Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World

Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World PDF Author: Marina Ottaway
Publisher: Carnegie Endowment
ISBN: 0870032771
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World

Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World PDF Author: Marina Ottaway
Publisher: Carnegie Endowment
ISBN: 0870032771
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description


Beyond the Façade

Beyond the Façade PDF Author: Marina Ottaway
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 9789774162381
Category : Arab countries
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran

The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438445989
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
In recent years, Egypt and Iran have been beset with demands for fundamental change. The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran draws together leading regional experts to provide a penetrating comparative analysis of the ways Islam is entangled with the process of democratization in authoritarian regimes. By comparing Islam and the rule of law in these two nations, one Sunni and Arab-speaking, the other Shi>ite and Persian-speaking, this volume enriches the current debate on Islam and democracy, making for a more nuanced understanding and appreciation of differences with the Muslim world, and provides an indispensible background for understanding the Green movement in Iran since 2009 and the Egyptian revolution of 2011

Foreign Aid in the Middle East

Foreign Aid in the Middle East PDF Author: Beáta Paragi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786725800
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
What do we mean by 'gifts' in International Relations? Can foreign aid be conceptualized as a gift? Most foreign aid transactions are unilateral and financially unreciprocated, yet donors expect to benefit from them.Previous research dealing with foreign aid has analyzed the main donor motives and interests in providing financial support. This book offers an in-depth analysis of the invisible political or social 'exchange' taking place between recipient countries and donors when a grant agreement is signed. Focusing on Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Israel - the main beneficiaries of Western foreign aid – the book uses gift theories and theories of social exchange to show how international social bonds are shaped by foreign aid and in what ways recipient countries are obliged to return the 'gift' they receive. Foreign aid is a means of buying 'stability' or 'democracy' in the region but Beata Paragi is interested here to understand the actual feasibility of Western assistance. Looking at the context of the Arab Spring, the book examines how aid impacts on a recipient country's domestic political events such as war, the quest for self-determination, the struggle against occupation and the fight for dignity. An original contribution to Middle East Studies and International Relations, the research presents an alternative interpretation of foreign aid and show how external funds interact with local developments and realities.

Inside the Arab State

Inside the Arab State PDF Author: Mehran Kamrava
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190934913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The 2011 Arab uprisings and their subsequent aftermath have thrown into question some of our long-held assumptions about the foundational aspects of the Arab state. While the regional and international consequences of the uprisings continue to unfold with great unpredictability, their ramifications for the internal lives of the states in which they unfolded are just as dramatic and consequential. States historically viewed as models of strength and stability have been shaken to their foundations. Borders thought impenetrable have collapsed; sovereignty and territoriality have been in flux. This book examines some of the central questions facing observers and scholars of the Middle East concerning the nature of power and politics before and after 2011 in the Arab world. The focus of the book revolves around the very nature of politics and the exercise of power in the Arab world, conceptions of the state, its functions and institutions, its sources of legitimacy, and basic notions underlying it such as sovereignty and nationalism. Inside the Arab State adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, examining a broad range of political, economic, and social variables. It begins with an examination of politics, and more specifically political institutions, in the Arab world from the 1950s on, tracing the travail of states, and the wounds they inflicted on society and on themselves along the way, until the eruption of the 2011 uprisings. The uprisings, the states' responses to them, and efforts by political leaders to carve out for themselves means of legitimacy are also discussed, as are the reasons for the emergence and rise of Daesh and the Islamic State. Power, I argue, and increasingly narrow conceptions of it in terms of submission and conformity, remains at the heart of Arab politics, popular protests and yearnings for change notwithstanding. Much has changed in the Arab world over the last several decades. But even more has stayed the same.

Political Change in the Middle East and North Africa

Political Change in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Szmolka Inmaculada Szmolka
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474415318
Category : Africa, North
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
Taking a comparative approach, this book considers the ways in which political regimes have changed since the Arab Spring. It addresses a series of questions about political change in the context of the revolutions, upheavals and protests that have taken place in North Africa and the Arab Middle East since December 2010, and looks at the various processes have been underway in the region: democratisation (Tunisia), failed democratic transitions (Egypt, Libya and Yemen), political liberalisation (Morocco) and increased authoritarianism (Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria). In other countries, in contrast to these changes, the authoritarian regimes remain intact (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Arab United Emirates.

Beyond the Arab Spring

Beyond the Arab Spring PDF Author: Mehran Kamrava
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019938441X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
"Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Center for International and Regional Studies"--Title page.

After the Arab Uprisings

After the Arab Uprisings PDF Author: Raymond Hinnebusch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317221885
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
The Arab Uprisings that began in 2010 removed four presidents and made more mobilized mass publics an increased factor in the politics of regional states. The main initial problematic of the Arab Uprising was how to translate mass protest into democratization and ultimately democratic consolidation; yet four years later, there was little democratization. This book explores various aspects of this question while, comparing outcomes in three states, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia. The introduction by Raymond Hinnebusch explores how far different starting points —the features of the regime and of the uprising--explain these pathways. Morten Valbjørn then considers the consequences of the Arab uprisings for the credibility of rival democratization and post-democratization paradigms. Vincent Durac examines the efficacy of anti-system social movements in challenging regimes but their inability to steer a democratic transition. Joshua Stacher examines the increased violence deployed by more conercive authoritarian regimes to prevent such a transition. Frede ́ric Volpi and Ewan Stein examine the conseuences of the relative balance between different kinds of Islamists for outcomes. James Allison then examines the impact of workers’ movements on democratic potentials. Adham Saouli assesses the mobilization of communal identities by ruling elites and counter-elites. Raymond Hinnebusch focuses on the negative impact on democratization of competitive external interference inside the uprising states. In Hinnebusch’s conclusion, the combined effects of the agency of these forces and the political, cultural, and economic contexts in which they operate are summarized. This book was previously published as a special issue of Democratization.

Qatar

Qatar PDF Author: Mehran Kamrava
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801454301
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
The Persian Gulf state of Qatar has fewer than 2 million inhabitants, virtually no potable water, and has been an independent nation only since 1971. Yet its enormous oil and gas wealth has permitted the ruling al Thani family to exert a disproportionately large influence on regional and even international politics. Qatar is, as Mehran Kamrava explains in this knowledgeable and incisive account of the emirate, a "tiny giant": although severely lacking in most measures of state power, it is highly influential in diplomatic, cultural, and economic spheres. Kamrava presents Qatar as an experimental country, building a new society while exerting what he calls "subtle power." It is both the headquarters of the global media network Al Jazeera and the site of the U.S. Central Command's Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. Qatar has been a major player during the European financial crisis, it has become a showplace for renowned architects, several U.S. universities have established campuses there, and it will host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Qatar's effective use of its subtle power, Kamrava argues, challenges how we understand the role of small states in the global system. Given the Gulf state's outsized influence on regional and international affairs, this book is a critical and timely account of contemporary Qatari politics and society.

American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East

American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East PDF Author: Shahram Akbarzadeh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041552055X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were packaged as democracy promotion, as heralding the beginning of a new phase in the politics of the Middle East when democracy would replace authoritarian regimes. Many of these authoritarian regimes, however, were sustained by US support.