The Changing Security Dynamics of the Gulf: Working Group II
2015-05-13 09:00 - 2015-05-14 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On May 13-14, 2015, CIRS held its second Working Group on the “The Changing Security Dynamics of the Gulf” research initiative. Academics gathered for the second time to discuss their research findings and gather opinions on their papers from their fellow working group members. The topics that emerged covered a wide range of issues such as the politics of succession in Gulf monarchies, the rise of ISIS, business and politics, and the emerging energy landscape.

Scholars debated the strengths and limitations of a succession model in Gulf politics. Research findings showed that in the case of Oman, despite the absence of a son or a publicly designated heir, the political mechanism in place allowed for senior elders to choose the next heir to the throne when a death occurs. In Saudi Arabia, succession tends to be a more complicated process, as sons in line could be skipped based on senior Saudi leaders’ choices. Participants asked for a broader analytical context in order to contextualize the two case studies and further explanation on the rapid pace of change taking place in Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates’ behavior as a small state was also put into question. Due to the size and capacity of the Emirati army and air force, relative to other small states in the region, small state theory could not be applied to the UAE’s foreign policy decisions that encompass both soft and hard power. Participants speculated whether the generational change in power coincided with the distinctive shifts in foreign policy and how this contributed to the UAE’s ‘activist foreign policy’ within the region.

Undoubtedly, in the wake of the Arab uprisings in 2011, the Gulf regimes in power have been facing severe policy dilemmas. During the periods of 1980-2003, the three Gulf wars altered the positioning of the GCC states vis-à-vis Iran and Iraq and accelerated their integration into the Western military and security umbrella. The emergence of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the occupation of Iraq demonstrated how non-state violence was replacing inter-state conflict as the primary threat to regional security and stability in the Gulf. During the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the six GCC states provided varying degrees of political and logistical support. Policymakers were placed in the complicated position of having to balance their security relationship with the US against high levels of domestic opposition regarding the invasion. More recently, the threat to regional security posed by the Islamic State is confronting all the Gulf states. Saudi Arabia is particularly at risk from the ideological threat that ISIS presents. ISIS impacts both the internal and external security interest of the GCC, due to the existence of a network of IS cells within the Gulf states, and also as a result of the flow of Gulf nationals who are joining IS fighting forces.

In addition to the rise of ISIS, the United States’ perceived reluctance to intervene more aggressively in the Syrian civil war has also contributed to the GCC states taking on a more active role in regional security. At the current juncture there is an unprecedented willingness by GCC states to embrace military leadership in the region. Yet there is no coherent or coordinated response by the six states. The escalating ideological tensions between different states and the lack of trust and intelligence sharing amongst them have negatively impacted the development of a collective security architecture. From 2011 onwards we have witnessed a distinctive shift in the foreign policies of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Participants at the working group suggested that this new form of interventionism displayed by some of the GCC states brought with it severe risks that could directly impact Gulf security. For example, GCC interventionism in North Africa has come with extensive financial commitments. Meeting this commitments and managing their relationships with North Africa may increasing pose a challenge to the GCC states particularly if oil prices continue to plummet.

The production of oil and shale gas in the United States as a result of fracking and horizontal drilling has had significant strategic implications for the energy landscape in the Gulf region. Participants hypothesized whether the United States’ changed energy outlook corresponded with a reduction in its military and strategic engagement in the Middle East. India, for example, has an overwhelming dependence on oil from the Gulf, whereby oil imports from the Gulf constitute eighty percent of their annual need. Moreover, approximately $32 billion in annual remittances are sent back to India every year from the six million expatriates that live in the Gulf region. Despite these strong energy and commercial ties, India has been significantly absent in its engagement with the Gulf region, choosing instead to become increasingly closer to the United States and the European Union. Nevertheless, India is a rising, albeit reluctant power in the region.

Diversification of economies in the Gulf has been a long stated goal for the Gulf Cooperation Council, but in light of falling oil prices, the need has become even more essential. In fact, economic diversification may be difficult in the Gulf due to the protective business system in existence. In the majority of the six Gulf states the business communities have a history of political influence and often support the socio-political order in place. In recent years, Gulf ruling family members have entered the business and private sector in growing numbers. This can be attributed to the growing amount of ruling family members who are unable to assume positions in politics, thus pursuing economic ventures. As the Arab Spring has shown, the business elite continue to benefit from the political status quo. Protests and political unease in Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman were initially triggered by youth’s anger and resentment towards the unequal distribution of rent and rising unemployment. Additionally, youth in the region are not separate elements from the tribal networks in place. However, generational differences exist in terms of their perception of themselves as stakeholders in society. Inevitably, ruling elites will face conflicting priorities between the nation’s interests in promoting youth employment, social services and personal stakes they may have as businesspeople. Participants questioned the nature of the new ruling bargain in the Gulf – if ruling families continue to believe that security requirements trump democratization processes, what are the implications for Gulf societies in the future?

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Participants and Discussants:

Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Khalid Almezaini, Qatar University
Alanoud Alsharekh, Supreme Council for Planning and Development, Kuwait
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Gawdat Bahgat, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Study – National Defense University
Nader Entessar, University of South Alabama
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Joseph A. Kéchichian, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies; Kéchichian
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
Marc Valeri, Center for Gulf Studies – University of Exeter
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nussaibah Younis, Project on Middle East Democracy

Article by Haya Al-Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

Strengthening the Family in Qatar: Challenges and Required Actions
2015-05-25 18:00 - 20:00
Noor Al Malki Al Jehani, Executive Director of the Doha International Family Institute, delivered the final CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the 2014-2015 academic year with a lecture on “Strengthening the Family in Qatar: Challenges and Required Actions” on May 25, 2015. Al Malki gave an overview of the historical evolution of family policies in Qatar, resulting in “the family cohesion agenda,” in the Qatar Vision 2030 and the National Development Strategy of 2011-2016. As an introductory note, she stated that “while I think that Qatari families should be the primary targets of policymaking in Qatar, these policies should also take in consideration the wellbeing of all families in Qatar,” including expatriates who make up a majority of the population.

Al Malki pointed out that although people tend to view the notion of family through their own personal sets of beliefs and experience, the family structure continues to be the defining basic unit of most societies. This is “because healthy, functioning families play an essential role in individual, human, social, and economic development,” and the dissolution of this structure places a heavy burden on governments, she said.

Historically, the Qatari family structure has evolved differently to that of the predominant Western nuclear family. The formation of the Qatari family is governed by Islamic principles, and incorporates responsibility towards members of the extended family, including inheritance rights. The historical structuring of the Qatari family is also based on tribal affiliations, which is an organizing societal force that predates that of the state in the Gulf region and continues to this day. “The tribe might have lost some of its authority over its member families, and its economic role, but it is still a major force in family life, and is supported by the continuing practice of intermarriage and a unique system of tribe and family-based neighborhoods,” Al Malki explained.

The family as the basic unit of society became enshrined in the Qatar constitution with the establishment of the State of Qatar in the second half of the twentieth century. Various state laws have been built around the family as a social institution in order to further support and regulate it. The first official family policies were introduced in the 1960s, and revolved around the implementation of social security laws to provide monetary and housing assistance to the most vulnerable in society, including low-income families, widows, divorcees, and orphans.

In the 1980s, as the Qatari state developed and grew more prosperous, “Qatari men were growing richer, and they started to explore the Middle East and other countries,” leading to increased marriages between Qatari men and non-Qatari women, Al Malki explained. It was during this time that the government took a step to directly intervene by introducing a law to regulate marriage to non-nationals, with the exception of GCC citizens, as a response to “growing problems related to nationality claims,” she said.

In the 1990s, Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser played a major role in the social development of Qatar as President of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs and the founder of a number of private organizations including the Family Development Center, the Family Consultation Center, and the Foundation for the Protection of Children and Women. All the organizations were tasked with a mission of community development by focusing on strengthening the wellbeing of the family, and promoting the rights of women and children in Qatar. Importantly, Al Malki said, Sheikha Moza’s influence was not limited to Qatar, and she established the Doha International Family Institute (DIFI), with a mandate to promote the family at the national, regional, and international levels to research policy and outreach.”

