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Your guide to Scottish Parliament: how its powers allow it to make laws and hold the Scottish Government to account
No sectarian division has had a more momentous impact than that between the two dominant branches of Islam. Widely considered the world's leading expert on the subject, Toby Matthiesen offers the full story of the Sunni-Shia split, delving down to its roots in the early days of Islam and following it to the present day and its effect on current events not just in the Middle East but globally.
This book explores the conditions of state formation and survival in the Middle East. Based on Historical Sociology, it provides a model for study of the state in the Arab world and a theory to explain its survival. Examining states as a ‘process’, the author argues that what emerged in the Middle East in the beginning of the twentieth century are ‘social fields’—where states form and deform—and not states as defined by Max Weber. He explores the constitutions of these fields—their cultural, material and political structures—and identifies three stages of state development in which different cases can be located. Capturing the dilemmas that ‘late-forming states’ face as r...
Contemporary debates about civility are shaped by the dominant liberal and secular narratives of a peaceful world of sovereign nation-states. For contemporary scholars and policy makers, the challenge is to insert meaningfully the political evolution of the Middle East in the dominant liberal-democratic discourse about the current international order without invoking ill-conceived notions of Islamic exceptionalism. The analyses gathered in this book challenge conventional ‘western’ perspectives on civility as an expression of state-guaranteed free association in a non-violent space of discourse and behaviour. Considering the articulation of ‘civil’ and ‘civilized’ state-society r...
The Abraham Accords: National Security, Regional Order, and Popular Representation is a pioneering effort in discussing and analyzing the background, motivations and implications surrounding the Abraham Accords. The authors argue for a nuanced conceptual toolkit to better break down complex strands of state, regional and international interaction, interest and concern. They point to regional dynamics being vital, especially to small states or states under attack, in terms of delivering on their security objectives and by building positions of influence. The Saudi case shows how the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, perceived US policy failures, and imperatives of Vision 2030, have coalesced to dif...
This updated, second edition of the Handbook of Political Islam covers a range of political actors that use Islam to advance their cause. While they share the ultimate vision of establishing a political system governed by Islam, their tactics and methods can be very different. Capturing this diversity, this volume also sheds light on some of the less-known experiences from South East Asia to North Africa. Drawing on expertise from some of the top scholars in the world, the chapters examine the main issues surrounding political Islam across the world, including: Theoretical foundations of political Islam Historical background Geographical spread of Islamist movements Political strategies adopted by Islamist groups Terrorism Attitudes towards democracy Relations between Muslims and the West in the international sphere Challenges of integration Gender relations Capturing the geographical spread of Islamism and the many manifestations of this political phenomenon make this book a key resource for students and researchers interested in political Islam, Muslim affairs and the Middle East.
The concepts and theories of what constitutes a 'Middle Power' have played a key part in explaining the identity, behaviour and foreign policy roles of many states in the international system, including the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Brazil. But, with a few exceptions, these frameworks have failed to travel to scholarship on the Middle East, despite the theoretical and empirical potential that they offer for understanding regional dynamics.The first of its kind, this volume addresses that major gap by interrogating the conceptual, theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the concept of 'Middle Power' at a regional level. Composed of nine chapters, 'Unfulfilled Aspirations' offers the conceptual and theoretical tools to examine 'Middle Powerhood' in the Middle East, as well as insightful empirical analyses of both 'traditional' Middle Powers in the region (Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria) and new, aspiring ones (Qatar, the UAE). The contributors reveal that the Middle Powers of the Middle East have failed, despite their best efforts, to fulfill their regional aspirations.
The first volume of its kind to address concepts and theories of what constitutes a 'Middle Power' in the Middle East.
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A quarterly on Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict.