Author: Sheila Carapico
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521199913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Details the effects of political aid in the Middle East by analyzing discursive and professional practices in four key subfields.
Political Aid and Arab Activism
The Arab Spring, Civil Society, and Innovative Activism
Author: Cenap Çakmak
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137571772
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
This book investigates the role of society groups in the making of the Arab Spring and under which conditions they attained their goals. Democracy and recognition of human rights and fundamental freedoms seem to be the main drives of the people organized in form of civil groups or grassroots movements in the Arab Spring countries; but it is essential to identify when they find it suitable to take such extreme action as taking the streets in an attempt to take down the repressive regimes. It is also important to investigate what methods they relied on in their action and how they challenged the state and the government. A review of the cases in this volume shows that civil society has certain limitations in its action. Analysis of the cases also challenges a commonly held assumption that the Arab world does not have strong and rich civil society tradition. However, for a lasting success and consolidation of democracy, something more than civil society action is obviously needed. A strong organized opposition and a democratic culture seems to be indispensable elements for the evolution of a democratic order and tradition.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137571772
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
This book investigates the role of society groups in the making of the Arab Spring and under which conditions they attained their goals. Democracy and recognition of human rights and fundamental freedoms seem to be the main drives of the people organized in form of civil groups or grassroots movements in the Arab Spring countries; but it is essential to identify when they find it suitable to take such extreme action as taking the streets in an attempt to take down the repressive regimes. It is also important to investigate what methods they relied on in their action and how they challenged the state and the government. A review of the cases in this volume shows that civil society has certain limitations in its action. Analysis of the cases also challenges a commonly held assumption that the Arab world does not have strong and rich civil society tradition. However, for a lasting success and consolidation of democracy, something more than civil society action is obviously needed. A strong organized opposition and a democratic culture seems to be indispensable elements for the evolution of a democratic order and tradition.
Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World
Author: Ahmed K. Al-Rawi
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438478658
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Following the Arab Spring events in 2011, a number of important women's social movements, as well as female figures and online communities, emerged to create positive change and demand equality with men. In Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World, Ahmed Al-Rawi discusses and maps out new feminist movements, organizations, and trends, assessing the influence of new media technologies on them and the impact of both on the values and culture of the Middle East. Due to the participation of many women in the events of the Arab Spring, he argues, a new image of Middle Eastern women has emerged in the West. As a result of social media, women have generally become more effective in expressing their views and better connected with each other, yet at the same time some women have been inhibited since many conservative circles use these new technologies to maintain their power. Overall, however, Al-Rawi argues that social media and new mobile technologies are assisting in creating changes that are predominately positive. Often assisted by these new technologies, the real change makers are women who have clear agencies and high hopes and aspirations to create a better future for themselves.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438478658
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Following the Arab Spring events in 2011, a number of important women's social movements, as well as female figures and online communities, emerged to create positive change and demand equality with men. In Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World, Ahmed Al-Rawi discusses and maps out new feminist movements, organizations, and trends, assessing the influence of new media technologies on them and the impact of both on the values and culture of the Middle East. Due to the participation of many women in the events of the Arab Spring, he argues, a new image of Middle Eastern women has emerged in the West. As a result of social media, women have generally become more effective in expressing their views and better connected with each other, yet at the same time some women have been inhibited since many conservative circles use these new technologies to maintain their power. Overall, however, Al-Rawi argues that social media and new mobile technologies are assisting in creating changes that are predominately positive. Often assisted by these new technologies, the real change makers are women who have clear agencies and high hopes and aspirations to create a better future for themselves.
