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Begin New Search Political Geography North Africa Content Type Research Paper Publication Year within 5 Years

1. Labor and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Dina Bishara, Ian Hartshorn, Marc Lynch, Samar Abdelmageed, and Ashley Anderson
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Economic grievances were at the heart of the Arab uprisings which erupted a decade ago. The centrality of those grievances and the workers articulating them has led to a growing research community focused on organized labor in the Middle East and North Africa. In April 2021, Dina Bishara and Ian Hartshorn convened a virtual workshop through Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations bringing together a wide range of scholars writing in the area. POMEPS then invited those participants, as well as others who had not presented papers, to participate in a follow-on workshop to continue the discussion in September 2021. The papers in this collection are one of the fruits of this increasingly robust scholarly network.
Topic:
Economics, Politics, Labor Issues, Employment, Regulation, Arab Spring, Youth, Protests, Unions, Higher Education, COVID-19, Gulf Cooperation Council, and Activism
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Gulf Nations

2. Environmental Politics in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Jeannie Sowers, Marc Lynch, Taraf Abu Hamdan, Ekin Kurtiç, and Kali Rubaii
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
In February 2022, POMEPS convened a virtual workshop bringing together interdisciplinary contributions from anthropology, public health, political science, history, and human geography. Their geographic scope includes Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, and other Gulf countries. The papers grapple with the complexity and diversity of environmental politics and issues across the Middle East. In doing so, they contribute to important trends that have emerged in international and comparative environmental politics more broadly. Many of the papers highlight the importance of field-based research in producing insightful analyses, and all raise important and innovative questions that should inform future research in this area.
Topic:
Environment, Politics, History, Political Science, Anthropology, Public Health, and Human Geography
Political Geography:
Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, Kuwait, North Africa, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, and Gulf Nations

3. COVID-19 in the MENA: Two Years On

Author:
Marc Lynch, Vahid Abedini, Yasmina Abouzzohour, Meliha Benli Altunisik, and Mona Ali
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Early in the pandemic, POMEPS convened an online workshop with a diverse group of scholars working across the MENA region to discuss the initial impacts and to think through possible trajectories. That workshop resulted in POMEPS Studies 39, which included twenty-one essays ranging across the MENA region. Several major themes ran across those essays. We collectively expected regimes to securitize the pandemic, using the excuse of lockdowns to crack down on a protest wave that had reached multiple countries in 2019 and to further entrench authoritarian rule. We expected variation in state capacity to be a critical variable in terms of the ability of states to effectively respond to the pandemic. And several essays anticipated soft power international competition, as great powers used vaccine diplomacy to sway public attitudes their way. Two years on, how did those predictions hold up? In April 2022, POMEPS convened a follow-up workshop with some of the same scholars and a number of new contributors to assess how well those early projections panned out, and to assess the actual impacts of COVID on the region after two years. We are delighted to now publish the results of that workshop and ongoing conversations among a diverse group of scholars of the region.
Topic:
Civil Society, Health, Politics, Sectarianism, Authoritarianism, Economy, Solidarity, Soft Power, Violence, Public Health, Students, COVID-19, Securitization, Gender, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and United Arab Emirates

