Download or read book The Real Issues of the Middle East and the Arab Spring written by Thomas Andersson and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wave of protests and populist uprisings in the Middle East has heightened the focus on a volatile region. But the emphasis on political issues has obscured underlying issues concerning education, infrastructure, research, innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable economic and social development. This volume, emerging in the aftermath of a conference and workshop on science and technology in the region, presents contributions from a range of experts from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States to provide fresh new insights and perspectives on the challenges and prospects for regional development in the changing global context of our time. The authors explore such topics as: the role of information and communication technologies; mindset change in support of investment in intangible assets and risk-taking; how to approach cultural issues, institutions and governance; collaborations with other regions, and; benchmarking performance while drawing lessons of relevance for the special local context. Ultimately, they offer a number of precise policy recommendations and practical insights for creating an enabling environment for capturing economic, political, and social opportunity.
Download or read book Dispatches from the Arab Spring written by Paul Amar and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab Spring unleashed forces of liberation and social justice that swept across North Africa and the Middle East with unprecedented speed, ferocity, and excitement. Although the future of the democratic uprisings against oppressive authoritarian regimes remains uncertain in many places, the revolutionary wave that started in Tunisia in December 2010 has transformed how the world sees Arab peoples and politics. Bringing together the knowledge of activists, scholars, journalists, and policy experts uniquely attuned to the pulse of the region, Dispatches from the Arab Spring offers an urgent and engaged analysis of a remarkable ongoing world-historical event that is widely misinterpreted in the West. Tracing the flows of protest, resistance, and counterrevolution in every one of the countries affected by this epochal change—from Morocco to Iraq and Syria to Sudan—the contributors provide ground-level reports and new ways of teaching about and understanding the Middle East in general, and contextualizing the social upheavals and political transitions that defined the Arab Spring in particular. Rejecting outdated and invalid (yet highly influential) paradigms to analyze the region—from depictions of the “Arab street” as a mindless, reactive mob to the belief that Arab culture was “unfit” for democratic politics—this book offers fresh insights into the region’s dynamics, drawing from social history, political geography, cultural creativity, and global power politics. Dispatches from the Arab Spring is an unparalleled introduction to the changing Middle East and offers the most comprehensive and accurate account to date of the uprisings that profoundly reshaped North Africa and the Middle East. Contributors: Sheila Carapico, U of Richmond; Nouri Gana, UCLA; Toufic Haddad; Adam Hanieh, SOAS/U of London; Toby C. Jones, Rutgers U; Anjali Kamat; Khalid Medani, McGill U; Merouan Mekouar; Maya Mikdashi, NYU; Paulo Gabriel Hilu Pinto, U Federal Fluminense, Brazil; Jillian Schwedler, Hunter College, CUNY; Ahmad Shokr; Susan Slyomovics, UCLA; Haifa Zangana.
Download or read book Values Political Action and Change in the Middle East and the Arab Spring written by Mansoor Moaddel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many have tried, the spontaneity of the Arab Spring uprisings and the unpredictability of its diverse geographical outcomes have resisted explanation. For social scientists, part of the challenge has been how to effectively measure and analyze the empirical data, while another obstacle has been a lack of attention to the worldviews, value orientations, and long-term concerns from the people of the Middle East and North Africa. In order to meet these challenges head-on, Mansoor Moaddel and Michele J. Gelfand have assembled an international team of experts to explore and employ a new and diverse set of frameworks in order to explain the dynamics of cross-national variation, values, political engagement, morality, and development in these regions. To this end, the authors address a wide range of questions, such as: To what extent do recent events reflect changes in values among the Middle Eastern publics? Are youth uniformly more supportive of change than the rest of the population? To what extent are changes in values connected to changes in identities? How do we explain the process of change in the long term? As Moaddel and Gelfand remark in their book's introduction, "Our hope is that this collective effort will not only contribute to the development of the social sciences in the Middle East and North Africa, but also to practical political actions and public policies that serve social tolerance and harmony, peace, and economic prosperity for the people of the region."
