Beirut Economics Research Seminar Series-Dr. Adeel Malik
AKSOB 16th floor, Conference Room 1617, LAU Beirut campus
The LAU Department of Economics and the AUB Department of Economics co-organize the Beirut Economics Research Seminar Series. The aim is to bring together Lebanon’s economics research community—including economics faculty members, researchers, students and professionals.The sessions feature discussions that enable participants to exchange ideas directly and critically with speakers on frontier economics research topics. They are held every two weeks during the fall and spring semesters, alternating between the LAU and AUB campuses. Attendance is open to all.
The Beirut Economics Research Seminar Series is generously funded by the AKSOB Dean’s Office at LAU and the FAS Dean’s Office at AUB.
For more information, please contact Dr. Jamal Haidar at LAU.
Title: Frontier Rule and Conflict
Speaker: Dr. Adeel Malik
Affiliation: University of Oxford
Time: 12:30 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
Location: AKSOB 16th floor, Conference Room 1617, LAU Beirut campus
Online via Webex
About the talk:
Abstract:
Colonial powers often governed the frontier regions of their colonies differently from non-frontier regions, employing a system of “frontier rule” that restricted access to formal institutions of conflict management and disproportionately empowered local elites. We examine whether frontier rule provides a more fragile basis for maintaining social order in the face of shocks. Using the arbitrarily defined historical border between frontier and non-frontier regions in northwestern Pakistan and 10 km-by-10 km grid-level conflict data in a spatial regression discontinuity design, we find that areas historically under frontier rule experienced significantly more violence directed against the state after 9/11. We argue that 9/11 represented a shock to grievances against the state, which, in the absence of formal avenues of conflict management, escalated into sovereignty-contesting violence. A key strategy employed by insurgents in this escalation was the systematic assassination of tribal elites, which undermined the cornerstone of frontier rule’s social order.
About the speaker:
Biography: Dr. Adeel Malik is an associate professor of development economics at Oxford University’s Department of International Development and a Globe Fellow in the Economies of Muslim Societies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Dr. Malik is a senior associate of the Cairo-based Economic Research Forum, a senior fellow of the Policy Initiative in Beirut, and a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP), Lahore. He received his doctorate in economics from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. His research focuses on the political economy of development, with a regional emphasis on the Middle East and Pakistan. Dr. Malik combines rigorous empirical methods with hand-collected data on firms, political families and religious institutions. He is the co-editor, along with Ishac Diwan, of Crony Capitalism in the Middle East: Business and Politics from Liberalization to the Arab Spring, published by Oxford University Press in 2019.