4. Introduction: What is New about Post-2011 MENA Diasporas?

Author:
Sarah Anne Rennick
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The phenomenon of mobilization among the diasporas emanating from the MENA region is in many ways not new. Historic diasporas communities, such as the Armenian, Palestinian, Kurdish, and Lebanese, have existed for multiple decades, and their contributions to their homelands has been both documented in the literature and promoted by policymakers and development organizations alike. This includes both the economic impact of MENA diasporas and the critical importance of financial remittances to supporting development and growth back home,1 but also various forms of political mobilization that have been undertaken by diasporic communities for the purpose of contributing to nation/state-building2 and recognition processes3 or, under certain conditions, contesting homeland regimes.4 In this vein, much of the literature has focused on more traditional forms of diaspora political mobilization,5 including lobbying and advocacy work designed to shape international public opinion and pressure foreign governments. The idea that Arab diaspora communities can be viewed not only as an economic actor but also, potentially, a political one is not in itself new. Yet, much of this literature on Arab diasporas has been focused on unidirectional flow of remittance – from those in diaspora back to the homeland. Likewise, the view of diaspora communities as either a resource to be harnessed or a threat to be contained has been largely informed by the political and geopolitical realities of host and home states.6 Our observations of diaspora political mobilization dynamics and the role that Arab diasporas can play in shaping homeland politics have been enlarged since 2011. Over the last decade, the many political, social, and economic upheavals that have transpired in the region – spanning national uprisings challenging the existing order, deepened authoritarianism and the closure of civic space, economic collapse and the undermining of collective morale, and the onset of violent intractable conflict – have produced multiple waves of migration of those seeking safe harbor abroad.7 While the image of Syrian migrants partaking in dangerous journeys to reach European shores dominates the popular narrative, the reality of this exodus from the Arab region over the last decade is much more complex.8 Indeed, what has evolved in the post-2011 period are Arab diaspora communities that have different and more diverse sociopolitical profiles from earlier epochs, with different degrees of attachment, identification to, and engagement with their homeland – both among new arrivals but also, importantly, those who have long since been in diaspora or who are second or third generation abroad. These Arab diaspora communities have also seen increased dispersal in terms of the geographic locations of resettlement, including both the enlargement and heterogenization of existing host sites but also the emergence of new destinations. Alongside these transformations in the profiles and locations of these Arab diasporas has been the emergence of new forms of political remittances, involving the transfer of political ideas, norms, and practices in multidirectional flows that challenge the state-bounded concept of transnational politics.9 These new political remittances and forms of diaspora community organization and mobilization are in many cases actively seeking to make substantive changes to homeland politics and to respond to the cascading crises at home. Yet in other cases, they are instead efforts on the parts of diaspora members to navigate the liminal and uncertain status of being caught somewhere along the spectrum of “here” and/or “there.” This collection of studies, written by Oula Kadhum, Houda Mzioudet, and Maysaa Shuja Al-Deen, seeks to investigate more closely these transformations within Arab diasporas in the post-2011, and to shed light onto what is actually “new” about them. Through three in-depth case studies looking at Iraqi, Libyan, and Yemeni communities in different locations abroad, the studies presented here assess the transformations within these diasporas in terms of profiles of members and locations of exile and how conflict dynamics at home inform not only patterns of migration but also relationships within diaspora communities themselves. The studies also expose new forms and directional flows of political remittances that are taking place, and the various factors that mediate the act of remitting politically. This includes assessing how political identity is formed/transformed through the experience of exile and observation of conflict dynamics from quite different external vantage points, as well as the impact of multiple and overlaying political opportunity structures. Finally, the studies shed light on the impact of these political remittances and offer an assessment of the opportunities and constraints that these new Iraqi, Libyan, and Yemeni diasporas face in their own efforts to contribute to rebuilding, reconstructing, and reimagining their homelands.
Topic:
Diaspora, Immigrants, Humanitarian Crisis, Identity, and Emigration
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and MENA

5. Food Security in the Middle East and North Africa -- Common Regional Challenges and National Approaches to Food Supply

Author:
Yuko Ido
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
In 2020, in the midst of a global coronavirus pandemic, food insecurity and crises became more serious worldwide. In October 2020, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its humanitarian assistance in conflict areas around the world. WFP Executive Director David Beasley said, "Food is the best vaccine." However, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Libya and other countries continue, there have been concerns of serious hunger even before the coronavirus outbreak. In addition to conflicts, the region is regarded as one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which is considered to have been one of the factors in these conflicts. This short paper intends to offer an overview of the common challenges faced in pursuing food security in the MENA region and discuss their prospects.
Topic:
Climate Change, Food Security, and Crisis Management
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

6. Digital Activism and Authoritarian Adaptation in the Middle East

Author:
Larry Diamond, Eileen Donahoe, Ahmed Shaheed, Benjamin Greenacre, James Shires, Alexei Abrahams, Joshua Tucker, Xiao Qiang, Marwa Fatafta, Andrew Leber, Alexei Abrahams, Marc Owen Jones, Afef Abroughi, Mohamed Najem, Mahsa Alimardani, Mona Elswah, Alexandra A. Siegel, H. Akin Unver, Ahmet Kurnaz, Anita Gohdes, and Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The Project on Middle East Political Science partnered with Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and its Global Digital Policy Incubator for an innovative two week online seminar to explore the issues surrounding digital activism and authoritarianism. This workshop was built upon more than a decade of our collaboration on issues related to the internet and politics in the Middle East, beginning in 2011 with a series of workshops in the “Blogs and Bullets” project supported by the United States Institute for Peace and the PeaceTech Lab. This new collaboration brought together more than a dozen scholars and practitioners with deep experience in digital policy and activism, some focused on the Middle East and others offering a global and comparative perspective. POMEPS STUDIES 43 collects essays from that workshop, shaped by two weeks of public and private discussion.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, Government, Human Rights, Science and Technology, Infrastructure, Authoritarianism, Political Activism, Democracy, Media, Inequality, Social Media, Surveillance, Borders, Digital Culture, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Middle East, and North Africa

