Is "people power" contagious? It's easy to find examples of journalists, policymakers and/or analysts, and some scholars arguing that opposition to authoritarian rule is spreading like a winter virus from Tunisia to Egypt and Yemen. In this case, many optimists argue...
I realize that this is not the Feminist IR 101 post that you may have been expecting, or some bright engagement with what's going on in that area we seem to be able to so easily group as "the Middle...
 The prospect of a new government in Egypt opens huge uncertainties for the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East.  At this point, no one can predict what that new government will be.  But it is clear...
The neocon blogoshere is lit up with more willow witching that the events in Egypt are vindication of the Bush's "freedom agenda." And, they are blasting Obama for his timid response -- apparently,...
When I taught for three years at the American University in Cairo, my partner, who was conducting her doctoral dissertation research on Islamist political parties, would often get text messages from the Muslim Brotherhood informing us of interesting programs we might want to watch on satellite that evening or educational events around town. While I found the messages from the "banned-but-tolerated" party amusing (and useful), I was always dimly aware that the state must also be monitoring such messages. In one of my political economy classes I remember my students talking about one of their...
Great powers find themselves compelled to support regimes they consider problematic, unpleasant, or even odious. The United States is no exception. Many of its friends and allies have far greater democratic deficits than Egypt, although few receive more combined U.S. aid than Cairo does. Sometimes those allies will have revolutionary moments -- points at which the forces for regime change are strong enough that no one can be sure whether the government will prevail. Sometimes they will have what might best be described as pre-revolutionary periods. During these periods it looks like a...
Do we?Tomorrow is slated to be a showdown between the US backed Mubarak regime and masses of Egyptian protesters. It is a critical moment for Egypt, and also for the Arab nation. What strikes me about these events, is the general way in which the discourse of "reform" continues to be the official American mantra (at least where there is not out right denial of the authoritarian nature of the regime in Egypt). After decades of supporting a dictatorship, the US government continues to claim that the Mubarak regime needs only to reform to retain power and address the legitimate anger of the...
We haven't had much to say about these topics at the Duck. Which is fine, as there are much better academic bloggers to go to for informed commentary (e.g. Marc Lynch, Juan Cole, etc.). But I am struck by this AP story, which suggests Egypt is taking additional efforts to shut down internet communications (more here and here [note: holy &*!!, the whole country appears to be cut off]) as it ramps up its crackdown.On a more abstract plane, Josh Tucker wrote an interesting post on revolution and revolutionary contagion that approvingly cites Timur Kuran's influential work on the inevitability...
Drew Conway discusses the evils of word clouds. He doesn't go far enough: the meaning of speeches and texts depends on the order and proximity of words, not the frequency of their appearance. Consider the two wordles below of famous addresses. They're both meaningless hash. They tell us virtually nothing of any importance about the two speeches.
If you're looking for something to read for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, let me humbly suggest Adam Jones' volume Evoking Genocide, which has won a 2010 Outstanding Academic Title Award by the American Library Association's Choice Magazine. Here's their review:This compilation has a simple yet fascinating premise: ask leading human rights scholars and activists to reflect on the art and literature that most influenced them. The result –60 two-to-three page essays mediating on a wide variety of sources, from the essential (Elie Wiesel’s Night, 1960) to the unexpected (Star...
When delicate political negotiations are needed, perhaps journalists need to get out of the way. Gadi Wolfsfeld’s studies of peace processes have shown how journalistic discretion in Northern Ireland created space for political leaders to make individual compromises. Such compromises would probably each have been unacceptable to their constituencies if lit up by a media spotlight, but only became public once the full package of a peace treaty was reached (Bono had to wait). Past negotiations between Israeli leaders with their Jordanian or Palestinian counterparts have been less successful in...
Thanks to Erik Voeten, I have just discovered a fabulous blog, Better Book Titles:This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic crap, and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!Some of my other favorites from the site:blinkthe curious incident of the dog in the nighttimethe very hungry caterpillar, andthe elements of style.And both Erik and Jeff Ely have a little more to say about the political economy of...