I began field research in the summer of 2004 and completed my last interview in June of 2012. Over the course of those eight years, many people made this project possible. Linda and Hatim Hajj, aka Mama and Baba, provided me with enormous support. Baba was my research aide and transcriber on many trips. His intimate knowledge of camp life and his technical background helped me orient my research. Mama sent encouraging emails and kept me going when things got tough. Patrick, my husband, anchored me during the endeavor and kept the home fires burning while I spent time away. Leila, my daughter, provided the best distraction from writing and the most potent motivation for finishing the project. Elaine and Ray encouraged me to finish writing even when it got hard. The entire Hajj family in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria kept me fed, hydrated, laughing, and safe during my research. I am lucky to have so many cousins. Thank you.
Many colleagues helped improve the manuscript. At Emory University, Rick Doner, Thomas Remington, Carrie Wickham, and Tracy Yandle provided good ideas during the earliest inception of the research. The Political Science Department at Emory provided helpful research funding in 2004, 2005, and 2007. I am also thankful for the generous research support that Wellesley College offered me as a new faculty member. This support made it possible for me to complete the last iteration of interviews in 2012. In addition, the Northeast Middle East Political Science Working Group meetings in 2012, 2013, and 2014 were the best. I found my tribe of scholars that shared my passion for everything to do with the Middle East and political science. The whole crew of senior and junior scholars provided critical and helpful feedback that made a real difference in how I thought about my research. The careful reviews I received from Melani Cammett, Amaney Jamal, Marc Lynch, Jeannie Sowers, and many others at the Project on Middle East Political Science Junior Scholars Conference in 2014 propelled this research to a much better place. The
Journal of Comparative Politics generously permitted me to reprint a portion of a previously published article: “Institutional Formation in Transitional Settings.” The anonymous reviewers and my editor, Anne Routon, helped polish the manuscript and make it a book. Thank you.
Finally, I am thankful to the hundreds of Palestinians that shared their stories with me. I am honored. You deserve a voice and I hope I did it justice. Of course, those who helped me shoulder no blame for any errors, omissions, interpretations, or conclusions in this book. I take responsibility for those.
Nadya Hajj