Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy
2014-04-07 08:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Moscow)
CIRS held its inaugural Faculty Research Workshop on April 7, 2014, led by Karl Widerquist, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Participants were invited to discuss his book titled, Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy. The manuscript is currently in its final stages of preparation and argues that many prominent contemporary political theories rely on false claims about human origins and life in non-state societies. This book shows how several dubious claims became widely accepted premises because they seemed plausible (or even obvious) to Europeans of the early colonial period. It shows how contemporary theories continue to pass on those premises, often unnoticed and unchallenged, and it assembles anthropological and archaeological evidence to refute them. Finally, it discusses the ramifications of these findings for contemporary justifications of property, inequality, and the state.

The CIRS Faculty Research Workshop, in the form of a closed-door, one-day seminar, gathers together a small number of renowned scholars to engage in a focused discussion on a book manuscript that is in its final stages of preparation and has been authored by a member of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar faculty. The gathering consists of a series of structured brainstorming sessions, through which we engage in a thorough and critical discussion of the book manuscript. All participants will have read the entire manuscript in advance of the meeting and we ask individual scholars to lead focused group discussions on different chapters.

See the workshop agendaRead about the participants

Karl Widerquist specializes in political philosophy. His research is mostly in the area of distributive justice—the ethics of who has what. He holds two doctorates—one in Political Theory form Oxford University (2006) and one in Economics from the City University of New York (1996). He is the author of Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say (Palgrave Macmillan 2013), and coauthor of Economics for Social Workers (Columbia University Press 2002), Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research (Wiley-Blackwell 2013), Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform around the World (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), and the Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (Ashgate 2005). He is currently under contract to author or coauthor two more books: Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press 2014) and Justice as the Pursuit of Accord (Palgrave Macmillan 2015).

CIRS supported the publication of Karl Widerquist and Grant S.McCall’s book Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press/Edinburgh University Press, 2017).

The Evolution of Gulf Global Cities Working Group II
2014-04-12 08:00 - 2014-04-13 18:00
On April 12-13, 2014, CIRS held the final Working Group of “The Evolution of Gulf Global Cities” research initiative. Academics from various disciplinary backgrounds as well as architects, urban planners and designers gathered for the second meeting to discuss their research findings and papers around the theme of Gulf cities. The topics discussed ranged in their geographic coverage of the Persian Gulf and in their temporal analysis extending back to the early-twentieth century until the present-day. Elements of continuity and change in the urban landscape were discussed against the political, cultural and historical backdrop of the Gulf region.

Rapid urbanization and rising skylines have invigorated academic focus on cities of the Gulf. Opening the discussion, participants questioned the way in which Gulf cities are discussed in a highly depoliticized manner within popular discourse. Gulf cities are categorically described as transnational and global cities that are also “prosperous, modern and stable in a larger, more volatile and impoverished region”—how do these depictions diffuse images of the Gulf that constitute a certain ideological substrate? Discussants problematized the category of “city” itself, and pushed their analysis further to incorporate more socially and politically nuanced understandings of space. For instance, how do non-citizens live and fit within the space of the city? How do construction workers who help build the city find their place in these spaces that are generally depicted as transnational and metropolitan yet are highly segregated and limit the mobility of a cohort of its inhabitants? These are all questions that reflect on the current unspoken discursive formations of cities in the Gulf – formations that define ‘cities’ based on narrow and depoliticized interpretations.

While the current depictions of Gulf cities as “transnational” and “global” assume a historical break and disjuncture with urban characteristics of the pre-oil Gulf, participants discussed forms of transnational urbanism that were present in the early twentieth-century port cities. With its vast global networks, the region has always exhibited elements of transnationalism—however, its urban forms have also historically exhibited a privileging of homogeneity and unity of identity and class; a privileging that has led to the control and a morphological segregation and separation of difference. Looking at pluralism within the historical evolution of Gulf cities indicates that while they may have always been transnational, they have not been equally cosmopolitan.

Giving historical context to these spaces, Working Group members discussed linkages between territory, territoriality, infrastructure, and nation-building in the Gulf. In the case of the UAE, infrastructure played a central role during the country’s transformation from an itinerant territory to a fixed one based on oil extraction and subsequently on real estate development. A tool utilized for developing territory, infrastructure was also utilized by the political rulers as a nation-building medium that formed the essence of Emirati discourses on development, its modern territorial order, and ultimately the order of the state. Current major real-estate developers in the UAE—particularly in Dubai—continue to be under the basic control and power of the Emirati rulers, highlighting real-estate’s distinctive role vis-à-vis the state in promoting economic growth and reinventing the identity of the city.

While oil and gas revenues have heavily financed infrastructural developments and mega-projects in the Gulf, recent strides to lay the post-oil era foundation and to develop knowledge-based economies have also influenced their urban fabric. The proliferation of “smart cities,” cities within cities, free trade zones, mixed-use projects and tourism projects are indicative of this transition. Despite rapid urban development, pockets of historical traditional neighborhoods continue to exist in the Gulf. These spaces provide meaningful insight into the sentiments of residents and their emotional attachment and belonging to place in the midst of the proliferating presence of gated compounds and large houses encapsulated by tall fences. Place identity is a central component of residential satisfaction and as a case-study of traditional neighborhoods in Muscat reveals, the sense of community that residents ascribe to a place is what gives place meaning. Efforts to reconstruct and rehabilitate traditional neighborhoods around the Gulf—such as Msheireb in Doha, which envisions bringing the heart of the city back to its roots—in fact risk losing “place-meaning,” by practicing “place-making” and commoditizing the “traditional.” Across the Gulf, stressed or “decaying fabrics” of historical areas in Bandar-Abbas experiencing physical and economic decline have expanded throughout the city. While the government has housing plans to renovate these areas, low-income residents will most likely be pushed to the fringes of the city—exacerbating the “informalization” of their settlements and limiting their right to the city.

Read the participant bios
See the working group schedule
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Pooya Alaedini, University of Tehran
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Marike Bontenbal, German University of Technology in Oman
Matt Buehler, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Remah Gharib, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ahmed Kanna, University of the Pacific
Arang Keshavarzian, New York University
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Stephen J. Ramos, University of Georgia
Ashraf M. Salama, Qatar University
Evren Tok, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Florian Wiedmann, Wiedmann Mirincheva Associates

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Networked Arab Publics and Contention in the Digital Age
2014-04-15 08:00 - 18:00
Mohamed Zayani, Associate Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion lecture on “Networked Arab Publics and Contention in the Digital Age” on April 15, 2014. The talk was based on Zayani’s ongoing book project, which analyzes the changing relationship between media and politics in the Arab world, especially as it relates to the Arab uprisings in Tunisia. The book provides an ethnographic account of evolving media practices that bring into focus the intricate relationship between the emerging digital culture in the Arab world; youth engagement and youth involvement; cyber dissidence and resistance; and political expression. Zayani was prompted into further investigations on the subject because in much of the literature, the role of media, especially social media, was either highly inflated or unduly analyzed, leaving little room to cogitate upon the complexities of the nuanced relationship between people, media, politics, and power.

Examining the media’s role in the Arab uprisings, Zayani highlighted the importance of country-specific studies. There has been a tendency to cast the countries of the Arab uprisings into a single homogenous phenomenon under the rubric of the “Arab Spring,” without paying attention to the important contextual differences between each state. Tunisia proved to be a crucial site of convergence for media, politics, and popular contention as it was the first Arab country to connect to the Internet in 1991 and the first overt site of the Arab uprisings. Thus, Zayani analyzes the correlation between Internet penetration and political change, arguing that “on the one hand, the country lived under the rule of a regime that proved adept at modernizing authoritarianism and ensuring regime durability. On the other hand, the country adopted an avant-garde Internet development model and purposefully sought to build a digital infrastructure that is capable of positioning the country as a model for an aspiring networked society in the age of globalization.” Attempts to balance these two factors was a challenge for the Tunisian regime, which ultimately collapsed under the pressure of a technologically-equipped and vocalized public.

As Arab media quickly developed during the 1990s creating a virtual public sphere where political issues could be discussed relatively openly, this schism became even more pronounced. Internet activism was especially propelled by a number of factors including the demographic reality of the region, which was encompassed in a youth bulge where two-thirds of the Arab world are below the age of 25. “The conundrum was that this significant socio-demographic category has been largely left out of political life – or at least that was the perception.” Importantly, this significant and growing youthful population was buoyed by two simultaneous phenomena of mass education and mass media, both of which were significant in their challenge to traditional constructions of authority and advocacy of critical thinking.

Focusing on questions of political socialization, Zayani’s study is geared towards answering a central question: “how do young people become politicized on the Internet?” This goes against the general assumption that Arab youth were, on the whole, politically marginalized and disinterested. The events of the Arab uprisings proved the contrary, and Arab youth exhibited strong political consciousness, activism, and engagement. The main overlooked issue is that they tend to express their political stances through means other than formal political structures.

Thus, Zayani concluded by noting the importance of challenging traditional categorizations of what it means to be political, explaining: “My study aims to redirect attention from the formal political institutions of the Arab world to the politics of everyday life.” In this reformulation, digital contention yields more than just dissidence; it encourages other forms of assertiveness associated with the concept of citizenship.

Mohamed Zayani is an Affiliate Faculty with the Communication, Culture and Technology Graduate Program and the 2013-1014 Faculty Fellow with the Center for Regional and International Studies. His works include Reading the Symptom (1999), Arab Satellite Television and Politics in the Middle East (2004), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (2005) and The Culture of Al Jazeera: Inside an Arab Media Giant (2007). He is a recipient of numerous grants, including a Social Science Research Council grant, and a Member of the UNESCO Committee of Experts on Cultural Diversity.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

New Paradigms for a Palestine in Perpetual Limbo?
2014-04-21 08:00 - 18:00
Sam Bahour, Managing Partner at Applied Information Management (AIM), Director at the Arab Islamic Bank and a policy adviser to the Al-Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on “New Paradigms for a Palestine in Perpetual Limbo,” on April 21, 2014, which centered on the persisting nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Bahour explained that it is not just the overt acts of Israeli violence and injustice that Palestine must overcome, but the “peace industry” itself that has been built around the problem and that paradoxically sustains the struggle even as it attempts to aid in its resolution. A solid superstructure of international NGOs, human rights organizations, advocacy groups, academic think tanks, cultural programs, and solidarity groups have been constructed around the conflict, and thrive off of its existence.

Bahour argued that Palestine is in a state of perpetual limbo because “today’s Israeli position rests on the assumption that procrastination will continue to tilt the strategic balance increasingly in Israel’s favor.” Decade by decade, he adumbrated key instances of how power relations between Israel and Palestine were incrementally and consistently skewed in favor of the Israeli state and with the backing, or indifference, of much of the international community. The Israeli occupation has ingrained ideological pathologies that do not conceptualize Palestinians as equals or as deserving of equality. “We are not facing a right-wing Israeli government. We are facing the state institution of Israel, which has embedded within it an exclusivist ideology of Zionism bent on maintaining a world view which gives preferential treatment to Jews, and is bent on redemption of the land of Israel,” Bahour explained.

Israel is reticent to reach a final settlement and to put an end to the conflict because of four perceived alternatives to a negotiated agreement—all of which are in Israel’s favor and which undermine the Palestinian position. The first is for Israel to prolong negotiations indefinitely by feigning progress even as it encroaches on Palestinian lands and rights. The second is for Israel to set up a pseudo-provisional two-state arrangement wherein a weakened Palestinian authority masquerades as a Palestinian government. The third is a unilateral separation dictated by Israel, and the fourth is for Egypt and Jordan to assume control of the occupied territories.

However, “Israeli strategic planners overestimate their own strength and underestimate the strategic opportunities available to the Palestinians,” he said, as these four Israeli-favored outcomes can be challenged by the reorientation of Palestinian strategy through four new paradigms. These include putting an end to the idea of a two-state negotiation; the reconstitution of the Palestinian authority into a more proactive entity serving Palestinian priorities; the elevation of intelligent resistance over negotiations and the reassertion of national unity through reform of the PLO and eliciting international third-party support; and the shift from a two-state solution to a bi-national or unitary democratic single state. When Palestinians finally concede to the fact that a genuine negotiated outcome is not being offered by the Israelis, they will be able to conscientiously reject the idea of a two-state solution.

Shifting to his perspective as a Palestinian parent, Bahour spoke about how his daughters perceive the future of Palestine. Although his children are aware of the total military occupation that restricts their lives, their modern and globalized attitude means that they think differently on the same issues, and have their own opinions on how the conflict should be resolved. Speaking from the perspective of the Palestinian youth generation, his daughters lamented the futility of fighting against Israel’s behemoth military and nuclear power and expressed their fatigue with decades of struggling for an international law which cannot be implemented. They opted instead to redefine Palestinian self-determination, and to come up with a radical alternative that is both unimaginable and unacceptable to the older generation of Palestinians: conceding that the Palestinians are powerless to create a viable state under the current conditions, thus surrendering the Palestinian struggle for statehood in return for their full human, civil, and political rights within the structure of the Israeli state.

“The issue of Palestine reflects a historical injustice so large and so blatant that its flame refuses to extinguish,” he argued, but this new paradigm of self-determination as envisioned by Palestinian youth turns the model of the conflict on its head and defies decades of orchestrated Israeli control with its counter-intuitive offering. Thus, Bahour concluded, the youth generation “is at a crossroads between continuing on the statehood path, which we are losing by the day […] or to drop statehood and call for civil rights.”

Sam bahour is a Palestinian-American based in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine. He is a freelance business consultant operating as Applied Information Management (AIM), specializing in business development with a niche focus on start-ups. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Palestine Telecommunications Company and the PLAZA Shopping Center, and recently completed a full term as a Board of Trustees member at Birzeit University. He serves in various capacities in several community organizations, including serving as a policy adviser to Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, a member of the core Local Reference Group of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), and co-founder of the Dalia Association. Sam writes frequently on Palestinian affairs and has been widely published. He is co-editor of HOMELAND: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians and may be reached at sbahour@gmail.com. He blogs at www.epalestine.com.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Gary Wasserman Lectures on “Why Are We Here (in Doha)?”
2014-04-27 08:00 - 18:00
Gary Wasserman, professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussionlecture titled, “Why Are We Here (in Doha)?” on April 27, 2014. Encouraging discussion among members of the Georgetown University in Qatar community, Wasserman noted that he did not have an answer to the question posed in the title of the lecture, but would offer five different possible models that approach an answer.

The first model is to consider Georgetown University in Qatar as an extension of the American imperium. In this model, the United States offers the Middle East region two of its key capabilities: military bases for regional security, and US schools providing world class education—in other words, what political scientists call hard power of economic wealth and military weapons as well as soft power of ideas. In this sense, Wasserman argued “we are the American superpower in its educational garb.”

These offerings are not necessarily negative and may be key to the current peace and prosperity in much of the world. The limitation to this model, however, is that the faculty and educators at Georgetown in Qatar do not necessarily serve as ideal ambassadors of US government policy. They are more likely to dissent, to question, and to challenge official US policy in their critical scribblings, and in their informed debates with students and others, whether at home or abroad. Moreover, the Qatari hosts are hardly a passive colonized people; they initiated this relationship, they pay for it, and they negotiate the contract under which Georgetown in Qatar operates, at the least as equals.

On the opposite end of the spectrum lies the second model offered by Wasserman—the “expat model.” Here, individual members of the Georgetown community travel abroad to practice their professions; a practical task that is not always integrated into that of any larger, more idealized notion of a Western institution. In this sense, he argued, “we are well-compensated hired help. We are here to fill a job and provide a service that cannot be produced locally; arguably a home-delivered prestige commodity—a Western brand name.” However, Wasserman’s objection to this model is that, whether consciously or not, Georgetown is expected to, and is in fact, changing behavior, as all educational institutions are wont to do.

The third model is the “contract model,” where Georgetown is obligated to act as a professional school for training diplomats in and for Qatar. The institution was invited by its Qatari hosts to offer some, but not all, aspects of the Georgetown college experience, sanitizing the more controversial elements of US culture and society. Wasserman’s reservations of this model center on the fact that very few of the graduates actually end up in the foreign service, and so the Georgetown education is far more encompassing than merely a training center for diplomats. “We are in fact as close to a liberal arts college as Education City gets,” he explained.

Which leads to the fourth model, that of “liberalism,” where Georgetown can be seen as spreading secular humanism in the form of the widest possible inquiry and tolerance of freedom of thought and expression, especially as for those who struggle with social oppression in terms of gender, race, or sexual orientation. However, Wasserman’s objection to the applicability of this model is that even though Georgetown invites students to think for themselves, the institution is in fact asking them to subscribe to a particular Westernized ideal of thinking. By being in Qatar, Georgetown must reconcile with the reality that it does not operate in a liberal society that elevates individual thought above all. Rather it is one where family, community, and religious ties are more highly valued. The students from this region are a complex mix of loyalty and obligation to their families and societies, along with a desire to integrate into globalizing outlooks and identities. This mixed campus experience makes it difficult for Georgetown to “cleanly” deliver the traditional Western ideals of liberalism. Nor should we, Wasserman stated.

The fifth and concluding model Wasserman offered is what he called “the muddled bubble.” In this model, Georgetown in Qatar is operating, without a set blueprint, in an environment of messy uncertainty. This, he argued, will necessarily mean that the institution is at the interface of different and changing cultures. “We occupy what should be an uncomfortable, unpredictable, but potentially innovative space,” he argued. The model of the bubble demands that Georgetown in Qatar seek a degree of autonomy, not only from potentially reactionary local pressures, but also from the foreign traditions and interests of the main campus. The “muddled” part of the model, he explained, comes from the experimental, unclear process by which we create an unusual blend of transnational students prepared for an unclear and unique future. Thus, Wasserman concluded, we should celebrate our unique position of being muddled “not by a clash of civilizations, but by a confusion of civilizations.”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications.