In order to achieve family cohesiveness in the Qatar Vision 2030, “the strategy seeks to address some of the trends affecting Qatari families, such as the rising divorce rates, high proportions of women who marry late or remain single for life, the growing levels of family violence, the dependence on domestic helpers and caring for children, family-work conflict, and the alarming rate of personal debt among Qatari families.” Al Malki noted that the strategy focuses on familial dysfunction, and fails to adopt a more comprehensive approach to strengthening the family. This is because of the lack of civil society organizations and national expertise and capacity geared towards these issues. “Family strategies are multi-sectorial in nature; they cannot be implemented by one ministry alone,” she argued. “The lack of community-based and non-governmental organizations is a major challenge.”

Al Malki concluded by making some recommendations for the future, including an increase in government and private sector funding for civil society organizations, as well as an ease of the strict laws governing the establishment of such entities. As a first step, she recommended establishing degrees in family studies to be given at educational institutions in order to build national expertise. “Achieving Qatar’s Vision of cohesive families requires a partnership between the government, civil society, the private sector, and, first and foremost, families themselves,” she concluded.

Noor Al Malki Al Jehani served as the Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs from 2009-2011, and prior to that was the director of the Women’s Department of that same council. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Qatar Foundation for Social Work, and was a member of the Qatar National Human Rights Committee from 2003 until 2011. Al Malki was an expert in the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against women from 2013-14. She participated in the drafting of many national strategies and plans, including Qatar’s first national development strategy 2011-16, where she was the chair of the drafting committee of the strategy of family cohesion and women’s empowerment. She also participated in the review and drafting of several legislations pertaining to social and women’s issues.

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

Re-Emerging West Asia Working Group II
2015-06-14 09:00 - 2015-06-15 17:00
On June 14–15, 2015, CIRS held a second working group meeting under the “Re-Emerging West Asia” research initiative. This project’s geographic focus includes the countries of the Persian Gulf, the Levant, and the three South Caucasus states. Scholars gathered around the table to receive critical feedback and commentary on draft chapters that have been written for the project. At the meeting a range of topics were covered, including a historical overview of the region’s geopolitics, pipeline politics, civil society, the power of non-state actors, and finally, the rise of oligarchs and white-collar criminal networks in the South Caucasus.

Opening the session was a discussion on the impact that history and empire has had on the structure of the region. West Asia has been defined by the rule and collapse of three great imperial powers, and more recently, the problematic rise of the transnational Islamic State. While the post-Soviet countries of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia have remained mostly internally stable after the fall of the Soviet Union, a new regional hegemon to replace the USSR has not emerged to create a new regional order. The modernization project has been difficult due to the need for an ideological and cultural hegemony that can be extended to large sections of the populations. During the course of the discussion, scholars suggested that there is a need for a more nuanced definition of nationalism in relation to the modernization project in the South Caucasus. Discussants also stressed the need to highlight the different experiences of autonomous regions in West Asia have had with the colonizing powers, and the impact this has had on territorial bids for self-determination in the post-Soviet era.

Russia’s soft power relations in the South Caucasus thrives through religious institutions, such as the orthodox churches in Georgia and Armenia, as well quasi-governmental organizations that are equivalent to the role of NGOs in civil society. Project participants suggested that Russia engages in the South Caucasus region by reaching out to close constituencies in order to gain their support. Discussants mentioned the existing contradictions between certain post-Soviet countries’ support of Russia as a state but dislike for the Putin government currently in power. These inherent contradictions highlight the differences between European value-based engagements in the region in comparison to Russia’s engagement model based on political coercion. Participants also stressed the need for further elaboration on alternative forms of soft power such as ethnic nationalism, the Russian language and the diasporas which reside within Russia today.

In the post-Soviet era, issues of ethnicity in Iran and Azerbaijan have influenced political and social relations. Working group participants suggested that in the case of Azerbaijan ethnicity has been used as a political lever in devising policy, whereas in Iran, ethnic issue have taken a back seat in terms of foreign policy relations. This can be explained by understanding the roots of state legitimacy whereby Azerbaijan finds it in its nationalism as opposed to Iran which bases it more on religious sentiment. In the case of the Kurdish question, both Iran and Turkey have struggled with providing this ethnic population with the legitimacy that it needs. More recently, the encroaching power and seizing of territory by the Islamic state in areas such as Kobane has meant that Turkish-Kurdish relations will have to be re-examined in light of these new regional security threats.

