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131. Democracy for Another Spring

Author:
Safak Pavey
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
ARI Movement
Abstract:
Four years after a wave of protest movements swept across the Middle East in 2011, the revolutionary impulses and calls for democratic regime change have been all but stamped out. The author argues that the region is increasingly divided along sectarian lines, a polarization that impedes stability, and which has produced an egregious humanitarian crisis. According to the author, the consequences of how the relationship between the principles of Islam and democracy are established will be one of the main determinants for what the future holds for the Middle East and its people.
Topic:
Social Movement, Democracy, Arab Spring, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Middle East

132. After the Arab Spring: How the Media Trashed the Transitions

Author:
Marc Lynch
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The media played a key role in mobilizing the Arab uprisings of 2010-11, but played a far more negative role in the transitions which ensued. Rather than constituting new public spheres for the negotiation of new identities and institutions, or acting as watchdogs on the emergent regimes, the media in most Arab states contributed to social polarization, popular discontent, and the resurgence of old regimes. While the potentially destructive role of media can be found in all attempted democratic transitions, the Arab cases had several unique characteristics, including the prominent role of transnational broadcasting, the new social media environment, and divisive questions about Islamist movements. This article traces the role of the media in the Arab transitions across three distinct levels: transnational broadcasting, domestic public and private broadcasting, and social media. All three played destructive roles, with transnational television becoming a weapon for proxy wars by regional powers, national media being captured by old elites and private interests, and social media encouraging polarization and informational clustering. Very similar patterns emerge in Egypt and Tunisia, the two key potential democratic transitions following the Arab uprisings.
Topic:
Social Movement, Media, Arab Spring, Propaganda, and The Press
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, Tunisia, and Egypt

133. Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy: Spring 2015

Author:
Jennifer Rowland, Nada Zohdy, Brian Katulis, Michael Wahid Hanna, Faysal Itani, Muhammad Y. Idris, Joelle Thomas, Tamirace Fakhoury, Farouk El-Baz, Kheireddine Bekkai, Amira Maaty, and Sarah McKnight
Publication Date:
01-2015
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:
Our Spring 2015 volume captures the troubling developments of the past year in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2014, the Syrian conflict that has so beguiled the international community spilled over into Iraq, with the swift and shocking rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). ISIS is causing the ever-complex alliances in the region to shift in peculiar ways. In Iraq, US airstrikes provide cover for Iranian-backed militias fighting ISIS; while in Yemen, the United States supports a Saudi intervention against a different Iranianbacked armed group that has taken control of the Yemeni capital. Meanwhile, simmering political disputes in Libya escalated into a full-blown civil war, sparking concern in neighboring Egypt, where the old authoritarian order remains in control despite the country’s popular revolution. The Gulf countries contemplate their responses to record-low oil prices, continuing negotiations between the United States and Iran, and the threat of ISIS. And Tunisia remains one of the region’s only bright spots. In November, Tunisians voted in the country’s first free and fair presidential elections. This year’s Journal brings new analysis to many of these complex events and broader regional trends. We begin with the positive: an exclusive interview with former Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa. In this year’s feature articles: Brian Katulis zooms out to assess the Obama administration’s record in the Middle East over the past six years; Michael Wahid Hanna refutes the notion that the Iraqi and Syrian borders will need to be redrawn as a result of ISIS’ takeover; and Faysal Itani analyzes the US coalition’s strategy to defeat ISIS, arguing that it cannot succeed without empowering Sunni civilians. Muhammed Idris and Joelle Thomas turn to economics in an assessment of the United Arab Emirates’ efforts to go green. Tamirace Fakhoury points out a blind spot in the study of the Middle East and North Africa: how large diaspora communities affect political dynamics in their home countries. Farouk El-Baz takes us to Egypt, where he proposes a grand economic plan to pull the country out of poverty and set it on a path toward longterm growth. From Egypt, we move west to the oft-neglected country of Algeria, where Kheireddine Bekkai argues for more inclusive education policies on national identity. Finally, Amira Maaty comments on the region’s desperate need for robust civil societies, while Sarah McKnight calls for improvements in Jordan’s water policies.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, Development, Environment, Migration, History, Natural Resources, Social Movement, Islamic State, Economy, Political stability, Arab Spring, Military Intervention, Identities, and Diversification
Political Geography:
Middle East, Algeria, North Africa, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and United States of America

