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12. Demographic challenges and opportunities ahead in Middle East and North Africa: "Arab Spring" or "Islamic winter"?
- Author:
- Youssef Courbage
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- Since December 2010, the speed, suddenness and scope of events in North Africa and the Middle East have taken everyone by surprise. They nevertheless had to happen. Given the universality of human nature – differences between a European and an Arab are ultimately of minor importance – the processes that began in Europe in the seventeenth century and spread throughout the world would have inevitably reached the Arab countries.
- Topic:
- Demographics and Regime Change
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Arabia
13. How the West can get on the right side of history in the re-awakening Arab world
- Author:
- David Gardner
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- The reign of Arab strongmen supported by the West is drawing to an end. Europe has the duty and the opportunity to get on the right side of history, and to assist in reform and reconstruction, if and when requested. The economic dimension is about more than aid and trade, and will turn importantly on ideas and debate. Policy should be driven by a blatant bias towards democracy and its defenders, the support of competitive politics and open societies, education and the building of institutions, law-based regimes and the empowerment of women – everything many Arabs still find attractive about Western society.
- Topic:
- Post Colonialism, Regime Change, and Insurgency
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Middle East, and Arabia
14. Youth integration and job creation in the Middle East
- Author:
- Jad Chaaban
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- The Middle East and North African region is currently faced with one of the toughest socioeconomic challenges in its modern history: a "youth bulge" of almost 100 million young people, of which a quarter are unemployed. Between 40 and 50 million new jobs need to be created in the region's countries over the next decade, and this implies that governments in the region should embark on a labour-intensive and job-creating growth trajectory. Special attention should be given to reducing the unemployment and emigration of skilled youth, and to integrating young women into the labour market. Policies that tackle the institutional and structural impediments to meaningful job creation should be pursued, together with public interventions in social protection and housing programmes that would reduce youth's social exclusion in the region.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Gender Issues, Islam, and Labor Issues
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Arabia
15. Regional implications of the conflict in Syria: a view from Israel
- Author:
- Yossi Alpher
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- Syria is geo-strategically, historically and politically the most central of Middle East countries, hence the over-riding importance of the conflict there. Yet any discussion of the regional implications of that conflict is necessarily highly speculative. Its points of departure are the instances of regional intervention and "overflow" from the situation already taking place. Turkey, with its open support for the armed Syrian opposition, is the leading candidate to establish "safe zones" or even "humanitarian corridors" that could conceivably lead to war. Ankara's growing rivalry with Iran is increasingly being acted out in Syria and is interacting with tensions between Sunni Muslims and Alawites/Shias not only in Syria, but in Lebanon and Iraq as well.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Regime Change, Bilateral Relations, and Territorial Disputes
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Arabia, and Syria
16. Rivalries for authority in Libya
- Author:
- Nicolas Pelham
- Publication Date:
- 06-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- Throughout their ten-month campaign to topple Colonel Qaddafi, Libya's opposition forces struggled to reconcile two competing streams. While fighters fired with revolutionary zeal rushed off to the front, politicians tried to establish a semblance of order in the territory that these fighters had won. Since the fall of Tripoli in August 2011 tensions have escalated into a power struggle between the thuwar, or militia forces, waving the banner of revolution, and the architects of would be reconstruction, seeking stability to give their designs foundation. As elections approach in mid- June 2012, this rivalry is coming to a head. Both sides view the ballot as the seminal event that could break the deadlock and signal the transfer of power from centrifugal revolutionary forces to a sober central authority.
- Topic:
- Civil War, Armed Struggle, and Regime Change
- Political Geography:
- Libya, Arabia, and North Africa
17. The future of Israel-Palestine: a one-state reality in the making
- Author:
- Khalil Shikaki
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- With no agreement on a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in sight, one-state dynamics are gaining momentum – a development that will be difficult to reverse or even contain. In the medium and long term, no one benefits from such a development. Indeed, all might lose: an ugly one-state dynamic has no happy ending, and such a solution is rejected by Palestinians and Israelis alike. Instead, the emerging one-state reality increases the potential for various kinds of conflicts and contradictory impulses. The international community too finds itself unprepared and perhaps unwilling to confront this emerging reality, but in doing so it imperils the prospects for peace in the region – the exact thing it seeks to promote.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Security, Treaties and Agreements, and Territorial Disputes
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
18. Palestinian youth and the Arab Spring
- Author:
- Jacob Høigilt, Mona Christophersen, and Åge A. Tiltnes
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- This report investigates young Palestinians' views of their economic and political situation and their interest and level of engagement in politics with reference to two momentous political events in 2011: the Arab Spring and the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. A main question is whether the Occupied Palestinian Territories are experiencing a reinvigoration of youth activism.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Demographics, Regime Change, and Youth Culture
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, Arabia, and United Nations
19. Hamas's leadership struggle and the prospects for Palestinian reconciliation
- Author:
- Nicolas Pelham
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- When the West Bank and Gaza first split between two rival Palestinian governments in 2007, Western governments promised to turn the West Bank under President Mahmoud Abbas, their Fatah protégé, into a model state and reduce Gaza under its Islamist rulers, Hamas, to a pariah. Almost five years on, the tables have turned. While the West Bank slips into economic and political crisis, Gaza is fast reviving. Abbas finds himself bereft of a political horizon for achieving a two-state settlement and the state-building experiment of his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has reached an impasse. Gaza's economy, by contrast, has grown strongly under Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, who is experiencing a wave of increasing popularity, as Hamas looks to tie the enclave ever more closely to the political economies of North Africa, where the Arab awakening is bringing affiliated Islamist movements to power. A recent agreement signed in the Qatari capital, Doha, between Abbas and Hamas's exiled leader, Khalid Meshal, is intended to heal the split between Palestine's two halves. Under the agreement, the separate governments governing Gaza and the West Bank would be replaced by a single technocratic government under Abbas, which is a radical about-turn on the part of the exiled Hamas leadership that Hamas politicians in Gaza find difficult to swallow. For its own reasons, Israel too rejects the agreement. With so many previous attempts at intra-Palestinian reconciliation ending in failure and so many obstacles dogging this latest round, the prospects for the Doha agreement remain bleak, but not beyond the realm of the possible.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Democratization, Islam, Treaties and Agreements, Territorial Disputes, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, Arabia, and North Africa
20. Financial markets in GCC countries: recent crises and structural weaknesses
- Author:
- Steffen Hertog
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries' financial sectors are solid, but not very sophisticated: business is mostly financed through bank lending rather than bonds or stock issues, and banks continue to rely on state support and, in many cases, are directly state owned.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Arabia
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