Download or read book The Fires of Spring written by Shelly Culbertson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The "Arab Spring" all started when a young Tunisian fruit-seller set himself on fire in protest of a government official confiscating his apples without cause and slapping his face. The aftermath of that one personal protest grew to become the Middle East movement known as the Arab Spring -- a wave of disparate events that included revolutions, protests, government overthrows, hopeful reform movements, and bloody civil wars. This book will be the first to bring the post Arab Spring world to light in a holistic context. It is a narrative of the author Shelly Culbertson's journey through six countries of the Middle East, describing countries, historical perspective, and interviews with revolution and government figures. Culbertson, RAND Middle East analyst and former U.S. State Department officer who has been involved with the Middle East for two decades, is uniquely equipped to analyze the current social, political, economic, and cultural effects of the movement. With honesty, empathy, and expert historical accuracy, Culbertson strives to answer the questions "what led to the Arab Spring, " "what is it like there now, " and "what trends after the Arab Spring are shaping the future of the Middle East?" The Fires of Spring tells the story by weaving together a sense of place, history, insight about key issues of our time, and personal stories and adventures. It navigates street life and peers into ministries, mosques, and women's worlds. It delves into what Arab Spring optimism was about, and at the same time sheds light on the pain and dysfunction that continues to plague some parts of the region."--
Download or read book Middle East Reloaded written by Phillipp O. Amour, Ph.D. and published by Academica Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Middle East is a center of ceaseless global attention. Since 2011, the long awaited and much celebrated Arab Spring uprisings portended a major shift in the politics of the Arab World. Notably, a number of Arab states witnessed institutional and constitutional shifts that put them on the path of transition to liberalization and democracy. Nevertheless, the Arab Spring followed a violent and unpredictable course. Although its events marked a break in the continuity of authoritarian dominance, most of its changes have not ultimately proved to be turning points in democratic development. The Arab Spring phenomenon witnessed a set of uprisings and even would-be-revolutions, but no great revolutionary change. Edited by Professor Philipp Amour of prestigious Sakarya University, this volume presents the work of numerous distinguished scholars, including many native to the region, who explore the fascinating variety of factors behind the rise and fall of the Arab Spring. As they establish, regional polarization and rivalries are the principal accompanying phenomena and side effects of the Arab Spring, and they will demand the world's attention for decades to come. Power dynamics between and among regional great powers have invited proactive, protracted, and very topical military and diplomatic involvement in domestic and regional politics. Some of these interventions will uphold the status quo, while others seem more likely to modify it for the powers' strategic advantage. Authored by leading world experts in Middle Eastern politics, this collection explores foreign and security policy of regional great powers such as Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and their roles in the construction of the new Middle East.
Download or read book Regional Integration and National Disintegration in the Post Arab Spring Middle East written by Imad El-Anis and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection explores the processes of change currently shaping the Middle East in the post-Arab Spring context. The national and transnational challenges that have emerged since the uprisings in 2011 – particularly the increase in extremism, and the emergence and intensification of civil wars – have garnered significant attention in both media coverage and academic research. However, simultaneous (and far older) processes of regional integration – varying in form from free trade agreements like the Greater Arab Free Trade Area to economic and political unions like the Gulf Cooperation Council – have also been influenced by the changes of the past few years. This text draws together innovative new research from different fields to explore how far the changes shaping the Middle East are leading to the region’s polarisation between states that are integrating politically and economically with each other on the one hand, and states that are disintegrating internally on the other. The book includes contributions from scholars and practitioners from around the world, and who work in different fields including Middle Eastern studies, international relations, international political economy, foreign policy studies, and security studies. Chapters vary in focus and approach, with the first section focusing on security-related issues, particularly civil wars and terrorism. A second group of chapters looks at political economy in the region, and examines domestic, regional and global practices and processes, including foreign aid, trade, and development. A final group of chapters investigates socio-political and socio-cultural issues, including the role of civil society in the region, migration, and international law.
