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Foreign aid and bilateral relations: The Israel−East Africa case Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Yaron Salman
International relations literature generally tells us that donor countries see foreign aid as a key instrument of foreign policy to promote political interests. According to research, donor countries usually hope to get favorable voting at the United Nations (UN) arena in return, meaning that the motivation for foreign aid is not so altruistic. This article examines these claims and discusses the link
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Mapping methodological nationalism in Middle Eastern studies: Toward a transnational understanding of the 2011 Arab uprisings? Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Jonas Nabbe, Ward Vloeberghs, Maryse Kruithof
This article assesses the prevalence and implications of the research foci methodological nationalism, methodological globalism, and transnationalism in publications regarding the 2011 Arab uprisings. We propose a new typology that contrasts state-centered methodological nationalism with the cosmopolitan lens of methodological globalism as two opposite ends of a spectrum. Transnationalism is conceptualized
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Islamic finance and economic growth: Global evidence Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Muhammad Hanif, Mohammed Chaker, Ariba Sabah
We document the contribution of Islamic finance development to economic growth by studying a global sample of countries engaged in providing Islamic financial services. Fifteen countries are included in the sample based on significant Islamic banking share in total domestic banking assets. Results are documented through the application of the Panel regression (EGLS) method for the period 2001–2020
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Kurdish gender politics funeral ceremonies of female fighters Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Yunus Abakay
The funeral ceremonies of female fighters are a relatively recent phenomenon that gained popularity in Kurdish politics in Turkey in the early 2000s and after the 2011 uprisings in Syria. As a sociocultural rite, these funerals have become a spectacular site, a political means, and a symbolic investment serving an intersectional agenda pursuing Kurdish national and gender-egalitarian aspirations simultaneously
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Editor's introduction—January 2024 Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-05 Catherine Warrick
本文评估了有关2011年阿拉伯起义的一系列出版物中的方法论民族主义、世界主义和跨国主义研究焦点的普遍性和启示。我们提出了一种新的类型学,它将“以国家为中心的方法论民族主义”与“方法论全球主义的世界主义视角”进行对比,作为衡量幅度的两端。跨国主义的概念介于两者之间,这归因于其对多个地点和跨边界变量的敏感性。我们通过定量研究和内容分析来比较这三个研究焦点的价值和局限性。我们对关于阿拉伯起义的十年学术研究进行了系统性综述,结果表明,中东研究中的民族主义研究方法一直处于主导地位。这是出乎意料的,因为阿拉伯起义的多地区性质表明最好对其进行跨国分析。因此,本文批判性地讨论了方法论民族主义偏见,以更好地理解和阐明这一趋势。最后,我们强调了关于“阿拉伯起义中的行动者、过程及其后果”的跨国视角所提供的一些比较优势。
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The quest to end marginalization: Jordan's diversifying alignments in the post-Arab Spring era Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Meliha Altunisik, Nur Koprulu
Since 2017 Jordan has been diversifying its alignments while its relations with its traditional backers have become tenser. Drawing upon the existing literature that explains Jordan's alignment choices, this article aims to understand Jordan's diversification of its alignments and how they evolved in the post-Arab Uprisings era. It is argued that although the regime security argument and the linkage
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Reckoning with ‘new’ Turkey: Modes of US reaction to unwanted policy shifts in the Middle East Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-10-04 Michalis Kontos, Zenonas Tziarras
This article discusses the changing relations between the United States and Turkey in light of Turkey's contemporary foreign policy that often challenges American interests. More specifically, it adopts a comparative approach to examine the variables that determine the course of US reaction when unwanted policy shifts take place in the Middle East. To this end, apart from Turkey, the article examines
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Beyond genocide: Towards an improved analysis and understanding of the Syrian regime's mass atrocity crimes in the Syrian Civil War Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-29 Samer Bakkour
In the course of the Syrian Civil War, prominent former Syrian Regime politicians, human rights observers, and foreign observers have accused the Syrian Regime of committing genocide against the country's Sunni majority. This article views these accusations as part of a wider politicization of genocide, and instead progresses beyond them to outline the case for an alternative “framing” of large-scale
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The Hamas war against Israel as reflected in the poetry written by its leaders during the First Intifada and the early years of implementation of the Oslo Accords Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-28 Elad Ben-Dror
This article looks at Hamas's war against Israel through the lens of the poetry written by leading members of Hamas during the period 1987–1996 (from the founding of the organization through the early stages of the implementation of the Oslo Accords). Poetry is one of the means employed by Hamas to convey its political, social, and religious messages and ideology, which links its Islamic outlook with
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Editor's introduction Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Catherine Warrick
This issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies offers articles on topics that range from foreign and defense policy to poetry, and as is often the case, these wide-ranging topics have more in common than one might expect at first glance. In one way or another, the scholarship in this issue all addresses the question of how social scientists and policymakers understand what states and political leaders
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Regional deterrence, strategic challenges, and Saudi Arabia's missile development program Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Fariborz Arghavani Pirsalami, Ehsan Shirzadi
The turbulent security environment of the Middle East has been the most crucial factor influencing the behavior of governments in this region. Saudi Arabia, as one of the most important countries in the area, has embarked on a nontransparent effort to develop its missile program in recent decades, raising significant concerns about the security of the Middle East. This article adopts the regional deterrence
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Populism, jihad, and economic resistance: Studying the political discourse of Iran's supreme leader Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Sara Bazoobandi
Political leaders of pariah authoritarian states communicate their political discourse unilaterally, in a closed environment without free and open media access or the space for public scrutiny or debate. They use their speeches for various aims such as to respond to external shocks, justify hardship, appeal to domestic and international sympathy, assert autonomy and power, and influence policy and
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The impact of the Middle East and Gulf states' involvement on the Horn of Africa's peace and security: Applying regional security complex theory Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-30 Micheale K. Gebru, Getachew Zeru, Yohannes Tekalign
The Middle East and the Horn of Africa are distinct but interdependent Regional Security Complexes (RSCs) whose security interaction and beyond has increased over the last two decades. Recent interactions between the two RSCs, particularly the increased involvement of Middle Eastern and Gulf states, have raised concerns about the Horn of Africa's peace and security. This paper examines the impact of
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Digest of Middle East Studies Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Catherine Warrick
Editor's Introduction In this issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies, we are pleased to present five articles on subjects both timely and important. From the theoretical and reflective to the practical and policy-developing, this issue offers, as always, works that engage both policy and social science concerns. This issue's articles have a broad geographical reach from Morocco to Iran and an equally
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Social identities in conflict: Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Tuğçe Ersoy-Ceylan
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is generally referred as a territorial conflict, but it is also a conflict over the preservation of identity. This study analyzes the relations of Jews and Palestinians in Israel from an identity security perspective. It sheds light on how the communities perceive actions, discourses, and symbols as a mutual threat to their own identity. Adapting the concept of societal
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Iran in the Sadrist version of Iraqi nationalism Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Said Khanafira Mavadat
Unlike many other Shiite political factions in Iraq, the Sadrist movement has become increasingly vocal in its criticism of Iranian influence in Iraq. Anti-Iran chants have become almost ubiquitous in Sadrist demonstrations over the past few years, and prominent Sadrist politicians have unabashedly pointed the finger of blame for Iraq's crises at Iran. The growing Sadrist criticism of Iran has simultaneously
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Discursive delegitimization of Rouhani's nuclear diplomacy and the Iran nuclear deal by Iranian conservatives on Twitter Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Hossein Nourani, Mohammad Mohammadian, Reza Sarhaddi, Afsaneh Danesh, Farzaneh Latifi
The reformist-moderate and the conservative discourses have co-existed and contended for primacy in the Iranian foreign policy since the 1979 revolution. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, has been at the core of this discursive contest in recent years. This article investigates how Iranian conservative tweeters delegitimized the JCPOA and President
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The lack of environmental cooperation in the Maghreb Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-09 Jack V. Kalpakian
This policy paper uses the Eightfold Path method developed by Bardach and Patashnik to study the problem that is the lack of Maghrebian trans-boundary cooperation on the environment. It argues that political conflict has been allowed to obstruct a field that should remain nonpolitical. The paper concludes with policy recommendations intended to generate debate among decision makers and lead to more
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Khalifa versus Prometheus: Green ethics and the struggle for contemporary sustainable urbanism Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-04 Agatino Rizzo, Attilio Petruccioli
In the last decades, contemporary urbanism in the global South has meant large urban transformations, tall architecture landmarks, and fierce city competition. However, cities and their planners are now confronting an ethical dilemma: how to grow and compete while caring for the disastrous impacts on Earth and human health caused by the mass extraction, processing, and consumption of resources linked
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Mobilizing religious differences and terrorism, negotiating civil rights in Egypt Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-31 Nevine Abraham
The Egyptian state's publication of its first National Human Rights Strategy 2021–2026 (NHRS) (2021) on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks came at the crossroads of Western pressure to improve human rights and the state's use of counterterrorism to silence voices. The recent arrests of Coptic activists, dubbing them “terrorists” on the pretext of disturbing public peace and instigating sectarianism
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The representation of the economic situation in Lebanese satires: Unfiltered or propaganda in practice? Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-30 Avner Asher, Dan Naor, Yossi Mann
In recent years Lebanon has been facing economic challenges. Various Lebanese satire shows deal with the difficult economic situation in Lebanon, displaying the high cost of living, corruption, and poor infrastructure. It seems that these shows are faithfully airing public grievances, but is this the case? Are satire shows looking for the common Lebanese denominator while dealing with economic issues
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Editor's introduction Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Catherine Warrick
This issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies presents five articles encompassing a wide and engaging range of subjects: human rights, sustainable development, political satire, post-9/11 literature, and resistance movements. Each is a careful study of its subject matter, drawing the reader in for a close examination of a particular topic. Then, standing back, upon reflection it becomes apparent
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On resistance: As evinced in Iranian political affairs Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-25 Omid P. Shabani
Along with fundamental rights such as liberty and property, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 also envisions a right to resist oppression. Irrespective of one's place on the political spectrum, resistance has been employed as an alternative both to submission and to revolt. After briefly sketching a historical and theoretical account of resistance I propose two parallel
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The post-9/11 novel revisited: Reading three perspectives in contemporary American fiction Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-22 Mubarak Altwaiji
This essay on the Ground Zero novel offers three perspectives on one of the most exciting current debates in humanities by approaching the effects of the most notable 21st century event on the American novel. It presents a scholarly analysis of the American novel of the past 20 years and provides a discussion for readers who are divided by geography, ideology, and religion to understand how the 9/11
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The road to normalization: The importance of the United Arab Emirates' neoliberal foreign policy in the normalization with Israel: 2004–2020 Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Daniela Traub, Ronen A. Cohen, Chen Kertcher
The article discusses the question of why and how the normalization between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel took place and managed to evolve into a peace agreement. It offers an additional explanation to the neorealists' scholarly and commonly accepted argument: that it was only the behavior of the revisionist state of Iran that was the motive for signing the peace agreement between the two
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Shura council election in Qatar: Influences that shape how voters select candidates Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-12-23 Hessa Al-Thani, Aisha Al-Ahmadi, Ahmed Al-Emadi
Qatar, a small Gulf Arab nation with a de facto absolute monarchy, held its first general elections ever for 30 Shura Council seats on October 2, 2021. This marked the first time in Qatar's history that citizens played a more direct role in government, moving beyond symbolic elections. This study aimed to examine the factors likely to have influenced voters' selection of candidates, the key issues
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Optimism, pessimism, and perceptions of the Jordanian government's COVID-19 response Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-12-22 Abdulfattah Yaghi
This study aims to examine people's optimistic and pessimistic perceptions of the government's capacity, intention, and performance during and after the lockdowns declared in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was administered in Jordan and responses were collected from a convenience sample of 1245 citizens during April and May 2020. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and multiple
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Promoting multiculturalism and tolerance: Expanding the meaning of “unity through diversity” in the United Arab Emirates Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Hamdullah Baycar
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sought to establish a national identity among its nationals since its inception in 1971. Contrary to the pessimism in its first few years, the UAE was able to create a national identity among its nationals despite their initially differing loyalties. The UAE has now embarked on a phase of creating a new national identity that includes non-nationals, encompassing migrants
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Gender quotas in the Arab world - 20 years on Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Bozena C. Welborne, Gail J. Buttorff
This article aims to survey the state of the literature on gender quotas in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), explicitly focusing on where it stands in terms of their institutional, political, and societal impact after two decades of implementation. In addition, it considers how MENA scholarship on the topic compares with the global literature and includes insights into how region-specific work
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Erratum Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-27
In article by Mustafa (2022) the identity of one of the secondary characters described is clarified. After publication, it was brought to the author's attention that the dark-skinned character may have been reference to the Nigerian Boko Haram leader Abu Muhammad Abu Bakar Sheikawi. This seems likely, as Sheikawi, or Shekau, was once affiliated with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although later replaced by