7. Racial Formations in Africa and the Middle East: A Transregional Approach

Author:
Hisham Aïdi, Marc Lynch, Zachariah Mampilly, Diana S. Kim, Parisa Vaziri, Denis Regnier, Sean Jacobs, Wendell Marsh, Stephen J. King, Eric Hahonou, Paul A. Silverstein, Afifa Ltifi, Zeyad el Nabolsy, Bayan Abubakr, Yasmin Moll, Zachary Mondesire, Abdourahmane Seck, Amelie Le Renard, Sumayya Kassamali, Noori Lori, Nathaniel Mathews, Sabria Al-Thawr, Gokh Amin Alshaif, Deniz Duruiz, Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Efrat Yerday, Noah Salomon, and Ann McDougall
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
In February 2020, the editors of this volume organized a POMEPS workshop that explored the origins of the disciplinary divide between the study of Africa and the Middle East, examining issues that span both regions (i.e., cross-border conflict, Islamist politics, social movements and national identity, and Gulf interventionism.) In February 2021, we convened another workshop, sponsored by POMEPS and the newly-founded Program on African Social Research (PASR, pronounced Pasiri) centered on racial formations and racialization across the two regions. Both workshops centered around the need for a genuinely transregional scholarship, one which rejects artificial divisions between ostensibly autonomous regions while also taking seriously the distinctive historical trajectories and local configurations of power which define national and subregional specificities. The workshop brought together nearly two dozen scholars from across multiple disciplines to explore the historical and contemporary politics of racial formation across Africa and the Middle East.
Topic:
Islam, Race, War, Immigration, Law, Slavery, Judaism, Colonialism, Borders, Identity, and Amazigh
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, South Africa, Yemen, Palestine, North Africa, Egypt, Madagascar, Tunisia, Oman, and Gulf Nations

