A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East

A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East PDF Author: Linda T. Darling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415503612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive survey of the exercise of political power and justice in the Middle East from ancient Mesopotamia through into the 20th century, through a detailed examination of "the Circle of Justice". A "must read" for students, policymakers, and ordinary citizens, this book will be an important contribution to the areas of political history, political theory, Middle East studies and Orientalism.

A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East

A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East PDF Author: Linda T. Darling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415503612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book

Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive survey of the exercise of political power and justice in the Middle East from ancient Mesopotamia through into the 20th century, through a detailed examination of "the Circle of Justice". A "must read" for students, policymakers, and ordinary citizens, this book will be an important contribution to the areas of political history, political theory, Middle East studies and Orientalism.

A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East

A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East PDF Author: Linda T. Darling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136220186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
From ancient Mesopotamia into the 20th century, "the Circle of Justice" as a concept has pervaded Middle Eastern political thought and underpinned the exercise of power in the Middle East. The Circle of Justice depicts graphically how a government’s justice toward the population generates political power, military strength, prosperity, and good administration. This book traces this set of relationships from its earliest appearance in the political writings of the Sumerians through four millennia of Middle Eastern culture. It explores how people conceptualized and acted upon this powerful insight, how they portrayed it in symbol, painting, and story, and how they transmitted it from one regime to the next. Moving towards the modern day, the author shows how, although the Circle of Justice was largely dropped from political discourse, it did not disappear from people’s political culture and expectations of government. The book demonstrates the Circle’s relevance to the Iranian Revolution and the rise of Islamist movements all over the Middle East, and suggests how the concept remains relevant in an age of capitalism. A "must read" for students, policymakers, and ordinary citizens, this book will be an important contribution to the areas of political history, political theory, Middle East studies and Orientalism.

Environmental Politics in the Middle East

Environmental Politics in the Middle East PDF Author: Harry Verhoeven
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190916680
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interactions connect to the global political economy. Through region-wide analyses and case studies from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf of Aden, the Levant and North Africa, the volume highlights the intimate connections of environmental activism, energy infrastructure and illicit commodity trading with the political economies of Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The book's nine chapters analyze how the exploitation and representation of the environment have shaped the history of the region--and determined its place in global politics. It argues that how the ecological is understood, instrumentalized and intervened upon is the product of political struggle: deconstructing ideas and practices of environmental change means unravelling claims of authority and legitimacy. This is particularly important in a region frequently seen through the prism of environmental determinism, where ruling elites have imposed authoritarian control as the corollary of 'environmental crisis'. This unique and urgent collection will question much of what we think we know about this pressing issue.

The Rise of the Arab American Left

The Rise of the Arab American Left PDF Author: Pamela E. Pennock
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469630990
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
In this first history of Arab American activism in the 1960s, Pamela Pennock brings to the forefront one of the most overlooked minority groups in the history of American social movements. Focusing on the ideas and strategies of key Arab American organizations and examining the emerging alliances between Arab American and other anti-imperialist and antiracist movements, Pennock sheds new light on the role of Arab Americans in the social change of the era. She details how their attempts to mobilize communities in support of Middle Eastern political or humanitarian causes were often met with suspicion by many Americans, including heavy surveillance by the Nixon administration. Cognizant that they would be unable to influence policy by traditional electoral means, Arab Americans, through slow coalition building over the course of decades of activism, brought their central policy concerns and causes into the mainstream of activist consciousness. With the support of new archival and interview evidence, Pennock situates the civil rights struggle of Arab Americans within the story of other political and social change of the 1960s and 1970s. By doing so, she takes a crucial step forward in the study of American social movements of that era.

Justice Interrupted

Justice Interrupted PDF Author: Elizabeth F. Thompson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674076095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
The Arab Spring uprising of 2011 is portrayed as a dawn of democracy in the region. But the revolutionaries were—and saw themselves as—heirs to a centuries-long struggle for just government and the rule of law. In Justice Interrupted we see the complex lineage of political idealism, reform, and violence that informs today’s Middle East.

Perilous Power

Perilous Power PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317254317
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The volatile Middle East is the site of vast resources, profound passions, frequent crises, and long-standing conflicts, as well as a major source of international tensions and a key site of direct US intervention. Two of the most astute analysts of this part of the world are Noam Chomsky, the preeminent critic of U.S, foreign policy, and Gilbert Achcar, a leading specialist of the Middle East who lived in that region for many years. In their new book, Chomsky and Achcar bring a keen understanding of the internal dynamics of the Middle East and of the role of the United States, taking up all the key questions of interest to concerned citizens, including such topics as terrorism, fundamentalism, conspiracies, oil, democracy, self-determination, anti-Semitism, and anti-Arab racism, as well as the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the sources of U.S. foreign policy. This book provides the best readable introduction for all who wish to understand the complex issues related to the Middle East from a perspective dedicated to peace and justice.

Making the New Middle East

Making the New Middle East PDF Author: Valerie J. Hoffman
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 081565457X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
Demands for freedom, justice, and dignity have animated protests and revolutions across the Middle East in recent years, from the Iranian Green Movement and the Arab Spring uprisings to Turkey’s March for Justice and the ongoing struggle in Palestine. Although expectations raised by the Arab Spring were largely disappointed and protests that toppled entrenched rulers unleashed vicious counterrevolutionary forces, there is no doubt that the landscape of the Middle East has changed. Drawing from diverse disciplines, this volume offers critical perspectives on these changes, covering politics, religion, gender dynamics, human rights, media, literature, and music. What ultimately has changed in “the new Middle East”? Who are the actors pushing the direction of change? How are aspirations for change being expressed through media and the arts? With extensive analysis and thoughtful reflection, this book gives readers an in-depth portrayal of a modernizing Middle East.

Dispatches from the Arab Spring

Dispatches from the Arab Spring PDF Author: Paul Amar
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452940614
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description
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.

International Law in the Middle East

International Law in the Middle East PDF Author: Jean Allain
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351926772
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
Examining international law through the lens of the Middle East, this insightful study demonstrates the qualitatively different manner in which international law is applied in this region of the world. Law is intended to produce a just society, but as it is ultimately a social construct that has travelled through a political process, it cannot be divorced from its relationship to power. The study demonstrates that this understanding shapes the notion, strongly held in the Middle East, that law is little more than a tool of the powerful, used for coercion and oppression. The author considers a number of formative events to demonstrate how the Middle East has become an underclass of the international system wherein law is applied and interpreted selectively, used coercively and, in noticeable situations, simply disregarded. International Law in the Middle East brings various narratives of history to the fore to create a wider arena in which international law can be considered and critiqued.

A Social Revolution

A Social Revolution PDF Author: Kevan Harris
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520280814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
For decades, political observers and pundits have characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran as an ideologically rigid state on the verge of collapse, exclusively connected to a narrow social base. In A Social Revolution, Kevan Harris convincingly demonstrates how they are wrong. Previous studies ignore the forceful consequences of three decades of social change following the 1979 revolution. Today, more people in the country are connected to welfare and social policy institutions than to any other form of state organization. In fact, much of Iran’s current political turbulence is the result of the success of these social welfare programs, which have created newly educated and mobilized social classes advocating for change. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2006 and 2011, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured though the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This first serious book on the social policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran opens a new line of inquiry into the study of welfare states in countries where they are often overlooked or ignored.