Gary Wasserman has fashioned a career in teaching, political consulting and writing. Previously he taught graduate students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Nanjing, China. He received his Ph.D. with Distinction from Columbia University. He recently wrote Politics in Action: Cases in Modern American Government (2012), and Pearson is publishing the 15th edition of his text, The Basics of American Politics (2015). His MOOC, “The Game of American Politics,” is available online this spring.

Healthcare Policy and Politics in the Gulf States Working Group I
2014-04-27 18:00 - 2014-04-28 18:00
On April 27-28, 2014, CIRS convened the first working group under the research initiative Healthcare Policy and Politics in the Gulf States. Healthcare practitioners, strategists and social scientists from various disciplinary backgrounds gathered over two days to discuss the rapidly changing health profile of the region, the existing conditions of health systems, and the challenges posed to healthcare management across the six countries of the GCC.

In recent decades, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) governments have heavily invested in socioeconomic development and have increasingly played an instrumental role in the development of healthcare systems. Rapid transformation of health systems took place between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s across the six GCC States. Commonalities between GCC states, such as geographic location, political order, the presence of hydrocarbon reserves, and the large influx of foreigners into the region, have created common threads across the healthcare industries of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. The evolution of healthcare systems, however, has not been uniform across the region, with Oman (ranked 8th in the 2000 World Health Report on health systems) and Bahrain experiencing more successful models of development as compared to their Gulf counterparts. The participants attributed this development to two salient features in healthcare planning: local healthcare leadership and progressive planning that focused on comprehensive health services. The healthcare leadership involved in the organization and planning of Oman’s healthcare system in the early 1970s was predominantly comprised of local expertise allowing for models of development that were based on local needs and that were conducive to the local environment catering towards long-term development of the sector. This stands in comparison to the “mercenary mentality” that was characteristic of foreign healthcare leadership in other GCC States. Bahrain was amongst the first in the GCC to set up primary healthcare centers enabling a significant proportion of the population to easily access health services—a sector that continues to be under-developed in other GCC states as they disproportionately give emphasis to secondary and tertiary care. Despite disparate levels of healthcare services development across the GCC, the GCC secretariat has adopted some common plans and models that provide a regional approach to the sector. One example is the GCC-wide common purchasing in the pharmaceutical industry, which started in the mid-1970s and has, accordingly, had a major impact on the market. More recently, GCC ministers of health have agreed to create a unified mental health improvement plan to develop a sector that has long been neglected in the region and that is in need of transformation.

While GCC healthcare expenditure continues to be on the rise, there remains a significant gap between investments in healthcare and health outcomes of Gulf citizenry. Rapid urbanization rates and changes in lifestyle have resulted in populations that exhibit a high prevalence of diabetes and obesity (in Qatar, for instance, 70% of nationals are overweight and 40% are obese). Chronic non-communicable disease is on the rise in the Gulf and, as such, preventive medicine and lifestyle health are of growing importance, emphasizing a necessary shift from the current focus on secondary curative care. Moreover, primary care – considered to be the “gate-keeper” of healthcare models in developed countries around the world – plays a key role in preventive medicine, emphasizing the need to provide incentives to patients for its utilization. In addition to the type of care, participants emphasized the need for multidisciplinary teams—incorporating nutrition experts and diabetes educators, for instance—to effectively prevent a rise in the prevalence of chronic disease.

While Gulf nationals predominantly suffer from these lifestyle diseases, the expatriate and migrant populations of the GCC have health profiles that are distinct from nationals. The three tiered population of the region—comprised of locals, long-term residents, and more transient migrant workers—requires Gulf governments to plan accordingly for the health needs of each population. One segment of the population, short-term migrants, is largely employed in the construction sectors of the GCC and, as such, incorporation of occupational health and safety in the healthcare model is another component that the Gulf is increasingly focusing on. Much like the need for preventive care in the case of lifestyle diseases, primary needs for occupational health—such as safety assessments and hazard identification—are not healthcare related but are related to prevention. To have an effective systems approach to occupational health however, a feedback system needs to be incorporated that includes frontline workers and allows for open communication with higher management. Achieving this form of participatory health planning and management, however, is very challenging in hierarchical settings that lack labor unions and labor management.

In addition to satisfying the health needs of foreign migrant residents—who comprise the bulk of GCC populations—GCC states have to cope with their reliance on foreign skills to supply their healthcare workforce. This poses broad risks to the region as the excessive reliance on foreign human resources may leave GCC states vulnerable in times of regional sociopolitical instability should there be an exodus of the foreign workforce. In the absence of political crises, however, challenges remain. In the hospital setting or workplace where nurses, physicians, and staff come from a variety of different cultures, speak a multitude of languages, and have been trained under different schools and standards, the effectiveness of providing care is challenged. Additionally, the hierarchical social organization that was outlined in the context of the construction industry is also prevalent in hospital settings—much of it due to many of the GCC states’ sponsorship system (kefala) where tenuousness exists in the work-status of foreign staff. This tenuousness affects relationship dynamics between local and foreign staff and between patients and hospital staff.

While participants of the working group tackled a multitude of topics—ranging from substance abuse in the Gulf to social organization of nursing practices—a common challenge facing scholars studying healthcare in the region is the lack of both available and published data. Thus, while the industry is rapidly evolving, scholarship on the topic remains limited and is constrained by the limited availability of information, underscoring the need for additional research on the area.

Read the participant bios
See the working group schedule
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Mohamad Alameddine, American University of Beirut
Samir Al-Adawi, Sultan Qaboos University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Matt Buehler, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suhaila Ghuloum, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar; Hamad Medical Center
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Cother Hajat, United Arab Emirates University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nadir Kheir, Qatar University
Nabil Kronfol, Lebanese Healthcare Management Association; Center for Studies on Ageing
Ravinder Mamtani, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar
Tatjana Martinoska, Enertech Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Janet Rankin, University of Calgary Qatar
Salman Rawaf, Imperial College London; WHO Collaborating Center for Public Health Education and Training
Ganesh Seshan, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Rosemary Sokas, Georgetown University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Insights into the Qatari Legal System
2014-05-12 08:00 - 18:00
Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Assistant Professor of Commercial Law at Qatar University and the 2013-2014 CIRS-Qatar University Fellow, delivered the final CIRSMonthly Dialogue lecture of the 2013-2014 academic year on May 12, 2014. The topic of discussion was “Insights into the Qatari Legal System,” wherein Al-Khulaifi gave an overview of Qatari regulations, the judicial and legislative sectors, and the relationship between legislation and developments in Qatar. Current Qatari legislations are divided into two main categories. The first is public law, which involves the public authority such as international law, constitutional law, and criminal law. The second is private law, which includes civil and commercial laws.

Al-Khulaifi gave some background to Qatari legal history by noting that, since the 7th century, early Qatari society referred to custom and Shari‘ah when solving disputes, which were used extensively in cases put forth by pearl divers of the time. Despite the Gulf countries’ subscription to the British mandate in the modern period, Shari‘ah law remained as the prevailing law for citizens. Since Qatari society has always been regulated by a traditional form of social governance, “it would be majorly incorrect to say that the history of law in Qatar started with the issuance of the official gazette in 1960,” he explained. With Qatari independence in 1971, there was an overhaul of the legal system wherein “British courts were eliminated and replaced by the ‘Qatari justice courts,’” which presides over civil, commercial, and criminal law, while the Shari‘ah court presides over family and inheritance issues.

Since the establishment of the hydrocarbon industry in Qatar, the country’s legal system went through a significant transformation to pave the way for foreign corporate and economic interests and investments. This has been achieved by adopting laws that ease the legal process for doing business, and by aligning with many of the international norms, he noted. Currently, “Qatar is engaged in a tremendous number of high-value projects,” as “the country is involved with approximately US$250 billion worth of projects related to the preparation of the FIFA World Cup 2022,” he added.

Describing the legal process itself, Al-Khulaifi explained that, in order for one of the ministries to propose issuing a law, it is first prepared as a “draft” created by specialized legal committees in the Council of Ministers, which is then presented to the Shura Council for consideration. Upon acceptance, the Shura Council returns the “draft” to the Council of Ministers to be crafted into its final form and then to be issued by the Office of His Highness the Emir. Once it is signed by His Highness the Emir, it is sent to the Ministry of Justice for publication in the official Gazette of the State for application in public life. “It is also quite crucial to emphasize that the Qatar legislations are mostly similar in content to the legislations in the Gulf region and the Arab World,” he continued.

In conclusion, Al-Khulaifi noted that Qatar was ranked 14th in the 2011-2012 Global Competitiveness Ranking. Since there is such growth in the commercial and business sectors in Qatar, which are continually expanding, there should also be vigilance regarding the application of the law, and dealing with any necessary revision as needed. “This fact should continuously notify the legislator and lawmakers in the country to cope with the ultimate development in the different fields of law by reviewing the existing laws and providing new reliable regulations that would legally protect […] development in Qatar,” he concluded.Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications.Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi graduated from Qatar University with a Bachelor degree in Law (LL.B) in 2007 and received his Master of Laws (LL.M) and Judicial Science Doctorate (J.S.D) degrees from University of California, Berkeley in 2011. Al-Khulaifi received the State Ph.D. award from H.H. Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, the Qatari Emir, at Qatar Education Excellence Day in 2012. Besides his academic work, Al-Khulaifi is an authorized Qatari attorney at Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Khulaifi’s law office in Doha. In addition, he has been consulted by governmental institutions to present his legal opinions on matters related to commercial legislations in the state of Qatar.

CIRS Travels to New Delhi
2014-05-13 08:00 - 2014-05-17 18:00
As part of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar’s efforts to foster academic and institutional linkages with organizations around the world, members of the Center for International and Regional Studies, SFS-Q faculty, and Georgetown University staff traveled to New Delhi, India, on May 13-17, 2014. During the four day trip, the cohort of Georgetown community members held an alumni reception and met with various research foundations, policy think tanks, and universities in India including: the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi Policy Group, and Jindal Global University – School of International Affairs. During each of these visits, SFS-Q faculty and CIRS researchers—Mehran Kamrava, Abdullah Al-Arian, Mark Farha, Gary Wasserman, and Zahra Babar—gave talks pertaining to their respective areas of research and engaged in academic discourse and dialogue with professors, researchers, dignitaries, and students based in India. Linking the Gulf region to India, professors from Doha and researchers, dignitaries, and UN officials from India discussed issues of mutual interest and concern in the West Asia region—particularly, in the context of “Nuclear Trends in West Asia,” and “Regional Responses to the Iran Nuclear Deal” during the visit to the Observer Research Foundation. Broadening the geographic area of focus, SFS-Q faculty gave talks at the Delhi Policy Group on “Changing dynamics in West Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East,” addressing issues related to Iran and Persian Gulf security and evolving domestic political dynamics in Egypt. At Jindal Global University – School of International Affairs, students, professors, researchers, and journalists gathered for a workshop on “Internal and External Dynamics in the Middle East Post-Arab Spring.” During the meeting, participants covered an array of research areas ranging from external and internal security in the Gulf, to the “stalled revolution in Egypt” and sectarianism in the Middle East.

These various engagements enabled participants to explore and exchange research on the Middle East and India, linking the two regions academically and having a dialogue on geographic, social, political, and economic connections. The meetings also provided SFS-Q faculty with a platform for professional development. The professors were able to give multiple talks, share their research and insights with the various organizations, and additionally benefit from the expertise and knowledge of their counterparts at various policy and academic research institutions and universities in India.

See the Observer Research Foundation meeting agenda
See the Delhi Policy Group meeting agenda
See the Jindal Global University workshop agenda

The State and Innovation in the Gulf Working Group II
2014-06-03 08:00 - 2014-06-04 18:00
On June 3-4, 2014, CIRS held the second working group under the State and Innovation in the Gulf research initiative. Participants reconvened in Doha to discuss their paper submissions that collectively analyze efforts of GCC states to diversify their oil-based economies into knowledge-based economies (KBEs), the manifestation of these efforts on the ground, and the structural realities that facilitate or hinder this transition.

Significant dependence on the oil and gas industry has led to the development of national visions and strategies that actively seek to diversify GCC economies. These diversification efforts are not merely related to the diffusion of risk by decreasing dependence on the volatile oil and gas sector, but are rather increasingly intertwined with elements associated with KBEs—namely job creation and the development of sectors with high knowledge content. Global rankings such as the World Bank’s Knowledge Assessment Methodology database provide a comparative indication of the status of knowledge economies around the world. While GCC countries rank below European and North American countries in the World Bank’s KAM database, they also score significantly higher than other states in the MENA region. Despite this relative indication of GCC rankings, participants questioned the applicability of these assessments to the region due to the Gulf’s peculiar economic transition throughout the decades. Developed countries around the world—those that tend to score higher on these global rankings—have gone through a developmental evolution from agrarian to industrial economies, then transitioned to information societies, which led to the present knowledge economies. Gulf states however, are attempting to leapfrog from pearling and trading economies to robust KBEs. The core cause of this rapid transition in the region—in comparison to other resource-based economies such as Norway—is attributable to the concurrent discovery of oil and establishment of nationhood, leading Gulf rulers to focus on strengthening their rule by building physical infrastructure, providing basic services, and essentially suspending the diversification process. Production oriented structures and practices were thus sidelined by robust oil earnings, leading participants to question: can countries which have not been through the industrial revolution enter the knowledge economy phase of development?

One of the ways in which Gulf states are attempting to build the foundations of their respective KBEs is by heavily investing in human capital and intangible assets through the establishment of vast educational and research facilities. By replicating and adopting models of education from abroad, this form of investment enables Gulf states to “leapfrog the lengthy and costly process of indigenous growth and maturity”—indicating a strong motivation to catch-up with the developed world and compete in the global race for innovation. While borrowing and replicating models may have its advantages in reducing the time and cost of establishing native educational systems, the process of borrowing, adoption and implementation is a complex and costly one itself. Cultural transmission is one of the core components of education, and as such, having a standard model that is imported from abroad omits the required cultural and contextual fit for education systems to be locally effective. Second, excessive reliance on foreign models and external providers retards the growth of local capacity building in the Gulf—essentially hindering the ability to foster knowledge and expertise produced locally. Despite this tendency to replicate and borrow, Gulf states have exhibited forms of innovation in developing their education systems. Education City—the flagship of Qatar Foundation in Qatar—is a model of clustered international branch campuses (IBCS), where a number of foreign universities operate under the umbrella of Education City. This clustered model of IBCs creates opportunities for integrating the educational experiences of the different universities, allowing students to cross-register for classes and providing a platform for joint-degree programs and research collaborations to take place. Due to the benefits of this model of clustered IBCs – or the Education City model – other regions of the globe are attempting to adopt it. While the benefits are clear, it is a costly endeavor and its global level of diffusion will largely be dictated by the ability of states with fewer resources than Qatar to effectively replicate the model.

Large investments in higher education are tailored towards developing the skills of the national workforce and producing the “knowledge worker” that is required by KBEs. Despite this investment in human capital however, Gulf nationals are continuously drawn to employment in the public sector—where they accrue large benefits from the state—as opposed to seeking employment in the private sector. While foreigners comprise the bulk of GCC populations and as such dominate the private sector, they have a temporary presence in the labor market due migration policies that limit their duration of stay. This has adverse effects on developing KBEs due to hindering local knowledge retention and transfer of imported foreign knowledge. In developed countries, the private sector is traditionally conceived of as the bearer and fosterer of innovation; however, with minimal presence of nationals in the private sector and the temporally limited presence of expatriates, there exists a large disjuncture between investment in human capital and labor market outcomes that reap the benefits of these investments. In an attempt to fill this gap, GCC states are promoting entrepreneurship by developing institutions that support local entrepreneurs and SMEs, with the aims of building a robust private sector that is promotive of innovation. In the recent years, the SME ecosystem has witnessed a mushrooming of institutions and organizations mandated to cater their services towards the support of private business. While the strategies and infrastructure for SME promotion may be set in place, the pervasive rentier arrangement in the Gulf provides a thick security blanket of social benefits that continues to deter nationals from fostering an entrepreneurial spirit—a spirit that is largely based on uncertainty and risk-taking.

Increasingly so, it is apparent that what is lacking in the GCC is not necessarily the infrastructure or the investment in pillars of a knowledge based economy—but in creating an environment and a national system that is conducive to knowledge creation and innovation. When it comes to university-industry-government collaborations, it appears that the role of the government in incentivizing both universities and industries to collaborate in knowledge exchange and management is weak in some GCC states such as Qatar. As such, industries continue to operate in silos, curtailing the diffusion of knowledge throughout the economy. Moreover, it becomes evident that while state rhetoric is supportive of creating KBEs that foster innovation, the structural realities of Gulf states—namely the rentier arrangements and the demographic imbalance—actively mitigate against the translation of these national visions and strategies into concrete realities, hindering the realization of KBEs and keeping innovation at shallow levels.

See the participant bios
See the Working Group agenda
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Haytham Abduljawad, Qatar Petroleum
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
John Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Crystal A. Ennis, Balsillie School of International Affairs
Martin Hvidt, Zayed University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Daniel Kirk, Emirates College for Advanced Education
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

World Regions: The Middle Eastern Pivot Working Group I
2014-06-08 08:00 - 18:00
On June 8, 2014, CIRS and the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies (SBIGS) held the first working group under the collaborative research initiative World Regions: The Middle Eastern Pivot. Scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds gathered for the meeting in Doha to discuss topics related to the concept of “regions,” the construction of regional identities, and world regions and civilizations.

