Marie-Joëlle Zahar

Marie-Joëlle Zahar is associate professor of Political Science and visiting scholar at the Centre d’études pour le monde arabe moderne, Université Saint-Joseph (Beirut, Lebanon). Her research interests include conflict resolution, civil wars, peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction. She is a specialist of militia politics and war economies. She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Liban: les défis de la paix (forthcoming in a collection edited by the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales, Sciences-po, Paris at the Éditions Autrement) which focuses on the impact of foreign intervention on peace building and post-conflict reconstruction in Lebanon following the signing of the Ta’if peace accords.

A graduate of McGill University, her dissertation “Fanatics, Mercenaries, Brigands and Politicians: Militia Decision-making and Conflict Resolution” won the “Prix d’excellence” of the Académie des Grands Montréalais. She was a research fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and cooperation and a SSHRC post-doctoral fellow at the Munk Centre for International Studies (University of Toronto). She has published articles in academic journals such as Critique internationale, International Peacekeeping and The International Journal as well as several chapters in edited volumes on conflict resolution and peace implementation. A former consultant for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and adjunct faculty member at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, she is currently a member of the executive committee of the Canadian Consortium on Human Security.