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Editor's introduction Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-18 Catherine Warrick
This issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies is the second of two special issues in this year's volume of the journal. In January, we were pleased to bring out a special issue on sectarianism featuring critical and highly original scholarship on the topic. This October issue has as its focus the scholarship on gender issues in the region. Like sectarianism, gender is a topic that has long been of
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The afterlife goes on: The biographical consequences of women's engagement in the 2011 Egyptian uprising Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-14 Nermin Allam
What are some of the effects of women's participation in the 2011 Egyptian uprising on their personal biographies? A small body of feminist scholarship has examined how gender mediates the consequences of social movement participation for women. These studies have largely focused on participants' experiences under Western democracies and within women's movements, yet we know less about the impact of
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The study of women and gender in the Middle East and North Africa beyond culturalism Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Gamze Çavdar
The study of the Middle East and North Africa region has long been dominated by culturalist assumptions that this region is unique and thus common concepts and theories that are applied to other parts of the world do not apply here. This has particularly been the case with regard to the study of women and gender. This special issue brings together six cutting edge research articles that fundamentally
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Do Islamist parties help or hinder women? Party institutionalization, piety and responsiveness to female citizens Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Mounah Abdel-Samad, Lindsay J. Benstead
Does electing Islamist parties help or hurt women? Due to Ennahda winning a plurality in the 2011 elections and women from all parties winning 31% of seats, Tunisia offers an opportunity to test the impact of legislator gender and Islamist orientation on women's representation. Using original 2012 surveys of 40 Tunisian parliamentarians (MPs) and 1200 citizens, we find that electing female and Islamists
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The question of collaboration between secular feminists and pious feminists in Turkey Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Pınar Dokumacı
This paper examines two seemingly opposing trends in the women's rights movement in Turkey: the first trend indicates growing numbers of feminist collaborations and alliances while the second highlights heightened levels of identity-ridden dissent and polarization. By focusing on the relationship between self-identified “pious feminists” and “secular feminists” in Turkey this paper argues that, rather
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A gendered analysis of trends in the faith-based provision of social services: Evidence from Egypt and Turkey Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-04 Gamze Çavdar
The involvement of faith-based organizations in the provision of social welfare has been popular in discourse and policy over the last several decades. This policy is often recommended as a remedy to the underfunded and underdeveloped social welfare system in late industrializing countries. This paper aims to discuss the implications of this recommended policy on women in the MENA region. This question
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Substantive representation of women, informal quotas and appointed upper house parliaments: The case of the Omani State Council Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-10-04 Nawra Al-Lawati
This paper examines the impact of informal quotas on the substantive representation of women in appointed upper parliaments using the Omani State Council as a case study. Although no formal gender quota has been institutionalized in Oman, it is presumed that the Sultan will assign 17% of the seats to women, effectively an informal quota. Through semi-structured interviews with female MPs appointed
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The ruling Islamism Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Mamado Mohamed Saad
Drawing on the cases of Iraq and Sudan, it can be argued that the mobilization of economic, cultural, and organizational resources along with the concentration of state resources have led to the radicalization of Islamist parties' positions and political discourse. The concentration of resources was an incentive to reward loyalists, support hard-line discourse, and target opponents by excluding them
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Reevaluating Islamist electoral success and participation in government Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Justin Curtis
Under what conditions will Islamist parties perform well in elections and what happens to the political regime should they gain political power? The canonical hypothesis—“one man, one vote, one time”—argues that Islamist parties are likely to perform well whenever elections become free and that their electoral success is likely to lead to a democratic backslide. Others argue that Islamists are not
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Consequences of economic sanctions on minority groups in the sanctioned states Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-27 Mehmet Onder
This study explores the effects of economic sanctions on vulnerable groups within target states. When a state uses economic sanctions to realize its foreign policy goals, the government in the sanctioned state usually pursues harsh domestic policies against its ethnic minority groups by employing rally around the flag effect policies. Resultant domestic policies work by casting members of minority