Participants began the working group meeting with a discussion of “a Pangaean approach to world regions.” The new-old approach to world regions categorized regions using physical and meta-geographical distinctions. Physically, the distinction is the seven continents that resulted as a fragmentation of the old super-continent Pangea. Other meta-geographical distinctions are: nation-states, which arise out of political categories; North-South and core, periphery, and semi-periphery economic categorizations; and cultural distinctions such as the occident and the orient. However, this traditional way of studying regions lacks the incorporation of the human impact on the geo-body, which is largely affected by techno-scientific means. While the new-old approach fragments the earth based on a predominantly socio-cultural perspective, the new-new approach—or the Pangea II project—seeks to integrate the techno-scientific lens with the cultural studies lens. Our socio-natural impact gives rise to a global techno-scientific culture requiring new imagery and a re-mapping of the world—as Pangea II. Participants also discussed the importance of language when constructing and re-mapping regions. The notion of “world” regions emphasizes the diversity and divisions between various regions, whereas the concept of “global” regions may focus more on the interconnections and overlaps, accounting for the ongoing change that is occurring to earth as a whole and providing a binocular view that incorporates socio-cultural and socio-natural constituents.

“The Islamicate civilization and the Persianate world” was the second topic of discussion amongst participants. The growth of Orientalism by the end of the eighteenth century led to a shift from a unitary to a plural notion of civilization. The Orientalist approach to civilization used language as the decisive marker, and as such, based on the generation and influence of the Persian language, the Persianate world is considered to be a civilizational zone. Max Weber’s approach to civilization replaces language with religion as the main marker. In this conception, the Islamicate civilization is constituted as a world region. These conceptions of world regions are not mutually exclusive and as such identities can be intersecting and overlapping allowing one to be simultaneously Muslim, Persianate and Middle Eastern. In considering world regions as a unit of analysis, geographic, cultural or political, and structural coherence are considered to be the basic criterion. Geographic coherence was evident in ancient and medical empires that were territorially contiguous. Political coherence is produced as a result of polity formation. A framework for considering political coherence is “Sheldon Pollock’s idea of the vernacular millennium where the ecumenical languages—Sanskrit, Latin and Arabic—recede to make possible the growth of vernacular languages and cultures as a result of polity formation with the rise of local monarchies.” While Arabic was the lingua franca of the Islamic Civilization, Persian became a complimentary lingua franca to Islam where the Samanids in the tenth century played a particularly major role in spreading Islam as a world religion. A core component of the third criterion – structural or institutional coherence—is the legal order and juridification of norms and organizing logics. Islamic law—or Sharia—is predominantly private law and developed under the Islamicate civilization. Public or constitutional law however did not develop under this civilization and the idea of an “Islamicate monarchy” as a “political ethic” was largely derived from the Persian idea of kingship—signifying another area of great overlap between the two worlds.

In exploring the topic of the “Islamicate Ecumene in MENA and South Asia before Colonial Empires and Nation-States”, participants discussed the monopolization of literature by two dominant framings on geographic entities: that of the ecumene (ethno/cultural/religious civilizational aspects) and that of the empire (political aspects). Nestled between these geo-entities framings is one that is more socio-cultural and socio-economic—one that focuses on activities centered on exchange and one that includes people who were not part of the elite—such as students, teachers, pilgrims, traders etc. The neglect of the latter geo-entity accounts for the relative absence of the Middle East and South Asia in comparison to other parts of the world in the scholarship of global histories. Addressing this third geo-entity fills a huge gap in the scholarship and facilitates the reconstruction of salient spheres of social communication that took place prior to the nineteenth century. By embracing philology, and drawing on social-scientific techniques that create cardinal visualization, scholars can facilitate the study of conceptual history and the reconstruction of spheres of spatial communication in past contexts.

While addressing the Arab World and the Middle East as overlapping world regions, the “Middle East” as a defined region was problematized by the working group members. Characterized as “one of the most relative terms,” scholars have long debated what geographical, cultural, political and historical patterns give coherence to this label. Despite these disputes in the nomenclature of the Middle East, participants nonetheless engaged with the region. Paralleling an earlier discussion of shifts in regional centers and the reversal of center and periphery, participants questioned whether there is a shift in the regional centers of gravity in the Middle East—moving away from the previous centers of power and economic activity of Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus, to that of the Persian Gulf states. In order to understand whether the center of gravity is shifting, scholars of the region need to have a better read of the intellectual landscape of the Middle East. Much of what we know about the production of knowledge in the region is related to that of political activists, but not much is known about political thinkers in Middle Eastern society. Whether or not places such as Dubai for instance, signify authentic cultural centers of knowledge production in the region could help us understand whether such regional shifts are in fact occurring. Some participants, however, questioned whether there remain any centers of gravity, or perhaps just a series of networks that interlace throughout the region.

Bridging regional studies and social science disciplines, participants delved into the topic of “The Middle East and International Relations Theory.” Each of the four schools of IR thought (i.e. the power, interdependence, Marxist, and constructivist schools) has particular relevance to the region. For instance, the power school emphasizes realism and attributes the shape of the region to the actions of great powers—this is fitting to the Middle East because the shape—and definition—of the region is in fact a product of great powers. When interpreting the modern world, however, another type of realism emerges—realism of power that is defined by the ability to produce and develop techno-scientific knowledge, emphasizing the modern need for civilizations to be progressive as compared to traditional civilizations that did not emphasize the growth process. Though the power school remains salient, it does not account for the power of regional actors nor take into consideration non-state actors. The school of constructivism on the other hand—which is a late comer in IR theory—brings forth the importance of ideas, thereby bringing IR theory closer to social thinking and allowing for deeper analysis and engagement with the internal dynamics of the region. Neo-constructivism—perhaps the most effective of all—integrates the material dimensions of the latter three IR theories (power, economy, class) and that of ideas.

Last on the agenda, working group members tackled the topic of “Central Eurasia as a World Region.” Central Eurasia encompasses multiple ethnic groups and languages making it difficult to define this region as a region. Although linguistic similarities between Uzbeks and Kazaks for instance indicate a level of cultural similarity; natives of these countries do not perceive it to be the case largely due to the linguistic and geographic borders that were reified through the soviet institutions of the twentieth century. From an internal perspective, national legacies of the region make it hard to identify central Asia as a region as its inhabitants have historically emphasized maintaining separateness. Additionally, from the perspective of outsiders such as international aid donors, the divergent developmental trajectories of the countries within also undermines regional coherence (for instance, while Kazakhstan is undergoing rapid economic progression, countries like Tajikistan and Afghanistan are seen as failing states by the international community). The various aspects of language, culture, geography, diasporas and the ways in which international organizations engage with the region, reveal multiple layers of regional identity that may be mobilized by people. Thus, while the region may be a construct of western academic discourse, there are moments when people evoke regional unity for certain purposes. Ascertaining when these moments occur and for what purposes contributes to the understanding of the ways in which people themselves evoke regional coherence.

See the participant bios
See the Working Group agenda
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Laura Adams, Harvard University
Saïd Arjomand, Stony Brook University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Bahgat Korany, The American University in Cairo
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Wolf Schäfer, Stony Brook University
Gagan Sood, London School of Economics
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Social Currents in the Maghreb Working Group II
2014-06-22 08:00 - 2014-06-23 18:00
On June 22-23, 2014, CIRS held the concluding Social Currents in the Maghreb research initiative working group in Washington D.C. Participants gathered for the second time to discuss their research findings and solicit feedback from a multi-disciplinary cohort of working group members. The topics and themes discussed ranged from the mobilization of social movements in the Maghreb to language as politics and dissent in cultural production.

Following the Arab uprisings, the rise of Islamist parties has led to renewed interest in Islamist politics and a proliferation of debates surrounding the role of Islamist parties and movements in North African politics and society. Despite increased scholarly attention to Islamist politics, the literature remains predominantly narrow in its scope, neglecting ideological and political innovations within Islamist parties, and the diversity and divisions that exist within the Islamist sphere as a whole. One of the ways in which Islamist parties in North Africa have exhibited ideological innovation is by adopting new ideological references that are based on a national framework, rather than the commonly adopted “eastern” interpretations on the relationship between Islam and politics. By primarily referencing Algerian Malek Bennabi’s work, and Ghannouchi’s earlier writings, al-Nahda is “nationalizing an essentially internationalist project”. This is indicative of a change in the flow of ideas in the Maghreb and the shaping of Islamism based on local experiences. While ideological innovation is taking place in the formal political sphere, younger generations of Maghrebis are increasingly distancing themselves from institutional politics and finding alternative ways of performing “every-day Islamism” through associations that are more focused on the betterment of society, rather than the hierarchical mechanisms of institutional politics. Decreased trust in the formal political sphere as an agent of change has led to this diffusion of what it means to be “Islamist” and a growing perception of the distance from “politicking” as a source of success for these associations.

On the other hand, for young people who believe that religion should play a more central role in politics, Salafism has become a significant outlet to achieve political objectives. Participants discussed Salafism in relation to its three broad categories of scriptural, Jihadi, and political Salafism. Of particular salience is the adoption of Jihadi Salafism by young Islamists who are unsatisfied with the Islamist parties in power and the absence of radical change. The rise of Jihadi Salafism in the Maghreb– even before the Arab Uprisings – has led to the co-optation of Sufism by the state to counterweigh the rising threat of Jihadi Salafism; this has led to what some participants claimed was a “revival” of Sufism in the political sphere. Despite seeming state co-optation, participants problematized “Sufism” as a term and discussed that it entails much more than mere reflective esoteric practices but rather, has institutional politics embedded within – complicating what is generally perceived as a “quietist” movement.

Working group members also discussed the Polisario movement and the question of the Western Sahara. While the Polisario is predominantly thought of as an “Algeria-backed movement”, it has increasingly diversified its support base since the 1990s, to include non-state actors such as activist NGOs, the Sahrawi diaspora and international aid agencies. This flexibility and adaptability has contributed to the movement’s resilience and accordingly this transformation has largely blurred the movement’s boundaries between being an armed and un-armed movement.

In questioning dominant narrow conceptions of North Africa, participants further problematized terms such as the “Arab” uprisings, which fail to recognize the linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of the region. Decades of Amazigh activism throughout the Maghreb has challenged the Arab nationalist ideologies of Maghrebi states. By utilizing a discourse of democracy, pluralism, and diversity throughout the decades and particularly in the “Berber Spring” of the 1980s, their movement largely dovetails with demonstrations of the “Arab Spring” that call for social justice and rule of law. Similarly in Mauritania, the Haratin have played a dominant role in shaping the way human rights issues are debated in Mauritanian society and in the political quest for democracy.

Different states of the Maghreb, such as Algeria and Morocco, have appropriated cultural diversity and co-opted various Amazigh activists, bringing forth the fragmentation and internal divides that exist within the Amazigh movement itself, particularly with regards to generation and class. In addition to the heterogeneity that exists within the Amazigh movement and the Maghrebi states, the Amazigh movement is a transnational one that expands the cultural-geographic space of Barbary, essentially raising questions about the boundaries of those nation states and how territorial boundedness relates to the lived experience. In the Mauritanian context, while the Haratin are characterized as those of “slave descent”, they do not constitute a homogenous group, but rather identify as Arabs, Berbers, Africans and Mauritanian. Participants noted that in shifting social and political landscapes the politics of self-racialization come in to play, where in different moments the Haratins are racialized as “black Africans”.

With the neo-liberalization of culture, “Berberness” does not merely represent an object of struggle, but is also an “aestheticized iconography of the visual urban field”. Paralleling the commodification of Berber heritage is Jewish heritage tourism and cultural conservation in Morocco. While Moroccan Jewish history is a valued economic asset that has become central to national tourism revenues, local support and discourses continue to be overshadowed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, largely overlying Moroccan Jewish history. Due to this low level of national multicultural consciousness, there are a number of Moroccan Amazigh and Muslim activists that focus their activities on incorporating the local history of Jews in school and university curricula in order to broaden and deepen the understanding of Jews within Morocco’s historical cultural diversity.

While official promotion of multiculturalism has largely led to celebratory interpretations that presume it as a precursor to social justice and democratization, its intersection with elements of neo-liberalism masks deeper negative socio-economic repercussions. In Morocco for instance, official rhetoric that promotes multilingualism has further stratified society by placing a heavy burden on students and young Moroccons to manage multiple languages. Due to language requirements in the education system, structural inequalities and limitations exist that discriminate against those who cannot afford private schooling, essentially excluding them from national and international economic arenas. While the poorer populations of the Maghreb continue to be excluded from global mobility due to these structural limitations, other populations – particularly those of the sport elite – have widened their scope of migration destinations. In the context of sport migrant communities, participants discussed the states of the GCC as increasingly becoming part of the Maghrebi social imaginary, and in some ways replacing Europe as the prime target for migration.

Preceding and during the Arab uprisings, labor movements have mobilized to address socio-economic woes in the Maghreb. In Morocco, labor unions pressed for material demands and partially achieved them through a series of strikes, sit-ins and protests during the uprisings of 2011. What is important to highlight is that labor was always able to mobilize and connect with the struggle of other groups. Perhaps in recognition of such, the Moroccan government has become particularly capable and effective in its ‘divide and conquer’ tactics to avert the creation of a broad alliance that seeks to connect actors in the political sphere. As such, participants highlighted the importance of not only investigating the negotiations that take place between labor movements and the government, but between labor and the myriad of social movements that exist in the Maghreb, as it may affect the labor movement’s strategies in broadening their concrete demands beyond the economic sphere.

The case-study of labor movements highlights that socio-economic woes have always been present in Maghrebi society, and more importantly so, that groups mobilized to address their demands prior to the Arab uprisings. Beyond formal mobilization, cultural production in the Maghreb also indicates that other forms of dissent were also prevalent within society. In looking at post-colonial film and dissent in Tunisia, participants discussed the works of Moufida Ttali, Nouri Bouzid, Ferid Boughedir, Mahamd Zran, and Moncef Dhouib. These films challenge the sociocultural status quo by contesting taboos, expanding social boundaries and forming “the critical basis for challenging the governmental and political state apparatus itself”. How these films are received by the Tunisian public and whether or not they inspired political action is much more obscure; what is evident however is that dissent was prevalent in the consciousness and works of many Maghrebi artists.

Read participant bios
See the working group schedule
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Osama Abi-Mershed, CCAS – Georgetown University
Jean R. AbiNader, Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center (MATIC)
Mahfoud Amara, Loughborough University
Alice Bullard, IRA-USA
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Aomar Boum, University of Arizona
Charis Boutieri, King’s College London
Matt Buehler, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Francesco Cavatorta, Université Laval
Nouri Gana, University of California, Los Angeles
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ricardo René Larémont, Binghamton University
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem, University of Nouakchott
Paul Silverstein, Reed College
Elizabeth F. Thompson, University of Virginia
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Alice Wilson, University of Cambridge

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Transitional Justice in the Middle East - Working Group II
2014-08-13 08:00 - 2014-08-14 18:00
On August 13-14, 2014, CIRS held the second working group meeting under the “Transitional Justice in the Middle East” research initiative. Regional and International scholars and experts gathered for the concluding meeting to solicit feedback on their individual paper submissions. The papers tackled a variety of themes and topics, ranging from theoretical underpinnings of transitional justice, to country-specific case-studies examining the pursuit of transitional justice and its implications.

Implementation of transitional justice mechanisms in the Middle East is a relatively recent phenomenon, and as such, regional scholarly analysis and debates are in their nascent stages. Looking at the experiences of transitional justice in other regions of the globe can potentially provide some lessons to those interested in and working on processes that help societies cope with past atrocities. A significant amount of literature on transitional justice has focused on other parts of the world such as Latin America and Eastern Europe. However, due to the complexities of transitions and variations between different national and political contexts, there are no universal transitional justice mechanisms or tools that can be unilaterally applied. One size does not fit all in transitional justice, but a comparative examination of global experiences allows us to gain a nuanced understanding of the questions that need to be asked in relation to transitional justice processes and goals. As outlined below, various case-studies discussed during the two-day meeting unravel the complexities and layers of transitional justice.

Advocates of transitional justice increasingly call for victim-centered justice as a means of vindication for those who suffered and for promoting reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. While this appears to be a clear rationale for the pursuit of victim-centered justice, its adoption proves to be much more complex. First, identifying the needs of victims that were subject to state repression requires understanding the needs of various victims, and acknowledging that their needs and desires may change over time. Second, should the needs and goals of victims be identified, deciding how they should be addressed also provides a multitude of options. From material reparation to moral compensation, actors on the ground have to decide which institutional mechanism or design is best suited to addressing victims’ goals. In Tunisia, the categorization of women as “secondary victims” highlights that even identifying who were actual victims of past persecution is a challenge. Secondary victims are those that were persecuted, imprisoned, or harassed because of their relationship to men who were deemed a threat to the state. Most women in Tunisia fall under this category, particularly Ennahda women who for decades bore the brunt of state repression. This hierarchy of victimization and the inadvertent relegation of the needs of female victims to a secondary status of victimhood highlight the complexity in identifying and addressing needs of various members of Tunisian society.

The Tunisian case also sheds light on other core elements of transitional justice. With regards to the timeframe that is subjected to transitional justice, what marks the beginning of the transition? How far back should a society go in addressing past injustices? Working Group participants suggested that different political actors advocate for varying temporal scopes of transitional justice based on their visions of the post-Ben Ali state. While investigative commissions initially looked at abuses that happened after December 2010, Ennahda advocated for stretching back the time-frame until 1956 in an attempt to deconstruct modernist narratives of statehood characteristic of the Bourguiba and Ben Ali state.

Collective memory and memorialization are key aspects of transitional justice for societies dealing with past atrocities. In Egypt, transitional justice practitioners have focused on measures of accountability and implementing institutional reforms, whilst relatively neglecting the memorialization of past injustices. Without a focus on memorialization, participants noted that Egyptians risk exclusionary narratives of the past. In their North African neighbors Tunisia and Algeria, martyrdom has played a dominant role in the formation of collective memories. While martyrdom has been recast for the purposes of “historical justice” in Tunisia, in Algeria it has been used by political elites to stymie efforts towards genuine transition.

