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1. The War on Gaza and Middle East Political Science

Author:
Marc Lynch, Ibrahim S. I. Rabaia, Fiona B. Adamson, and Alexei Abrams
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
This special issue of POMEPS Studies offers a platform for scholars to think through what feels like a moment of rupture for the Middle East, for Middle East Studies, and for long-standing assumptions about the region’s politics. This POMEPS collection originated as an open call for papers for scholars affected by or invested in these urgent issues, in an initial effort to give a platform and a voice to those in our network who have grappled with these trends. We kept the call intentionally broad, asking potential authors to reflect on the effects of October 7 and the Gaza War on politics or scholarship. As it turned out, most of the contributors wanted to talk about academic freedoms and the conditions of public discourse in their countries – perhaps because of how profoundly they felt this crisis, perhaps because of the availability of other platforms to discuss the war itself. The issues confronting our field have never been more urgent and the need for academic networks and institutions to rise up to defend it has never been greater.
Topic:
Civil Society, Diplomacy, Education, Genocide, Political Science, Institutions, Academia, Houthis, Forced Migration, Activism, October 7, 2023 Gaza War, and Frantz Fanon
Political Geography:
Iraq, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Yemen, Palestine, Gaza, Germany, Jordan, Czech Republic, and Gulf Nations

2. The Politics of Migration and Refugee Rentierism in the Middle East

Author:
Marc Lynch, Elizabeth Parker-Magyar, Shaddin Almasri, and Rawan Arar
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
How does the rentier concept apply in the context of the regulation and governance of human mobilities? Given that the hosting of forcibly displaced populations grants political actors the ability to extract revenue in a manner akin to oil rentier states via refugee rent-seeking (Tsourapas 2019), what broader lessons may we draw if we link migration and the rentier state? Similarly, in the case of labor migration in the Gulf, state actors delegate their ‘authority over migration to private actors and turns citizens into migration rentiers’ (Thiollet 2022, 1649). How does rentier state theory explain the politics of migrants and refugees in the Middle East? The relationship between rentierism and human mobilities formed the core of a Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) workshop organized on 22–23 September 2023 at the University of Glasgow. The workshop sought to unpack the linkages between cross-border mobility and rentier state theory in the Middle East.
Topic:
Education, Health, Humanitarian Aid, Migration, History, Refugees, Borders, Far Right, Mobility, Integration, Donors, Public-Private Partnership, Rentierism, and GCC
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Libya, North Africa, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, and Gulf Nations

3. Urban Politics in the Middle East

Author:
Mona Harb, Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, Gehad Abaza, and Munqeth Othman
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Urban politics has received growing attention in the anthropology, sociology, and political science of the MENA region. In line with global trends, questions of scale, territory, flows and connectivities and materialities have come to the fore, with a wide range of creative and novel lines of inquiry connecting the global to the hyper-local and every scale in between. In February 2023, POMEPS partnered with the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut and The Policy Initiative think tank for a workshop in Beirut to bring together an interdisciplinary group of young scholars from across the region to explore questions of urban life, politics, and culture. The papers moved beyond more traditional political science topics such as municipal government, decentralization, clientelistic voting, protests, and clientelism. While those themes certainly operated in the background, the authors assembled in Beirut pushed to shift the lens towards multi-scalar ethnographic modes of inquiry, highlighting the materialities and relationalities of the hyper-local, examining sites and places which concentrate power dynamics.
Topic:
Economics, Migration, Politics, Race, Religion, Sectarianism, Culture, Syrian War, Mobility, Urban, Trade, Music, Transportation, Cities, Heritage, Resistance, Labor Market, Domestic Work, and Urbicide
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Tehran, Baghdad, Algeria, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, and Aqaba

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Israel/Palestine: Exploring A One-State Reality

