Publications

Books

Civilizing Contention: International Aid in Syria’s War. 2025. Cornell University Press. Link (use discount code 09BCARD).

Read summary and praise, here: https://ranakhoury.com/book

As Ohio Goes: Life in the Post-Recession Nation. 2016. Kent State University Press. Link.

Read summary and praise, here: https://ranakhoury.com/as-ohio-goes

Journal Publications

Khoury, Rana B., and Alexandra A. Siegel. 2026. “Civil Organizing in War: Evidence from Syrian Facebook Communities.” Perspectives on Politics 24(2): 509–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592724001907

Abstract: Where, when, and why do civilians organize during war? We propose a research agenda that expands the scope of variation in civil organizing and identify mechanisms to explain its emergence and evolution. Drawing on a large-scale original dataset of public Facebook posts produced by Syrian organizations from 2011 to 2020 and qualitative case studies based on 10 months of field research among Syrian activists in Turkey and Jordan, we systematically examine geographic, temporal, and substantive variation in civil organizing. We find that civil organizing can persist in the face of ongoing violence and displacement, focusing not only on concerns of protection and survival, but also on governance and even contentious politics. This organizing increasingly shifts from within Syria to border states, with translocal organizations—operating both inside and outside Syria—playing a particularly active role. This work contributes to literature on conflict processes and contentious politics by emphasizing the importance of organizations, centering refugees and civilians as agential and strategic actors, and using novel evidence to describe variation in wartime organizing over time and space.

Khoury, Rana B., and Wendy Pearlman. 2025. “Why Syria’s Civil Society Is the Key.” Journal of Democracy 36 (2): 59–67. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/954563

Abstract: Syria's best asset for an inclusive, transparent, and participatory political transition is its civil society. During years of uprising and war, citizens built diverse initiatives to achieve political change, raise awareness, pursue justice, and provide humanitarian relief. Today, organizations inside and outside the country have the capacity, experience, and will to push for democracy. They are already doing so by mobilizing pressure to demand accountability; cultivating democratic citizenship; channeling expertise to resolve key state challenges; and helping to alleviate the population's dire material needs. International parties must follow the lead of the Syrian grassroots and support their priorities and work.

 Khoury, Rana B. and Emily K.M. Scott. 2024. “Going Local without Localization: Power and Humanitarian Response in the Syrian War.” World Development 174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106460

Abstract: International aid organizations and donors have committed to localize aid by empowering local actors to deliver and lead in humanitarian response. While international actors do often rely on local actors for aid delivery, their progress on shifting authority falls short. Scholars suggest that while localizing aid may be desirable, the organizational imperatives of international actors and aid’s colonial past and present make it difficult at best. Can localization efforts produce locally led humanitarian response? Adopting a power framework, we argue that localization reinforces and reproduces international power; through institutional processes, localization efforts by international actors allocate capacity to, and constitute local actors as, humanitarians that are more or less capable, funded, and involved in responding to crises in the latter’s own countries. This article interprets aid efforts during the Syria War. In this crucial case, we might expect localization to be “easy” due to the dependence of international actors on local actors because of security concerns and constraints on international access. We draw on fine-grained qualitative data collected through immersive observation and 250 interviews with Syrian and international aid workers in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, as well as descriptive analysis of quantitative data. We reveal the ways Syrians were constituted as frontline responders, recipients of funds or trainings, risk-takers, gateways to access, and tokenistic representatives of the crisis. Our research shows that while the response seemed to “go local” by relying on the labor and risk-taking of Syrians to implement relief, it did not transfer authority to Syrian actors. Findings contribute to current debates in global development and humanitarian scholarship about who holds power within the global aid architecture.

Khoury, Rana B. 2020. “Hard-to-Survey Populations and Respondent-Driven Sampling: Expanding the Political Science Toolbox.” Perspectives on Politics 18(2): 509-526. https://doi:10.1017/S1537592719003864‍ ‍

Abstract: Survey research can generate knowledge that is central to the study of collective action, public opinion, and political participation. Unfortunately, many populations—from undocumented migrants to right-wing activists and oligarchs—are hidden, lack sampling frames, or are otherwise hard to survey. An approach to hard-to-survey populations commonly taken by researchers in other disciplines is largely missing from the toolbox of political science methods: respondent-driven sampling (RDS). By leveraging relations of trust, RDS accesses hard-to-survey populations; it also promotes representativeness, systematizes data collection, and, notably, supports population inference. In approximating probability sampling, RDS makes strong assumptions. Yet if strengthened by an integrative multimethod research design, it can shed light on otherwise concealed—and critical—political preferences and behaviors among many populations of interest. Through describing one of the first applications of RDS in political science, this article provides empirically grounded guidance via a study of activist refugees from Syria. Refugees are prototypical hard-to-survey populations, and mobilized ones are even more so; yet the study demonstrates that RDS can provide a systematic and representative account of a vulnerable population engaged in major political phenomena.