Recasting narratives of the past is linked to visions of the future, highlighting the potential manipulation of transitional justice mechanisms by transitional elites. For example, in post-Qadhafi Libya political exclusion has been avidly pursued by Islamist militias as a way to wage a proxy battle against their political opponents. The political isolation law passed in 2013 excludes all those who were involved with Qadhafi’s regime from participation in public life. The politics of exclusion has further fragmented Libya’s social fabric rather than promoting post-conflict reconciliation. It becomes a delicate matter where members of society can be held accountable for their behaviors whilst remaining included in the system. Efforts to move towards accountability upsets society as those that have vested interests in the preceding political order stand to lose their relative positioning. In the debate of peace vs. justice, or more aptly characterized as stability vs. justice, participants discussed extremes of political exclusion, such as de-Baathification in Iraq, to blanket amnesties in Yemen, and their societal repercussions. In Egypt, addressing accountability has primarily been carried out in the form of criminal trials. Participants noted that while revolutionaries desired going through judicial structures to address past human rights violations, the acquittal of Mubarak on charges of human rights violations and the mass sentencing of pro-Morsi supporters combined with a trend of speedy trials and relative disregard for due-process, has tarnished the image of the judiciary as an independent branch. Thus, while those in office may have changed, participants noted that there may in fact not be any real transition in Egypt due to the functioning of key state institutions of transitional justice—namely the judiciary and the security sector—in an authoritarian manner.

While Egypt may be an example of a shallow transition, other countries of the Middle East have introduced transitional justice mechanisms without any political transition. The monarchies of Bahrain and Morocco have both introduced truth commissions. The Equity and Reconciliation Commission in Morocco and Bahrain’s Independent Commission of Inquiry have both by and large identified human rights violations committed by agents of the security sector. This implicit admission of government responsibility has enhanced the monarchs’ credibility in both domestic and international circles. While the provision of forthright narratives may indicate a shift from the usual trend of “denial and deflection”, these truth commissions have not led to substantial accountability for the past crimes of identified perpetrators. Linking the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms with human rights performance is not a straightforward feat. As participants noted, the comprehensive implementation of transitional justice mechanisms—of both truth commissions and prosecutions—coupled with a hospitable political environment, may have a positive impact on human rights performance. However, it remains that transitional justice is a public policy tool, and as such, its mere existence does not indicate an improvement in human rights’ performance. On the same note however, participants iterated that conceiving of an end point to transitional justice may be problematic. Much of the literature has a teleological approach to transitional justice, conceiving of democratization as the desired end point. This common presumption is perhaps due to the fact that much of the literature on the topic rose out of Latin America. In the context of the Middle East, and in an attempt to broaden the contextual scope of transitional justice, the underlying question remains: what are we transitioning to in transitional justice?

Read the participant bios
See the working group schedule
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Sahar Aziz, Texas A&M University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Judy Barsalou, El-Hibri Foundation
Mietek Boduszynski, Pomona College
Terry C. Coonan, Center for the Advancement of Human Rights – Florida State University
Thomas DeGeorges, American University of Sharjah
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Elham Fakhro, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Doris H. Gray, Al Akhawayn University
Bill Hess, George Washington University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Christopher Lamont, University of Groningen
Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ibrahim Sharqieh, Brookings Doha Center; Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Chandra Lekha Sriram, Center on Human Rights in Conflict – University of East London
Susan E. Waltz, University of Michigan
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Marieke Wierda, Grotius Center for International Legal Studies – Leiden University

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Attitudes to Cybersafety and Online Privacy in the Middle East
2014-09-16 18:00 - 19:00
Damian Radcliffe, leader of the Rassed research program at Qatar’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ictQATAR), delivered the inaugural CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the 2014-2015 academic year with a lecture on “Attitudes to Cybersafety and Online Privacy in the Middle East” on September 16, 2014. Emphasizing the importance of the topic, he noted that, despite their varying characteristics, most countries around the world share similar concerns regarding issues of cyber safety, online privacy, and data security. This has become a global conversation, and one that is no less relevant to the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. “There are very consistent values and attitudes that can often be found amongst internet users even though they might be from incredibly different countries and cultures,” he explained.

In order to test whether this hypothesis was indeed applicable to the countries of the Middle East, Radcliffe conducted research into Arab attitudes towards cyber safety, online privacy, and data security. Collaborating with researchers from a previous World Economic Forum study conducted in 2011, Radcliffe and his team surveyed just under 3,000 internet users from 14 countries across the Middle East. When combined with the previous study, the global sample surveyed was over 11,000 internet users covering nearly 60 countries. “One of the reasons we were really keen to take this project was the fact that it also gave us the opportunity to benchmark the experience of internet users in the Middle East with other people around the world,” Radcliffe explained. The research questions covered five specific areas of study including, usage of ICT and other technologies available in the household; attitudes towards the internet; concerns of internet users; trust in different online actors and online players; and behaviors of internet users.

Attitudes to Cybersafety and Online Privacy in the Middle East from ictQATAR
This comparative dataset gave the research a broad range of results as well as ones that could be broken down geographically and categorized as emanating from the GCC region, North Africa, or a combined MENA figure which also included some additional respondents from the Levant. The resulting data gave the researchers the opportunity to make specific differentiations between the various regions of the Arab World. For example, one of research findings highlighted the fact that differences between internet behaviors in the GCC and North Africa can be attributed to socio-economic factors. “People in the GCC are much more likely to access the internet on the move given smartphone penetration in the region…over 70% in Saudi and Qatar, whereas it is something like 2% in Egypt,” Radcliffe reported.

While there were some important key differences between internet users worldwide, the overall research findings proved Radcliffe’s initial hypothesis which stated that Middle East internet users are not so dissimilar from others around the globe. “Equivalency in terms of technological access as a regional figure compared to the rest of the world was pretty good. In fact, if you look at the GCC, there is much higher access to advanced forms of technology than there are in many other parts of the world,” he noted. The research team found that internet users in the Middle East, especially younger users, were very active online and were positive about the impact of the internet on their lives.

In comparison to the global average in terms of attitudes towards the internet, one main distinction of Middle East internet users was their tendency to place very little trust in those organizations that only existed online, which explains why “e-commerce here is much less prevalent than it is in other markets. In fact, within the region, people are much less likely to engage in e-commerce than they are in any of the other regions that we surveyed. They are also among the least likely to bank online. Traditional methods of shopping and banking still remain popular,” Radcliffe explained. Another key difference was Middle East internet users’ tendency to be more trusting of traditional forms of authority, whether in terms of government or financial institutions. The research results indicated that regional internet users were generally in favor of having governing authorities regulate internet content and were not too concerned about the safety of their personal information online. This is in stark contrast to those surveyed in Western countries who tended to be more wary of government and financial institutions, which is most likely a symptom of the recent economic crisis in those countries.

Radcliffe ended the lecture by highlighting some thoughts for the future of digital technologies, arguing that, with increased availability of personal surveillance technologies, issues of trust will most likely intensify in future. The more digital devices in the world, the greater the risk of security breaches, but simultaneously the greater the possibility of doing this differently and more constructively. “New technologies will bring new challenges, but also new opportunities,” he concluded.

Damian Radcliffe is an award-winning content creator, journalist, and researcher who has led diverse teams at the intersection of journalism, media innovation, and civic engagement for nearly 20 years. He currently leads the Rassed research program at Qatar’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ictQATAR)—an initiative which explores the impact of ICT on society and the potential afforded by emerging technologies. His team has published over 80 studies, presentations, articles and infographics since mid-2012—in both English and Arabic—and their work as featured across a broad range of regional and international media. Their research was in the Top 1% of globally viewed content on LinkedIn’s SlideShare platform in 2013.

Read the full Report in English
Read the full Report in Arabic

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Infographic: The attitudes of Internet users in the Middle East towards Cybersafety, Security and Data Privacy from ictQATAR​ مواقف مستخدمي الإنترنت في منطقة الشرق الأوسط حيال السلامة ولأمن على شبكة الإنترنت from ictQATAR​

The Digital Middle East: Working Group I
2014-09-27 18:00 - 2014-09-28 18:00
On September 27-28, 2014, CIRS held the first Working Group on “The Digital Middle East” research initiative. Academics from various backgrounds gathered for this first meeting to discuss their research findings and papers around the Digital world in the Middle East. The topics ranged from the effects technology has had on the Arab uprisings to state measures being undertaken to incorporate technology into everyday life.

Opening the discussion, participants focused on how the socio-political landscape of the Arab world has been changing due to the spread of the Internet. In places such as Egypt and Iran, youth have taken to technology to express their discontent towards political regimes, trying economic conditions and social injustices. The decentralized nature of the media model has led to mass social movements arising in several Arab states, helping facilitate in the fall of several regimes and the severe weakening of others. In the Gulf states, digital anonymity in places such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait has provided an outlet for the youth to articulate themselves online without fear of reprisal. As a result, political experiences were no longer isolated to the offline world, they were incorporated into digital form having been able to transverse physical, cultural, and national boundaries.

People’s instantaneous connections on social media have encouraged academic focus on civil engagement frameworks and the creation of online civil societies that are both inclusive and transnational. In the case of Egypt for instance, online activism has radically affected the nature of mediated experiences since 2011. Prior to the establishment of video sharing and communication platforms, coverage of political events was heavily reliant on television and print journalism. But during the Arab Spring, in certain states social media allowed for the most reliable coverage of events due to the impact of state censorship on traditional media forms. During the Arab uprisings, cyber communities also were made possible by the work of individuals that would spend a substantial amount of time online, collating and contributing crucial information through various digital platforms, without monetary compensation. Discussants voiced their interest in understanding how the nature of information transmittance into the digital world has had an effect on labor theory of value in relation to free labor.

The events of the Arab uprisings have also instigated changed patterns in political behavior in various social groups, especially among women. Engaging in the digital landscape in the Middle East has proven to be a liberating experience, forging alternative collectivities defined by a common, greater cause and uninhibited by definitions of gender, class or race. However, while social movements may initially emerge online, a physical space is still necessary for civic action to occur. During the uprisings women took to the streets alongside their male counterparts; yet, sexual harassment and various other grave violations during protests still took place in great numbers, outlining the disparity in behaviors that still exist in the offline world.

It is important to note that women’s activity online also extends to gaming and game development. Recent published reports on videogame consumption in Europe and America show that female gamers far outnumber males. The trend of female gamers is also on the rise in the Middle East, tangible proof of which can be seen in the recent phenomenon of Saudi Arabia’s annual female-only gaming convention. Participants at the working group noted that even though a digital divide still exists between the genders, the expedited evolution of the digital world has given users more of a stake in shaping alternative discourses on gender in the region.

Working Group members also discussed linkages between videogames and activism. Recently videogames have become places of encounter in the digital landscape, where users engage with one another in a non-physical space. Interviews conducted with producers and users of videogames show that they do not perceive videogames as having the potential to influence thought. However, state initiatives in Iran show otherwise, with the launching of the Iran Computer and Video Game Foundation created with the intention of portraying positive Muslim identities in videogames. The traditional narrative in videogames produced in other parts of the world often portray Muslim characters as terrorists and villains, whereas the Iranian foundation aims to portray Muslim characters in a more favorable light while also improving the videogame economy by supporting local game development. Access to videogames in the Middle East is a relatively simple process, due to the lack of robust copyright laws. The illegal nature of these pirated copies leads to a lack of recorded sales, which in turn affects the gathering of quantitative data on gamer demographics such as age, gender, income level, and time spent playing. Questions that arose from this discussion called for more quantitative and qualitative research on user profiles and needs.

Issues of intellectual property infringement are widespread in the Middle East, due to the lack of a unified copyright law, creating a myriad of issues surrounding this topic. Considering that the globalization of media culture has not been accompanied with equivalent access to media, people in the Middle East infringe on copyright out of convenience and comfort. Such behavior can affect software designers greatly because it restricts developers from selling their products in a fair market. However, for educational purposes, software piracy has contributed greatly to the education of younger generations by giving them free access to expensive software that they could train and learn from.

Working Group members also discussed the role state actors have had in the changing face of the digital world, choosing to develop once offline activities such as commerce and governance into electronic format. Naturally, the growth of political activity and online activism has also caused states to rethink their methods of authoritarianism, leading to acts of state censorship targeting social media sites, such as in the cases of Iran and Turkey. This has led to much debate about the role technology plays within existing power structures in state and society. This innovative technological behavior in the Middle East is indicative of growth in access and usage of the Internet, yet limited statistical analysis is available to fully understand this phenomenon.

Commerce has always played an integral role in strengthening and sustaining Middle Eastern societies both historically and at present. With the advance of technology, commerce has taken a different form in the shape of online shopping. In 2013 approximately a third of GCC residents accessed the internet only to shop, a 7 percent increase from the year before. The e-commerce experience in the Gulf has also made use of various digital platforms, created initially for sharing pictures and communication purposes, to selling products online. The change in cultures of consumption has been aided by the development of digital technology, yet evident gaps in the e-commerce model, such as efficiency and growth, still need to be addressed and accounted for.

In terms of e-governance in the Gulf, attempts have been made in recent years to use technology as a way to improve information and service delivery to citizens. Practically, this proved to be harder to implement as issues of transparency conflicted with Gulf government’s initial commitment to e-governance. Discussants problematized the centralist nature of Gulf states as being an obstacle for e-governance, especially since citizens are often suspicious of various state initiatives and often are too fearful to fully engage with the state and its agencies online.

See the working group agenda
Read the participant biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Ilhem Allagui, Northwestern University in Qatar
Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Jon Anderson, Catholic University of America
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Marion Desmurger, UNESCO Representation in the Arab States of the Gulf & Yemen
Shahd Dauleh, Qatar’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICTQatar)
Muzammil M. Hussain, University of Michigan
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Gholam Khiabany, Goldsmiths University of London
Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Damian Radcliffe, Qatar’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICTQatar)
Vit Šisler, Charles University in Prague
Annabelle Sreberny, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Mark Allen Peterson, Miami University in Ohio
Daniel Varisco, Qatar University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Shafiz Affendi Mohd Yusof, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Luciano Zaccara, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Norhayati Zakaria, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Mohamed Zayani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Haya Al-Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

Justin Gengler Monthly Dialogue
2014-10-13 18:00 - 20:00
Justin Gengler, Senior Researcher at the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) of Qatar University, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on “Studying Public Opinion in Qatar” on October 13, 2014. SESRI conducts nationally-representative, scientific household surveys of the different social groups residing in Qatar, including the local national population, professional expatriates, and labor migrants. Giving some background to the state of survey research in Qatar, Gengler noted that the in-depth, nation-wide study of public opinion in the Gulf region is still in its infancy. In this context, it is important to think about “what we mean by public opinion or studying public opinion in the Gulf region—especially in a place where people don’t always associate mass attitudes as being part of the decision-making process,” he explained.

Giving specific examples of how responses can change according to context and over time, Gengler argued that there are three general levels of dealing with collected data. A primary level of data analysis is “descriptive” in reporting basic distributions of survey responses to a particular question. A secondary level of data analysis offers a basis for temporal or cross-societal comparison and so offers enhanced analytical value. A tertiary level of data analysis delves more deeply into survey results not only by situating the data in context, but by moving beyond the question of “what” to explain the “why” of survey responses.

In order to demonstrate how and why responses can vary, Gengler displayed results to the survey question “Which country poses the greatest challenge to Qatar?” In the summer of 2010, approximately 19 percent of Qatari national respondents identified Israel as the greatest challenge. This result in and of itself carries little meaning unless it is compared to those from other years as well as to events occurring during the relevant time periods. “After the events of 2011 and the ramping up of sectarian rhetoric and sectarian feeling in the Gulf, you see that threat perceptions change in a very predictable or a very systematic way, which is that Iran emerges as a much greater threat in the public imagination.” As such, Qatari responses to the same question in 2011 were very different, with the proportion of nationals identifying Iran as the greatest challenge more than doubling over the previous year. In relation to “data situated within temporal or societal context, the thing of interest is not responses to a specific question, but relationships between responses and other variables,” he said.

A final level of analysis when examining data is to look at the interaction between the interviewer and the respondent. This is especially important for the data gathered in Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf region, because “for social and economic reasons, there are very few nationals employed as field interviewers. We might think this is a problem because we are asking citizens about their opinions on sometimes sensitive topics, so it is a question whether or not the answers we receive are reliable,” he argued. In order to assess the reliability of responses and the impact of Qatari nationality on survey results, Gengler divided two teams of Qatari and non-Qatari students to conduct a field experiment surveying 1,200 Qatari nationals. Contrary to expectations, there were no great variations in answers given to Qatari interviewers versus answers given to non-Qatari interviewers regarding sensitive political questions. Rather, the differences lay in “social questions that touch on the issue of the expatriate-national divides … as well as the relaxation of naturalization laws,” he noted.

Concluding the talk, Gengler’s gave a positive outlook for the future of survey research in the Gulf. He argued that “there is a newfound appreciation in the Gulf region in particular—including at the elite level—for survey research, because it is objective rather than partisan or coming from a simply ideological standpoint; it is based on empirics; and also because states see the value in staying ahead of public opinion.”

Justin J. Gengler completed the first-ever mass survey of political attitudes in Bahrain in 2009 as part of his doctoral dissertation for the University of Michigan, titled “Ethnic Conflict and Political Mobilization in Bahrain and the Arab Gulf.” This project forms the basis of a forthcoming monograph on group conflict in the rentier state, to be published in early 2015 in the Indiana University Press Series in Arab and Islamic Studies. He is a contributor to the volume Sectarian Politics in the Persian Gulf, published by Hurst/Oxford University Press. His work has also appeared recently in Middle East Policy (2012), Journal of Arabian Studies (2013), and Middle East Law and Governance (2013), in addition to numerous policy-oriented publications.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

The Changing Security Dynamics of the Gulf
2014-10-25 09:00 - 2014-10-26 17:00
On October 25-26, 2014, CIRS held its first Working Group under “The Changing Security Dynamics of the Gulf” research initiative. Academics from various disciplines gathered for their first meeting to discuss evolving national and regional security dynamics, and to identify research gaps that need to be addressed. The group drew attention to different, prevailing definitions of security, including military, regime, and human security. Amongst other themes, participants debated existing security arrangements in the Gulf and how regional relations may pose security threats to individual Gulf states’ national interests.

