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11. The fate of Tripoli and the democratic dream for Libya

Author:
Lydia Sizer
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
On March 17th, 2011, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice wore green for St. Patrick’s Day as she took her seat at the circular Security Council conference table at the UN headquarters in New York. In Libya, the color green is associated not with St. Patrick, but the misfortune-bringing dictator, Muammar al-Qaddhafi. Ambassador Rice, along with the other representatives of the Security Council, gathered in New York that day to consider a response to Qaddhafi’s repression of anti-regime protesters. They voted unanimously in favor of a no-fly zone over Libya to protect the protestors, supporting a revolution that ultimately led to the dictator’s overthrow and an opportunity for democratic transition. As artillery fire maims the outskirts of Tripoli and rival militias engage in indiscriminate violence that ensnares civilians and trapped refugees, the chances of a democratic future for Libya are fading. Yet, this painful moment in Libya’s history also presents a rare opportunity to harness greater international attention to empower moderate voices and advance a vision for Libya that overcomes division, ensures long-term stability, and weakens the threats of resurgent authoritarianism and transnational terrorism.
Topic:
Terrorism, Democracy, Refugees, Arab Spring, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Libya, North Africa, North America, and United States of America

12. Public Policy Failure: ‘How Often?’ and ‘What is Failure, Anyway’?

Author:
Matt Andrews
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Observers claim that public policies fail ‘often’. This paper asks, ‘how often’? It is an important question, because public policies absorb resources to address major social issues. We should know if policies are proving bad social investments; routinely failing to solve focal problems at high costs. Unfortunately, it is not easy to assess this. Many public policy organizations—governments in particular—do not provide accessible views onto overall success or failure. The World Bank does, however, provide such view—and it supports policy interventions one finds in governments across the world. The paper thus examines World Bank failure rates. It finds that there are different answers to the ‘how often’ question, depending on responses to a second question, ‘what is failure anyway?’ In studying both questions, the paper identifies a bias in the World Bank—and probably all organizations adopting rational ‘plan and control’ policy processes—to measuring ‘project and product success’ rather than a broader view of success as ‘problems are solved with development impact’. This means that policy organizations like the Bank judge success based on whether planned products are delivered through an efficient process; not whether policies solve the problems that warranted intervention in the first place, or whether the policies promoted development outcomes. Is this how citizens would want their public policy organizations to conceptualize success?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, World Bank, and International Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

13. Two-Stage Examinations: Can Examinations Be More Formative Experiences?

Author:
Dan Levy, Mae Klinger, and Theodore Svoronos
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Two-stage examinations consist of a first stage in which students work individually as they typically do in examinations (stage 1), followed by a second stage in which they work in groups to complete another examination (stage 2), which typically consists of a subset of the questions from the first examination. Data from two-stage midterm and final examinations are used to assess the extent to which individuals improve their performance when collaborating with other students. On average, the group (stage 2) score was about one standard deviation above the individual (stage 1) score. While this difference cannot be interpreted as the causal effect of two-stage examinations on learning, it suggests that individuals experienced substantial performance gains when working in groups in an examination. This average performance gain was comparable with the average difference between the top performer of the group in stage 1 and the group’s stage 1 average, and was equivalent to about two-thirds of the difference between the “super student” score (i.e. the sum of the maximum score for each question in stage 1) and the group’s stage 1 average. This last result suggests that group collaboration takes substantial (albeit partial) advantage of the aggregate knowledge and skills of the group’s individual members. Student feedback about their experience with two-stage examinations reveal that that these types of examinations are generally perceived to be more helpful for learning and are less stressful than traditional examinations. Finally, using data on group gender compositions, we investigate the potential role of gender dynamics on group efficiency.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Collaborative Learning, and Collaborative Efficiency
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

14. Iron Curtain over the Arab world: Evaluating Trump’s inaction on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Author:
Adham Sahloul
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
The murder of Saudi Arabian columnist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2nd in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has been a clarion call for the Washington foreign policy community, one that is redefining the United States’ relations with the Saudi Kingdom and, by extension, US strategy in the Middle East. The Khashoggi affair will outlive President Donald Trump; the reputation of Saudi’s leadership is beyond repair, and with Global Magnitsky sanctions and the newly proposed bipartisan Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act, the US Congress appears ready to act where the executive has fallen short. The CIA has concluded that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) ordered Khashoggi’s murder. Trump, who has threatened “severe consequences” for whomever is found responsible, seemed over the past month to be looking for a way out of naming, shaming, and punishing MbS himself. In his statement on November 20th, Trump confirmed many observers’ worst fears about this president’s worst instincts, saying that US security, economic, and political interests transcend this incident. For a sitting US president to balk at the notion of holding an ally accountable and making even a symbolic effort to address such a gruesome crime with clear chains of responsibility constitutes a new low in US foreign policy
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Crime, Human Rights, Politics, Trump, Journalism, and Crisis Management
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, North America, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

