Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East

Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East PDF Author: Wanda Krause
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857722506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, there has always been a tendency to accord complete supremacy to the authority and might of the state, and to see 'society' as a separate, powerless entity. However, after the uprising of 2011, this assumption was turned on its head. And it is the wide range of political activity beyond the remit of the official state where Wanda Krause locates a dynamic potential for political change from the bottom up. She looks in particular at the influential role of women's private voluntary organisations in Egypt in shaping concepts of civil society and democracy. Exploring both secular and 'Islamist' organisations, she offers a steadfast critique of the view that Islamic women activists are insignificant, 'backward' or 'uncivil'. Krause's examination of women activists in Egypt today is vital for those interested in Middle East and Gender Studies, as well as those researching the wider issues of civil society and democratisation.

Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East

Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East PDF Author: Wanda Krause
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857722506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, there has always been a tendency to accord complete supremacy to the authority and might of the state, and to see 'society' as a separate, powerless entity. However, after the uprising of 2011, this assumption was turned on its head. And it is the wide range of political activity beyond the remit of the official state where Wanda Krause locates a dynamic potential for political change from the bottom up. She looks in particular at the influential role of women's private voluntary organisations in Egypt in shaping concepts of civil society and democracy. Exploring both secular and 'Islamist' organisations, she offers a steadfast critique of the view that Islamic women activists are insignificant, 'backward' or 'uncivil'. Krause's examination of women activists in Egypt today is vital for those interested in Middle East and Gender Studies, as well as those researching the wider issues of civil society and democratisation.

The Power of Civil Society in the Middle East and North Africa

The Power of Civil Society in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Ibrahim Natil
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429560028
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
This book investigates the power of civil society in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in the context of the post-Arab Spring era, as well as more long-standing challenges and constraints in the region. In recent years, local civil society actors have faced significant challenges from social conservatism, conflict, violence, and the absence of democracy and exclusive political systems. Over the course of the book, the authors investigate how the sector has succeeded in achieving its own objectives despite these shifting conditions, the restrictive political environment and the complexity of the socio-cultural and economic context. Structured around the three themes of peace-building, development, and change, the book also addresses challenges faced by civil society organizations linked to ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversities as well as religious salient differences that are crucial markers of social and political identity. Case studies are drawn from the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Jordan, Iran, Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, and Morocco, and particular effort has been made to showcase original research from contributors who are from the region . This book will be of particular interest to researchers working on development, peace-building, conflict resolution, civil society, and politics within the MENA region.

Uncharted Journey

Uncharted Journey PDF Author: Thomas Carothers
Publisher: Carnegie Endowment
ISBN: 0870032860
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The United States faces no greater challenge today than successfully fulfilling its new ambition of helping bring about a democratic transformation of the Middle East. Uncharted Journey contributes a wealth of concise, illuminating insights on this subject, drawing on the contributors' deep knowledge of Arab politics and their substantial experience with democracy-building in other parts of the world. The essays in part one vividly dissect the state of Arab politics today, including an up-to-date examination of the political shock wave in the region produced by the invasion of Iraq. Part two and three set out a provocative exploration of the possible elements of a democracy promotion strategy for the region. The contributors identify potential false steps as well as a productive way forward, avoiding the twin shoals of either reflexive pessimism in the face of the daunting obstacles to Arab democratization or an unrealistic optimism that fails to take into account the region's political complexities. Contributors include Eva Bellin (Hunter College), Daniel Brumberg (Carnegie Endowment), Thomas Carothers (Carnegie Endowment), Michele Dunne (Georgetown University), Graham Fuller, Amy Hawthorne (Carnegie Endowment), Marina Ottaway (Carnegie Endowment), and Richard Youngs (Foreign Policy Centre).

Civil Society in the Middle East, Volume 2

Civil Society in the Middle East, Volume 2 PDF Author: Norton
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004492933
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
Civil Society in the Middle East is a project of the Department of Politics and the Koverkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University. Project director is Augustus Richard Norton (Boston University). While there is wide disagreement about the outcome among those who follow events in the Middle East, there is little doubt that the regimes in the region are under increasing pressure from their citizens. In rich and poor states alike, incipient movements of men and women are demanding a voice in politics. Recent political developments in Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, even the future state of Palestine, clearly show the vitality and dynamism of civil society, the melange of associations, clubs, guilds, syndicates, federations, unions, parties and groups which provide a buffer between state and citizen and which are now so clearly at the forefront of political liberalization in the region. Civil Society in the Middle East, a two-volume set of papers providing an unusually detailed and rich assessment of contemporary politics within the Middle East, and in this sense alone, quite literally peerless, is the result of a project of the Department of Politics and the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. Volume I contains contributions by Augustus Richard Norton, Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Laurie Brand, Muhammad Muslih, Mustafa Kamil al-Sayyid, Ghanim al Najjar and Neil Hicks, Eva Bellin, Jill Crystal, Saad al-Din Ibrahim, and Alan Richards.

Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World

Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World PDF Author: Francesco Cavatorta
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136963375
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
The transition paradigm has traditionally viewed civil society activism as an essential condition for the establishment of democracy. The democracy promotion strategies of Western policy-makers have, therefore, been based on strengthening civil society in authoritarian settings in order to support the development of social capital -to challenge undemocratic regimes. This book questions the validity of the link between an active associational life and democratization. It examines civil society in the Arab world in order to illustrate how authoritarian constraints structure civil society dynamics in the region in ways that hinder transition to democracy. Building on innovative theoretical work and drawing on empirical data from extensive fieldwork in the region, this study demonstrates how the activism of civil society in five different Arab countries strengthens rather than weakens authoritarian practices and rule. Through an analysis of the specific legal and political constraints on associational life, and the impact of these on relations between different civic groups, and between associations and state authorities, the book demonstrates that the claim that civil society plays a positive role in processes of democratic transformation is highly questionable. Offering a broad and alternative vision of the state of civil society in the region, this book will be an important contribution to studies on Middle Eastern politics, democratization and civil society activism.

Religion and Civil Society in the Arab World

Religion and Civil Society in the Arab World PDF Author: Tania Haddad
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429871171
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This book examines the links between civil society, religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa region. The chapters in the volume explore the role of religion in shaping and changing the public sphere in regions that are developing and/or in conflict. They also discuss how these relations are reflected on civil society organizations and the role they are expected to play in transitional periods. This volume: investigates the conceptual dilemmas regarding what is ‘civil society’ in the Arab world today examines the dynamic roles of civil society organizations and religion in the Middle East and North Africa explores the future of the Arab civil society post-‘Arab Spring’ events, and how the latter continues to reshape the demand for democracy in the region. A comprehensive study of how the Arab civil society has come into being and its changing roles, this eclectic work will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, especially political Islam, international relations, Middle East Studies, African Studies, sociology and social anthropology.

Civil Society

Civil Society PDF Author: Michael Edwards
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745659055
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Since its publication in 2004, Civil Society has become a standard work of reference for all those who seek to understand the role of voluntary citizen action in the contemporary world. In this thoroughly-revised edition, Michael Edwards updates the arguments and evidence presented in the original and adds major new material on issues such as civil society in Africa and the Middle East, global civil society, information technology and new forms of citizen organizing. He explains how in the future the pressures of state encroachment, resurgent individualism, and old and familiar forces of nationalism and fundamentalism in new clothes will test and re-shape the practice of citizen action in both positive and negative ways. Civil Society will help readers of all persuasions to navigate these choppy waters with greater understanding, insight and success. Colleges and universities, foundations and NGOs, public policy-makers, journalists and commissions of inquiry – all have used Edwards’s book to understand and strengthen the vital role that civil society can play in deepening democracy, re-building community, and addressing poverty, inequality and injustice. This new edition will be required reading for anyone who is interested in creating a better world through citizen action.

Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought

Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought PDF Author: Michaelle L. Browers
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815630999
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book provides a significant and unique contribution to the emerging literature of comparative political thought. Michaelle L. Browers offers compelling evidence, with extensive analysis and references, that a rigorous debate is taking place in Arabic concerning the value of democracy and civil society. Exploring the globalization of ideas of democracy and civil society, Browers addresses the question of what occurs when concepts cross the boundaries of cultures or languages. She analyzes the historical concept of democracy in Arab and Islamic political thought, the transformations that have occurred over the past several decades resulting from Arab forays into an international discussion of civil society and what these transformations tell us about the status of ideological and conceptual debates in the region. The book’s value, however, lies in its main premise: despite the dearth of actual democratic practices in the Arab world, intellectual elites of the region have vigorously debated reform concepts for decades. Browers emphasizes that current conflicts involving the Middle East are less about Islam against the west and its secular allies in the region and more about diverse sectors of Arab society grappling with how to reform overreaching and unjust states. Browers shows that the seeds of democratic reform in the region were well planted prior to the war on Iraq and the Greater Middle East Initiative.

The Arab Revolts

The Arab Revolts PDF Author: David McMurray
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253009685
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The 2011 eruptions of popular discontent across the Arab world, popularly dubbed the Arab Spring, were local manifestations of a regional mass movement for democracy, freedom, and human dignity. Authoritarian regimes were either overthrown or put on notice that the old ways of oppressing their subjects would no longer be tolerated. These essays from Middle East Report—the leading source of timely reporting and insightful analysis of the region—cover events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen. Written for a broad audience of students, policymakers, media analysts, and general readers, the collection reveals the underlying causes of the revolts by identifying key trends during the last two decades leading up to the recent insurrections.

Civil Society Exposed

Civil Society Exposed PDF Author: Maha Abdelrahman
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN: 9781850435815
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Is the concept of civil society relevant to social and political change? What is the role of its most well-known agents, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), in promoting emancipatory projects? Maha Abdelrahman analyses the empirical case of Egyptian 'civil society' in order to ascertain whether the experience of civil society organisations, and of NGOs in particular, validates the contention prevalent in academic and policy circles that civil society is the main engine for social and political transformation. The author concludes that civil society, far from constituting this engine, is a politically contested terrain characterised by authoritarian and repressive tendencies.