Opening the discussion, participants focused on the concept of securitization theory. Classical approaches to security focus on the measurable characteristics of a threat, such as balance of power and military capabilities. Securitization theory examines how certain issues are transformed into security concerns by the state or by political actors and other stakeholders.

State security usually hinges upon military, regime, and resource stability. As a result, state surveillance mechanisms are effective safeguards in ensuring the legitimacy and stability of the regimes in power. In places such as Bahrain, there are sectarian angles associated with regime security. Other forms of threat perception identify political, human and environmental concerns, all factors that can contribute to a populations’ feelings of “relative deprivation”. More recently, in the Gulf, human insecurity has been exacerbated by the interventions of non-state actors such as ISIS.

During the Working Group the “personality element” of regional rulers was also discussed. Often in Gulf states there is no differentiation between the type of threats that are perceived as impacting the personal security of regime leaders and those that affect the security of the state as a whole. Questions were raised as to the relevance of critical security perspectives to the Gulf context, particularly when there is a proliferation of fragile institutions. Oftentimes, the severe demographic imbalances in the Gulf lead to a general consensus amongst the indigenous population to accept the regime’s definitions of what constitutes a security threat

Participants also discussed the weaknesses of collective security arrangements in the GCC. During Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, GCC member states were immobile for several weeks and unable to provide a unified, robust response. This inaction resulted in the Kuwaiti royal family having to escape to Saudi Arabia until the monarchy was restored. Commonalities in security concerns amongst the ruling Gulf regimes reinforce the shared security interests dominant in this region and the institutional importance of the Gulf Cooperation Council in highlighting these concerns. The Council also contemplated extending membership invitations to both Jordan and Morocco, at a time when the GCC felt that it had barely survived the first upsurge of revolts threatening its stability. The invitations were an act of commitment on part of the Gulf states towards monarchic regimes in the region. However, working group participants questioned the purpose of this collective security arrangement, considering the Council’s history of cooperation during times of crisis and its tendency to prioritize national interest once external threats dissipate.

In addition to broad thematic areas the discussions also mentioned a number of specific cases, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. In the UAE’s case, having gone through significant foreign policy changes since the death of Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates identified the danger of militant Islamism as the biggest threat to the security of the regime and state. In March 2013, a group of activists and members of the Emirati community signed a petition urging the regime to shift to a more democratic society, calling for election of all members in the National Federal Council and the bestowing of legislative and regulatory powers upon this body. Approximately, 64 out of 94 activists on trial were found guilty and accused of having ideological sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, the UAE has made an extensive effort towards involving itself in North Africa’s politics, partly encouraged by Egypt’s support. Both Qatar and the UAE have exerted substantial effort in North Africa, in an effort to develop their geostrategic roles in the region. From a security perspective, North Africa is of utmost relevance to the Gulf, as it acts as a gateway to Europe, heightening inter-Gulf state competition over regional relevance.

In Bahrain, the lack of political institutions makes it difficult to gain insight into the political views of the Bahraini population and how they perceive threats to security. GCC states have been very deliberate in structuring political conflict and defining what constitutes a threat to the state, and have often used sectarian sentiments for this purpose. During the February 14th demonstrations state-sponsored Sunni counter-mobilization efforts were a reaction to the rebellion organized by the Shiite majority in Bahrain. One month later, over five thousand troops were dispatched by neighboring Gulf states in an effort to contain and localize the uprisings. Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province was also inspired by the uprisings taking place in Bahrain, whereby the province of Qatif, with a population of 95 percent Shiites, demonstrated in solidarity with Bahrain when Saudi troops arrived.

Working Group members also discussed how some Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have been showing greater vulnerabilities in their rentier bargain with their citizenry. Since 2011, the majority of Gulf states have reinvigorated their rentierism, by increasing salaries and providing jobs in the labor market, in an effort to discourage people from contesting the regimes’ legitimacy. Scholars suggested that not all the Gulf states are alike, and in some of the Gulf states maintaining rentier disbursements are proving challenging, as state capacity to deliver is stretched. Certain Gulf states with larger indigenous populations and less financial transparency such as Saudi Arabia, have been facing serious cracks in the rentier bargain, whereby 70 percent of Saudi nationals live in rented accommodation due to the inability of the state in providing national housing for its local population. The growing demographic imbalances in Gulf states have only added to the complexity of the local population relationship with the labor market, often intensifying underlying tensions between locals and expatriates. This proves to be problematic for the regimes in power considering that the rentier bargain is the foundation of Gulf regimes’ legitimacies.

The most common explanation for the success of Gulf State’s domestic security and the continuity of the ruling elites has been the presence of hydrocarbon energy, which guarantees geostrategic value to the West and protection for the Gulf states. The management of domestic security has generally been conducted through the strategy of combined cooption and repression of the masses. Such tactics can be witnessed in Bahrain during the 2011 uprisings where sixty people were killed and numerous political activists were jailed and detained for indeterminate lengths of time. In the case of Saudi Arabia, cooption lead to the creation of hundreds of jobs for people in an effort to remedy the economic situation within the country. Working Group members also discussed linkages between religion, tradition, and oil, arguing that Gulf states often cultivate national identities that are corresponding to their domestic security interests.

When Gulf states were granted their independence in 1971, it was apparent that a Gulf “national” identity was not based on principles of self-determination or collective history. This was due to the fact that the trucial states were only under a British economic and political protectorate, having not experienced or been inherently changed by a colonial process. At the time, most coastal states in the Gulf were comprised of either nomadic or seafaring tribes. Amongst these tribes were substantial populations of Iranians and Indians who were part of the mercantile classes. In more recent times and with the creation of city states, there has been an active rejection of external and non-indigenous identities. Gulf regimes have also made a conscious effort to create a national identity that is based on tribal and religious heritage in order to enforce their domestic legitimacy. The question of whether the creation of national identities can lead to “imagined communities” was problematized by the discussants. Namely, the idea that Gulf states revalorize national and tribal ties as a way to construct a narrative based on national and sectarian sentiments.

See the working group agenda
Read participant biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Alanoud Al Sharekh, Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development in Kuwait
Khalid Almezaini, Qatar University
Abdullah Baabood, Qatar University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Gawdat Bahgat, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Study, National Defense University
Patricia Duran, Independent Researcher
Nader Entessar, University of South Alabama
Justin J. Gengler, Qatar University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Joseph A. Kéchichian, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
Anatol Lieven, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Toby Matthiesen, University of Cambridge
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Jean-Marc Rickli, Kings College London
David Roberts, Kings College London
Marc Valeri, Center for Gulf Studies, University of Exeter
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ole Wæver, Center for Resolution of International Conflicts,University of Copenhagen
Luciano Zaccara, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Haya Al-Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

Ole Wæver on Security in a Post-Western World
2014-10-27 18:00 - 19:00
Ole Wæver, Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, and Director of the Center for Resolution of International Conflicts, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on October 27, 2014 on the topic “Global Security in a Post-Western World.” Introducing the lecture, Wæver noted that when world events change so quickly and so radically, it is always important to understand the basics of international relations theories, no matter how old-fashioned an idea that may seem. In international relations, it is tradition to want to comprehend the “big picture,” in terms of how one country relates to another and under what kinds of power relations within the international system.

Giving some historical background to the topic, Wæver explained that the idea of the singular “superpower” is one that has its roots in Eurocentric history, and goes back to a time where Europe was central to world events, especially during the colonial period and up to the Cold War. However, since the end of the Cold War, the question of what kind of international political system has replaced the older, more traditional bipolar global engagement of superpowers is still being debated in the discipline. There have been a great many shifts in global engagement. Nations have since attempted to adapt to the new transition and to the decline of powerful global ideologies as they reconstruct their security allegiances within power vacuums. Wæver argued that we are currently in a radically different system to that of the past bipolar world where giant powers faced off against each other. So, how did we get to this stage of finding ourselves in a post-Cold War period and, what he called, a post-West period? The answer is in what comes after bipolarity: is it unipolarity or is it multipolarity? Or, is it neither?

The post-Cold War period saw the rise of an ideologically-victorious United States, with power and influence all over the world. However, Wæver argued, it is evident from events of the recent past that the United States can no longer claim power based solely on market or military might. Around 2005, there was a turning point where the centric approach began showing signs of weakness. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars proved to be a poor strategy, and one in which the United States failed to dominate. Further, the 2008 global financial crisis completely damaged US legitimacy as a global market leader. “The US is really not dominant enough to be able to impose order,” he said.

Perhaps then the idea of multipolarilty could be considered a more appropriate definition in its acknowledgement of fluid and shifting alliances, but, Wæver argued, it is still a concept that is unsatisfactory to describe current international system structures. The idea of multipolarity is problematic since within any group of nations, some are more powerful than others. Thus, these concepts are unstable, and we need a new definition of what is taking place in the global balance of power.

Currently, the world is increasingly made up of many great powers with fewer superpowers in neither a unipolar nor a multipolar world. “No one is really thinking of themselves as global players, they are all anchored and rooted in regions, mostly interested in their own regions, somewhat interested in neighboring regions, and occasionally concerned about global questions,” he explained. Thus, if there is no longer an ongoing struggle for the prime position within the global order, we need a different type of definition, and a different type of understanding for this new global configuration.

In conclusion, Wæver said that, ultimately, many of these issues come down to basic assumptions and ways of thinking. In this sense, the current configuration of world politics is post-Western in three very distinct ways: in power politics that is no longer Western-centric; in the value order that is no longer based on a singular framework of interpretation; and, finally, in the understanding of international relations theory and concepts of polarity and global security, where we now see a greater role for theories that emanate out of different geographic and cultural contexts—ones that are not dominated by Western modes of thinking.

Ole Wæver is most known for coining the concept of “securitization” and developing what is commonly referred to as the Copenhagen School in security studies. His research interests include international relations and security theory, sociology of science, religion in international relations, climate change, conflict analysis, and the role of national identity in foreign policy. He has published and broadcast extensively in the field of international relations and securitization theory. His most recent publications include the contribution of a chapter to Capturing Security Expertise: Practice, Power, and Responsibility (Routledge, forthcoming 2015). His most recent peer-reviewed journal article, “The Theory Act: Responsibility and Exactitude as seen from Securitization” appears in International Relations (2014).

Ole Wæver, Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, and Director of the Center for Resolution of International Conflicts, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on October 27, 2014 on the topic “Global Security in a Post-Western World.” Introducing the lecture, Wæver noted that when world events change so quickly and so radically, it is always important to understand the basics of international relations theories, no matter how old-fashioned an idea that may seem. In international relations, it is tradition to want to comprehend the “big picture,” in terms of how one country relates to another and under what kinds of power relations within the international system.

Giving some historical background to the topic, Wæver explained that the idea of the singular “superpower” is one that has its roots in Eurocentric history, and goes back to a time where Europe was central to world events, especially during the colonial period and up to the Cold War. However, since the end of the Cold War, the question of what kind of international political system has replaced the older, more traditional bipolar global engagement of superpowers is still being debated in the discipline. There have been a great many shifts in global engagement. Nations have since attempted to adapt to the new transition and to the decline of powerful global ideologies as they reconstruct their security allegiances within power vacuums. Wæver argued that we are currently in a radically different system to that of the past bipolar world where giant powers faced off against each other. So, how did we get to this stage of finding ourselves in a post-Cold War period and, what he called, a post-West period? The answer is in what comes after bipolarity: is it unipolarity or is it multipolarity? Or, is it neither?

The post-Cold War period saw the rise of an ideologically-victorious United States, with power and influence all over the world. However, Wæver argued, it is evident from events of the recent past that the United States can no longer claim power based solely on market or military might. Around 2005, there was a turning point where the centric approach began showing signs of weakness. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars proved to be a poor strategy, and one in which the United States failed to dominate. Further, the 2008 global financial crisis completely damaged US legitimacy as a global market leader. “The US is really not dominant enough to be able to impose order,” he said.

Perhaps then the idea of multipolarilty could be considered a more appropriate definition in its acknowledgement of fluid and shifting alliances, but, Wæver argued, it is still a concept that is unsatisfactory to describe current international system structures. The idea of multipolarity is problematic since within any group of nations, some are more powerful than others. Thus, these concepts are unstable, and we need a new definition of what is taking place in the global balance of power.

Currently, the world is increasingly made up of many great powers with fewer superpowers in neither a unipolar nor a multipolar world. “No one is really thinking of themselves as global players, they are all anchored and rooted in regions, mostly interested in their own regions, somewhat interested in neighboring regions, and occasionally concerned about global questions,” he explained. Thus, if there is no longer an ongoing struggle for the prime position within the global order, we need a different type of definition, and a different type of understanding for this new global configuration.

In conclusion, Wæver said that, ultimately, many of these issues come down to basic assumptions and ways of thinking. In this sense, the current configuration of world politics is post-Western in three very distinct ways: in power politics that is no longer Western-centric; in the value order that is no longer based on a singular framework of interpretation; and, finally, in the understanding of international relations theory and concepts of polarity and global security, where we now see a greater role for theories that emanate out of different geographic and cultural contexts—ones that are not dominated by Western modes of thinking.

Ole Wæver is most known for coining the concept of “securitization” and developing what is commonly referred to as the Copenhagen School in security studies. His research interests include international relations and security theory, sociology of science, religion in international relations, climate change, conflict analysis, and the role of national identity in foreign policy. He has published and broadcast extensively in the field of international relations and securitization theory. His most recent publications include the contribution of a chapter to Capturing Security Expertise: Practice, Power, and Responsibility (Routledge, forthcoming 2015). His most recent peer-reviewed journal article, “The Theory Act: Responsibility and Exactitude as seen from Securitization” appears in International Relations (2014).

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Ian Almond Faculty Research Workshop
2014-11-16 09:00 - 17:00
Ian Almond, Professor of World Literature at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, headed a CIRS Faculty Research Workshop on “Dissecting the Native Informant: A Case Study of Nirad C. Chaudhuri” on November 16, 2014. The workshop was held to discuss his latest work examining the related ideas of melancholy, political conservatism, and native informancy. It takes the figure of a twentieth century Indian thinker, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, and considers his oeuvre under the changing optics of a number of different topics—all in an attempt to understand how an Indian intellectual such as Chaudhuri was able to defend passionately the legacy of the British Empire, and even slander the culture and mentality of his fellow Indians. Almond also extended this to present-day “native informants” such as Fareed Zakaria, Fouad Ajami, and Enrique Krauze.

Almond’s book initially began as a straightforward monograph on the Indian writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1999), but soon developed—over the four years it took to write it—into a much more nuanced project: the study of how conservative, pro-Western intellectuals are formed in postcolonial environments. What started out as just another book on an infamously Anglophile Bengali writer began to reveal implications for the whole type of the “native informant.” Under the rubric of four different approaches—Islam, the archive, melancholy, and Empire—he not only enters into the intricacies of Chaudhuri’s intellectual constitution, but also develops insights into the internalization and reproduction of ideology. Each chapter tries to articulate the Indian context of the investigation—what Chaudhuri’s peers in the Bengali and wider Indian tradition had to say about Muslims, or sadness, or libraries—but also brings in a strong comparative dimension. In one chapter, for example, the book considers the year 1947 in three different cities—Calcutta, Mexico City, and Istanbul—and examines three melancholy texts that were being written in those cities that year (Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, El Laberinto de la Soledad, and the Turkish novel Huzur).

Almond tries to show how Chaudhuri’s views on Islam—on its cultures, followers, and faith—reveal a jumbled bag of different voices in Chaudhuri, each of which belonged to a different vocabulary, and drew on a different constellation of beliefs. As a consequence, he takes a look at how Chaudhuri made use of the archive—of libraries, galleries, and museums—which not only throws light on the origin of some of these vocabularies, but also illuminates the process of self-alienation which his extensive reading accentuated. It was a process which fissured and undermined Chaudhuri’s notion of Indianness, dethroning it from the center of his persona and opening him up to a wide variety of foreign registers; amongst the many consequences of this alternative intellectual development was an increasing disdain for the culture of his own community, and a growing empathy for the perspective of the Empire which ruled over it. In the penultimate chapter of Almond’s book, the melancholy which arose from this situation is shown to compose of a number of different elements—not just the inevitable tristesse which accompanies all processes of alienation, but also a sense of loss at the withdrawal of the imperial entity whose presence had taken on such a metaphysically central place in his life. In the final chapter, he considers Chaudhuri’s relationship to empire in the context of similar intellectuals from very different regions—the right-wing Mexican intellectual Enrique Krauze, the Arab journalist Fouad Ajami, and the U.S. educated Indian writer Fareed Zakaria.

The participants who came to speak on Almond’s book were based at universities from a variety of different regions. Mahmut Mutman spoke of the relationship between Empire and Literature, and the way imperialist sensibilities were able to foster (in positive as well as negative ways) literary creation; Kathleen Hewett-Smith saw Chaudhuri as someone who seemed to seek in Empire a form of codified knowledge, and compared Chaudhuri’s love of the library to the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s own interest in the archival. Tariq Mehmood spoke of the need for greater historical context in understanding figures such as Chaudhuri, whilst Sibel Irzik spoke on the Freudian distinction between melancholy and mourning, and asked why some losses for Chaudhuri were necessarily more melancholic than others. “Chaudhuri”, she said, “lost an empire he never had.” Sheetal Majithia alluded briefly to the way World Literature has been promoted as an effort to limit postcolonial studies, and spoke of the ways Chaudhuri could be useful to schools of analysis such as Affect Theory.