8. Urban Rights and Local Politics in Egypt: The Case of the Maspero Triangle

Author:
Dina Wahba
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
In my visit to Egypt in late March 2018, two things were happening simultaneously: the demolition of Maspero Triangle, the neighbourhood I have been working on for my case study, and the re-election of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi for his second term. There was a big campaign banner, one of many engulfing Cairo, with El Sisi’s face and the slogan “You are the hope”. This banner on 6th of October bridge was overlooking the neighbourhood as the bulldozers were hard at work demolishing what was for years the homes of over 4000 families spanning generations. I was in a taxi trying inconspicuously to take pictures of the banner and wondering what my interlocutors would say when I ask them about how they view this promise of hope overlooking the destruction of their homes. I was also marvelling at the almost nonsensical sequence of events. In 2011 Maspero was one of the most militant neighbourhoods, among many in downtown and old Cairo (Ismail 2013), that defended the occupation of Tahrir Square. As it was adjacent to Tahrir, it played a crucial role in sustaining the square during the first 18 days of the uprising. Seven years after the revolution, the neighbourhood was faced with complete erasure. How did we get here? I argue for the productivity of looking at Egyptian politics through the lens of affect as a possible way to answer this question. As Laszczkowski and Reeves argue in their edited book Affective States (2017) “Affect is at the heart of those moments when the political catches us off guard or when it leaves us feeling catatonically suspended, wondering where we are, how we even go there, and when this became so ordinary”. In this paper, I examine one such moment: the demolition of Maspero neighbourhood that coincided with the re-election of Abd El Fattah El Sisi in early 2018. I investigate state-society relations and the shifts throughout those moments by looking at how one neighbourhood negotiated their survival that culminated in their removal. Much like the wider socio-political context in Egypt and the story of the Egyptian revolution itself, Maspero is a story of a negotiated failure. A youth-led movement that demanded basic rights, exhausted various political tactics to lobby the government and failed the bigger fight, but scored some victories, such as the ability of some 900 families to come back to Maspero after the development project is over. I argue that Maspero can uncover much about the wider political tribulations since 2011. The case offers a lens through which we can see political openings and opportunities, clampdowns and closures as well as the current regime’s agenda for ensuring that what happened on 25 January 2011 does not happen again. I claim that one of the tactics of the regime is to systematically deconstruct the politics of the urban subaltern that played a major role in the revolution (Ismail 2013) through urban reconfiguration as well as new and old methods of affective co-optation and coercion. In her analysis of state-society relations, Cilja Harders argues that “political science tends to privilege macro-level perspectives” rendering the urban subaltern as only passive subjects of political transformations (Harders 2003). I argue that this has not changed in analysing the aftermath of the revolution. Few studies discussed the role of the urban poor in the revolution; however, many scholars neglected the politicisation of the urban subaltern when analysing transformation (or lack thereof) in Egyptian politics in the last few years. After eight years, the situation seems bleak and the task futile. To argue for any kind of change, let alone transformation, one must be blind to the strong backlash against any attempt to capitalise on the temporary gains of the revolution. The only story left to be told seems to be one of failure. The utter failure of a reformist movement to impose even partially its agenda for change (Bayat 2017). However, the case of Maspero neighbourhood and its youth alliance allow me to trace the revolution back into the everyday politics of citizens in a crushing struggle with the regime to examine whether the revolution disrupted informal traditional ways of doing politics. Rather than examine radical or even reformist regime or legal changes in national politics, I am interested in informal politics and its disruption. “It is in the local scale that power relations become tangible and abstract concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘politics’ observable” (Hoffmann, Bouziane & Harders 2013, 3). Building on the work of scholars of everyday politics, street politics and politics from below, I focus, therefore, on the street and, more specifically, Maspero, a neighbourhood adjacent to Tahrir Square that lived the revolution with all its tribulations, a neighbourhood that affected and was affected by the revolution. I find Salwa Ismail’s work on the role of the urban subaltern in the revolution productive in unpacking and tracing the “everyday” in the Egyptian revolution. “The infrastructures of mobilisation and protest lay in the microprocesses of everyday life at the quarter level, in their forms of governance and in the structure of feelings that developed in relation to state government” (Ismail 2012, 450). Ismail’s argument highlights the quarters or neighbourhoods as spatial political laboratories where the urban subaltern, through rigorous negotiations and “every day” encounters with the different arms of the state, accumulates knowledge about modes of governance and how to resist them. This was obvious in the role that the urban subaltern played in the revolution and was reflected in the narratives of my interlocutors and highlighted in some of the scholar’s accounts of the revolution. In Ismail’s (2012) account of the “backstreets of Tahrir”, she narrates several important “battles” in informal neighbourhoods that she believes were vital to the success of the revolution. These “battles” manifest the moment of convergence between locally grounded grievances and national revolutionary politics. “The account of the battles serves to draw attention to the place of popular quarters in the geography of resistance, and to the spatial inscription of popular modes of activism”. (Ismail 2012, 446) The importance of Ismail’s account is in linking popular resistance to the spatial characteristics of the quarter, which brings up the question of what will happen to popular resistance when the neighbourhood is gone. I argue that the removal of entire neighbourhoods has a political purpose, that of dismantling the political laboratories and crushing street politics. In discussing the battles in Tahrir, Bulaq Abu Al-Ila features prominently in sheltering activists, defending the occupation of the square and engaging in prolonged street fights that exhausted the police and kept it from reclaiming the square. Ismail (2012, 448) links the neighbourhood’s repertoire of contention to a history of patriotism that goes back to the resistance of the French colonial conquest, again highlighting a spatially bounded accumulation of generational knowledge and affective register of popular resistance. The aim of my endeavour is not just to highlight the role of the urban subaltern in the revolution and the subsequent politicisation and depoliticization and what one may learn from it. It is also to link this to what the state has been learning about countering any possible future mobilisation in order to foresee state strategies of radically altering the “every day” modes of governance and with it modes of resistance and to connect this to the urgency of urban restructuring processes happening in Cairo on an unprecedented scale since the 1990s. Asef Bayat (2012) explores the politics of the urban subaltern in “neoliberal cities” in an authoritarian regime. Bayat offers the concept of “social non-movements” to analyse street politics (2012, 119). According to him, the streets are vital to the urban subaltern: he writes that “[t]he centrality of streets goes beyond merely the expression of contention. Rather, streets may actually serve as an indispensable asset/capital for them to subsist and reproduce economic as well as cultural life” (2012, 119). Bayat describes the ongoing conflict over the public space between the state and the urban subaltern as “street politics” (Bayat 2009). These ongoing processes consequently create the “political street”, hence, politicising ordinary citizens through their struggles over urban space. Some of the questions that arise here and reflect the limitations of Bayat’s arguments in this point of history relate to what happens to “street politics” when the urban subaltern loses the “political street”. Reflecting on the case of Maspero neighbourhood, what happens to the politicisation and cultural and economic appropriation when they are relocated to Asmarat, a far-off gated community out of central Cairo? What happens to the politics of the urban poor when they lose their “capital”? And, what kind of political and spatial affects are tied to this dispossession? One of the challenges of studying Maspero was to understand the affective attachments that people had to the neighbourhood. Drawing from the literature on street politics and Asef Bayat’s notion of encroachment (2009), I could understand materially the reasons why forcefully displacing people from their homes could be traumatic. However, as I witnessed them mourn the neighbourhood it became clear to me that there are reasons beyond what this literature can offer. Here, affect theories can be helpful. Yael Navaro Yashin calls for “a reconceptualization of the relation between human beings and space” (2012, 16). Yashin critiques what she calls “the social-constructionist imagination” in its focus on conceptualising space only through what humans project on it. Building on Teresa Brennan’s work on the transmission of affect, Yashin argues for affective relationality between humans and their environment. However, she does not take an object-centred approach but combines the human subjective approach with one that explores that “excess” in the environment that she studies through the lens of affect. Yashin’s work on the collision of the phantasmatic and the material is essential in understanding the “affect” of the neighbourhood. According to Yashin, “the make-believe is real” (2012, 10). Reflecting on the case of Maspero, the affective attachments that the inhabitants of the neighbourhood developed was built around the material, the encroachment, and the social networks but moved beyond this. To them, Maspero is their country and their home. Below one of my research interlocutors, a male resident of Maspero in his 30s explains to me the attachment of the people to Maspero Triangle. “We belong to this place; it is part of us, and we are a part of it. This place holds our memories and childhood. This is something that officials never understood. But we felt it. In this place I used to play, when I am upset, I like to sit in this place and talk to my friends. We are attached to this place not just because it is close to our work. We are linked spiritually to this place; our hearts are attached to this place. I do not want to go out. I do not want to live even in Zamalek, which is very close to us. I do not want to live there. We are attached to this place.” Nigel Thrift (2007) argues that for the political importance of studying affect in cities and affective cities to trace how affect and cities interact to produce politics. The interactions between space, bodies and affect are linked to political consequences. Thrift goes further to point to the political engineering of affect in urban everyday life and what might seem to us as aesthetic is politically instrumentalised. This engineering of affect can have various political aims. To erase emotional histories, create new affective registers or mobilise old ones in urban settings through urban restructuring (Thrift 2007, 172). Thus, it is not farfetched to argue that the urban restructuring of cities is linked to eliciting or inhibiting political responses. The massive plan of the Egyptian government to drastically change downtown Cairo, a space that witnessed a revolution has interlinked political and affective goals. It aims at erasing the affective register of the 2011 Egyptian revolution and inhibits the politics of the urban poor.
Topic:
Human Rights, United Nations, Revolution, Urban, and Youth Movement
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, Egypt, and Maspero