Download or read book The Arab Spring written by Jason Brownlee and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Several years after the Arab Spring began, democracy remains elusive in the Middle East. The Arab Spring that resides in the popular imagination is one in which a wave of mass mobilization swept the broader Middle East, toppled dictators, and cleared the way for democracy. The reality is that few Arab countries have experienced anything of the sort. While Tunisia made progress towards some type of constitutionally entrenched participatory rule, the other countries that overthrew their rulers-Egypt, Yemen, and Libya-remain mired in authoritarianism and instability. Elsewhere in the Arab world uprisings were suppressed, subsided or never materialized. The Arab Spring's modest harvest cries out for explanation. Why did regime change take place in only four Arab countries and why has democratic change proved so elusive in the countries that made attempts? This book attempts to answer those questions. First, by accounting for the full range of variance: from the absence or failure of uprisings in such places as Algeria and Saudi Arabia at one end to Tunisia's rocky but hopeful transition at the other. Second, by examining the deep historical and structure variables that determined the balance of power between incumbents and opposition. Brownlee, Masoud, and Reynolds find that the success of domestic uprisings depended on the absence of a hereditary executive and a dearth of oil rents. Structural factors also cast a shadow over the transition process. Even when opposition forces toppled dictators, prior levels of socioeconomic development and state strength shaped whether nascent democracy, resurgent authoritarianism, or unbridled civil war would follow.
Download or read book Beyond the Arab Spring written by Mehran Kamrava and published by Hurst & Company Limited. This book was released on 2014 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Center for International and Regional Studies"--Title page.
Download or read book The New Arab Wars written by Marc Lynch and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marc Lynch's last book, The Arab Uprising, described the then ongoing revolutionary change and prospect for the consolidation of democracy in key Arab countries that still seemed possible. But Lynch saw dark signs on the horizon, especially in Syria. That book ended with the hope that the Arab uprisings heralded a fundamental change over the long-term, but with the warning that Arab regimes would not easily give up their power. Instead, Egypt’s revolution has given way to a military coup; Libya’s produced a failed state; Yemen is the battleground for a proxy war and will be destroyed; Syria has become a sprawling humanitarian catastrophe that will take a generation to begin to recover from. At the same time, America has less and less reason to want to engage with the region and now has only one functional ally apart from Israel. The New Arab Wars describes how the political landscape of an entire region has been convulsed, with much of it given over to anarchy, as proxy wars on behalf of three competing powers—Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia—scar the region. It is a brutal, compelling story.
Download or read book Qatar and the Arab Spring written by Kristian Ulrichsen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Qatar and the Arab Spring offers a frank examination of Qatar's startling rise to regional and international prominence, describing how its distinctive policy stance toward the Arab Spring emerged. In only a decade, Qatari policy-makers - led by the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani - catapulted Qatar from a sleepy backwater to a regional power with truly international reach. In addition to pursuing an aggressive state-branding strategy with its successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar forged a reputation for diplomatic mediation that combined intensely personalized engagement with financial backing and favorable media coverage through the Al-Jazeera. These factors converged in early 2011 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolts in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen, which Qatari leaders saw as an opportunity to seal their regional and international influence, rather than as a challenge to their authority, and this guided their support of the rebellions against the Gaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria. From the high watermark of Qatari influence after the toppling of Gaddafi in 2011, that rapidly gave way to policy overreach in Syria in 2012, Coates Ulrichsen analyses Qatari ambition and capabilities as the tiny emirate sought to shape the transitions in the Arab world.
Download or read book Kings Or People written by Reinhard Bendix and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is difficult to decide which is the more impressive: the authority and control with which Mr. Bendix writes of the traditions, the institutions, and the technological and social developments of cultures as diverse as the British, French, German, Russian, and Japanese, or the skill with which he weaves his separate stories into a persuasive scenario of the modern revolution. A remarkable achievement."--Gordon A. Craig, Stanford University ""Kings or People" is equal to the grandeur of its subject: the political origins of the modern world. With Barrington Moore's "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy" and Immanuels Wallerstein's "The Modern World System" which it matches in boldness, while differing radically in perspective, it is one of the truly powerful ventures in comparative historical sociology to have appeared in recent years."--Clifford Geertz "A brilliant achievement that will be equally fascinating for the general reader, the student, and the specialized scholar."--Henry W. Ehrmann
Download or read book Turkey s Relations with the Middle East written by Hüseyin Işıksal and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines contemporary political relations between Turkey and the Middle East. In the light of the Arab Uprisings of 2011, the Syria Crisis, the escalation of regional terrorism and the military coup attempt in Turkey, it illustrates the dramatic fluctuations in Turkish foreign policy towards key Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The contributors analyze Turkey’s deepening involvement in Middle Eastern regional affairs, also addressing issues such as terrorism, social and political movements and minority rights struggles. While these problems have traditionally been regarded as domestic matters, this book highlights their increasingly regional dimension and the implications for the foreign affairs of Turkey and countries in the Middle East.