Ian Almond received his PhD in English Literature from Edinburgh University in 2000. He is the author of four books, most recently Two Faiths, One Banner (Harvard University Press, 2009) and History of Islam in German Thought (Routledge, 2010), and over forty articles in a variety of journals including PMLA, Radical Philosophy, ELH, and New Literary History. He specializes in comparative world literature, with a tri-continental emphasis on Mexico, Bengal and Turkey. His books have been translated into eight languages, including Arabic, Russian, Turkish, Korean, Serbo-Croat, Persian and Indonesian. He is currently working on a history of Islam in Latin America.

CIRS supported Ian Almond’s book, The Thought of Nirad C. Chaudhuri: Islam, Empire and Loss (Cambridge University Press, 2015), by hosting a research workshop in which selected scholars were invited to the Georgetown University-Qatar campus to discuss the manuscript and to give critical feedback on the book chapters ahead of publication.

Read biographies of the participantsSee the workshop agenda

Buthaina Al Ansari on Female Leaders in Qatar
2014-11-17 18:00 - 20:00
Buthaina Al Ansari, founder and Chairperson of Qatariat T&D Holding Company and Senior Human Resources Director at Ooredoo, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on the topic of “Sheroes—How Female Leaders are Changing Qatar” on November 17, 2014. Al Ansari introduced the talk, which focused on the status of female leadership in Qatar, by explaining that it is largely males who are recognized for their endeavors and achievements, while women are rarely celebrated to the same degree. “There are male and female achievers, but there are only ‘heroes,’ and I do believe there should be ‘sheroes,’” she said.

Al Ansari is a member of the MENA Business Women’s Networks, an ambassador for Women Leading Change Qatar, a board member of Qatar Business Women’s Association, and a Mentor at the Qatar Professional Women’s Network Circle. She shared her insights on what makes a successful businesswoman, with a particular focus on how Qatari women can achieve a more competitive position within the local and international market. Al Ansari divulged her recipe for success, including the most important ingredients required in any business venture. The first element of success is to have a supportive family structure. She argued that in the Arab World, it is especially important for women to have a family that understands the imperatives of any business endeavor, and the necessities of splitting time and resources equally between the needs of the home and those of the business operation. Once one has the backing and support of one’s family, the second element of success that Al Ansari advocated was a solid foundation in the form of education. She noted that “in Qatar, we have a strong system of education”—especially for women—which should be capitalized upon.

The third element of success, as suggested by Al Ansari, is to take risks, and to not be afraid of challenging the norm. This, she said, is the defining characteristic of any entrepreneur. Al Ansari explained that she had to take personal risks in order to further her business career. She had begun her studies as a biomedical science student, but was always aware that this vocational path was pre-determined by her family’s definition of success. Al Ansari decided to take the risk of changing her degree to business administration in order to fulfill her personal objectives. “I took risks in my thoughts, I took risks in my decisions, and I took risks in my plans, and that has opened a lot of doors and opportunities for me,” she explained. However, Al Ansari did acknowledge that such freedom of choice and deciding for oneself were not necessarily options that were open to all Qatari females.

Once an educated risk-taker has completed the first crucial steps towards achieving a successful business career, Al Ansari’s final piece of advice was to differentiate oneself from the surrounding competition. She argued that it was of vital importance to “market yourself, position yourself, and brand yourself,” and focus on a particular segment of the market. “I chose the women’s segment in Qatar. I want to empower them, I want to guide them, and I want to enable them,” she said. Qatari males represent 68 percent of the Qatari labor force, while Qatari women represent only 32 percent. Thus, Al Ansari argued that it was important for women to work harder and to take on more active roles in order to balance the labor market.

Gender imbalance aside, Al Ansari concluded by saying that “in Qatar, we are at the development phase. Whether you are a mother, a wife, a student, an employee, or a business owner, we have to contribute together to invent the economic scene in Qatar [by] investment in economic capital, education, environment, and health.”

Buthaina Al Ansari holds a Master’s Degree in Business Management & HR Strategic Planning from Qatar University, and a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management from the American University of Cairo. As an entrepreneur and Chairperson of Qatariat T&D, she collaborates with innovative and best-in-class organizations to raise the benchmark and quality of expertise in Qatar. Qatariat services include—Training & Leadership, Media & Publishing and Business Consulting. In 2012, she received the L’Officiel Qatar’s Most Inspirational Arab Woman of the Year Award. She has been voted by CommsMEA as one the Top 50 Female Telecoms Executives, and for the past several years she has been named by ArabianBusiness.com as one of the 100 Most Powerful Arab Women.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Youth in the Middle East, Working Group I
2014-11-20 09:00 - 2014-11-21 17:00
On November 20-21, 2014, in partnership with the youth-oriented social initiative organization, Silatech, CIRS launched the “Youth in the Middle East” research initiative with a two day working group meeting. The meeting was hosted by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) at the Georgetown University campus in Washington, DC, where participants gathered from various countries of the world and from a multitude of disciplinary backgrounds.

The participants discussed the need for greater definition of the factors that constitute “youth” as a distinct subset of society. Although they agreed that age and maturation were the common determining characteristics of youth, there was less consensus about the specific age ranges within which youth should be bracketed as a unit of analysis. Problematizing this further, they discussed how “youth” as a formative stage of life can differ dramatically depending on particular cultural contexts. In some cases, and especially for those with low or no income or those who inhabit conflict zones, young people are often prematurely obliged to take on adult roles and responsibilities, thus curtailing the notion of “youth” as experienced by their cohorts in other parts of the world. Rather than quantifying youth according to age brackets, the participants argued that the notion of youth could be considered as a fluid and inconsistent network of social relations. The participants highlighted the fact that youth cannot be analyzed as a homogenous category, but must be thought of as having a multitude of variants.

Although the topic of Middle Eastern youth was discussed from different theoretical and practical lenses, some key central themes emerged, including the fact that, in many instances, youth in the Middle East tend to face tough political and economic conditions. Local national youth in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council do not necessarily share the same economic hardships as the young economic South Asian migrants in the GCC, but they do share similar forms of political exclusion as experienced by their counterparts in other areas of the Arab world.

Since many countries of the Middle East are experiencing a demographic “youth bulge,” unprecedented numbers of young people are all vying for what little resources and opportunities exist. Broader economic structural issues were discussed in relation to the sustainability of the Arab development model and its failures. Many countries of the Middle East are rentier economies that exacerbate ongoing forms of political quiescence. The events of the Arab uprisings did much to highlight the faults associated with autocratic governance, but have not led to any major changes, leaving young people more aware of the problems that plague their nations, and, thus, ever more frustrated.

Access to the economic and political normative activities of society is denied to many in places where the social contract has been poorly adhered to, if at all. Exclusion, however, is context dependent, and each society fashions its own definitions of exclusion. In impoverished neighborhoods that are lacking in infrastructure and opportunities, Middle East youth groups actively create their own forms of distinct social networks that are, in many ways, more intimate and reliable than those of more affluent areas. Thus, such informal youth associations and marginal forms of participation mean that youth are not necessarily socially excluded from their immediate surroundings, but are more likely to be economically and politically excluded from the more “formal” social structures. Such class dimensions play a role in how youth experience their lives and their aspirations for the future, with many young people active in both formal and informal means of participation.

Whether in the public or private sectors, access to the privileges of the formal market is hindered crony capitalism and unfair political concessions, giving rise to increased informal practices among many Arab youths. Autocratic leaders have been benefitting from deregulation, even as they impose restrictions on local markets. The explosive mix of neoliberal policies and simultaneous authoritarian ones has resulted in an anti-competitive environment with little room for small and medium enterprises. This is why there are very few start-ups or entrepreneurial endeavors since there is little encouragement of creative business, skill development, or mobilization of human capital. Neoliberal reforms have benefitted only a small elite group of people, and has done little to improve the lives of the majority.

Because the informal sector operates largely outside of the formal economy, and is mostly extra-legal or illegal, there has been little research conducted into these ventures, including the gender dimension and how women fare in such environments. For the most part, in the academic and popular literature, youth issues tend to be viewed from the perspective of young males, concentrating on the condition of their welfare, education, and employment, with little attention directed at females and the challenges they face.

Increasingly, the vacuum left by failed state structures has been steadily filled by Islamic movements in many countries of the Middle East. These mostly grassroots institutions are becoming increasingly intertwined in youth’s daily lives, and have powerful influences on youth behavior. In order for young people to be directed towards formal channels of economic activity, the participants explained that there needs to be more effort made by the government, as well as businesses and the private sector, to invest in job creation and vocational training, especially for those with low levels of education. The participants advised, however, that there needs to be a fine balance between the valorization of manual labor and the encouragement of schooling and education.

The failed education model in many Arab states is a symptom of the failed state economic model, and often produces a vicious circle. The participants further discussed means of educational reform and how the Arab state promises employment as a reward for education. This often only leads to further frustration when educated youths come up against a variety of entry barriers to the labor market. There are few effective transitions from school to employment, and a severe lack of skills and behavioral competencies development. Further compounding this is the crisis of the social sciences; the Arab educational system rewards technical and technocratic career paths, with little encouragement of alternative careers in the humanities, arts, and cultural avenues. These disciplines are far from institutionalized at the school level, and even less so in the labor market, making the humanities unappealing and often gendered.

Other issues under discussion included Arab refugees and forced migration; nationalization policies across the GCC; and youth voices in public spaces as well online through a variety of information communication technologies and social media channels. In conclusion, the participants encouraged further investigation into broader theoretical questions involving the future of political Islam and democratization efforts. The participants offered a series of policy recommendations that could be implemented across the Middle East and North Africa, and ways of promoting resilience rather than violence through a variety of avenues, including cultural and educational activities, as well as means of removing entry barriers to the market by encouraging grassroots business opportunities and networks. ‎

See the Meeting Agenda
Read Participants Biographies
Read more about this Research Initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Osama Abi-Mershed, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies,Georgetown University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
David Beck, Silatech
Dawn Chatty, University of Oxford
Raj Desai, Georgetown University
Kristin Smith Diwan, American University School of International Service
Paul Dyer, Silatech
Sherine El Taraboulsi, University of Oxford
Nader Kabbani, Silatech
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Samer Kherfi, University of Sharjah
Adeel Malik, University of Oxford
Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Jennifer Olmsted, Drew University
Anders Olofsgard, Stockholm School of Economics
Omar Razzaz, King Abdullah II Fund for Development of the Jordan Strategy Forum
Natasha Ridge, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation
Michael Robbins, Princeton University
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Virginia Tech
Edward Sayre, University of Southern Mississippi
Emad Shahin, Georgetown University
Hilary Silver, Brown University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Tarik Yousef, Silatech

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Neha Vora on "Impossible Citizens: Dubai's Indian Diaspora"
2014-12-01 18:00 - 19:00
On December 1, 2014, Neha Vora, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lafayette College, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on the topic “Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora.” Much of the research she conducted was during the “boom” years of Dubai’s economic growth, when “Brand Dubai” was establishing the city as a commercial and tourism hub to attract international attention and investment. During this period, “the landscape of Dubai was shifting drastically […] moving away from the older South-Asian dominated downtown neighborhoods around the Dubai Creek […] and away from older forms of mercantalism and maritime trade,” towards a more corporate, westernized, and multinational capitalist enterprise.

The thrust of Vora’s research questioned the paradox of how the middle-class Indian communities of Dubai have a strong sense of belonging even though there are no certain paths to citizenship or permanent residence. “Indians have practically zero access to any form of permanency in Dubai. They cannot naturalize, or even gain permanent residency” due to the Kafala system that ties people to their employment visas and sponsors, Vora explained. Such a sense of belonging, she argued, occurs through “substantive,” or “unofficial” ideas of community that are not based on the technicalities of citizenship, but, rather on strong senses of historical and cultural affiliation. Because of the historical mercantile and cultural connections, many Indians see the Gulf states as an extension of India and not necessarily as a separate geographical and cultural entity. Indians in Dubai have access to the familiar signs of home including language, food, clothing, and cultural practices and trends.

Debunking the idea that migrants to the Gulf desire assimilation and citizenship, Vora argued that many of the middle-class Indian residents of Dubai see themselves as having temporary economic goals, which, once achieved, signal their return to the homeland. In an anthropological vignette, Vora introduced the audience to Rohit, one of her interlocutors and an architect and long-term Indian resident of Dubai. Even though he has lived for over three decades in Dubai, and it is where his children were born and raised, he still considers himself a temporary economic migrant. Describing Dubai as “an air-conditioned bus” that offers comfort, but is always in transit and thus an unstable place of residence, “Rohit in many ways exemplifies the Indian middle-class dream in Dubai. He had managed to accumulate wealth during his time in the Gulf, had improved the living conditions of his extended and immediate family, and was setting himself up for a comfortable retirement in India,” Vora reported. For many middle-class Indians, such as Rohit, expatriation to the Gulf states is seen as a sign of status and perceived as a privilege, but one that can be terminated at any time. Thus, economic migrants have adapted to feeling simultaneously settled and yet always transient.

Importantly, the middle-class Indian business communities of Dubai see themselves as actively contributing to local economic development and distinguish themselves from others who depend on state “welfare,” be they low-income South Asian laborers, Western expatriate professionals, or even local national beneficiaries of state subsidies. The middle-class Indians that Vora interviewed were keen to describe themselves as economic contributors to Dubai, and as “good self-enterprising foreign residents of the city, not bad welfare-reliant citizens,” she said.

However, despite many describing themselves as purely economic migrants with no desire for ties to the state, the majority of Indian businesspeople and professionals do in fact actively contribute to, and replicate state policies. “Middle-class and elite South Asians, for example, espoused certain neoliberal market values and liberal ideas about citizenship, while participating in non-liberal forms of patronage and exploitation that reproduce social stratification and forms of hierarchical citizenship among the Indian diaspora in Dubai,” Vora argued. By establishing business operations and hiring workers under the Kafala system, they actively promote UAE government’s policies by reproducing local and legal norms.

Vora concluded by explaining that even though Dubai still largely retains its South Asian character, things are changing fast. In Dubai’s effort to modernize older Indian mercantile neighborhoods of the city, and to attract a more “westernized” client, “rents had gone up, formerly lower-middle-class neighborhoods were being turned into luxury apartments, and Indians felt less job security than ever before,” she said. This rapidly changing environment has served to further unsettle the Indian communities that have been living and working for generations in the older areas of Dubai.

Neha Vora’s research focuses on citizenship and belonging within the Gulf Arab states, particularly among South Asian diaspora populations. In addition to a number of journal articles, Vora is the author of Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora, was published in 2013 by Duke University Press. A recipient of multiple awards and fellowships, she is currently in Doha working on a project that investigates the impacts of knowledge economy transformation and American branch campus expansion on Qatar.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Re-Emerging West Asia Working Group I
2015-01-10 09:00 - 2015-01-11 17:00
On January 10-11, 2015, CIRS held the first Working Group under its research initiative on “Re-Emerging West Asia.” Included in the meeting were academics representing the South Caucasus states of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia, as well as scholars from Iran and Turkey. Over the course of two days, the participants discussed a number of relevant issues and identified existing gaps in the literature. Topics discussed during the meeting included, amongst other things, the new geopolitical competition in the South Caucasus and the role of external actors, energy diplomacy, soft power politics, and a variety of societal and ethnic dynamics in the region.

Opening the discussion, participants considered the changing geopolitical environment in the South Caucasus, the rise of competition between external powers, and the emergence of new actors. China has exhibited an increasing interest in expanding its role in the region, an example of which can be seen in the People’s Liberation Army’s agreement with the Armenian military. In Georgia, the Orthodox Church has been receiving Russian money, whereby this and other engagements with civil society demonstrate an interest by Russia to shape domestic policies in its neighborhood. Pipeline politics have also encouraged political and financial connections between Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in influencing the regional geopolitical competition. While scholarship on the region has tended to view the North and South Caucasus as two distinct areas, Working Group participants suggested that these regions share similar economic and political conditions. Additionally, cross-border and transnational connections such as the Lezgian population in southern Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan continue to draw the involvement of external actors like Russia.

Between the Persian Gulf states, the Middle East, and the Southern Caucasus, economic factors and regional crises may provide comparative points for academic consideration. Comparisons can be drawn between the rentier dynamics in Azerbaijan and the Gulf states. Similarities in governance have also led scholars to speculate whether an event similar to the Arab Spring could take place in Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, one should be cautious when assuming too much similarity between these two regions, as the historical influences shaping their political pathways have been quite distinct. On the issue of religion and ethnicity, Azerbaijan views “Muslim identity” as a threat to its ethnic identity whereby in the case of Georgia, religiousness emerged as a countermovement to Sovietism.

Such sentiments have allowed movements such as the Gulen schools in Central Asia and the South Caucasus states to flourish in receptive societies. Fethullah Gulen’s Islamic movement became active in the 1980s when Turkey entered its liberal economic phase. In 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gulen-inspired businessmen and teachers opened their first school in Azerbaijan followed by another in Kazakhstan. The opening of such schools came at a time when several Central Asian and South Caucasus states had a dire need for better quality education, which the secular curriculum of the Gulen schools provided. Prior, to the demise of the Gulen movement’s relationship with the AK party in Turkey, Turkish foreign policy was aligned with Gulen’s vision, perceiving of it as one of the best representations of Turkish soft power in the region. The schools led to the creation of an elite community that was proficient in Turkish and sympathetic to a moderate Islamic ideology, creating significant educational and societal connections between the two regions.