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The enablers of entrepreneurship in the tourism sector of Saudi Arabia: An interpretative structured modeling approach Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-20 Hashem A. Alnemer
This study aims to model the set of enablers that promote entrepreneurship in the tourism sector of Saudi Arabia using interpretative structural modeling (ISM), a qualitative expert opinion-based method that helps describe the interrelationship among variables. A review of the literature identified seven major enablers. Drivers and dependence power from the ISM model reveal that collaboration and relaxing
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Editor's introduction Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-20 Catherine Warrick
This issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies features articles presenting research on a range of timely and important topics, from party politics to foreign policy, political economy, and media representation. The performance of Islamist parties in electoral competition and in governance is a subject of long-standing interest, and it has attracted attention anew in the years since the Arab Spring
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Colors and Orientalism as associations: Exploring the semiotic (re)presentation of Saudi women in British and Saudi newspapers Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-20 Tariq Elyas, Abdulrahman Aljabri, Nesreen Al-Harbi, Areej A-Jahani
Media representations can have significant influence in shaping opinions and influence public response to certain communities or gender and ethnic representations around the world. Investigating semiotic representation in linguistic discourse as vehicles for meaning in culture has been a fruitful area of research over the past decades. This study explores how stereotypes of women feed into the representations
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The irony of sectarianism: Sectarianizing by desectarianizing in Syria Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-19 Mustafa Menshawy
The study seeks to resolve a conundrum in Syrian politics: the ruling regime has always claimed and celebrated a harmonious social fabric, national unity, and a long-standing tradition of coexistence despite the prevalence of an opposite grim reality marked by sectarian divisions and factionalism which the regime itself mainly created or sustained. I explore the process of acting “as if not” by analyzing
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Solidifying identity discourse through the politicized monumentation of struggle Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-19 Vicky Panossian
This article investigates contemporary examples of monumentation and the extent to which they solidify and reproduce a politicized discourse on identities. Focusing predominantly on the representation of refugees and migrants, the article is broken down into four sections, the first of which looks into the challenges of monumentation and the discourse it represents. The second part includes three case
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“Discoursing sectarianism” approach: What and how to analyse in sectarian discourses Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-12 Abdulaziz Alghashian, Mustafa Menshawy
This article puts forth ‘discoursing sectarianism’ as an approach helping overcome gaps in essentialism, instrumentalism and constructivism as the three main lines of analysing sectarianism. The approach takes language as a point of departure, showing how it can dually describe reality as a ‘neutral’ medium of communication and also create reality as constitutive component of practices sectarianisation
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How to analyze visual propaganda in the Middle East: An analysis of imagery in the “Saudi Strike Force Movie” Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-30 Tom Walsh
This paper provides an innovative approach to visual analysis in the Middle East. It addresses a fundamental problem in the fields of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Securitization Theory (ST): they largely ignore the visual. This project develops a methodology for visual analysis. Its utility is demonstrated through an examination of a Saudi propaganda video, entitled “Saudi Strike Force Video
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The Bigh Daddy Show: The potentiality and shortcomings of countering Islamic State through animated satire Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-29 Balsam Mustafa
This paper is motivated by the following question: how can animated satire constitute a tool of resistance against terrorist groups and their extremist narratives? To answer this question, I examine an Iraqi animated satirical show produced from late 2015 to 2017 to support the military campaign against Islamic State (IS) by turning the self-proclaimed caliph and other IS terrorists into objects of
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Introduction Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-29 Catherine Warrick
In 2022, the Digest of Middle East Studies celebrates its 30th year of publishing diverse and timely scholarship on the Middle East and its second year as a quarterly publication. The transition to the quarterly publication, as well as a sharpened focus on policy-relevant scholarship, was ably undertaken by the outgoing editor, Dr. Kadir Yildirim, who has developed the journal in many valuable ways
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The UN special tribunal for Lebanon (2009–2021): Who cares? Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-14 Benjamin Muller
More than 15 years after the assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik al-Hariri, the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) delivered its judgement in the Ayyash et al. Case (STL-11-01) in August 2020. Reflecting on earlier critical scholarship on the STL, this essay considers the role of the STL in the regional and global geopolitical architecture, and the domestic context, in terms of justice, politics
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Party corruption in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Context and implications Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-10 Farhad Hassan Abdullah Mamshai
Party corruption is not only a problem in developing democracies but also in developed ones. Since its establishment in 1991, corruption among political parties has been a key feature of Kurdish governance in the Kurdistan Region. This corruption can be categorized into two periods, the first from 1991 to 2003, and the second from 2005 to the present, mainly among the ruling parties the KDP and the
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Saudi foreign policy doctrine post-2011: The Iranian factor and balance of threat Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-06 Ayfer Erdogan
Since 2011, Saudi foreign policy has shifted from its traditional position of self-restraint and reliance on soft power to an assertive and adventurous one that prioritizes expanding security alliances and use of force. Particularly, after the advent of King Salman to power, the Kingdom experienced various turning points in its foreign policymaking such as its pursuit of increased military engagement
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The ideological trends in Ali Ahmad Bakathir's Sallamat Al-Qass Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-28 Redhwan Q. G. Rashed
This study examines Ali Ahmad Bakathir's unique vision in terms of the theme of love, as a subject whose treatment varies according to the ideology and philosophy of the writers. On the basis of Islamic ideals, Sallamat Al-Qass introduces a strange relationship between an ascetic worshiper, Abdurrahman, and the woman singer, Sallama; the two fall in love and hope for reunion if not in this world, then
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Sectarian relations from below: The case study of the Druze in Lebanon Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-21 Hadi Wahab
What factors are relevant for explaining why and how sectarian relations are driven from below? To answer this question, the present article builds on the sectarianism literature and scholarship by taking the Druze minority as a case study. It examines a new trend that emerged among the Druze in 2020–21: sect-centric anthems. One can draw on two occurrences that triggered the rise of such anthems:
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Introduction: Taking stock of Middle East migration since the Arab uprisings Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Kelsey P. Norman
Ten years ago, the world watched in disbelief as Tunisians used unprecedented collective action and civil resistance to end the 23-year-long reign of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. On January 15, the day after Ben Ali fled the country for Saudi Arabia, Larbi Sadiki of the University of Exeter wrote in an article for Al Jazeera, “The winds of uncertainty blowing in the Arab west—the Maghreb—threaten
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The perils of refugee rentierism in the post-2011 Middle East Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-10-18 Gerasimos Tsourapas
One of the most striking developments in the post-2011 Middle East has been the explicit attempt to employ refugees as instruments of interstate bargaining: from Egypt and North Africa to Turkey and the Levant, Middle East states across the Mediterranean have attempted, in some form or another, to secure material and nonmaterial concessions from the European Union (EU) and its member-states by tying
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The governance of Syrian refugees in the Middle East: Lessons from the Jordan and Lebanon Compacts Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-08 André Bank, Christiane Fröhlich
Fleeing war, repression, and economic breakdown in their home country, Syrians have become the largest group of refugees in the Middle East. Relative to their own populations, neighboring Jordan and Lebanon have hosted the most Syrians per capita. While both are small, middle-income, and resource-poor countries, the perception of their respective governance of Syrian refugees has been diametrically
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Echoing and re-echoing refugee policies in the international system: The Lebanese state and its political imaginary Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-09 Tamirace Fakhoury
This article sets out to contribute to the debate on how Arab refugee hosting states, generally regarded as norm recipients and recalcitrant implementers of refugee law, have sought to shape, localize, and reconfigure understandings and practices of asylum. More broadly, it also hints at how states draw on the question of asylum to craft “political imaginaries” defined as certain ways of seeing, representing
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“Formalizing rights: The case for linking legal rights to noncitizen statuses in Jordan” Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-10-12 Lillian Frost
How can Jordan's experiences hosting Palestinian refugees inform policymaking toward Syrian refugees? As the 10-year anniversary of the Syrian uprisings approaches, Syrian refugees remain displaced with limited opportunities for repatriation, resettlement, or naturalization. Although there are many important differences between Syrian and Palestinian refugees—particularly Syrians' right to a sovereign
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Education and alienation: The case of displaced Syrians and refugees Digest of Middle East Studies Pub Date : 2021-10-12 Basileus Zeno
Before the Syrian uprising (2011) and the subsequent war, Syria's literacy rates were among the highest in the Middle East and North Africa region. However, after a decade-long humanitarian crisis and devastating war, all aspects of life, including education, have been fundamentally transformed. Building on ethnographic fieldwork (2014–2019) that includes 76 interviews with Syrian refugees and asylum