15. Going nowhere alone: US sanctions on Iran and the afterlife of the JCPOA

Author:
Fridtjof Falk
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
On November 5th, 2018, the Trump administration re-imposed severe sanctions on Iran. These sanctions, which President Obama called the “toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government,” were lifted by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Deal. The JCPOA was signed with a view to blocking Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, allowing international inspectors into Iran in return for sanctions relief. Withdrawing the United States (US) from the deal was a prominent promise of Donald Trump leading up to the presidential elections of 2016. In a May 2018 speech that described the deal as rooted in “fiction,” President Trump made good on his promise to leave the JCPOA and to move to unilaterally re-impose sanctions on Iran.
Topic:
International Relations, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, Sanctions, Nuclear Power, and Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

16. Americans are morally responsible for America’s war on Yemen a series on Yemen, part 1

Author:
Shireen Al-Adeim
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This is the first of a three-part series of essays on Yemen highlighting the magnitude and impact of the civil war on Yemenis. Yemen continues to suffer in silence as the world turns away from its ongoing misery. Despite over two and a half years of war, the average American seems oblivious to the United States’ role in fueling the conflict in Yemen. While wealthy Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates bombard the Middle East’s poorest country, pushing the country toward famine and an unprecedented cholera outbreak, the US government (beginning with the Obama administration and continuing with Trump) has continued to fully support the Saudi-led coalition through the sale of weapons, mid-air refueling, targeting intelligence, and other logistical support.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, War, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

17. The US-Saudi coalition’s impact on Yemen’s health – a series on Yemen, part 2

Author:
Shireen Al-Adeim
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This is the second of a three-part series of essays on Yemen highlighting the magnitude and impact of the civil war on Yemenis. Starting in March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of several Arab countries in bombing Yemen, its neighbor to the south. The coalition’s indiscriminate bombing has targeted countless homes, schools, markets, and even hospitals. Yemenis have become accustomed to double-tap and triple-tap strikes that target rescuers after an attack. One notable case was a double-tap strike that killed at least 140 mourners at a large funeral home in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. The number of deaths resulting from US/Saudi airstrikes and fighting between Saudi-allied and Saleh/Houthi-allied forces has been conservatively estimated at 10,000 deaths and 40,000 injuries. The hidden costs of war, however, are much greater.
Topic:
Health, Poverty, War, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, North America, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

18. Yemen: drained, uncertain, and ignored – a series on Yemen, part 3

Author:
Mohamed Saleh
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This is the third of a three-part series of essays on Yemen highlighting the magnitude and impact of the civil war on Yemenis. Yemen is located on the southern edge of the Arabian peninsula, with the Red Sea and Egypt to its west, the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa to its south, Oman on its northeastern border, and Saudi Arabia along its northern border. Once benign representations of Yemen’s geography and sovereignty, those borders now symbolize nothing but profound anguish. The edges outlining a nation whose people remain imprisoned while waiting for life-saving aid which may not come. What at one point was a country grappling with the contradictions of 21st century development and economic growth has been bombed so viciously and blockaded so resolutely that close to a million of its inhabitants may die from a disease easily cured by oral rehydration therapy – a medical expression for treatment by purified water and modest amounts of sugar, salt, and zinc supplements. Condiments and a few bottles from a local pharmacy in any European country, and water. That is all. And yet the international community continues to watch in horror, its reaction anemic, its response stunted.
Topic:
Civil War, War, Arab Spring, Humanitarian Intervention, and International Community
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

19. To Assad and his admirers, Trump offers ‘hope and change’

Author:
Mahdi Dakhlallah, Imad Salim, Tahseen al-Halabi, and Bashar al-Assad
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
During the presidential campaign, Trump said he “[doesn’t] like Assad at all” and described the Syrian leader as “a bad guy.” But he compared Assad favorably to the alternatives. “Assad is killing ISIS,” Trump stated, whereas “we don’t even know who they [the rebels] are.” Trump even claimed Assad to be “much tougher and much smarter” than political rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Unsurprisingly, Assad and his admirers took heart in Trump’s surprise victory last November, with an adviser to the Syrian president saying the American people had “sent a great, a very important message to the world.” Yet Assad supporters – as well as the Syrian president himself – are taking a cautious approach to the new US administration, unsure of whether, and to what extent, Trump will overhaul American foreign policy. Here’s what columnists in pro-Assad media outlets think about Trump’s implications for Syria, followed by excerpts from two interviews with Assad about the new US president.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, War, Elections, News Analysis, Trump, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America

20. Uncertain allies: the Jerusalem announcement amid shifting regional priorities

Author:
Andrew McIndoe
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
On 6 December the Trump administration made an unprecedented decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The announcement, which both recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and conveyed President Trump’s intention to relocate the United States’ embassy to the Holy City, is a move shrouded in obscure motivations. Was it a manifestation of the strongly pro-Israel orientation of the new government? Was it merely the fulfilment of a campaign promise, a sop to the president’s evangelical and pro-Israel support base? Or was it truly designed, as the President maintained, to reenergize a peace process that has been stuck in the mud for years?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Peace Studies, Trump, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Jerusalem, and United States of America