Conventionally, Turkey’s shift in foreign policy in regards to soft power has focused on the AKP’s engagement of state and non-state actors in the Balkans and the broader Middle East. Little is mentioned in soft power literature that focuses on Turkey’s soft power activities in the South Caucasus. Another research gap is that while there are many studies focusing on soft power and non-state actors, more work needs to look at state actors’ effect on soft power. Such studies should focus on the construction of foreign policy narratives, political values and cultural exchanges. Moreover, the subjects of soft power should be better studied in terms of their attraction to soft power, the limitations soft power holds and the relationship between soft and hard power. Participants problematized the difficulty in studying Turkey’s soft power in the South Caucasus considering the differences that exist from one country to another. For instance, there has been a level of resistance to Turkish soft power in Central Asia due to the Islamic undertones it holds.

In terms of hard power, Turkey utilized its role as an energy transit state to sell gas to European markets. Discussant argued that Turkey’s centrality and its geopolitical position as an energy hub has led it to have a more streamlined trading philosophy. Yet, one of the main components of an energy hub requires it to have an open and well-regulated market, something that the AKP party struggles with considering their strong emphasis on trade centrality. Energy was also used a political tool in Azerbaijan and Georgia. In the 1990s, the major goal for energy diplomacy was the implementation of pro-western policies and the consolidation and promotion of support for the regime, a strategy that was only successful up until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Participants outlined several emerging trends that needed further study, such as Azerbaijan’s economic relationship with East Asia, the possibility of supplying energy to Iran and Iraq and future transit options for the South Caucasus with the newly proposed Nabucco pipeline.

Discussants observed that US policy towards regional development in the South Caucasus has deprived Iran from playing its natural role in the region and expanding its interaction with neighboring states. Based on the developments that took place after the formation of the Islamic Republic, we can see different discourses in Iranian foreign policy towards the Caucasus and mutual perceptions that arise from both the Iranian and Azerbaijani sides. From an Iranian viewpoint, the lesson that was learnt from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is that without the engagement of Russia, security issues can rarely be solved. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite the common culture and mutual past shared between Iran and Azerbaijan, relations between the two countries have remained strained over the situation of Azeris in Iran. The Azeris constitute a significant part of the population in Iran, however Azeri ethnic identity and the use of Azeri language, alongside other ethnic languages, has not been taught or practiced in schools in Iran. In return, the Azerbaijani state has counteracted these efforts by embarking on a historical mission to create a national awakening in order to understand their identity and embrace their independence from Iran. Discussants questioned to what extent is the salience of the Iranian-Azeri relationship contingent on the political relations, considering that the ethnic dimension only reappears when relations become strained between the two countries.

In the case of the South Caucasus states, post-Soviet Armenia has been characterized by crime and corruption which have allowed a few businesses to gain exorbitant amounts of power. These oligarchs are closely linked to the state. Selected individuals and companies act as ‘commodity-based cartels’, controlling the export and import rights for key products such as sugar, oil, alcohol and cigarettes. In return these oligarchs deliver to the state assured ballots and votes. Trade embargoes and closed borders have allowed for the corruption of Armenia’s economy and the strengthened the dominance of the oligarchs. Discussants observed that oligarchs in Armenia enter parliament for status and immunity, not understanding the potential power they may have in drafting legislation or by impeding the law. Moreover, more scholarly interest should focus on comparisons of Georgia and Armenia considering their similar variables but radically different political reform strategies.

See the working group agenda

Read participant biographies

Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Hamid Ahmadi, Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies

Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Leila Alieva, University of Oxford

Meliha Benli Altunışık, Middle East Technical University

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Bayram Balci, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Michael B. Bishku, Georgia Regents University

Richard Giragosian, Regional Studies Center

Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Elaheh Koolaee, University of Tehran

Alexander Kupatadze, University of St Andrews

Jeffrey Mankoff, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Gareth Winrow, Independent Research Analyst and Consultant

Article by Haya Al-Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

CIRS Presents Abdullah Al-Arian's New Book on the Muslim Brotherhood
2015-01-13 18:00 - 19:00
On Tuesday, January 13, 2015, CIRS hosted a book launch and reading by Abdullah Al-Arian, Assistant Professor of History at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt, published by Oxford University Press in 2014, “examines the means by which the Muslim Brotherhood was reconstituted during Anwar al-Sadat’s presidency. Through analysis of structural, ideological, and social developments during this period in the history of the Islamic movement, a more accurate picture of the so-called ‘Islamic resurgence’ develops-one that represents the rebirth of an old idea in a new setting.

When revolutionary hero Gamal Abdel Nasser dismantled and suppressed Egypt’s largest social movement organization during the 1950s, few could have imagined that the Muslim Brotherhood would not only reemerge, but could one day compete for the presidency in the nation’s first ever democratic election. While there is no shortage of analyses of the Muslim Brotherhood’s recent political successes and failures, no study has investigated the organization’s triumphant return from the dustbin of history.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s success in rebuilding its organization rested in large part on its ability to attract a new generation of Islamic activists that had come to transform Egypt’s colleges and universities into a hub for religious contention against the state. Led by groups such as al-Gama’ah al-Islamiyyah (The Islamic Society), the student movement exhibited a dynamic and vibrant culture of activism that found inspiration in a multitude of intellectual and organizational sources, of which the Muslim Brotherhood was only one.

By the close of the 1970s, however, internal divisions over ideology and strategy led to the rise of factionalism within the student movement. A majority of student leaders opted to expand the scope of their activist mission by joining the Muslim Brotherhood, rejuvenating the struggling organization, and launching a new phase in its history.

Answering the Call is an original study of the history of this dynamic and vibrant period of modern Egyptian history, giving readers a fresh understanding of one of Egypt’s most pivotal eras.” Read more from Oxford University Press.

Abdullah Al-Arian received his doctorate in History from Georgetown University. He holds a Master’s degree in Sociology of Religion from the London School of Economics and his BA in Political Science from Duke University. He is co-editor of the Critical Currents in Islam page on the Jadaliyya e-zine. He is also a frequent contributor to the Al-Jazeera English network and website. His first book, entitled Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. In fall 2014, he was the Carnegie Centennial Visiting Fellow at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies.

CIRS Presents Suzi Mirgani Film Screening
2015-01-15 12:30 - 13:30
On January 15, 2015, Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications, delivered a Focused Discussion and film screening of her short film “Hind’s Dream.” The screening was followed by a discussion with the writer and director and members of the film’s cast and crew, including Georgetown University in Qatar students Athanasios Sardellis, Razan Al Humaidi, and Haya Al Romaihi. “Hind’s Dream” premiered at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Film Festival. It was also screened as part of the “Made in Qatar” section of the Doha Film Institute’s 2014 Ajyal Film Festival where it won an award for “artistic vision and poetic screenwriting.”

Mirgani outlined how the film reflects the history, modernity, and folklore of Qatar. The film depicts a lonely Bedouin girl as she wanders through a desert landscape long before the discovery of hydrocarbons, which would eventually make Qatar one of the richest countries in the world. Only a few decades ago, Qatar was settled by nomadic tribes who lived a harsh and frugal existence in the open desert, hunting for food and ever searching for sources of water. It was only towards the end of the twentieth century that the country’s natural wealth was fully exploited, transforming it into colossal economic wealth to be reflected in the urban landscape in one of the fastest modernization and urbanization projects the world has ever seen. This rapid overhaul of traditional lifestyles has had a jarring effect on those who still remember the simplicity and isolation of desert existence.

The film presents a tangled landscape of dream and reality, where Hind has a vision of the future as told by an oracle/genie: a common motif in Arab fairy tales. Unbeknownst to her, Hind straddles two radically different worlds—old and new and reality and dream—at the cusp of the new century and a changing world. Beneath the barren desert of Hind’s reality, brews the thick black matter of her subconscious—and just like the bubbling oil in the gas fields around her, rises to the surface in this dreamscape.

The massive infrastructural changes taking place in the Gulf are usually represented in how they affect economic and geopolitical power, and are dealt with in “official” terms whether through academia or the media. These societal transformations are rarely dealt with in terms of the psychological impact of how urban and societal changes in the desert affect the individual. In order to explore these psychological influences, the film depicts the fluid concepts of “time” and the “subconscious,” and how such shifts can have a lasting—and perhaps jarring—effect on ways of thinking.

Producers of the film included Haya Al Romaihi, Dwaa Osman, Suzi Mirgani, Rodney X Sharkey, and Julietta Mirghani. The principle actors were Asli Altinisik and Athanasios Sardellis, while the film’s poetry was translated into Arabic by Haya Al Romaihi and recited by Razan Al Humaidi. Also assisting with the production of the film were Arwa Elsanosi, Salman Ahad Khan, and Badr Rahima.

The film is also screening at the Imagine Science Film Festival in Abu Dhabi on February 20, 2015.

Read more at Al Bawaba.

CIRS Launches Book on Food Security in the Middle East
2015-01-19 18:00 - 19:00
On January 19, 2015, CIRS, held a book launch and signing for the recently released volume on Food Security in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2014) edited by Zahra Babar, Associate Director for Research at CIRS, and Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications. The launch was hosted by Shelley Ford, Manager of the Georgetown SFS-Qatar Bookstore.

The book provides empirical case studies of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen, the Gulf States and Iran, with special attention to how these countries have been affected by the events of the Arab uprisings and rising food prices following the global economic crisis of 2007-2008. Some of the major themes examined include the ascent and decline of various food regimes, urban agriculture, overseas agricultural land purchases, national food self-sufficiency strategies, distribution networks and food consumption patterns, and nutrition transitions and healthcare. Collectively, the chapters represent highly original contributions to the disciplines of political science, economics, agricultural studies, and healthcare policy, and reflect the increasing urgency of policy and public debate in this subject.

“Everyone agrees that access to food is one of the most basic human rights. But in reality, food has become politicized. What’s more, unlike health care, education, or housing, food has evolved into a security issue,” said book editor and contributing author, Zahra Babar.

She continued, saying: “Unlike certain parts of the developing world, the Middle East is not known as a region that is facing critical famine or starvation. However, it is one of the least self-sufficient regions in the world for obvious reasons, such as water scarcity, but also for some less obvious reasons, such as land reform that impacts sufficiency. In the GCC in particular, huge migration patterns have outpaced food sufficiency and will likely continue to do so, so this is an issue that is far more complex than some might imagine.”

Director of CIRS, Dr. Mehran Kamrava, also contributed to the newly published volume. He said: “We hope this book sets a base of understanding for the full breadth of food security issues, to benefit the work of scholars, researchers, practitioners and policy makers. There hasn’t been an in depth examination of the social and political issues around food sovereignty and the availability and security of food supplies in the Middle East, and this book is an invaluable tool in understanding some of these critically important questions.”

Suzi Mirgani, co-editor of the book, says that the body of work in this volume reflects a new approach to food security. “Current food security issues are shifting from a largely economics-dominated model where the debate centered on macro-level issues of international development to one where sociopolitical factors are becoming increasingly active in how food is conceived, valued, and distributed as a human right, rather than a market force. This book is an attempt to engage with this new paradigmatic shift.”

“This book is a fresh look at the challenges and opportunities associated with food security faced by the Middle East. The thorough treatment of a broad range of topics from trade to self-sufficiency, and from nutrition to the supermarket revolution and emerging dietary habits, make it a truly unique read,” said Dr. Julian A. Lampietti of The World Bank.

The chapters in this volume, published by Oxford University Press and C. Hurst & Co., grew out of a two-year research initiative held under the auspices of CIRS, and includes contributions from 25 leading experts in food security issues from top universities around the world.

Healthcare Policy and Politics in the Gulf Working Group II
2015-02-08 09:00 - 17:00
On February 8, 2015, CIRS held its second working group on the Healthcare Policy and Politics in the Gulf research initiative in Doha. Participants gathered for the second time to discuss their research findings and obtain feedback from their fellow working group members. The topics discussed during the day covered a wide range of healthcare issues including the historical transformation of health services in the Gulf region to the status of mental health and substance abuse issues that have arisen as a result of changing lifestyle patterns.

The historical overview provided on the transformation of healthcare in the Gulf region showcased four distinctive phases. A common denominator in the situation of healthcare prior to the 1950s amongst the six Gulf states was the role of American and Dutch missionaries in setting up hospitals and health services. Discussants emphasized the fact that the missionaries’ efforts were not intended to be civilizing force but were an extension of the British presence in the region meant to supplement the limited health services already available. Between the 1950s and 2000s, wealth generated by the oil revenues coming from the region invigorated the study and practice of medicine within departments in universities. In the case of Saudi Arabia, several health structures existed in parallel with one another, however, the annual Hajj pilgrimage forced the state to centralize healthcare efforts and create a unified system that would deal with the health epidemics that eventually arise from such events. Currently, the health sector in the Gulf is in need of reform due to the paternalistic feelings the states hold toward the provision of healthcare. Discussants argued that a severe lack of medical educational institutions exist in the Gulf, which is reflective in the quality of physicians and medical services being provided in the region. Moreover, the role of the private sector is in need of further study as there is no explanation as to why patients are shifting from public to private healthcare institutions.

In terms of human resources in the health sector, GCC countries seem to struggle with the workforce not being home grown. The UAE is a unique case whereby data has shown that the nationalities of the doctors practicing within the country encompass 110 different countries. Aside from data records on manpower in the health sector, data collection in the Gulf remains to be sporadic and imprecise. No routine data collection for the WHO exists at the moment, whereby actual data acquired is mere estimates given by hospitals. Also, a more standardized process for recruitment of physicians is necessary because it imposes essential safeguards and helps establish doctors in the region. Revalidation processes have been put into practice recently by the Qatari government to assess the competency of physicians practicing and to identify the quality of work being provided. In the case of the non-physician workforce, the affluent lifestyle enjoyed by many locals in the Gulf is a deterrent to entering the healthcare sector when a socioeconomic need does not exist. Non-physician positions such as nursing or technical staff are often hired from abroad due to the lack of medical institutions that train individuals in these professions. However, these conditions are gradually changing as both Qatar and Oman have recently opened nursing colleges to train the local and expatriate population based on the hiring needs of the local health sector. Participants questioned whether the lack of nationals in the health sector can be attributed to structural limitations of demography and whether the establishment of medical schools can be considered an integral part of the state-building process.

Healthcare in the Gulf region remains to be a political notion. Provision of free healthcare constitutes a facet of the social contract that is provided alongside education and housing by the Gulf ruling families. The lack of non-state actors such a political or civil groups means that healthcare, as a policy, is rarely debated from a bottom to top approach.

In the case of other countries in the region, such as Lebanon, non-state actors and civil society groups provide a good reference loop and prevent policies from becoming ad hoc. In 2015, $42.9 billion was spent collectively on healthcare by the Gulf states, indicating a dire necessity for development in the healthcare structure. A further exploration into the process of policy-making in healthcare is necessary. The rapid modernization faced by many Gulf societies has created a myriad of both mental and physical diseases as a result of unhealthy and affluent lifestyles. Additionally, the high percentage of expatriates within most GCC states impact healthcare policies dramatically because data does not always differentiate between local and non-local populations. As a result, diseases such as obesity, often associated with the local population, can seem to be epidemics even though the overall percentage of people diagnosed as obese is small comparatively, when the expatriate population is accounted for in the data gathering.

Examples of chronic lifestyle diseases that have recently emerged in the region as a byproduct of affluence and rapid modernization are cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and obesity. The profile of such diseases that have emerged alongside the changing lifestyles in the Gulf showcase the lack of exercise and high-fat diet as emerging trends in chronic diseases. Participants tried to quantify the chronic disease profile of the GCC, in comparison with other high and middle-income countries, using OECD base-line data. In addition to previous studies, the data showed that major depressive disorders and road injuries were the leading causes of a disability adjusted lifestyle in comparison to worldwide standards. Nonetheless, more health awareness campaigns are necessary in the Gulf because there seems to be a high level of societal ignorance towards the impact of chronic diseases on life expectancy rates. Awareness campaigns must also extend to mental health issues, whereby the percentage of people who require mental help and actively seek it constitute only 25% of the population. Additionally, the problem with mental health care providers is that they often have to be the primary, secondary and tertiary care providers instead of mental health clinics and support groups.

In terms of substance-use disorders in the Gulf region, the changing patterns in education and family structure have all contributed to an ‘urban drift’ amongst the youth population, who often find themselves unable to belong and relate to their societies. Such sentiments in youth can be problematic because it can lead to self-medication in the form of consuming excessive amounts of alcohol or the use of recreational drugs. Opinions on substance-abuse disorders in the Gulf region often oscillate between the two polar opposite views of approaching it as an immorality or as a disease. Existing scholarship explores the relationship between availability of substances and the level of drug usage however, it was argued that there should be an evolving mechanism that liberalizes some of the less harmful substances in society to combat the prevalence of more detrimental drugs.

Noteworthy to mention is the situation of the healthcare system in the Gulf which has become multi-tiered, primarily due to the lack of proper population health need assessments, including short-term health solutions for low-skilled workers. Even though the Gulf region has attained significant social and economic achievements in a short span of time, healthcare policies are still centered more on curative health and not enough on protective and preventive measures. Discussants argued that the Gulf states spending on healthcare is below average, by WHO standards, which is reflective in the ratios of physicians to residents and number of beds per population. Moreover, in terms of policy, different health policies exist within the healthcare structure for different patients within society. For instance, GCC legislation requires employers to buy health insurance that covers their expatriate workers. However, the insurance plans often only cover basics in healthcare, in comparison to the local population which receives the high-end health services available.

See the working group agenda
Read participant biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Samir Al Adawi, Sultan Qaboos University College of Medicine
Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mohamad Alameddine, American University of Beirut
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suhaila Ghuloum, Hamad Medical Center
Cother Hajat, Emirates Cardiac Society; UAE University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nabil Kronfol, Lebanese Healthcare Management Association; Center for Studies on Ageing
Albert Lowenfels, New York Medical College
Ravinder Mamtani, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar
Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
David Rawaf, Imperial College London; St. George’s Hospital Medical School
Salman Rawaf, Imperial College London
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Haya Al-Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

Jeremy Koons CIRS Faculty Research Workshop
2015-03-08 09:00 - 17:00
The research of Jeremy Koons, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (GU-Q), was featured recently in a CIRS Faculty Research Workshop about his co-authored book manuscript Unity Without Uniformity: A Synoptic Vision of the Normative and the Natural. The full day event, held March 8, 2015, included 11 participants from Europe and the greater Middle East region.