Download or read book The Arab Awakening written by Kenneth M. Pollack and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even the most seasoned Middle East observers were taken aback by the events of early 2011. Protests born of oppression and socioeconomic frustration erupted throughout the streets; public unrest provoked violent police backlash; long-established dictatorships fell. How did this all happen? What might the future look like, and what are the likely ramifications for the United States and the rest of the world? In The Arab Awakening, experts from the Brookings Institution tackle such questions to make sense of this tumultuous region that remains at the heart of U.S. national interests. The first portion of The Arab Awakening offers broad lessons by analyzing key aspects of the Mideast turmoil, such as public opinion trends within the "Arab Street"; the role of social media and technology; socioeconomic and demographic conditions; the influence of Islamists; and the impact of the new political order on the Arab-Israeli peace process. The next section looks at the countries themselves, finding commonalties and grouping them according to the political evolutions that have (or have not) occurred in each country. The section offers insight into the current situation, and possible trajectory of each group of countries, followed by individual nation studies. The Arab Awakening brings the full resources of Brookings to bear on making sense of what may turn out to be the most significant geopolitical movement of this generation. It is essential reading for anyone looking to understand these developments and their consequences.
Download or read book After the Arab Spring written by John R. Bradley and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the book that uniquely predicted the Egyptian revolution, a new message about the Middle East: everything we're told about the Arab Spring is wrong. When popular revolutions erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, the West assumed that democracy and pluralism would triumph. Greatly praised author and foreign correspondent John R. Bradley draws on his extensive firsthand knowledge of the region's cultures and societies to show how Islamists will fill the power vacuum in the wake of the revolutions. This vivid and timely book gives an original analysis of the new Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain by highlighting the dramatic spread of Saudi-funded Wahhabi ideology, inter-tribal rivalries, and Sunni-Shia divisions. Bradley gives a boots on the ground look at how the revolutions were first ignited and the major players behind them, and shows how the local population participated in and responded to the uprisings. In Tunisia he witnesses secularists under violent attack and in Egypt observes radical Islamists taking control of the streets. He illuminates the ancient sectarian strife shaking Bahrain, fierce civil war pitching tribe against tribe in Libya and Yemen, and ethnic divisions threatening to tear apart Syria and Iran. Taking it one step further, Bradley offers a comprehensive look at how across countries, liberal, progressive voices that first rallied the Arab masses were drowned out by the slogans of the better-organized and more popular radical Islamists. With the in-depth knowledge of a local and the keen perspective of a seasoned reporter, After the Arab Spring offers a piercing analysis of what the empowerment of Islamism bodes for the future of the Middle East and the impact on the West.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring written by Larbi Sadiki and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 718 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in Tunisia in December 2010 heralded the arrival of the ‘Arab Spring,’ a startling, yet not unprecedented, era of profound social and political upheaval. The meme of the Arab Spring is characterised by bottom-up change, or the lack thereof, and its effects are still unfurling today. The Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring seeks to provide a departure point for ongoing discussion of a fluid phenomenon on a plethora of topics, including: Contexts and contests of democratisation The sweep of the Arab Spring Egypt Women and the Arab Spring Agents of change and the technology of protest Impact of the Arab Spring in the wider Middle East and further afield Collating a wide array of viewpoints, specialisms, biases, and degrees of proximity and distance from events that shook the Arab world to its core, the Handbook is written with the reader in mind, to provide students, practitioners, diplomats, policy-makers and lay readers with contextualization and knowledge, and to set the stage for further discussion of the Arab Spring.
Download or read book The New Middle East written by Paul Danahar and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2011 the Arab revolts changed the Middle East forever. The toppling of a generation of dictators left the region in turmoil. Has the promise of the Arab Spring been lost? What does the rise of religious extremism on Europe's doorstep mean for the West and its allies? Is America giving up on the region and, if so, who will lead the new Middle East? Drawing on compelling first-hand reporting, a deep knowledge of the region's history and access to many of the key players, BBC Bureau Chief Paul Danahar lays bare the forces that are shaping the region. Now completely revised and updated to include everything that has happened in the region since the book was first published.
Download or read book Women Rising written by Rita Stephan and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women’s resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women. In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women’s political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists. Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women’s activism.
