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141. European Narratives on the "Arab Spring" – From Democracy to Security

Author:
Peter Seeberg and Musa Shteiwi
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic Studies (CSS)
Abstract:
Peter Seeberg & Musa Shteiwi wrote an article on the "European Narratives on the "Arab Spring" – From Democracy to Security". The article discusses the EU’s reaction to the developments in the MENA-region in the period 2011-14. Initially relatively optimistic metaphors like ‘the Arab Spring’ or ‘the Democratic Tsunami’ were part of the media-comments from Western leaders, but three years. later the situation in the region seems to have changed significantly and consequently the narrative in the EU has switched from a predominantly pro-‘Arab Spring’ discourse to a focus on security aspects in a broad sense and, especially concerning the situation in Syria (to some degree also Lebanon and Libya), a focus on counter-terrorism. The article are concluding remarks by Peter Seeberg and Musa Shteiwi from a workshop on EU-Middle Eastern relations held at the Center for Strategic Studies in Amman in May 2013. Dr. Musa Shteiwi is the director of the Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan. Peter Seeberg is the director of the Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies in the University of Southern Denmark.
Topic:
Security, European Union, Counter-terrorism, Democracy, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Libya, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan

142. Russia and the Arab Spring

Author:
Alexander Vysotsky
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The Russian attitude to the Arab Spring—a mixture of skepticism, caution and mis-trust—was for a long time poorly understood outside the country. In the West, which initially saw in the Arab Spring the familiar battle between “democracy from below” and “dictatorship from above,” many accused Moscow of sympathizing with outdated au-thoritarian regimes, even facilitating their behavior, and of being incapable of keeping up with the times. Later, the situation changed. As democratic revolutions were replaced by civil con-flicts (some more peaceful, others more bloody, all exacerbated by ethnic or religious differences) Russia’s conservative position started to find support, both within the Mid-dle East and beyond. The breakthrough Russo-American agreement on Syrian chemical weapons opened the door to the Geneva II talks, bringing factions within Syria to the same talks table, and also helping regulate the Iranian nuclear issue. To understand the factors that shaped the Russian attitude to the Arab Spring, we need to review recent Russian history and how the situation has changed Russia’s bor-ders. In this article, we will attempt to circumscribe these factors, and offer insights into their true nature.
Topic:
Imperialism, Social Movement, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Arab Spring, and Protests
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Middle East, and Syria

143. The “Color Revolutions” and “Arab Spring” in Russian Official Discourse

Author:
Yulia Niktina
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet space were initially understood to mean the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004) and Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005). The one feature these events share is considered to be the non-violent nature of the regime change resulting from mass protests. The 2010 revolution in Kyrgyzstan may also be relegated to this group of cases: although the revolution was not entirely peaceful it nonetheless led to a change in the country’s lead-ership. Somewhat less clear are regime change attempts or mass protests, for example the situation in Andijan (Uzbekistan) in 2005 or the mass protests and riots in Moldova in 2009. It is still unclear whether the power shift in Ukraine in February 2014 should be considered a “color revolution;” there is also no precise definition of the concept of the “Arab spring,” which is usually thought to include the mass upheaval and protests, more often not peaceful, that led (or did not lead) to regime change in a number of countries of the Arab world starting in late 2010. Despite the lack of consensus among political leaders and experts regarding terminology, on the whole the terms “color revolutions” and “Arab spring” have caught on and as a rule are used without further explanation in Russian official discourse in the expert community and in the media.
Topic:
Social Movement, Arab Spring, Protests, and Color Revolutions
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Middle East, and Eastern Europe

144. Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy: Spring 2014

Author:
Colin Eide, Averell Schmidt, Ibrahim Sharqieh, Matthew Levitt, Denise Natali, Gina A. Zurlo, Todd M. Johnson, Karina Piser, John Strickland, Sarath Ganji, and Nada Zohdy
Publication Date:
01-2014
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:
We are pleased to present the third edition of the Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Pol icy. This volume is being published at a time of rapid transformation in the Middle East and North Africa. The euphoric uprisings of 2011 have met with fierce resistance from resilient autocrats and the complex realities of reshuffled domestic politics. With corruption scandals threatening the long-venerated Turkish model, an Egyptian military reasserting itself in political life, and heated tribal disputes compromising an already fragile Libyan state, which way the region is headed remains altogether unclear. These volatile domestic transformations coincide with regional diplomatic realignments. Nuclear diplomacy between Iran and the West has complicated the relationship between Washington and its traditional allies in Israel and the Gulf. The Obama administration’s hesitance to intervene militarily in Syria has at times further strained these ties. Meanwhile, the unprecedented diffusion of Syrian refugees risks destabilizing neighboring states and igniting a region-wide conflagration. This year’s Journal sheds light on many of the dynamics underlying what we see as a larger regional transformation. Ibrahim Sharqieh opens the Journal with a commentary on the often overlooked plight of Palestinian “double refugees”—those first displaced by conflict with Israel, displaced again by conflict in Syria. Matthew Levitt provides our first feature article investigating the evolving strategic relationship between Hezbollah and Iran. Denise Natali analyzes the dynamics—new and old—of transborder Kurdish politics. Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo focus our attention on demographic trends behind the flight of the region’s Christian communities. Karina Piser helps dispel the popular narrative of religion as the sole driver of Islamist political parties in Tunisia, focusing us instead on their internal debates and political acumen. John Strickland points us to an economic transformation with global consequences taking place in the region’s skies: the growth of Gulf airlines. Lastly, spanning the politics of the Palestinian Authority, the political economy of oil and gas, and the underpinnings of the region’s grassroots political movements, this year’s staff interviews offer fresh perspectives on pressing issues.
Topic:
Islam, Migration, Peace Studies, History, Social Movement, Partnerships, Arab Spring, Protests, Christianity, Hezbollah, and Kurds
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Palestine, Arab Countries, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia, and Gulf Nations

145. Rethinking Islamist Politics

Author:
Khalil al-Anani, Mokhtar Awad, Steven Brooke, Michaelle Browers, and Nathan J. Brown
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The Arab uprisings of 2011 radically reshaped the environment within which Islamist movements had evolved over the preceding decades, causing rapid, disorienting changes in their strategies, ideologies, and organizations. The last three years have produced an enormous amount of new information about these movements: detailed election results; factional and generational and intra-Islamist rivalries spilling out into public; varying degrees of political polarization between Islamists and their rivals; the erratic performance of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after coming to power through elections and the fallout from its removal through popular protest and military coup; the emergence of a sharp public backlash against the Brotherhood in Egypt, at least, and a crackdown on its social services; a new regionwide campaign designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization; the surprising evolution of al Qaeda and jihadist movements from Syria and Iraq through North Africa. In January 2014, the Project on Middle East Political Science therefore convened a workshop with fifteen leading academic specialists on Islamist movements in the Arab Middle East and charged them with rethinking key assumptions, arguments, evidence and research programs in light of these three tumultuous years. The workshop brought together European and American academics with specialties ranging from mainstream movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood to jihadists and non-violent Salafists, and with expertise on countries ranging from the Gulf through Egypt and the Levant to North Africa. This special POMEPS Briefing collects the memos prepared for the workshop. The short essays collected here touch on many of these issues, pointing towards a rich set of compelling new theoretical and empirical questions with which the field must now grapple.
Topic:
Politics, Salafism, Arab Spring, Political Science, Islamism, and Muslim Brotherhood
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

146. The Ethics of Research in the Middle East

Author:
Wendy Pearlman, Laurie Brand, Scott Weiner, Nathan J. Brown, and Richard A. Nielsen
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
What are the ethical obligations of an academic studying today’s Middle East? Have the Arab uprisings changed how scholars must weigh ethical and moral concerns in their research? How should academics incorporate their ethical commitments into their social scientific research agendas or policy advice? How should they respond when faced with severe moral atrocities such as the human costs of the war in Syria? Is there an obligation to take sides? These are not the usual questions that are supposed to occupy the professional life of political scientists, who spend more time contemplating research design, replicability and statistical significance. But, of course, they do. Ethical decisions underlie virtually everything we do. The challenge of incorporating ethics into academic political science was a major theme of this May’s annual conference of the Project on Middle East Political Science. The thoughts of ten first-rate scholars on the subject have now been published as a symposium in the POMEPS Studies series.
Topic:
Ethics, Research, Arab Spring, and Political Science
Political Geography:
Middle East

147. Reflections on the Arab Uprisings

Author:
Nathan Brown, Daniel Brumberg, Clement M. Henry, Vickie Langohr, and Ellen Lust
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
'Tis the season to reflect upon the course of the Arab uprisings. Over the last few weeks I have participated in three major workshops including nearly 50 scholars – and had to miss yet another in favor of a quick trip to Tunisia. It is not difficult to understand this intense urge to take stock, given the sorry state of the region and catastrophic results of virtually every one of the 2011 uprisings. The overblown criticisms of the field of Middle East political science over its failure to predict the uprisings have been thoroughly aired by this point. But what about the field’s performance during the Arab uprisings? Academics have written an unprecedented amount of real-time analysis and commentary over the last few years. What did we miss, misinterpret, exaggerate or rush to premature judgments about along the way? The first of the workshops focused explicitly on this question. I asked a group of the authors from my edited volume The Arab Uprisings Explained: New Contentious Politics in the Middle East to write short memos assessing their contributions critically after having another year to reflect. Those memos have been published as POMEPS Studies 10 Reflections on the Arab Uprisings. Their auto-critique is full of worthy observations: We paid too much attention to the activists and not enough to the authoritarians; we understated the importance of identity politics; we assumed too quickly that successful popular uprisings would lead to a democratic transition; we under-estimated the key role of international and regional factors in domestic outcomes; we took for granted a second wave of uprisings, which thus far has yet to materialize; we under-stated the risk of state failure and over-stated the possibility of democratic consensus.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Democracy, Arab Spring, and Identity
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

148. Macroeconomic and fiscal challenges faced by the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region

Author:
Marek Dabrowski
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:
The current fiscal imbalances and fragilities in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC) are the result of decades of instability, but have become more visible since 2008, when a combination of adverse economic and political shocks (the global and European financial crises, Arab Spring) hit the region. In an environment of slower growth and higher public expenditure pressures, fiscal deficits and public debts have increased rapidly. This has led to the deterioration of current accounts, a depletion of official reserves, the depreciation of some currencies and higher inflationary pressure. To avoid the danger of public debt and a balance-of-payment crisis, comprehensive economic reforms, including fiscal adjustment, are urgently needed. These reforms should involve eliminating energy and food subsidies and replacing them with targeted social assistance, reducing the oversized public administration and privatizing public sector enterprises, improving the business climate, increasing trade and investment openness, and sector diversification. The SEMC may also benefit from a peace dividend if the numerous internal and regional conflicts are resolved. However, the success of economic reforms will depend on the results of the political transition, i.e., the ability to build stable democratic regimes which can resist populist temptations and rally political support for more rational economic policies.
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Arab Spring, Macroeconomics, Fiscal Policy, and Instability
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, Mediterranean, and Southern Europe

149. The Frenemy Next Door: Turkey and Israel in a Changing Middle East

Author:
Oded Eran and Gallia Lindenstrauss
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
Abstract:
Turkish-Israeli relations suffered a big blow because of the Mavi Marmara affair. As Turkey and Israel are working now on mending their relations, the question remains whether they will be able to avoid fierce competition in a relentlessly changing Middle East following the ‘Arab Spring’. As there are also mutual concerns and incentives to cooperate, the term ‘Frenmity’ may be the best way to describe the future relations between the two. In such a complex relationship, the United States may be of help in increasing the elements of amity and cooperation.
Topic:
International Relations, Bilateral Relations, Arab Spring, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

150. After Qaddafi: Building Peace in Libya

Author:
Muzaffer Ercan Yilmaz
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
After the overthrown of Qaddafi, Libya has a historic opportunity to become a democratic country in the Western sense if peace building process is successfully completed in the country in the post-conflict period. This article aims to outline the basic steps of the peace building process, involving transitional justice, forming a representative government, strengthening security, making a new constitution, economic reconstruction, and national reconciliation, in that order. The study also emphasizes that since post-conflict situations usually require outside help due to institutional weaknesses, as well as limited human and financial resources, the assistance of the international community to Libya is crucial in the process of peace building.
Topic:
Civil War, Social Movement, Arab Spring, Peace, and State Building
Political Geography:
Africa and Libya