Society: Projecting Institutional Logics Abroad, co-edited with David C. Hammack (Indiana University Press, 2009).
• "Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics," Studies in Comparative International Development, (March 2008).
• "Social Pacts and the Persistence of Authoritarianism in the Middle East," in Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Non-Democratic Regimes. Ed. Oliver Schlumberger (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp 21-38.
• "The Challenge of Political Islam: Understanding the US Debate," The Challenge of Islamists for EU and US Policies: Conflict, Stability and Reform." (SWP and USIP, November 2007).
• "Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Arab World," (Saban Center, Brookings Institution, October 2007).
• The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations: United States And European Perspectives, co-edited volume (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2006).
• Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited, edited volume (Palgrave Press 2004).
• War, Institutions and Social Change in the Middle East, edited volume (University of California Press, 2000).
• Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946-1970, (Cornell University Press, 1999).
• "In the Shadow of Democracy," Middle East Journal, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Winter 2006).
• "La question de la democratie dans les travaux sur le monde arabe," (Critique Internationale, October 2002).
• "Middle East Studies After 9/11: Defending the Discipline," (Journal of Democracy, July 2002).
• Unlocking the Employment Potential in the Middle East and North Africa: Toward a New Social Contract, (contributing author, World Bank, 2003).
• "Lebanon After Elections: The End of the Beginning." al-Majalla, July 2009 (cover essay in Arabic and English-language editions).
• "The Return of Local Politics in Lebanon?" al-Majalla, June 7, 2009 (cover essay in Arabic and English-language editions).