Research Fellow @MiddleEast_HKS | PhD from @MITPoliSci | @Wellesley alumna | Former @brookingsFP
Aug 29, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I’m frequently asked what Muqtada Al-Sadr’s aspirations are as a “religious” leader in Iraq. Today, his statement hinted at the tensions surrounding his lack of religious credentials & his position as an inheritor of the Sadr family legacy.
His tweet announcing his withdrawal from politics came as a response to a statement from Grand Ayatollah Kathem Al-Haeri, a cleric whose followers include a large number of Sadrists & the academic successor to Muqtada’s father & was a student to his uncle, Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr.
Oct 11, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Some clarification on counting voter turnout: IHEC uses voters/registered voters as it has done in previous elections in the absence of a meaningful census in Iraq that would allow us to measure voters/eligible voters. This is consistent with previous elections.
The big commotion previously about this was because they wanted to measure it as TURNOUT =voters/those who picked up biometric cards (عدد مستلمين بطاقة الناخب) whereas now it is the more common عدد”المسجلين في سجل الناخبين”
Jun 24, 2020 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
As promised, a piece summarizing some aspects of my dissertation research kindly published by @IraqiThoughts ... with a thread below on some additional details, elaborating and grounding the piece: 1001iraqithoughts.com/2020/06/24/the…
Where is my data from? I rely on interviews ( & “non-participant” obs.) with clerics (in Kerbala, Najaf, & Baghdad), protestors & opposition actors. I also rely on biographical dictionaries, the Ba’ath party archives, some Najaf archives, @ArabBarometer & event data (@Benrobinz )
