About Me

Carolyn Barnett is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the School of Government and Public Policy and School of Global Studies at the University of Arizona, and a non-resident fellow of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. She earned her Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. She also holds an M.A. in Islamic Studies and M.Sc. in Middle East Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, studied in the Center for Arabic Study Abroad program at the American University in Cairo, and earned a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University in Culture and Politics.

Carolyn’s research focuses on public opinion, social norms, and political behavior in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly on gender-related issues. Her book project explores why people underestimate public support for gender equality across a range of issues and what the consequences of that pessimism are. The dissertation on which the book builds, Perceived Norms and the Politics of Women’s Rights in Morocco, was awarded Best Dissertation by the APSA MENA Politics Section in 2023 and an Honorable Mention for Best Fieldwork by the APSA Democracy & Autocracy Section in 2022. Carolyn’s work combines qualitative and quantitative methods, including elite interviewing, focus groups, and survey and field experiments. She has published in The Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Research & Methods, Politics & Gender, PS: Political Science and Politics, Democratization, and Hawwa. She is a two-time Fulbright grantee (to Egypt in 2009 and Morocco in 2018), a Marshall Scholar (2010), and before earning her Ph.D. was a research fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.