The manuscript, co-authored by Koons and Michael P. Wolf, associate professor at Washington and Jefferson College, draws on the pragmatist tradition of philosophers Wittgenstein and Sellars to defend an alternative conception of normative discourse. It also draws on other elements of the pragmatist tradition, stretching from philosophers Peirce to Brandom, to show how normative claims are constrained and how this constraint, combined with the way in which normative claims are accountable to reason and argumentation, prevents any fall into relativism.

The CIRS Faculty Research Workshop is a closed-door, one-day seminar that brings together select renowned scholars for a focused discussion on a GU-Q faculty member’s book manuscript that is in its final stages of development. All participants receive the entire manuscript in advance of the meeting and each scholar leads a focused group discussion on an assigned chapter.

This research workshop featured a talented group of esteemed philosophers who specialize in Sellarsian and pragmatist philosophy. Participants engaged in a series of structured brainstorming sessions that led to a critical and thorough discussion of the book manuscript.

Participant Niklas Möller, associate professor in philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, said “ever since I first read [Brandom’s book] Making It Explicit, I have felt the need for a serious attempt at addressing moral normativity from a socio-pragmatist perspective. And now you are doing exactly that (and more), which I find to be a very exciting project indeed. I think you are doing something very important and impressive, and I am happy to have been invited to engage with the text.”

Attendees included Bana Bashour and Ray Brassier, American University of Beirut; Erhan Demircioglu, Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey; Anjana Jacob, GU-Q; Daniele Mezzadri, United Arab Emirates University; Niklas Moller, The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden; Jim O’Shea, University College of Dublin; John Ryder, American University in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates; Matthew Silverstein, New York University in Abu Dhabi, UAE; Lucas Thorpe, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul; and Jack Woods, Bilkent University, Turkey.

Koons received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Georgetown University in 1998. He teaches a wide variety of philosophy courses on ethics (theoretical and applied), social and political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind and language, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. He publishes articles on ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. His book, Pragmatic Reasons: A Defense of Morality and Epistemology, was published by Palgrave in 2009.

See the workshop agendaRead participant biographies

Unity Without Uniformity: A Synoptic Vision of the Normative and the Natural

Abstract

Our lives ineliminably involve the normative. We make moral judgments. Scientists and laymen alike make epistemic and methodological judgments (judging a theory as rational, a method as biased, and so on). We make prudential judgments. But we have to make the normative fit within our dominant, naturalist view of the world: in some sense, science offers a privileged account of what there is, and other disciplines cannot make claims incompatible with our scientific world-view. A longstanding challenge for philosophers has been to fit the normative within this naturalistic picture of the world.

Dominant naturalist approaches to this challenge try to fit normativity into our scientific world-view by showing how normative claims describe some aspect of physical reality. We argue that this approach is fundamentally misguided, and fails to do justice to the prescriptive (‘ought-to-be’ or ‘ought-to-do’) element of normative discourse.

Drawing on the pragmatist tradition of Wittgenstein and Sellars, we defend an alternative conception of normative discourse. On this conception, to make a normative claim (“You shouldn’t have done that”; “The study results were biased”; “Eating a ghost pepper is foolish”) is not to state a fact, not to make a descriptive claim, at all. Rather, such discourse serves a fundamentally action-guiding role: it prescribes behavior (or proscribes it), or recommends a course of action (or recommends against it), and so on.

Even though normative claims are not descriptive claims, such claims can be true, and indeed non-relatively true. Drawing on other elements of the pragmatist tradition, stretching from Peirce to Brandom, we show how normative claims are constrained by how the world is even though they are not in the business of describing this world. This constraint, combined with the way in which normative claims are accountable to reason and argumentation, prevents any fall into relativism.

Of course, once normative facts drop out of the picture, there is nothing left to offend against a scientific world-view. Thus, we defend not only the objectivity of norms, but also a robust version of naturalism which accords science privilege in describing how the world is and what it contains.

Finally, we show the various ways in which descriptive discourses—such as scientific and social-scientific discourses—and normative discourses mutually contribute to each other in fruitful ways. The result is a picture of normativity that is robust and truth-apt, sewn into a new take on the naturalist tradition.

Victimization or Empowerment? The Case of Saudi Literature
2015-03-10 12:30 - 13:30
Amira El-Zein, Associate Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and the 2014-2015 CIRS SFS-Q Faculty Fellow, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on “Victimization or Empowerment? The Case of Saudi Literature” on March 10, 2015. The lecture focused on several works authored by Saudi female novelists published outside of Saudi Arabia in places like Beirut, Casablanca, and Cairo. El-Zein examined works including Al-Firdaws Al Yabaab (The Barren Paradise) by Leila al-Juhni; Jahiliyyah (Ignorance) and Hind Wa L-Askar (Hind and the Soldiers) by Badriyyah al-Bishr; and Tawq Al Hamam (The Dove’s Collar) by Raja Alem.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has experienced an increase in female-authored literary fiction, despite the odds. These writings are significant, El-Zein explained, in their facility to carve a space, and indeed flourish, within highly restrictive cultural settings, or, what she calls, a “fundamentalist milieu.” Regardless of the fictive nature of the writing, these works can be considered contemporary cultural documents that question the rigid patriarchal system of knowledge upon which modern Saudi Arabia is founded.

Despite women’s general experiences of powerlessness within the institutional framework of modern Saudi Arabia, discourses about women take a paradoxically central role among the most powerful religious and political entities that all compete to be ordained as “the best supervisor of the moral order in the public sphere,” El-Zein said. In order to highlight these alternative literary testaments of Saudi Arabian life, she notes: “I analyze this conservative perspective through novels, as I consider them important accounts of the Saudi individual’s predicament in both the public and the domestic spheres.”

Through the intertextual juxtaposition of past and present, authors such as Raja Alem and Leila al Juhni situate modern Saudi Arabia within a historical continuum. The significance of this literary strategy alludes to the idea that seemingly entrenched contemporary ideologies have not always held sway, and that existing social, political, and religious infrastructures can be considered unstable and fleeting. In her work, “Alem’s message is that there have been periods of time when women in the kingdom were relatively better off than today, and when segregation between sexes wasn’t enforced as it is today,” El-Zein explained. By grounding contemporary political and religious infrastructures within a historical perspective, the authors reveal them to be brief moments in the long history of the civilization. Through such an empowering writing technique, the authors manage to destabilize contemporary power relations by suggesting that change is not only possible, but inevitable. El-Zein proposes that “through intertextuality, Alem and al-Juhni reclaim history and religion rather than attack them. They look at them, not as ideologies, but rather as emblematic institutions that have been manipulated as ideologies in order to maintain the existing powers.”

In conclusion, El-Zein illustrated how these texts are intricate and complicated, and proposed paying close attention to the novels in order to detect their many defiant qualities that are not immediately apparent. “A first reading of the texts,” she said, “unveils Saudi women as helpless and subdued, and concludes that these texts are victimization texts. A second close reading, however, that is more inquisitive and probing uncovers a different image, that of empowered women.”

Amira El-Zein is author of Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn and co-editor of Culture, Creativity and Exile. She translated several French authors into Arabic such as J.M.G Le Clézio, André Malraux, and Antonin Artaud. Her translation of the Palestinian poet, Mahmud Darwish, was nominated for the Pen International Prize of translation. Her poetry was chosen to be included in the United Nations’ Book of Poetry for 2015.

During her fellowship, El-Zein is working on a project titled, “Contemporary Saudi Literature: The Grueling Adaption to Modernity.” The research argues that contemporary Saudi literature conveys the dilemma of Saudi society torn between fascination with everything Western and obligations to unbending traditions. The question of tradition in its extremely arduous adaptation to rapid changes has led to a profound malaise, loss of identity, and confusion, which are characteristic of neocolonialism. The research will interpret several novels and poems that mirror the ordeals Saudi people experience when they challenge the harsh rules of the establishment. Comparisons will be made between Saudi literature and that written by other authors in the Gulf.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

The Gulf Family: Working Group I
2015-03-14 09:00 - 2015-03-15 17:00
On March 14-15, 2015, CIRS held its first working group on “The Gulf Family” where scholars convened to discuss both historical and current issues that affect the Gulf family structure. In contrast to the literature on the family in the greater Middle East, significant gaps in scholarship still exist in relation to the dynamics of the Arab Gulf family. Five grant proposals were awarded to various scholars to conduct fieldwork and original research on topics related to the Gulf family. In conjunction to the grant awards, CIRS held a two-day working group to discuss issues such as tribalism, mixed marriages, and the effects of religious education on family dynamics amongst other topics. Alongside the five grant awardees who presented their research proposals and preliminary findings, working group participants discussed issues currently facing the region.

The Gulf family has witnessed an immense amount of change over the past sixty years. In understanding the historical importance of the Gulf family one has to structure a comprehensive narrative that includes the different tribes and ethnicities which have resided in the region. By challenging the idea that the Gulf family is contingent on consanguinity for its existence, modern discursive narratives can be further disseminated. This illustrates the various historical constructions around nationalism, modernization and class. Housing and rent were examined in an effort to understand how space related to the family in the past and how physical change impacts the structure of the family living within households.

Underlying the presence of the Gulf family lie the notions of tribalism and asabiyya (tribal solidarity). In the Gulf, tribalism is a central feature in understanding the social dynamics prevalent in the region. The functional logic of the system uses kinship to explain solidarity through practice, which can be seen in expressions of tribal unity through literary, legal, political and media outlets. Discussants questioned to what extent was tribalism prevalent in family affairs and the significance of belonging to a tribe upon an individual’s identity. At present, the modern tribal identity is rarely expressed through the nomadic lifestyle it was once associated with, instead permeating societal sentiments and intellectual thought. However, in the case of Yemen, the impact of political and economic instability of the state has pressed citizens to rely upon their respective tribes to provide necessary services such as electricity and water. Rising prices of fuel and declining subsidies offered by the Yemeni government meant that citizens’ access to education and healthcare ultimately deteriorated. The permanence of the tribal order and solidarity in Yemen, amidst the state of political chaos, has helped maintain a sense order and organization within the country. Discussants later questioned the impact of tribalism on the nuclear family and the repercussions of re-tribalizing urban areas within the cities.

Tribalism has also had deeper ramifications on societal issues such as marriage. Amongst the local population, tribal inter-marriages are generally the norm. In the absence of a class system amongst locals in the Gulf, tribal lineage determines the social hierarchy present. In an effort to understand societal forces affecting the institution of marriage in the Gulf, discussants recognized the intensive structural transformations that the Gulf region has been undergoing in the past twenty years. As a result, consanguineous marriage has been undergoing changes, whereby data on Qatar shows mixed marriages are on the rise for men but on the decline for women. Previously, the rate of divorce amongst mixed marriage couples was much higher from 1985-2000 as compared to non-mixed marriages. However, in 2010-2013 the gap between mixed marriages and non-mixed marriages began to diminish. Discussants questioned the reversal of trend in divorce amongst the two groups of marriages hypothesizing the reasons to be increasing globalization, education and transnational flows.

Given the rising statistics on divorce in the Gulf, the legal systems’ negligence towards reforming child custody law has become increasingly problematic. Family law reforms have traditionally focused on the relationship between spouses, often neglecting the parent-child relationship that determines custody and guardianship. Case studies on Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have shown that further development on the concept of “best interest of the child” is in order. More specifically, Qatar has made efforts to promote the concept of “best interest” as a tool to reform custody determination whereas Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates chose to formulate guidelines for judges to follow in cases of custody determination.

While transitions within Gulf society have been taking place over the past decades, the impact of modernization efforts can be witnessed in the religious, linguistic, and educational aspects of family life. The formation of family life in the Gulf in itself is a religious act, encouraged by sunnah and hadith, which is often embraced by couples as a fundamental element to the marital relationship and their childrearing ways. Previous scholarship has explored the role religious education plays in women’s positioning within society. Theoretically, the rise of modern education was seen by scholars as a way to empower women into assuming roles within the public sphere. Yet, case studies have shown that the quality of education women were receiving tended to reproduce the traditional system and enforce gender segregation. Discussants also emphasized the rise of religious education within the household, whereby female Islamic preachers would conduct house visits in segregated spaces in an effort to educate women on relevant Islamic values to the home.

Islamic values within Gulf households have also hindered channels of communication between parent and child on more sensitive issues such as sexual and reproductive health education. As the median age of marriage is increasing, youth are increasingly confronted with their sexuality prior to marriage. The cultivation of shame rather than genuine guilt, especially within the family, is a byproduct of religious and tribal sentiments that dictate social relations in Gulf states. As a result, youth are expected to source their own information on sexual issues often resorting to the internet as an impartial source of education. However, the lack of sexual and reproductive health education amongst Gulf families raises youth’s vulnerabilities when confronted with issues such as rape, sexual harassment, and transmitted diseases. Parents often struggle with establishing open and honest channels of communication with their children, partially due to the linguistic barriers that bi-lingual families face and stigma attached with this sensitive topic. Discussants argued that religious teachings in fact encourage open discussion on such issues, within the scope of legally sanctioned marriage whereas, social pressure and familial inexperience constitute the biggest obstacles in the face of sexual health education.

See the working group agenda
Read the participants’ biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nadwa Al Dawsari, Sheba Center for International Development
Sanaa Al Harahsheh, Doha International Family Institute
Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Sebastian Maisel, Grand Valley State University
Dionysis Markakis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mohamed Mohieddin, Doha International Family Institute
Lena-Maria Möller, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Sophia Pandya, California State University at Long Beach
Jihan Safar, College de France, Sciences-Po
Laura Sjoberg, University of Florida
Amira Sonbol, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ali Kemal Tekin, Sultan Qaboos University
Valbona Zenku, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Haya Al-Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

The Politics of National Narratives: The Evolution of 'Revolution' in Egypt
2015-03-23 18:00 - 20:00
Laurie Brand, the Robert Grandford Wright Professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on “The Politics of National Narratives: The Evolution of ‘Revolution’ in Egypt” on March 23, 2015. The talk reflected some of the main themes presented in her recent book, Official Stories: Politics and National Narratives in Egypt and Algeria, including how ruling elites actively construct a national narrative for political purposes.

Brand described national narratives as collective stories, whether official or popular, that seek to define a country’s identity, history, and mission using particular historical events and heroes, and including purported collective cultural, linguistic, religious, or ethnic markers. As part of a broader study, Brand’s research examines the legitimizing role that national narratives play in regime maintenance, and questions how and why they may change. “I chose to look only at manifestations of an ‘official’ narrative. But even there, a narrative is multi-stranded, and can be quite complex because it includes not just the state’s version of national history, but also a range of values, aspirations, and identity elements,” she said.

In order to understand how national narratives are mobilized by state authorities, Brand explained that they are often employed as a relegitimizing force during times of contested succession or political rupture. National narratives involve “the creation of a ‘usable’ past; that is, the construction of a national history that can be mobilized, that can be channeled, and that can be used by a leadership for a demand, need, or a crisis in the present,” she argued. These narratives can be read in a variety of official and unofficial political, social, and cultural texts, whether through state proclamations, cultural texts the media, or the educational system, among many other outlets for imparting some form of collective instruction.

In particular, Brand analyzed traits of the official story of “revolution” in the case of Egypt, and noted that, since January 2011, many associate the concept of revolution with contemporary Egyptian events. However, the very concept of revolution has been integral to the Egyptian national narrative for well over a century, and, indeed, makes up the founding story of the Egyptian nation state as it emerged after July 1952. The language of revolution has been used throughout Egyptian political history as part of a legitimation strategy, especially during regime changes, whether through anti-colonial struggles, the Free Officers’ 1952 overthrow of King Faruq, or Anwar Sadat’s struggle to consolidate his rule after he succeeded Gamal Abd Al-Nasir. Even during the Mubarak era, fidelity to the 1952 revolution was regularly invoked during ceremonial speeches, but its importance began to wane as the regime moved farther and farther away from the 1952 revolution’s emphasis on economic and social justice to the implementation of neo-liberal economic policies.

In conclusion, Brand returned to the most recent invocations of the revolutionary narrative, and the struggles surrounding it. “The meaning of the term ‘revolution’ was constructed and re-constructed over time in Egypt,” and has evolved over the course of Egyptian history to take on different meanings, demonstrating that even if critical elements of such narratives are rescripted, the elements themselves remain central to the legitimation formulas of successive regimes or leaderships. With the overthrow of Mubarak and Morsi, and the coming to power of Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian people have been confronted with several overlapping and conflicting narratives of revolution or political change—January 25 and/or June 30—through which they must navigate. “These issues are not simply of academic interest, but are very real battles that are very much a part of ongoing struggles today in Egypt and in other parts of the Middle East over the future of the political system,” she concluded.

Laurie A. Brand directed the University of Southern California’s Center for International Studies from 1997 to 2000, the School of International Relations from 2006 to 2009, and is currently the director of its Middle East Studies Program. Brand served as president of the Middle East Studies Association in 2004, and she has chaired its Committee on Academic Freedom since 2006. A four-time Fulbright scholar to the Middle East and North Africa, a Carnegie scholar 2008 to 2010, and a Rockefeller Bellagio writing residency fellow in fall 2012, she is the author of Palestinians in the Arab World (Columbia University Press, 1988), Jordan’s Inter-Arab Relations (Columbia University Press, 1994), Women, the State and Political Liberalization (Columbia University Press, 1998), Citizens Abroad: States and Emigration in the Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Official Stories: Politics and National Narratives in Egypt and Algeria (Stanford University Press, 2014).

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications
