While the protest slogans of the Arab Spring were largely framed around issues of economic inequality, dignity, and political inclusiveness, Islam’s role in democratic, public life has emerged as a central issue in post-revolutionary debates. In my dissertation I examine the historical evolution of a discourse of a nationalized Tunisian Islam, utilized by both those in power and the opposition, and its impact on Tunisian national identity from independence to the present. I focus on central question of how Islam is constitutive of Tunisian national identity in the post-revolutionary state (2011-2014) and how the process of democratization has affected this relationship.  I argue that instead of the prevailing interpretation of the events described above as a struggle between secular and religious actors over the role of Islam in the public sphere, we should view contemporary Tunisian politics, in Bourdieusian terms, as a continuing struggle for control of the religious field in which there is broad political and societal agreement that the state is, in the words of Article 6 of the Constitution, “the guardian of religion” and should have an active religious role.  In analyzing how Tunisian Islam is constitutive of national identity, I examine the role of religion in the constitutional drafting process, electoral campaigns, historical commemorations, and contemporary cultural production

• "Islam and Islamists in the 2014 Tunisian Elections" in Rethinking Nation and Nationalism, Project on Middle East Political Science, George Washington University.
  

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State Formation in Yemen: Unification & Secession

The 20th century has arguably been one of state building, with the number of independent states nearly tripling by its close. Yemen, along with Germany, is one of the only examples of the unification of existing states.  In 1990, the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the southern People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) unified, or as described by many Yemeni sources reunified, to form the present Republic of Yemen. This project utilizes Yemen as a means to understand the role of national identity, particularly through the construction of national narratives, in two opposing state formation processes: unification and secession. In the first part of the project focusing on unification, I examine narratives produced by Yemeni state ministries and officials in state-issued textbooks and presidential speeches as discursive spaces used to explain Yemen’s history and the reasons for the 1990 unification. In the second part of the project focusing on secession, I examine counter-narratives offered Southern Secessionist Movement, which seeks to reestablish an independent South Yemeni state, and the ways in which it constructs a separate “Southern” identity, distinct from the “unified” Yemeni identity discussed in the first part of the project.

• "Writing the Past: An examination of history and national narratives in the Republic of Yemen’s textbooks.” International Journal for Education Law and Policy. 2010.
  

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