« Previous |
1 - 10 of 24
|
Next »
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. The Coronavirus in the Middle East: State and Society in a Time of Crisis
- Author:
- Brandon Friedman, Joshua Krasna, Uzi Rabi, Michael Milshtein, Arik Rudnitzky, Liora Hendelman-Baavur, Joel D. Parker, Cohen Yanarocak, Hay Eytan, Michael Barak, and Adam Hoffman
- Publication Date:
- 05-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
- Abstract:
- This collection of essays, published by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in collaboration with the Moshe Dayan Center (MDC), focuses on how states and societies absorbed the coronavirus shock as the first wave spread through the Middle East, from February through April 2020. It offers a critical examination of how several different Middle East countries have coped with the crisis. This publication is not intended to be comprehensive or definitive, but rather representative and preliminary. Each of these essays draw on some combination of official government data, traditional local and international media, as well as social media, to provide a provisional picture of the interplay between state and society in the initial response to the crisis.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Health Care Policy, Economy, Crisis Management, Sunni, Jihad, Coronavirus, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Gulf Cooperation Council, and Gulf Nations
3. The Emergence of Another African Conflict: Egypt, Ethiopia and Geopolitics of the Renaissance Dam
- Author:
- Mehari Taddele Maru
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Al Jazeera Center for Studies
- Abstract:
- Very few consider that despite the possibility of conflict or cooperation, such changes in the exploitation of the Nile River resources are due to changing relations and the need to address long-standing unfair and hegemonic approaches to trans-boundary resource sharing.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Regional Cooperation, Natural Resources, and Geopolitics
- Political Geography:
- Africa, North Africa, Ethiopia, and Egypt
4. Owners of the Republic: An Anatomy of Egypt’s Military Economy
- Author:
- Yezid Sayigh
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- The Egyptian military accounts for far less of the national economy than is commonly believed, but its takeover in 2013 and the subsequent rise of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have transformed its role in both scope and scale and turned it into an autonomous actor that can reshape markets and influence government policy setting and investment strategies. The military delivers massive infrastructure projects, produces consumer goods ranging from food to household appliances, manufactures industrial chemicals and transport equipment, and imports basic commodities for civilian markets. It has expanded into new sectors as diverse as gold prospecting, steel production, and managing religious endowments and pilgrimage. In parallel, thousands of retired senior officers benefit from the military’s powerful political influence to occupy senior positions throughout the state’s civilian apparatus and public sector companies, complementing the formal military economy while benefiting themselves. The military boasts of superior managerial skills and technological advances and claims to act as a developmental spearhead, but its role comes at a high cost. It has replicated the rentierism of Egypt’s political economy, benefiting like its civilian counterparts (in both the public and private business sectors) from an environment in which legal permissibility, bureaucratic complexity, and discretionary powers allow considerable space for predation and corruption. At best, the military makes good engineers, but bad economists: the massive surge of megaprojects in public infrastructure and housing it has managed since 2013 is generating significant amounts of dead capital and stranded assets, diverting investment and resources from other economic sectors. The military economy’s entrenchment is detrimental to Egypt’s democratic politics, however flawed. The military economy must be reversed in most sectors, rationalized in select remaining ones, and brought under unambiguous civilian control if Egypt is to resolve the chronic structural problems that impede its social and economic development, inhibit productivity and investment, subvert market dynamics, and distort private sector growth. Nor can any Egyptian government exercise efficient economic management until informal officer networks in the civilian bureaucracy, public sector companies, and local government are disabled. Rosy assessments of Egypt’s macroeconomic indicators issued by Egyptian officials and their counterparts in Western governments and international financial institutions disregard fundamental problems of low productivity and innovation, limited value added, and insufficient investment in most economic sectors. These officials may be hoping Sisi can somehow build a successful development dictatorship, which would explain why they gloss over the social consequences of his administration’s economic approach and its fierce repression of political and social freedoms and egregious human rights violations. A corollary is the faith that the military is as good an economic actor and manager as it claims to be, and that it will withdraw from the economy as the latter grows. Yet current trends suggest Sisi will remain hostage to key partners in the governing coalition, including the military leading its involvement in the economy to accelerate.
- Topic:
- Military Affairs, Economy, and Military Government
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt
5. A Geopolitical Crossfire: Al-Azhar Struggles to Balance Politics and Tradition
- Author:
- James M Dorsey
- Publication Date:
- 08-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA)
- Abstract:
- When Pope Francis I visited Egypt in 2017 to stimulate interfaith dialogue he walked into a religious and geopolitical minefield at the heart of which was Al-Azhar, one of the world’s oldest and foremost seats of Islamic learning. The pope’s visit took on added significance with Al-Azhar standing accused of promoting the kind of ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam that potentially creates an environment conducive to breeding extremism.