134. Full Issue: Money & War

Author:
Sarah Detzner, James Copnall, Alex de Waal, Ian M. Ralby, Joshua Stanton, Ibrahim Warde, Leon Whyte, Richard Weitz, Jessica Knight, John H. Maurer, Alexander Tabarrok, Alex Nowrasteh, Tom Keatinge, Emily Knowles, Karolina MacLachlan, Andrew Lebovich, Caroline Troein, and Anne Moulakis
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The Fletcher Security Review: Managed and edited by students at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, we build on the Fletcher School’s strong traditions of combining scholarship with practice, fostering close interdisciplinary collaboration, and acting as a vehicle for groundbreaking discussion of international security. We believe that by leveraging these strengths – seeking input from established and up-and-coming scholars, practitioners, and analysts from around the world on topics deserving of greater attention – we can promote genuinely unique ways of looking at the future of security. Each issue of the Review is centered around a broad theme – in this issue, we tackle “Money & War.” Money influences every aspect of warfare, conventional or unconventional. No nationstate military, insurgent group, terrorist network, trans-national criminal organization, or hybrid actor can be understood, or countered, without knowing where the money is coming from – as well as where, and how, it gets spent. Evolutions and revolutions in financial tools and practices quickly translate to transformations in military affairs, and some cases, vice versa.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, Human Rights, Governance, Sanctions, Military Affairs, Finance, Islamic State, Navy, Arab Spring, Maritime, Conflict, Multilateralism, Islamism, Drugs, and Currency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, China, Iran, Sudan, Darfur, Middle East, Asia, North Korea, Mali, Asia-Pacific, Sahel, United States of America, and North America

135. Money and War: Corruption as the Hidden Enemy of Mission Success

Author:
Emily Knowles and Karolina MacLachlan
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Corruption, instability, and conflict tend to go hand in hand. Twelve of the fifteen lowest-ranking countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index are currently experiencing violent insurgencies, extremist activity, or other signs of deep-seated instability. [1] Systemic, embedded corruption is a thread that runs through such seemingly disparate events as the outbreak of the Arab Spring, the conflict in Ukraine, the failure of the Malian army in 2012, the growth of Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the retreat of the Iraqi security forces in the face of ISIS. However, the effects of corruption are not limited to exacerbating the risk of conflict; corruption also makes it more difficult for states to respond to threats and for international institutions and other actors to offer effective assistance.[2] Assistance to fragile and failing states tends to include two types of engagement: international peacekeeping and/or stabilization operations and defense capacity building (i.e. assistance to the recipient states’ security forces). But without anticipating and mitigating the risks that corruption poses, the international community risks the intent of security assistance being subverted, the assistance wasted, and the success rate of stabilization operations being severely impaired. In particular, misappropriation of funds, vanishing resources, and a reliance on malign power-brokers can irreparably damage the operational success of a mission. This article is based on the research investigating the international community’s approach (or lack thereof) to tackling corruption in Afghanistan carried out by Transparency International UK’s global Defence and Security Programme (TI-DSP) and based on over 75 interviews with civilian and military officials. This work is supported by insights from TI-DSP’s long-term engagement in the Building Integrity training for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.[3] In the resulting report, we argue that corruption has had a significant impact on ISAF mission success and that the international community’s reaction to corrupt practices was too little, too late. We point to three main ways in which corruption and uncontrolled money flows can diminish the effectiveness of the mission and offer a planning and risk assessment framework as the first step toward addressing corruption risks on operations...
Topic:
Security, Corruption, Peacekeeping, Arab Spring, Conflict, and Transparency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Middle East, Nigeria, and Mali

136. Remembering and Making History in Egypt

Author:
Vicki Valosik
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Dr. Hoda Elsadda has spent years documenting history—as it has been lived and experienced by women in Egypt—but this time she’s the one making history. Elsadda, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University and current Carnegie Foundation Centennial Fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, served on the “Committee of 50” delegates who wrote the historic 2014 Egyptian constitution.
Topic:
Human Rights, History, Women, Constitution, Arab Spring, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Middle East, North America, Egypt, and United States of America

