RGP Cycle Three Grantees and Projects

Charles Harb: Understanding Support for an Islamic Caliphate & Rule: The Role of Inequality, Mobility and Socio-Historical Contexts in Lebanon

The recent expansions of the Islamic State in the Levant have galvanized a global response against it, but also revived historical notions of a Muslim Caliphate that may appeal to large segments of local populations, particularly in the context of political vacuums and fragmentations. Research on Islamic based governance in the Arab world suffers from key limitations, including tending to focus on militant Islamist groups engaged in anti-western attacks and utilizing top down, rather than locally informed understandings of Islamic rule. Both factors tend to obscure the ideological diversity within Islamic rule models and to treat them as a monolithic entity. Accordingly, this project seeks to a) identify what sharia rule/Islamic Caliphate mean to various groups of Muslim Lebanese Sunnis using a bottom up approach b) map different conceptualizations of sharia rule/Islamic caliphate onto support for different political Islamic groups/parties, and c) identify socio-psychological variables predicting this support. We propose that perceptions of economic, political, and social inequality, coupled with limited potential for social and geographical mobility may contribute to support for Islamic rule.
We propose to investigate these questions in samples of Sunni Muslims from three different Lebanese locations (Beirut, Tripoli and Akkar) because they represent a mix of rural and urban settings, and have varying degrees of economic and social capital. We propose a multi-method multi-stage research approach with a first phase that utilizes qualitative data (interviews and focus group discussions), and a second stage utilizing quantitative survey data (N =1200).

Charles Harb is an associate professor of social psychology and chairperson of the department of psychology at the American University of Beirut (AUB). His research interest are in group dynamics, conflict, prejudice and sectarianism, with a special focus on the Arab region. He has conducted large-scale multi method studies assessing relations between Lebanese nationals and Palestinian refugees after the Nahr-el-Bared crisis and Lebanese and Syrian refugees post Arab uprisings. He served for two terms on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology as regional representative of the Arab region, and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the AUB.