Fatimah Saadi is a researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Fatimah’s research interests are gender and politics, feminist institutionalism, gendered political violence, political behavior, sectarianism, and identity-based power-sharing systems. Her doctoral dissertation employs a mixed-methods methodology to analyze how sectarian power-sharing systems generate gendered exclusion across three distinct phases of the representative process: candidate selection, campaign violence, and voter evaluation. This research demonstrates how gendered-sectarian logics of appropriateness, homosocial networks, sectarian gatekeeping, and informal enforcement practices restrict women’s attainment of political office while simultaneously reinforcing broader hierarchies of legitimacy, loyalty, and representation.

Furthermore, Fatimah Saadi has participated in research projects focusing on protest, civic engagement, civil society, and contestation within the Arab world in general, and under identity-based power-sharing systems in particular. Her work explores institutions, inequalities, collective actions, and political behavior in contexts characterized by authoritarianism and economic downturns.

Read more from Fatimah Saadi:

Saadi, F. (2025). Navigating Gender and Sectarian Affiliation: An Analysis of Young Voters’ Bias Against Female Politicians in Lebanon. Political Studies Review, 23(1), 333-351.

Rodríguez-Menés, J., Palomo, C., Saadi, F. (2026). Show me respect! Age differences and women’s risks of revictimization from