Deborah Harrold

Headshot of Deborah Harrold

Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Liberal and Professional Studies

Deborah Harrold is a scholar of Comparative Politics with a specialization in the Middle East and North Africa.  She has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.  Her field research in Algeria focused on circulating discourses of modernity and progress, across economic issues, understandings of religion, debates over the proper form of government, and in the areas of gender and women’s rights.  Her teaching and research interests include religion and politics, shifting development strategies, popular culture and media in the Middle East and North Africa, and debates over gender and sexuality issues.  Her work is concerned with relationships between history, economics, local cultures, and discourses of modernity.  She has published on the culture of the informal economy in Algeria and the state’s relationship with economic liberalization and business groups, and the impact of the Arab uprisings on women’s political space.  Her current research focuses on historicity and visual presentation of contemporary jihad movements.  

CV (file)