As changes in climate intensify the challenges of water scarcity throughout the world, researchers must begin to examine the role that resource management strategies play in determining communities' access to water. This portion of my dissertation examines how decentralization strategies interact with local social structures to shape public goods provision. I study the introduction of Water User Associations (WUAs), local institutions designed to give farmers greater control over irrigation water management, in the Jordan Valley. Using satellite-derived measures of agricultural productivity, I evaluate the extent to which these reforms improved water access and farm-level outcomes. I combine this data with a novel dataset on kinship relations to show that while WUAs were somewhat effective, their impacts were highly uneven across communities.

This project examines how identity shapes electoral outcomes in Jordan, focusing on how voters use surnames as heuristics to evaluate candidates. Rather than treating identity as a single category, I conceptualize it as a set of nested relationships, using both granular and broader conceptualizations of kinship relations.