Carmen Geha
Room:
Office Hours
Tel: 009613513907
Email: cg466
st-andrews.ac.uk
Biography
Carmen is a PhD Candidate at the School of International Relations, at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She studies democratization in consociational systems by focusing on the dynamics and analyses of recent political, social and security sector reforms, with Lebanon as a case study. She is an Instructor of Public Administration, and Civic Engagement, at the American University of Beirut. She is also a Visiting Lecturer at Haigazian University teaching a course on Active Citizenship.
Carmen is a Founding Member and Partner at Beyond Reform & Development/ Irada Platform for Political Entrepreneurs, a social business working on public administration, political, and development consulting across the Arab Region.
Beyond Reform & Development specializes in innovating policy, facilitating reform, developing institutions, building capacity and designing learning. BRD has served public institutions across the Arab World with a focus on management and evidence-based policy-making. Carmen works on a number of programs including decentralization and local economic development, youth and women empowerment, ICT strategy, and civil society development in the region (www.beyondrd.com).
Irada Platform for Political Entrepreneurs offers personal development, image shaping, policy innovation, and campaign management for outstanding individuals seeking to join the public sphere. With her background in policy and campaigning, Carmen assists individuals and groups by contributing to platform development and communication strategies (www.irada.net).
Carmen is a civil society activist with in-depth experience in campaigning, communications, planning and executing civic programs across Lebanon. During Lebanon’s 18 month deadlock in 2008, she was a founding member of anti-war civic campaigns at a grassroots level, involving at a coalition of over 50 local organizations (www.khalass.net).
In early 2009, Carmen joined the Lebanese Ministry of Interior and Municipalities as a member of the legal task force on Administrative Decentralization. She is a founding member of the Lebanese Access to Information Network, where she assisted in preparing a draft Freedom of Information Law (www.a2ilebanon.org). In Spring 2009, Carmen was the Deputy General Coordinator of the 2009 Parliamentary Elections Monitoring Operation in the Lebanese Association for democratic Elections.
Between 2008 and 2010, Carmen served on the Executive Board of Nahwa el Muwatiniya (www.na-am.org), a Lebanese NGO working to promote informed citizen engagement in public life and accountable public sector performance. She was involved in founding the first Parliamentary Monitor in the Arab World (www.lpmonitor.org)
Carmen has been a visitor and spokesperson at several national, regional and international conferences including the Mediterranean Research Meeting in Florence, Global Forum for Media Development in Athens, the Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Euro-Med Education Initiative in Copenhagen, and the Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Forum in Morocco.
Carmen is a Public Administration MA graduate from the American University of Beirut, with a specialization in Public Sector Human Resource Management (HRM). She has a Public Policy emphasis from Georgetown University, Washington DC. Her MA thesis compared citizen access to government information in Sweden, South Africa, and the United States (http://right2info.org/resources/publications/CARMEN%20THESIS.pdf).
Thesis Title
State Reform and Public Policy-Making: Cases from Lebanon
Supervisor
Dr. Frederic Volpi and Dr. Michelle Burgis
Research Interests
Democratization, Security Studies, Public Policy, Civil Society, and Middle East Politics
Publications
Co-author of book underway:
“Civil Society in Lebanon: Moving Beyond the Democratic Paradox”