Author:
Marc Lynch, Michael Barnett, and Nathan Brown
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
In October 2019, the Project on Middle East Political Science convened a workshop with more than a dozen scholars – Israelis, Palestinians, and others – to discuss the contours of this emergent one state reality. The essays in this collection represent an initial assessment of this reality, and many more will follow over the years to come. The authors each bring their own perspective and history, their own commitments and values, their own aspirations for the future, producing areas of agreement and disagreement. But all agree on the urgent need to recognize the Israeli-Palestinian reality for what it really is and to develop the theoretical language and conceptual tools to rigorously describe and compare that reality. We hope this collection makes a small contribution to the vibrant intellectual debates developing around these issues and joins those ongoing dialogues in a productive way.
Topic:
Civil Society, Human Rights, Territorial Disputes, Citizenship, Ethnicity, Mobility, Settler Colonialism, and Segregation
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Mediterranean, and West Bank

8. Social Policy in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Melani Cammett, Kristin Fabbe, Marc Lynch, Allison Spencer Hartnett, Ferdinand Eibl, Anna Getmansky, Tolga Sınmazdemir, Thomas Zeitzoff, Melp Arslanalp, Rania AbdelNaeem Mahmoud, Sean Yom, Wael Al-Khatib, Alexandra Blackman, Dina Bishara, Markus Loewe, Lars Westemeier, Asya El-Meehy, Marc C. Thompson, and Caroline Abadeer
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
This spring, major protests swept through Jordan over economic grievances and subsidy reforms. In July, protestors took to the streets in the south of Iraq, demanding that the government address persistent unemployment, underdevelopment, and corruption. Meanwhile, earlier in 2018, Tunisians launched a wave of protests to oppose tax hikes on basic goods and increased cost of living. Such highly politicized responses to social policy concerns are the norm rather than the exception across the Middle East and North Africa. Social policy is where most citizens actually encounter the state and where policy most impacts peoples’ lives. As such, social policy and, more generally, welfare regimes, deserve a more central place in political science research on the region, as they have in the broader discipline. On April 20, 2018, POMEPS and the Harvard Middle East Initiative, led by Tarek Masoud, convened a workshop with a dozen scholars from around the world to discuss theoretical and policy issues related to social policy in the Middle East. The diverse, multidisciplinary group of scholars at the workshop addressed these questions from multiple perspectives. By probing the conditions under which reform occurs or may occur, the essays in POMEPS Studies 31, Social Policy in the Middle East and North Africa emphasize both possibilities for and persistent obstacles to change and underscore the deeply political nature of social policy reform.
Topic:
Development, Education, Energy Policy, Politics, Culture, Prisons/Penal Systems, Reform, Employment, Youth, Social Policy, Political Parties, Social Contract, and Housing
Political Geography:
Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia

9. The Arab Monarchy Debate

Author:
Marc Lynch, Daniel Brumberg, Michael Herb, F. Gregory Gause III, and Sean Yom
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
It has been widely noted that monarchies have done better at surviving the Arab uprisings that began two years ago. Three Presidents (Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Saleh) have fallen, along with Muammar al-Qaddafi’s unique Jamahiriaya, while Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist presidential regime faces a mortal threat. For some analysts and academics, this pattern suggests a fairly obvious “monarchical exception” which demands explanation. In August, I launched a debate on Foreign Policy about whether and how monarchy matters in explaining the resilience of Arab regimes. I was not impressed. Against arguments that monarchies face some kind of unique legitimacy commanding the loyalty of their people, I noted that Arab monarchies have in fact faced significant popular mobilization over the last two years: Bahrain has had one of the most intense and protracted uprisings anywhere; Kuwait is facing the deepest political crisis in its post-occupation history; Jordan experienced unprecedented protests; Saudi Arabia has had a protracted challenge in its Eastern Province; Oman experienced unusual levels of protest; Morocco’s protest movement drove the king to adopt a significant (if underwhelming) constitutional initiative. I concluded, “the monarchies look like fairly typical Arab authoritarian regimes, surviving because they enjoy greater financial resources, less demanding international allies, and powerful media assets to perpetuate their legitimation myths.”
Topic:
Arab Spring, Political Science, Monarchy, and Gulf Cooperation Council
Political Geography:
Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, Gulf Nations, and UAE