137. The Rise Of The IS (Islamic State) In Syria And Iraq After The Arab Spring

Author:
Alper Y. Dede
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
The Arab Spring is a social movement triggered by a complex set of social, political and economic factors. Despite the initial success of the Arab Spring in ousting some of the bureaucraticauthoritarian status-quo oriented regimes, mass mobilization of people could not oust all dictatorships and introduce meaningful reforms toward more democratization in the region. Worse, the mass protests that started as part of the Arab Spring later deteriorated into utter chaos and even civil war in some parts of the region. With the disappearance of state authority in those places, sub-state actors gained ground, challenging the stability and order that were once provided by authoritarian regimes through coercion. The IS’s sudden expansion has mainly resulted from large scale instability in Iraq and Syria and the disappearance of nation-state borders between the two states. The IS, which emerged as a sub-state actor, is currently in the process of becoming a proto state. Thus, this paper has two simultaneous research goals. The first is to establish the link between lack of institutionalization of the Arab Spring and its failure to bring about positive and meaningful political change in the region with the power vacuum created in the region and subsequent emergence of sub-state actors and groups like the Al- Qaeda in Iraq and the IS (Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria. The second is to study and evaluate the emergence and growth of the IS in conjunction with the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and Syria, and how the international involvement with the IS might have shaped the tactics and the course of action that the IS has taken since the IS captured the city of Mosul in June 2014, shocking the whole world. Assessment of the IS’s AP AP the rise of the IS (islamic state) in syria and iraq 169 military, economic and political prospects will also be provided in the concluding section. Keywords: The Arab Spring, the IS (Islamic State), Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakr Al
Topic:
Social Movement, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Arab Spring, and Institutionalism
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

138. nternational Relations Theory and a Changing Middle East

Author:
Pinar Bilgin, Sarah Bush, F. Gregory III Gausse, Zeynep N. Kaya, and Matteo Legrenzi
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The story of the Arab uprisings of 2010-11 has typically been told as a series of loosely related national stories, happening simultaneously but whose successes and failures were essentially determined by internal factors. Over the last few years, political scientists have made great progress evaluating the success or failure of each country’s uprising in terms of country-specific qualities such as types of domestic institutions, the nature of opposition movements, the wise or poor decisions made by leaders and access to oil revenues. The comparative politics literature on the uprisings has demonstrated real theoretical progress, sophisticated empirical analysis and useful—if too often ignored—policy advice. This comparative politics approach to the uprisings has always been problematic, though. The Arab uprisings began in transnational diffusion and ended in transnational repression and regional proxy wars. It is remarkably difficult to accurately explain the course of events in Egypt, Yemen or Libya without reference to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar or Iran. However, with but a few notable exceptions, the academic literature on the uprisings has been dominated by comparative analysis and country case studies, with international factors included as one among several variables, if at all. This seems odd. Why has there not been an efflorescence of international relations scholarship comparable to the impressive outpouring of comparative politics scholarship on the Arab uprisings? And if there were, what would it look like? To begin rectifying this gap, the Project on Middle East Political Science teamed up with Danish scholar Morten Valbjørn of Aarhus University to bring together nearly two-dozen American, European and Arab international relations scholars in May. The result of the workshop was an astonishingly rich set of essays from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, which are now available for free download here as a special issue in the POMEPS Studies series.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Arab Spring, and Political Science
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

139. The Arab Thermidor: The Resurgence of the Security State

Author:
Eva Bellin, Raymond Hinnebusch, Steven Heydemann, Ellis Goldberg, and Pete W. Moore
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
It is sometimes hard to remember that the Arab uprisings of 2010-11 promised the possibility of meaningful political change. The unprecedented outburst of popular mobilization overthrew some regimes and unsettled most of the others. Those hopes have long since come crashing down. Egypt’s transition ended in a military coup, bloody repression, and a neo-authoritarianism legitimated through xenophobic populism. Tunisia’s survived, barely. Libya, Yemen, and Syria have suffered near-complete political collapse, polarization, and civil war. Almost every regime has become more intolerant and more repressive. Violent, extremist Islamist movements such as the Islamic State group have surged in this chaotic atmosphere. How should we understand the authoritarian resurgence in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings? In October 2014, Toby Dodge and I jointly convened a POMEPS-London School of Economics workshop to dig more deeply into the causes, mechanisms, and drivers of what he called “The Arab Thermidor.” More than a dozen scholars looked deeply at specific sectors such as the military, police and intelligence services, different countries, and the broader regional environment. Some of the papers produced for that workshop have been published on the Monkey Cage, and all of them have today been released as POMEPS Studies 11 The Arab Thermidor: The Resurgence of the Security State, available as a free downloadable PDF. The papers in this collection offer a sharp, comprehensive, and acute look at the resurgence and persistence of the Arab authoritarian state.
Topic:
Security, Authoritarianism, Arab Spring, and Political Science
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa