Dr. Samer N. Abboud, Assistant Professor of History and International Studies, recently received two grants to study capital flight during the Syrian conflict. Both grants will support Abboud’s travel in Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to conduct research with Syrians displaced during the conflict. This research aims to investigate the causes and long-term consequences of capital flight in the conflict and post-conflict periods.

The first grant was awarded by the Project for Middle East Political Science (POMEPS), while the second was awarded by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) under its “Political Economy of Transformation in the Arab World” research project. As a recipient of this grant, Abboud will participate with an interdisciplinary and cross-regional group of scholars working on the project’s main themes.

Abboud has also recently published two chapters in edited collections. His chapter “The Diffusion of Authoritarian Power in Syria” appears in Democratic Transition in the Middle East: Unmaking Power (Routledge) edited by Larbi Sadiki, Heiko Wimmen and Layla al-Zubaidi. He has also published (with Fred Lawson) “Antinomies of Economic Governance in Contemporary Syria” in Governance in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge) edited by Abbas Khadim.

Abboud’s “Fragmentation in the Syrian Opposition” was also recently published in the journal Orient (2012, No. 3).