9. Challenges to the Middle East North Africa Inclusionary State

Author:
Marc Lynch, Bassel Salloukh, Toby Dodge, Jeroen Gunning, Dima Smaira, Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Morten Valbjørn, Simon Mabon, Ala'a Shehabi, and Mariam Salehi
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The challenges to inclusionary states in the MENA region are daunting—including fiercely authoritarian states, the reality or threat of political violence, and ongoing protest movements. In September 2019, POMEPS and the Lebanese American University (LAU) brought together a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars to discuss the challenges to building more inclusive orders under these conditions.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, Politics, Sovereignty, Sectarianism, Transitional Justice, State, Reconciliation, Inclusion, and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, North Africa, and Lebanon

10. The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Marc Lynch, Eleanore Ardemagni, Jesse Marks, Elizabeth Parker-Magyar, Allison Spencer Hartnett, Ezzeldeen al-Natour, Laith al-Ajlouni, Carla Abdo-Katsipis, Lucia Ardovini, Yasmine Zarhloule, Yasmina Abouzzohour, Brent E. Sasley, Ehud Eiran, Sally Sharif, Diana Galeeva, Matthew Hedges, Elham Fakhro, Kristin Diwan, Guy Burton, Ruth Hanau Santini, Justin Schon, Alex Thurston, Adam Hoffmann, and Robert Kubinec
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
This special issue of POMEPS STUDIES collects twenty contributions from a wide range of young scholars writing from diverse perspectives, which collectively offer a fascinating overview of a region whose governance failures, economic inequalities and societal resilience were all suddenly thrown into sharp relief.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, Islam, Nationalism, United Nations, Governance, Authoritarianism, Refugees, Inequality, Conflict, Pandemic, Resilience, COVID-19, and Identity
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Israel, Yemen, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Morocco

11. Africa and the Middle East: Beyond the Divides

Author:
Hisham Aïdi, Marc Lynch, Zachariah Mampilly, Nisrin El-Amin, Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, Noah Salomon, Samar Al-Bulushi, Wolfram Lacher, Federico Donelli, Lina Benabdallah, Ezgi Guner, Afifa Ltifi, Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem, Alex Thurston, and Alex de Waal
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The papers, published in this collection, ranged widely over issues connecting West Africa, the Horn, the Sahel and North Africa thematically, politically, militarily and culturally. The goal of this volume is to get American political science to break down the barriers between academic subfields defined by regions and open the fields to new questions raised by scholars from and across Africa and the Middle East.
Topic:
Islam, War, Regime Change, Media, Conflict, Political Science, Revolution, and Capital
Political Geography:
Africa, China, Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, Libya, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, West Africa, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, East Africa, Sahel, and Horn of Africa

12. MENA’s Frozen Conflicts

Author:
Marc Lynch
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Over the last year, the MENA region’s simmering conflicts have seemed frozen in place. The internationally-fueled civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya have long since settled into an equilibrium in which no side can either truly win or truly lose. Those conflicts have been held in place in part by local ecologies and war economies and in part by the competitive interventions by regional and international powers on behalf of their proxies and clients. But are these conflicts truly frozen? What does viewing them through such a lens gain, and what are the theoretical and analytical costs? To explore these questions, POMEPS convened a virtual research workshop on September 25, 2020, with scholars from diverse empirical and theoretical backgrounds.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, Politics, Citizenship, Military Intervention, Conflict, Syrian War, Mental Health, Crisis Management, Peace, Justice, Capital, and Mobilization
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Libya, Yemen, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, and United States of America

