Why do countries celebrate defining religious moments or significant events in their history, and how and why do their leaders select certain events for commemoration and not others? This book is the ...first systematic study of the role of celebrations and public holidays in the Arab Middle East from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the present. By tracing the history of the modern nation-state through successive generations, the book shows how Arab rulers have used public holidays as a means of establishing their legitimacy and, more broadly, a sense of national identity. Most recently, some states have attempted to nationalize religious festivals in the face of the Islamic revival. With its many illustrations and copious examples from across the region, the book offers an alternative perspective on the history and politics of the Middle East.
Climate change and migration World Bank; Wodon, Quentin; Liverani, Andrea ...
2014., 2014, 7-10-2014, 2014-07-15
eBook, Book
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Climate change is a major source of concern in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and migration is often understood as one of several strategies used by households to respond to changes ...in climate and environmental conditions, including extreme weather events. This study focuses on the link between climate change and migration. Most micro-level studies measure climate change either by the incidences of extreme weather events or by variation in temperature or rainfall. A few studies have found that formal and informal institutions as well as policies also affect migration. Institutions that make government more responsive to households (for example through public spending) discourage both international and domestic migration in the aftermath of extreme weather events. Migration is often an option of last resort after vulnerable rural populations attempting to cope with new and challenging circumstances have exhausted other options such as eating less, selling assets, or removing children from school. This study is based in large part on new data collected in 2011 in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and the Republic of Yemen. The surveys were administered by in-country partners to a randomly selected set of 800 households per country. It is also important to emphasize that neither the household survey results nor the findings from the qualitative focus groups are meant to be representative of the five countries in which the work was carried, since only a few areas were surveyed in each country. This report is organized as follows: section one gives synthesis. Section two discusses household perceptions about climate change and extreme weather events. Section three focuses on migration as a coping mechanisms and income diversification strategy. Section four examines other coping and adaptation strategies. Section five discusses perceptions about government and community programs.
Contemporary approaches to comparative studies of the Middle East increasingly recognize how globalization and regional mass communication have blurred differences across countries. Populations ...travel across national borders and compare narratives about political change, economic futures, and the role of the outside world in shaping their lives. Organized by five principal themes of a regional overview, politics, economic development, social context, and international issues, Interpreting the Middle East provides a vibrant introduction to the Middle East that is compatible with this regionalist perspective. Invited authorities contribute insightful and accessible original discussions of central headline-fresh issues such as the aftermath of the Iraq war, Iran's regional ambitions, developments in the Israeli'Palestinian conflict, and the global politics of Middle East oil, gender, and religion. Section introductions by the editor integrate the contributions, and suggested readings, a glossary, and a biographical list of key persons provide helpful guidance for readers.
This volume opens the canon of modern Jewish thought to the all too often overlooked writings of Jews from the Arab East, from the close of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. ...Whether they identified as Sephardim, Mizrahim, anticolonialists, or Zionists, these thinkers engaged the challenges and transformations of Middle Eastern Jewry in this decisive period. Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite present Jewish culture and politics situated within overlapping Arabic, Islamic, and colonial contexts. The editors invite the reader to reconsider contemporary evocations of Levantine, Mizrahi, and Arab Jewish identities against the backdrop of writings by earlier Middle Eastern Jewish intellectuals who critically assessed or contested the implications of Western presence and Western Jewish presence in the Middle East; religion and secularization; and the rise of nationalism, communism, and Zionism, as well as the State of Israel.
The new edition of The Middle East Today provides an accessible and comprehensive introductory textbook for undergraduate students of Middle East Studies, Middle East politics and geography. This ...updated and revised edition features a host of pedagogical features to assist students with their learning, including; detailed maps and images, case studies on key issues, boxed sections and suggestions for further reading.
The book highlights the current issues facing the Middle East, linking them to the rich political, geographical and cultural history of the region. The author examines the crises and conflicts, both current and potential, likely to dominate the region in coming years.
The second edition has been fully updated and revised to include discussion of such recent events as:
the effects of the Arab Spring
Turkey's growing influence in the region
the dramatic increase in Iran's nuclear capabilities
Usama bin Laden's death and declining support for violent extremist movements in the Middle East.
Further supplemented by a companion website containing sample chapters, a selection of maps formatted for use in presentations, and annotated links to online resources and websites, The Middle East Today is an essential resource for all students of Middle East Studies, Middle East politics and geography.
Monarchical presidential regimes in the Arab world looked as though they would last indefinitely—until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. This is the first book to lay bare the ...dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century, and the popular opposition they engendered.
How do aspiring and established rising global powers respond to conflict? Using China, the book studies its response to wars and rivalries in the Middle East from the Cold War to the present.
Since ...the People's Republic was established in 1949, China has long been involved in the Middle East and its conflicts, from exploiting or avoiding them to their management, containment or resolution. Using a conflict and peace studies angle, Burton adopts a broad perspective on Chinese engagement by looking at its involvement in the region's conflicts including Israel/Palestine, Iraq before and after 2003, Sudan and the Darfur crisis, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Gulf crisis and the wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen. The book reveals how a rising global and non-Western power handles the challenges associated with both violent and non-violent conflict and the differences between limiting and reducing violence alongside other ways to eliminate the causes of conflict and grievance.
Contributing to the wider discipline of International Relations and peace and conflict studies, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, Chinese foreign policy and the politics and international relations of the Middle East.
Stephen J. King considers the reasons that international and domestic efforts toward democratization have failed to take hold in the Arab world. Focusing on Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Algeria, he ...suggests that a complex set of variables characterizes authoritarian rule and helps to explain both its dynamism and its persistence. King addresses, but moves beyond, how religion and the strongly patriarchal culture influence state structure, policy configuration, ruling coalitions, and legitimization and privatization strategies. He shows how the transformation of authoritarianism has taken place amid shifting social relations and political institutions and how these changes have affected the lives of millions. Ultimately, King's forward-thinking analysis offers a way to enhance the prospects for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.
Based on comparative historical analyses of Iran, Jordan, and Kuwait, Sean L. Yom examines the foreign interventions, coalitional choices, and state outcomes that made the political regimes of the ...modern Middle East. A key text for foreign policy scholars,From Resilience to Revolutionshows how outside interference can corrupt the most basic choices of governance: who to reward, who to punish, who to compensate, and who to manipulate.
As colonial rule dissolved in the 1930s and 1950s, Middle Eastern autocrats constructed new political states to solidify their reigns, with varying results. Why did equally ambitious authoritarians meet such unequal fates? Yom ties the durability of Middle Eastern regimes to their geopolitical origins. At the dawn of the postcolonial era, many autocratic states had little support from their people and struggled to overcome widespread opposition. When foreign powers intervened to bolster these regimes, they unwittingly sabotaged the prospects for long-term stability by discouraging leaders from reaching out to their people and bargaining for mass support-early coalitional decisions that created repressive institutions and planted the seeds for future unrest. Only when they were secluded from larger geopolitical machinations did Middle Eastern regimes come to grips with their weaknesses and build broader coalitions.
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