Arab America
Author: Nadine Naber
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814758886
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Arab Americans are one of the most misunderstood segments of the U.S. population, especially after the events of 9/11. In Arab America, Nadine Naber tells the stories of second generation Arab American young adults living in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of whom are political activists engaged in two culturalist movements that draw on the conditions of diaspora, a Muslim global justice and a Leftist Arab movement. Writing from a transnational feminist perspective, Naber reveals the complex and at times contradictory cultural and political processes through which Arabness is forged in the contemporary United States, and explores the apparently intra-communal cultural concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality as the battleground on which Arab American young adults and the looming world of America all wrangle. As this struggle continues, these young adults reject Orientalist thought, producing counter-narratives that open up new possibilities for transcending the limitations of Orientalist, imperialist, and conventional nationalist articulations of self, possibilities that ground concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality in some of the most urgent issues of our times: immigration politics, racial justice struggles, and U.S. militarism and war. For more, check out the author-run Facebook page for Arab America.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814758886
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Arab Americans are one of the most misunderstood segments of the U.S. population, especially after the events of 9/11. In Arab America, Nadine Naber tells the stories of second generation Arab American young adults living in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of whom are political activists engaged in two culturalist movements that draw on the conditions of diaspora, a Muslim global justice and a Leftist Arab movement. Writing from a transnational feminist perspective, Naber reveals the complex and at times contradictory cultural and political processes through which Arabness is forged in the contemporary United States, and explores the apparently intra-communal cultural concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality as the battleground on which Arab American young adults and the looming world of America all wrangle. As this struggle continues, these young adults reject Orientalist thought, producing counter-narratives that open up new possibilities for transcending the limitations of Orientalist, imperialist, and conventional nationalist articulations of self, possibilities that ground concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality in some of the most urgent issues of our times: immigration politics, racial justice struggles, and U.S. militarism and war. For more, check out the author-run Facebook page for Arab America.
Women and the Egyptian Revolution
Author: Nermin Allam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108421903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
An examination of women′s political participation and engagement during and after the 2011 uprising in Egypt.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108421903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
An examination of women′s political participation and engagement during and after the 2011 uprising in Egypt.
Moving Politics
Author: Deborah B. Gould
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226305317
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 537
Book Description
In the late 1980s, after a decade spent engaged in more routine interest-group politics, thousands of lesbians and gay men responded to the AIDS crisis by defiantly and dramatically taking to the streets. But by the early 1990s, the organization they founded, ACT UP, was no more—even as the AIDS epidemic raged on. Weaving together interviews with activists, extensive research, and reflections on the author’s time as a member of the organization, Moving Politics is the first book to chronicle the rise and fall of ACT UP, highlighting a key factor in its trajectory: emotion. Surprisingly overlooked by many scholars of social movements, emotion, Gould argues, plays a fundamental role in political activism. From anger to hope, pride to shame, and solidarity to despair, feelings played a significant part in ACT UP’s provocative style of protest, which included raucous demonstrations, die-ins, and other kinds of street theater. Detailing the movement’s public triumphs and private setbacks, Moving Politics is the definitive account of ACT UP’s origin, development, and decline as well as a searching look at the role of emotion in contentious politics.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226305317
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 537
Book Description
In the late 1980s, after a decade spent engaged in more routine interest-group politics, thousands of lesbians and gay men responded to the AIDS crisis by defiantly and dramatically taking to the streets. But by the early 1990s, the organization they founded, ACT UP, was no more—even as the AIDS epidemic raged on. Weaving together interviews with activists, extensive research, and reflections on the author’s time as a member of the organization, Moving Politics is the first book to chronicle the rise and fall of ACT UP, highlighting a key factor in its trajectory: emotion. Surprisingly overlooked by many scholars of social movements, emotion, Gould argues, plays a fundamental role in political activism. From anger to hope, pride to shame, and solidarity to despair, feelings played a significant part in ACT UP’s provocative style of protest, which included raucous demonstrations, die-ins, and other kinds of street theater. Detailing the movement’s public triumphs and private setbacks, Moving Politics is the definitive account of ACT UP’s origin, development, and decline as well as a searching look at the role of emotion in contentious politics.
The Revolution That Wasn’t
Author: Jen Schradie
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674972333
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
This surprising study of online political mobilization shows that money and organizational sophistication influence politics online as much as off, and casts doubt on the democratizing power of digital activism. The internet has been hailed as a leveling force that is reshaping activism. From the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, digital activism seemed cheap, fast, and open to all. Now this celebratory narrative finds itself competing with an increasingly sinister story as platforms like Facebook and Twitter—once the darlings of digital democracy—are on the defensive for their role in promoting fake news. While hashtag activism captures headlines, conservative digital activism is proving more effective on the ground. In this sharp-eyed and counterintuitive study, Jen Schradie shows how the web has become another weapon in the arsenal of the powerful. She zeroes in on workers’ rights advocacy in North Carolina and finds a case study with broad implications. North Carolina’s hard-right turn in the early 2010s should have alerted political analysts to the web’s antidemocratic potential: amid booming online organizing, one of the country’s most closely contested states elected the most conservative government in North Carolina’s history. The Revolution That Wasn’t identifies the reasons behind this previously undiagnosed digital-activism gap. Large hierarchical political organizations with professional staff can amplify their digital impact, while horizontally organized volunteer groups tend to be less effective at translating online goodwill into meaningful action. Not only does technology fail to level the playing field, it tilts it further, so that only the most sophisticated and well-funded players can compete.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674972333
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
This surprising study of online political mobilization shows that money and organizational sophistication influence politics online as much as off, and casts doubt on the democratizing power of digital activism. The internet has been hailed as a leveling force that is reshaping activism. From the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, digital activism seemed cheap, fast, and open to all. Now this celebratory narrative finds itself competing with an increasingly sinister story as platforms like Facebook and Twitter—once the darlings of digital democracy—are on the defensive for their role in promoting fake news. While hashtag activism captures headlines, conservative digital activism is proving more effective on the ground. In this sharp-eyed and counterintuitive study, Jen Schradie shows how the web has become another weapon in the arsenal of the powerful. She zeroes in on workers’ rights advocacy in North Carolina and finds a case study with broad implications. North Carolina’s hard-right turn in the early 2010s should have alerted political analysts to the web’s antidemocratic potential: amid booming online organizing, one of the country’s most closely contested states elected the most conservative government in North Carolina’s history. The Revolution That Wasn’t identifies the reasons behind this previously undiagnosed digital-activism gap. Large hierarchical political organizations with professional staff can amplify their digital impact, while horizontally organized volunteer groups tend to be less effective at translating online goodwill into meaningful action. Not only does technology fail to level the playing field, it tilts it further, so that only the most sophisticated and well-funded players can compete.
US Hard Power in the Arab World
Author: Layla Saleh
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315513005
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
Neither stability nor change in the post-colonial Arab world can be fully understood without considering the international context, and American Foreign policy in particular. However, the exact nature of America’s presence in the Arab world, and the scope and modes of its influence, all appear to have reached a crossroads since the Arab uprisings. ‘US Hard Power in the Arab World’ traces the US’s "power of persuasion" in the Arab Middle East from the onset of the War on Terror in 2001 through to the Arab Spring. With a particular focus on Syria, the book explores the limits of an American "smart power" amid the emergence of a growing indigenous "soft power" whose ire is directed not only at Assad’s regime, but also at the violence perpetrated or enabled by the international community, headed by the US. It is argued that the blurring of the two forms of "soft" and "hard" American power has tarnished the credibility of US policies geared to win hearts and minds in the Arab world. ‘US Hard Power in the Arab World’ narrates the contests between attraction and intimidation, public diplomacy and military occupation, elites and publics, seduction and resistance. Drawing upon a multitude of primary sources, including personal interviews with Syrian activists and opposition figures, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East Politics, as well as those concerned with American Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315513005
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
Neither stability nor change in the post-colonial Arab world can be fully understood without considering the international context, and American Foreign policy in particular. However, the exact nature of America’s presence in the Arab world, and the scope and modes of its influence, all appear to have reached a crossroads since the Arab uprisings. ‘US Hard Power in the Arab World’ traces the US’s "power of persuasion" in the Arab Middle East from the onset of the War on Terror in 2001 through to the Arab Spring. With a particular focus on Syria, the book explores the limits of an American "smart power" amid the emergence of a growing indigenous "soft power" whose ire is directed not only at Assad’s regime, but also at the violence perpetrated or enabled by the international community, headed by the US. It is argued that the blurring of the two forms of "soft" and "hard" American power has tarnished the credibility of US policies geared to win hearts and minds in the Arab world. ‘US Hard Power in the Arab World’ narrates the contests between attraction and intimidation, public diplomacy and military occupation, elites and publics, seduction and resistance. Drawing upon a multitude of primary sources, including personal interviews with Syrian activists and opposition figures, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East Politics, as well as those concerned with American Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring.
Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring
Author: Adam Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191065862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Civil resistance, especially in the form of massive peaceful demonstrations, was at the heart of the Arab Spring-the chain of events in the Middle East and North Africa that erupted in December 2010. It won some notable victories: popular movements helped to bring about the fall of authoritarian governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Yet these apparent triumphs of non-violent action were followed by disasters—wars in Syria, anarchy in Libya and Yemen, reversion to authoritarian rule in Egypt, and counter-revolution backed by external intervention in Bahrain. Looming over these events was the enduring divide between the Sunni and Shi'a branches of Islam. Why did so much go wrong? Was the problem the methods, leadership and aims of the popular movements, or the conditions of their societies? In this book, experts on these countries, and on the techniques of civil resistance, set the events in their historical, social and political contexts. They describe how governments and outside powers—including the US and EU—responded, how Arab monarchies in Jordan and Morocco undertook to introduce reforms to avert revolution, and why the Arab Spring failed to spark a Palestinian one. They indicate how and why Tunisia remained, precariously, the country that experienced the most political change for the lowest cost in bloodshed. This book provides a vivid illustrated account and rigorous scholarly analysis of the course and fate, the strengths and the weaknesses, of the Arab Spring. The authors draw clear and challenging conclusions from these tumultuous events. Above all, they show how civil resistance aiming at regime change is not enough: building the institutions and the trust necessary for reforms to be implemented and democracy to develop is a more difficult but equally crucial task.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191065862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Civil resistance, especially in the form of massive peaceful demonstrations, was at the heart of the Arab Spring-the chain of events in the Middle East and North Africa that erupted in December 2010. It won some notable victories: popular movements helped to bring about the fall of authoritarian governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Yet these apparent triumphs of non-violent action were followed by disasters—wars in Syria, anarchy in Libya and Yemen, reversion to authoritarian rule in Egypt, and counter-revolution backed by external intervention in Bahrain. Looming over these events was the enduring divide between the Sunni and Shi'a branches of Islam. Why did so much go wrong? Was the problem the methods, leadership and aims of the popular movements, or the conditions of their societies? In this book, experts on these countries, and on the techniques of civil resistance, set the events in their historical, social and political contexts. They describe how governments and outside powers—including the US and EU—responded, how Arab monarchies in Jordan and Morocco undertook to introduce reforms to avert revolution, and why the Arab Spring failed to spark a Palestinian one. They indicate how and why Tunisia remained, precariously, the country that experienced the most political change for the lowest cost in bloodshed. This book provides a vivid illustrated account and rigorous scholarly analysis of the course and fate, the strengths and the weaknesses, of the Arab Spring. The authors draw clear and challenging conclusions from these tumultuous events. Above all, they show how civil resistance aiming at regime change is not enough: building the institutions and the trust necessary for reforms to be implemented and democracy to develop is a more difficult but equally crucial task.
Foreign Aid in the Middle East
Author: Beáta Paragi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786725800
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786725800
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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.