13. Strong Organization, Weak Ideology: Muslim Brotherhood Trajectories in Egyptian Prisons Since 2013

Author:
Abdülrahman Ayyash
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
On 28 January 2011 – as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians demonstrated on the day dubbed the “Friday of Anger” – Muslim Brotherhood member, Sameh, was demonstrating with several thousand others in Mansoura in the Nile Delta (120 km north of Cairo). As demonstrators began to throw stones at the State Security Investigations building, Sameh stood in front of them shouting “peaceful”. He was hit in the chest by a stone meant to hit the building in one of the city's most prestigious neighbourhoods. Two years later, Sameh was arrested on an array of charges, including joining the Brotherhood and committing acts of violence against the state. A few months later, he told a friend waiting on death row that he considered the Muslim Brotherhood to be apostates and that he had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (Daesh) and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Sameh's case is not unique. According to several detainees – including current prisoners spoken to over the phone – there are ongoing changes among detainees who have spent most of their lives as Muslim Brotherhood members. Egyptian prisons host tens of thousands of political detainees – perhaps more than 60,000 according to Human Rights Watch.2 Arrests have mainly targeted members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. However, with increased armed attacks against the army and police, arrests have also targeted alleged supporters of Daesh, al-Qa’ida, and Islamists affiliated with smaller organizations. The Egyptian National Council for Human Rights documented prison overcrowding at a rate of at least 160%,3 forcing the authorities to build 20 new prisons since the military coup in the summer of 2013.4 Importantly, this has led to an increased exchange of influences and ideologies among detainees from diverse backgrounds. Detainees – those held after referral to the judiciary or sentencing – are often relocated during their detention, including frequent transfers to temporary detention centres during court hearings, or when brought before the Public Prosecution or for medical treatment. This further facilitates communication with different prison populations and discussion and exchange of ideas between detainees. This paper does not dwell upon traditional classifications imposed on Islamic movements in terms of moderate and extremist trends. Nor does it go into detail regarding the mechanisms of individual radicalization, though it does encourage further study. Instead, we focus on the developmental dynamics of Muslim Brotherhood youth and sympathizers in Egypt, especially those who were arrested during the breakup of sit-ins supporting former President Mohamed Morsi. Developmental dynamics refer to the conditions and contexts which Brotherhood members and sympathizers experience in prison. These inform broader understandings of issues including state and society relations, and social mobility through jihad as opposed to social mobility through the Brotherhood. This paper also discusses the ways in which the Muslim Brotherhood manages its members inside prison, and its attempts to maintain the Brotherhood's administrative and intellectual organization. It is based primarily on information collected during 10 rare phone interviews with current prisoners. It is also based on additional phone and face-to-face interviews with former prisoners inside and outside Egypt. The interviewees come from five different cities and have been in at least seven prisons, including Tora, Wadi al-Natroun, Mansoura and Gamasa; for security and technical reasons, it was not possible to expand the research cohort. The paper is also based on reviews of articles written by detainees, press reports, opinion pieces, and research papers dealing with the complex social phenomenon of the Muslim Brotherhood from different angles.
Topic:
Human Rights, Prisons/Penal Systems, Arab Spring, Protests, and Ideology
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, Egypt, and Mediterranean

14. Egypt’s Consolidated Authoritarianism

Author:
Amr Hamzawy
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
The current Egyptian political scene reveals an important paradox: since its ascendancy to power in 2013, the military-led authoritarian government has not faced significant challenges from civil society despite systematic hu- man rights abuses and continuous societal crises. Apart from limited protests by labor activists, student movements, and members of syndicates, Egyptians have mostly refrained from protesting, instead hoping that the government will improve their living conditions despite a rising poverty rate of 33 percent, an inflation rate between 11 and 12 percent, and unemployment at eight percent. This popular reluctance to challenge the authoritarian government has continued to shape Egypt’s reality since the collapse of the short-lived democratization process from 2011–2013.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Democracy, Rule of Law, Protests, and Dictatorship
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt

15. Youth Politics in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Sean Yom, Wael ak-Khatib, Begum Uzun, Matt Gordner, Giulia Cimini, Yousra Kadi, Dina El-Sharnouby, Sarah Fischer, Aziza Moneer, Curtis R. Ryan, Sara Ababneh, Yazan Doughan, Aydin Ozipek, Makiko Nambu, Sarah A. Tobin, Justin Gengler, and Sarah Anne Rennick
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Youth political activism has been challenging Middle East and North African political systems frequently and forcefully over the last decade. This is not a new phenomenon, of course. Young people have historically stood at the forefront of popular uprisings and cultural movements. Demographic realities in the Middle East have increased the latent potential for disruptive youth activism. Nearly 60 percent of people in the region fall under the age of 30, half of whom are aged between 15 and 29, and in almost every country, unemployment for working-age youth exceeds the overall jobless rate. The failures of the 2011 Arab uprisings to achieve lasting democratic change revealed the limits of street protests, but the underlying problems remain profoundly unresolved. How are young people questioning, subverting, and transforming the boundaries of politics in the post-uprising Middle East and North Africa? In June 2019, the Project on Middle East Political Science convened a workshop on youth politics in Amman, Jordan, in cooperation with the Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies. The workshop’s papers and deliberations sought to unpack the meaning of youth politics. What characterizes the latest wave of youth mobilization? How is youth activism, and youth politics, changing public attitudes and government policies? Can any generalizations be made about youthfulness, and the experience of being young and political, in the Middle East today? The essays contained in POMEPS Studies 36: Youth Politics in the Middle East and North Africa attempt to answer these questions. They come from scholars who, through intensive fieldwork in varying countries, study the origins and processes of activism among young people through diverse methodologies and orientations.
Topic:
Politics, Political Activism, Women, Youth, Protests, Sexual Violence, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, North Africa, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia