Middle East scholars recently released the results of the new Middle East Scholar Barometer. What does it tell us about Middle East Studies itself? Does it suggest the field is rich and progressing, or in need of an intellectual shakeup?
Middle East scholars recently released the results of the new Middle East Scholar Barometer. What does it tell us about Middle East Studies itself? Does it suggest the field is rich and progressing, or in need of an intellectual shakeup?
Name Of The Book… And Its Coordinates? Jennifer D. Sciubba, ed. 2021. A Research Agenda for Political Demography (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, Massachusetts, USA: Edward Elgar) What’s the...
Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic advisor to the UAE, recently spoke to an international conference on the UAE's desire to smooth over tensions with Turkey and Iran. Turkey and the UAE found themselves on...
Everyone is (rightly) thinking about Afghanistan, but I'm still thinking of Tunisia. Each fall I teach a Middle East politics class. And each fall I end our discussion on the Arab Spring with a...
Details continue to trickle out about the horrific assassination of Saudi dissident and writer Jamal Khashoggi. This has captured the attention of foreign policy experts, who have questioned the alliance’s importance and suggested ways to punish Saudi Arabia. Concern about this incidents has spread beyond experts, however. My students and I have frequently debated what will happen to the US-Saudi alliance. And I recently appeared on WCAX in Burlington to discuss what comes next. To both audiences--and in contrast to some commentators--I gave the unsatisfying answer of “not much.” Time after...
It's the weekend, so it's time for the third edition of “Tweets of the Week.” My twitter feed was again filled with some interesting micro-blogging. By the way, I apologize for the way last week's home page post looked. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong with the images, though it seems to be fine once the reader clicks the link to Continue Reading. I hope readers can see the image at the top of this page. This week, the bombing campaign against ISIS/ISIL was ramped up thanks to new air strikes in Syria. I believe that most people in my feed are unenthusiastic about the entire enterprise...
Steve Walt asked a great question the other day: Are U.S. Interests Really at Stake in Egypt, Syria, etc...? In posing the question, he cited a recent comment from Brendan Green, a visiting professor at the LBJ School at the University of Texas-Austin: "Pre-2011, if you said that Mubarak would fall, that Egypt would experience a mass political mobilization that destroyed its political order several times over, that the streets of Cairo would run red with blood; that 100,000 would die in Syria, that the Levant would be aflame; that the entire region would start to conduct much of its...
For the ultimate outcome of the Arab Spring and the prospects of moderate Islamic influence of politics.... ... is it more important that democracy not be thoroughly flouted as it just was in the removal of President Morsi in Egypt, or that a major lesson may have just been delivered to extreme Islamic parties/governments that had better govern inclusively or their people might prevent them from continuing to stay in office?
I've learned to limit consumption of Tom Friedman, except when he talks about the Middle East...yesterday his column suggested that the Arab Spring should be renamed in light of recent events...I think he is on to something, but I doubt his suggestion of "The Arab Quarter Century" will fly...my suggestion is the "The Arab Turn", which connotes both the significance of current events in the region and recognition of some kind of new era in the making, but leaves open the outcome...what do you think?
This is a guest post by Jarrod Hayes. Jarrod is Assistant Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. He received his PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Southern California in 2009. His research broadly focuses on the social construction of foreign and security policy. He is currently trying to determine what should be on the cover of his forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press while trying to reconcile that with the maxim that books should not be judged by their covers. One of the important areas of debate in securitization theory is...
Note: this started out as "Morning Linkage" but quickly became an extended comment. I apologize for the poor proofing.Four Americans, including US ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the extremist Islamist attack on the American consulate in Libya, Hayes Brown has a good, quick, overview of the circumstances surrounding the attacks in Libya and Egypt. As he concludes: Finally, the relationship between the United States and the Egyptian and Libyan governments will likely hinge on the response of their leadership. The Libyan government, including President Mohammed el-Megarif, has...
The direct targeting of actors protected under the laws of war has been one of the most disturbing trends arising out of the Arab Spring. For example, the targeting of medical workers and ambulance drivers was well documented and reported on last year. Additionally, here at the Duck we've been following the issue. In recent months Dan Nexon wrote about the targeting of doctors who treated protesters in Bahrain and I've bloged about the growing concern of the ICRC who have seen themselves and their workers targeted. Unfortunately, this trend has continued into 2012. In January, the...