Khoury, Rana B. 2017. “Aiding Activism? Humanitarianism’s Impact on Mobilized Syrian Refugees in Jordan.” Middle East Law and Governance 9(3): 267-281. https://doi.org/10.1163/18763375-00903001

Abstract: A common narrative of the Syrian conflict suggests that it began with a grassroots uprising and devolved into a violent war between armed actors, leaving civilians to become victims or warriors. A more careful consideration of developments in and around Syria uncovers evidence of continued unarmed mobilization among civilians. Indeed, refugees in neighboring countries like Jordan are deeply engaged in humanitarian, developmental, and political endeavors. In this study, qualitative research and a unique survey together demonstrate that Syrians in Jordan have engaged in abundant activism on behalf of the Syrian cause. Still, the overwhelming militarism and humanitarianism that have characterized the Syrian crisis have had their impacts: activist organization is constricted and configured by security imperatives and, paradoxically, by the aid regime assisting civilians in the conflict. In turn, activism has evolved from grassroots mobilization to a formal and aid-based response to a humanitarian crisis.

Khoury, Rana B. 2015. “Sweet Tea and Cigarettes: A Taste of Refugee Life in Jordan.” Forced Migration Review 49: 93-94. https://www.fmreview.org/khoury/

Notes from the field: Much of the media reporting on Syrian refugees highlights their humanitarian struggles, or else their admirable resilience. Both approaches are understandable and realistic, but what is missing from these two perspectives is the mundane. Boredom is the passage of days with little to do but dream of the past and fear for the future…

Chapters in Edited Volumes

“Sampling Hard-to-Reach Populations.” 2024. Doing Good Qualitative Research edited by Jennifer Cyr and Sarah Wallace Goodman. Oxford University Press.

“Migration and Displacement in the Middle East,” with Rawan Arar, Laurie Brand, Noora Lori, Lama Mourad, and Wendy Pearlman. 2022. The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research,edited by Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, and Sean Yom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Book Reviews

2026. “Searching for Solidarity: Revolutionary Dreams and Radical Social Movements by Noor Ghazal Aswad.” H-Mideast-Politics, an H-Net Network.

“Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt by Tarek Masoud.” 2016.  Arab Studies Journal 24 (1):335-339.

“Refugees of the Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile by Diana Allan.” 2014. Journal of Refugee Studies 27(2): 305-307.

Public Writing

“The Question of Return,” in Syria after Assad, POMEPS Studies 57, December 2025. Link.

Introduction to symposium on Syria’s transition, co-edited by Rana B. Khoury and Sefa Secen, APSA-MENA Newsletter Fall 2025. Link.

“Who will heal – and rebuild – Syria?” with Alexandra A. Siegel. Good Authority. 19 December 2024. Link.

“Localisation doesn’t shift power. It deepens international dominance.” With Emily K.M. Scott. The New Humanitarian. 23 July 2024. Link.

“The U.N. says Syrians can keep getting international aid from Turkey — for now. Here’s what’s at stake.” The Washington Post—Monkey Cage. 23 July 2021. Link

“Rex Tillerson’s Magical Thinking on Syria.” Los Angeles Times, p. A13. 28 January 2017. Link

“Finding Home in War: The history—and limitations—of the international refugee regime.” Lapham’s Quarterly “Roundtable.” 25 January 2017. Link

“Trajectories of Activism among Syrian Refugees.” In Refugees and Migration Movements in the Middle East. POMEPS Studies 25. Project on Middle East Political Science. March 2017. Link

“Refugees’ Contentious Politics and the Case of Syrian Activists in Jordan.” In The Long-term Challenges of Forced Migration: Perspectives from Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. LSE Middle East Centre Collected Papers 6: pp.17-22. September 2016. Link

“Protecting Refugees Where There is No Legal Safety Net.” Buffett CenterQuarterly Newsletter 20(1), Fall 2014. Co-authored with Galya Ruffer. Link

“Obama versus Romney on the Middle East.” Al Jazeera English. Co-authored with Michael C. Hudson. 17 September 2012. Link

“What is Ohio’s Middle Class?” The Huffington Post. 15 August 2012. Link. (Additional articles on American politics written for The Huffington Post can be found here.)

“Syria at Risk? A Country Divided.” Middle East Insights, Middle East Institute, Singapore, No. 19, 30 March 2011. Link

“Why it Matters to Asia: Much at Stake in Arab Crisis.” The Straits Times, Singapore, 26 February 2011. Co-authored with Michael C. Hudson and Mary E. Stonaker.