- Topic:
- Islam, Politics, Religion, Violent Extremism, and Geopolitics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt
6. Attempts at Reforming Egyptian Demographic Policy
- Author:
- Sara Nowacka
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Polish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- The population of Egypt, the EU’s second-most populous neighbour after Russia, will soon exceed 100 million. The fast pace of the population growth together with the country’s inefficient economy could spur new crises caused by rising unemployment and difficult access to drinking water and food resources, and by politics. The Egyptian government, in cooperation with the EU, U.S., and UN, launched programmes aimed at reducing the fertility rate. Limiting the pace of Egypt’s population growth should weaken factors inciting further destabilisation of the Middle East and North Africa.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Natural Resources, Unemployment, and Population Growth
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt
7. Israel’s Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean
- Author:
- Michał Wojnarowicz
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Polish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- The significance of the Eastern Mediterranean for Israel has increased in the last decade, an outcome of interlocking factors associated with the civil war in Syria, the deterioration of relations with Turkey, and discoveries of new gas fields. The effectiveness of Israeli policy, especially in energy issues, depends on strengthening relations with the states of the region, such as Egypt or Cyprus. Hence, regional cooperation will deepen, which may have a positive impact on Israel-EU relations.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mediterranean
8. MAAS Alum Builds Jordan’s First Windfarm
- Author:
- Diogo Bercito
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- MAAS alum Samer Judeh built Jordan’s first windfarm and catalyzed the country’s renewable energy industry.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Natural Resources, and Renewable Energy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arab Countries, Egypt, and Jordan
9. Exporting for Growth: Identifying Leading Sectors for Egypt and Tunisia Using the Product Space Methodology (التصدیر من أجل النمو: تحدید القطاعات الرائدة في مصر وتونس باستخدام منھجیة فضاء المنتجات)
- Author:
- Amirah El-Haddad
- Publication Date:
- 01-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- German Development Institute (DIE)
- Abstract:
- This discussion paper is available below in both Arabic (2019) and English (2018). The structural transformation of countries moves them towards more sophisticated, higher-value products. Network analysis, using the Product Space Methodology (PSM), guides countries towards leading export sectors. The identification process rests on two pillars: (1) available opportunities, that is, products in the product space that the country does not yet export which are more sophisticated than its current exports; and (2) the stock of a country’s accumulated productive knowledge and the technical capabilities that, through spillovers, enable it to produce slightly more sophisticated products. The PSM points to a tradeoff between capabilities and complexity. The methodology identifies very basic future products that match the two countries’ equally basic capabilities. Top products are simple animal products, cream and yogurt, modestly sophisticated plastics, metals and minerals such as salt and sulphur for Egypt; and slightly more sophisticated products such as containers and bobbins (plastics) and broom handles and wooden products for Tunisia, which is the more advanced of the two countries. A more interventionist approach steers the economy towards maximum sophistication, thus identifying highly complex manufactured metals, machinery, equipment, electronics and chemicals. Despite pushing for economic growth and diversification, these sectors push urban job creation and require high-skill workers, with the implication that low-skilled labour may be pushed into unemployment or into low-value informal jobs. A middle ground is a forward-looking strategy that takes sectors’ shares in world trade into account. This approach identifies medicaments in the chemicals sector; seats (e.g. car and aeroplane seats) in the “other highly manufactured” sector; inflated rubber tyres in the chemicals community (plastics and rubber); containers, bobbins and packages of plastics also in the plastics and rubber section; and articles of iron and steel in the metals sector for Egypt. The top product for Tunisia is furniture in the highly manufactured and special purpose goods community, followed by three products in plastics and rubber in the chemicals community, and finally three machinery sectors.
- Topic:
- Development, Economic growth, Exports, and Economic Development
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, Egypt, and Tunisia
10. Literature Born of Captivity
- Author:
- Mohammad AlAhmad
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- CCAS Professor Mohammad AlAhmad discusses how Arab prison literature goes beyond documenting the prison experience to serve as an instrument of resistance and to hold readers accountable for their silence.
- Topic:
- Torture, Prisons/Penal Systems, Authoritarianism, Political Prisoners, and Literature
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Syria, Egypt, and Morocco
- « Previous
- Next »
- 1
- 2
- 3