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From nonviolent protests in Cairo and Manama to the ousting of Libya's Gaddafi and the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, the series of uprisings which swept through the Middle East and North Africa from late 2010 have been burdened with the collective hopes and expectations of the world. Western supporters quickly identified these uprisings as a collective 'awakening' - a move towards democracy - but the continued unrest in these regions defies many of these more optimistic contemporary predictions. As the region remains unstable, the US and their Western allies are faced with the challenging task of modifying their strategic foreign policy goals to suit the currently mercurial Arab World. ...
Sudden change in North Africa manifested through popular protests followed by the end of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya revitalised the scholarly concern with democracy in the region. Democratisation and democracy received fresh attention in the ‘Arab Spring’. Arab citizens displayed their grasp and possession of ‘democratic knowledge’ in a bottom-up groundswell of activism against the wielding of power by authoritarian regimes. In this book, the investigation into democratic knowledge revolves around the idea that good government must be in the first instance rooted in a local system of knowledge. However, no privileging of the ‘local’ is offered here at the e...
Conspiracism, while not unique to the Middle East, is a salient feature of the political discourses of the region. This book discounts the common pathological explanation for conspiricism and instead investigates the political structures and dynamics that have created and shaped the phenomenon of conspiricism in the contemporary Middle East.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – at the interlocking levels of politics, economy, and society – have been different across regions, states, and societies. In the case of the Middle East and North Africa, which was already in the throes of intense tumult following the onset of the 2011 Arab Spring, COVID's blows have on the one hand followed the trajectory of some global patterns, while at the same time playing out in regionally specific ways. Based on empirical country-level analysis, this volume brings together an international team of contributors seeking to untangle how COVID-19 unfolds across the MENA. The analyses are framed through a contextual adaptation of Ulrich Beck's famo...
Larbi Sadiki deploys the conceptual tools of contemporary Western political philosophy and theory to articulate some provocative theses. Her book challenges Eurocentric conceptions of democracy that frequently display a lack of concern for specificity and context; analyzes and interrogates Orientalist and Occidentalist discourses on democracy; and considers justifications for democracy in the global arena, giving space for self-representation by women and Islamists, among others.
The Arab uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa in the period from 2011- 2012 left an indelible mark on the socio-political landscape of the region. But that mark was not consistent across the region: while some countries underwent dramatic popular social and political changes, others teetered on the brink, or were left with the status quo intact. Street revolutions toppled despotic regimes in Tunisia, Libya, and momentarily in Egypt, while mounting serious challenges to authoritarian regimes in Syria and Yemen. Algeria’s entrenched bureaucratic-cum-military authoritarian system proved resilient until the recent events of early 2019 which forced the resignation of President ...
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – at the interlocking levels of politics, economy, and society – have been different across regions, states, and societies. In the case of the Middle East and North Africa, which was already in the throes of intense tumult following the onset of the 2011 Arab Spring, COVID's blows have on the one hand followed the trajectory of some global patterns, while at the same time playing out in regionally specific ways. Based on empirical country-level analysis, this volume brings together an international team of contributors seeking to untangle how COVID-19 unfolds across the MENA. The analyses are framed through a contextual adaptation of Ulrich Beck's famo...
Drawing on various perspectives and analysis, the Handbook problematizes Middle East politics through an interdisciplinary prism, seeking a melioristic account of the field. Thematically organized, the chapters address political, social, and historical questions by showcasing both theoretical and empirical insights, all of which are represented in a style that ease readers into sophisticated induction in the Middle East. It positions the didactic at the centre of inquiry. Contributions by forty-four scholars, both veterans and newcomers, rethink knowledge frames, conceptual categories, and fieldwork praxis. Substantive themes include secularity and religion, gender, democracy, authoritariani...
Popular uprisings and revolts across the Arab Middle East have often resulted in a democratic faragh or void in power. How society seeks to fill that void, regardless of whether the regime falls or survives, is the common trajectory followed by the seven empirical case studies published here for the first time. This edited volume seeks to unpack the state of the democratic void in three interrelated fields: democracy, legitimacy and social relations. In doing so, the conventional treatment of democratization as a linear, formal, systemic and systematic process is challenged and the power politics of democratic transition reassessed. Through a close examination of case studies focusing on Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, this collection introduces the reader to indigenous narratives on how power is wrested and negotiated from the bottom up. It will be of interest to those seeking a fresh perspective on democratization models as well as those seeking to understand the reshaping of the Arab Middle East in the lead-up to the Arab Spring.