Political Research Consultant

About LADE 

LADE is a Lebanese non-profit and non-partisan organization advocating for election integrity and fair representation as two vital pillars for a functional democracy. Since its establishment in 1996, the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) has been heavily involved in instigating electoral reform on a national level through a set of well-designed interventions amongst which election monitoring constitutes a corner-stone for a viable parliament, where it features as a necessary tool to assess the electoral framework and propose amendments when needed. The association's early efforts reached paramount in 1998 with the implementation and management of a full-fledged campaign aiming at restoring local elections across Lebanon for the first time since the breakout of the Lebanese Civil War. Consequently, LADE’s role grew further and as a leading reformist organization. LADE’s awareness extended throughout the years to cover pre-elections, e-day and post-elections activities. Moreover, the association has been able, in a short period of time, to catch up with the academic and societal debates around media ethics and gender participation and has successfully developed a multifaceted and multidisciplinary approach to citizenship and electoral reform.

Project Overview

Elections is one of the main pillars of political human rights, it is one of the main means by which citizens express freely their political decisions and hold their representatives accountable. For that reason, LADE, through the monitoring of elections, assesses the electoral process and measures the fairness, freedom, and transparency of these elections. During the 2018 electoral campaigns’ monitoring, LADE noticed that two issues, political finance and the independency of  the Electoral Supervisory Commission, played a very significant role in shaping people’s voting behavior. LADE concluded, in its final report, that equal opportunity for all candidates was absent. This absence of equality was mainly translated in discrepancies in terms of media appearances on one hand and a high expenditure ceiling, which gives “wealthy” candidates more “resources” to translate into “electoral services” for votes on the other hand. Throughout this project  LADE is planning to issue 6 barometer/index papers to measure the services being provided to citizens/voters from parties’ blocs and emerging political groups in relation with its influence on voters’ voices prior to elections throughout a period of 6 months prior to 2022 elections.  The aim from producing the papers is to provide citizens, mainly voters, with concrete examples, facts, and figures of how the level of clientelism and hate, discriminatory… speeches are increasing prior to elections which will definitely lead to a lack of expressing voter’s political decisions properly and adequately prior to elections

Call Purpose 

Production of 6 papers barometer/index papers to measure the level of clientalism of political blocs and emerging parties in Lebanon prior to elections

Main Tasks

• To identify indicators to measure clientelism. 
• To perform related desk and literature reviews about the subject
• To monitor political statements and electoral talks over media
• To take by all the necessary research methods the consultant find suitable to gather all the required information. (Interviews, online surveys  ...etc...)
• To perform background research on clientalisic approaches during elections with concrete examples and figures.
• To work with LADE’s project manager on developing the reviews, taking into consideration all the remarks and adjustments required by LADE 

Deliverables: 

As part of his/her work the successful candidate is expected to submit the following deliverables: 

• An outline of each paper (in total 6) that he/she will develop 
• A full paper ( in total 6) that includes graphs and other statistics related to clientalism

        - All papers should be written in Arabic Language.

Minimum Qualifications:

• University degree in political science, Journalism, social sciences or any related field is required
• Previous experience with NGOs and international organizations, 
• Prior experience in political reviews and analysis is an asset.
• Excellent understanding elections and power dynamics.
• Ability to analyze information, evaluate options, and to plan strategically.
• Strength in interpersonal, communication and presentation skills.
• Fluency in written and spoken Arabic