In regards to the pipeline politics of the region, the South Caucasus is an area where Turkey, Iran, and Russia have competed for centuries. The significance of this region does not only lie in its natural resources but also the multiple routes that connect the South Caucasus with the larger Caspian Sea reserves. Power leverage differs between the three countries whereby Iran has ample energy resources and is in a good geopolitical position, Turkey has no resources but has a unique location and soft power, and finally Russia has both energy reserves and hard power. In recent weeks, with the recent voting developments in Ankara, Turkey’s newest proposed pipeline project ‘Turkish Stream’ has been facing issues of third-party access to the trans-Adriatic pipeline.

Until the recent elections, the AKP party in Turkey were able to present themselves as a new political force with a distinctive foreign policy in the region. The AKP’s focus, in regards to the Middle East, was on desecuritization and the consolidation of Turkey’s regional status in relation to its neighbors. Turkey was able to brand itself by using soft power through its foreign aid programs and more recently, its acceptance of over 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Participants questioned whether AKP’s behavior could be classified as “Neo-Ottomanism” and whether neighboring countries buy into this narrative. Additionally, discussants emphasized the need for a more thorough analysis of the refugee crisis Turkey is facing and the distinctions between it and other Middle Eastern states who have instead chosen to close down their borders.

Participants also discussed issues of white-collar crime and the rise of oligarchs, noting that the emergence of the economic elite in Armenia has largely distorted reform efforts within the country. More interestingly, during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict the state relied on these oligarchs for consistency in terms of tax collection and the provision of services. Discussants argued that in addition to oligarchs’ influence in the political economy some also resorted to violent means to realize their demands. In the case of Georgia, even though their economic variables are very similar to those of Armenia a divergence has taken place when comparing the corruption levels in the two countries. According to the World Bank, corruption and white-crime levels dramatically plummeted after the 2004 Rose Revolution. Even though the occurrence of the revolution itself does not explain the plummeting of crime and corruption level, the revolution was able to temporarily break down the corrupt structure in place and allowed younger and newer people to assume positions in government.

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Participants and Discussants:

Hamid Ahmadi, Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies
Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Meliha Benli Altunışık, Middle East Technical University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Richard Giragosian, Regional Studies Center
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Elaheh Koolaee, University of Tehran
Alexander Kupatadze, School of International Relations at St Andrews University
Anatol Lieven, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
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
Mahmood Monshipouri, San Francisco State University
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

Art and Cultural Production in the GCC Working Group I
2015-08-30 09:00 - 2015-08-31 17:00
On August 30-31, 2015, CIRS held the first Working Group under its research initiative on “Art and Cultural Production in the GCC.” Included in the meeting were academics, art historians, museum specialists as well as a selection of curators and visual culture specialists. 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 viability of art as soft power in the GCC region, the role of the Gulf states as patrons of the arts, authenticity, cultural appropriation, and censorship in the region.

Opening the discussion, participants considered the viability of art as soft power amongst the GCC states and the role artists play within these societies. As Bourdieu argues, the value of a work of art is not set by the artist themselves, but by the field of production which produces its value. Hence, when trying to understand how art and cultural production in the Gulf can be utilized for soft power gains, one must not only recognize the direct producers of the art work but also all the agents and institutions, such as critics, curators, collectors, and patrons involved in valuing the art. In the case of the Gulf, artistic development has been taking place in Sharjah and Kuwait since the 1960s and 1970s, yet only recently has international attention formally recognized art and cultural development in the Gulf region as being financially lucrative. This has been largely stimulated by the patronage of the arts, whereby certain Gulf states such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have began to heavily sponsor and fund such initiatives. By recognizing the different actors involved in the game of soft power, it become easier to understand the intersectionalities that exist between internal and external interests in relation to art and cultural production within the region.

In terms of art, authenticity and cultural appropriation in the Gulf, discussants explored the relationship between authenticity and professionalism, and how that ties into issues of citizenship and nationality. If heritage sites in Abu Dhabi and Qatar were to be perceived as art installations, the issue of cultural appropriation becomes deeply problematic considering such places evoke the idea of a mono-identity by marginalizing the other. A certain level of disconnect exists between the arts and the community the art is being created in, which also extends to the relationship of museums with their surrounding communities. The philosophy behind museums is that they should be embedded within their community by providing a necessary intellectual and cultural service. For example, in Bahrain the Pearling Pathway is an artistic initiative that consists of 21 different historical sites such as mosques, schools and underwater oyster beds which depict traditional Bahraini communities’ lives before the discovery of oil. Likewise, in Oman, Qasab Castle is a newly-converted museum which is funded from top-down and managed from bottom-up, in terms of economics and local employment. Nevertheless, these two examples are often the exception, considering most museums in the Gulf often struggle with engaging non-museum entities.

Feasibility and sustainability plans, something most European museums have to go through in order to apply for national funds, are a rarity in the case of Gulf museums. Most feasibility studies are conducted internally which largely limits community engagement and venues for discussion around such subjects. Similar issues can be perceived when charting the development of contemporary Gulf cinema. Gulf cinema has been a small, but thriving affair since the 1970s, however more recently, there has been a rush of financial support and social interest for young filmmakers from the region. After a while, film festivals and film school programs were downsized dramatically or closed completely. This has partially been due to censorship issues and because correct feasibility and sustainability plans did not take place before the initiative was launched.

When it comes to understanding the role of the Gulf states as patrons of the arts, discussants problematized the type of vision each art institution and museum was shaping. For instance, at the signing of the contract for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, there was significant concern from the artistic community about the importation of western art considering most of these art collections were curated by foreign art consultants. Similarly in Dubai, art fairs and auctions were market-driven due to the narrative that Dubai was a crossroad for art acquirement in the region. In the case of museums in Sharjah and Kuwait, the vision was focused on supporting local artists through the provision of free art space and educational programs for enrichment of skills. Participants also discussed the educational aspect of the art industry in the Gulf, whereby many art programs train students adequately, but fail to create a critical academic community that is able to nourish a culture beyond state patronage. It is also necessary to examine who is teaching the new generations of artists in the region, since many of the experts are not based locally and happen to be transient.

In regards to censorship in the arts, the Gulf region has had several instance were art fairs and exhibitions were censored due to ‘cultural sensitivities’. In a region as young as the Gulf, the dynamics of the contemporary art world are always in flux. Individuals and collective actors play a crucial role in determining how the art market regulates what is permissible and what is not. For example, certain instances of censorship have targeted pieces of public art because of the level of exposure they had to the public eye. Discussants questioned the nature of public art in Gulf cities that are not pedestrian-friendly, which in turn encourages architectural pieces and buildings to often be the only existing example of art in public space.

Discussants concluded that in the absence of oil fortunes, the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, have had to rely on alternative funding opportunities unrelated to the state, pushing them to engage with various community members in order to fund artistic initiatives through cash donations or collection loans. Discussants later noted that sometimes, in the case of the Gulf region, states can benefit from a lack of wealth in regards to creativity and artistic production.

See the meeting agenda
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Participants and Discussants:

Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ian Almond, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Asli Altinisik, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Sheyma Buali, BBC Arabic Festival
Nancy Demerdash, Princeton University
Elizabeth (Beth) Derderian, Northwestern University
Kristin Eggeling, University of Saint Andrews
Amira El-Zein, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Pamela Erskine-Loftus, Northwestern University in Qatar
Karen Exell, University College London in Qatar
Maymanah Farhat, Ayyam Gallery
Lesley Gray, University College London in Qatar
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Robert Kluijver, Paris School of International Affairs
Umber Latafat, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Thomas Leisten, Qatar Museums
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Noof Mohammed, National Museum of Qatar
Nadia Mounajjed, Abu Dhabi University, UAE
Firat Oruc, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Jelena Trkulja, Qatar Museums
Sarina Wakefield, The Open University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mohamed Zayani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Haya Al Noaimi, Research Analyst at CIRS

The Geopolitics of Natural Resources in the Middle East Working Group I
2015-09-27 09:00 - 2015-09-28 17:00
On September 27–28, 2015, CIRS convened the first Working Group under its research initiative on “The Geopolitics of Natural Resources in the Middle East.” The session was attended by ecologists, geologists, economists, political scientists, and other scholars with expertise on environmental issues in the Middle East. The purpose of the meeting was to present key geopolitical and environmental concerns in the Middle East, and to identify gaps in the existing scholarship on the subject. Over the course of two days, participants debated a number of topics that not only covered a general overview of geopolitics and natural resources in the region, but also included case studies on environmental conditions in specific countries.

The Working Group opened with a debate on applying the theoretical framework of “geopolitics” to the topic of natural resources in the Middle East. Straddling vast reserves of oil and natural gas, this region has been vulnerable to a host of geopolitical forces since the beginning of the twentieth century. Major powers, including European countries, the United States, and Russia, have historically attempted to remain influential in the resource-rich states of the Middle East, and these dynamics of external intervention relating to regional resources have had a substantial impact on the region’s political economy. More recently, shifts in the energy sector accompanied by a significant decrease in global oil prices may end up impacting the geopolitical arrangements in the region. Working group participants considered the possibility of waning U.S. interest in the Middle East as a result of diminishing dependency on Persian Gulf hydrocarbons due to the American surge in domestic shale oil and gas production. Asian powers, including China and India are emerging as key consumers of Middle Eastern hydrocarbons, which could also have geopolitical consequences for the region. Additionally, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) brings attention to the role of transnational non-state actors and regional natural resources. Working Group participants discussed ISIS’s conquest of territory around the Tigris-Euphrates river system, paying particular attention to the question of whether ISIS is strategically attempting to build a “water” empire or whether it is primarily interested in controlling territory and oil. There was a general consensus amongst the group to conceive of geopolitics, in the context of this research initiative, as a general metaphor for examining the multiple transnational, regional, and domestic dynamics through which politics intersects with the management of environment and resources in the region.

Natural resources have significantly impacted state formation in the Middle East. There has been a continuing sense of instability in the region over the course of the past few years, particularly since the Arab Uprisings and the growth of ISIS. The oil-rich regimes of the Gulf, including that of Bahrain—the primary Gulf state to experience its own significant Arab uprising—were largely able to maintain political stability, and contain any attempts at anti-regime political mobilization. Working group participants as such highlighted the difference between the GCC and other Arab countries in relation to the Arab Spring, and attributed the Gulf states’ relative political stability to their exceptional status as wealthy oil and natural gas states, and the institutional path dependencies and resilience of the regional rentier bargains. In addition, natural resources have also affected economic diversification in the region, not only within the GCC but also as seen in the broader Middle East. Gulf economies are built around capital derived from an abundance of natural resources and an unlimited access to relatively cheap (migrant) labor, as a result of which the theory on economics of scarcity does not appear to apply to this context. Scholars discussed the kind of economy that could actually be built as a result of these particular conditions prevalent in the GCC. There has been an assumption that rentier states are doomed to fail in terms of achieving substantial economic diversification, as the existing political economy does not encourage innovation or high labor productivity. Over the past decade or more GCC countries have attempted to encourage economic diversification through pushing forward state projects on innovation and focusing efforts on the creation of knowledge-based economies. Many of the Gulf states also rely on portfolio diversification and Sovereign Wealth Fund investments as a means by which to move away from their dependence on hydrocarbon based revenues.

As is the case globally, the Middle East has increasingly been adversely affected by climate change. Some of the environmental concerns facing the region include critical groundwater depletion, water salinity, increasing temperatures, and pollution. Additionally, the paucity of rivers and lack of hydropower and coal deposits have proven to be persistent obstacles faced by the states in the region. For much of its history, people in the Middle East have relied upon an abundant livestock with largely sheep and goats being kept due to their ability to handle the climate. However, things have changed with the discovery of oil and natural gas reserves, and states have stepped in to manage the resources with fossil fuels becoming vital to rentier politics. There has been growing urbanization which has led to rural marginalization and degradation of traditional agricultural hubs in the Middle East. Rising income levels have also caused rapid lifestyles changes and the development of consumer culture in the GCC which has a direct impact on environmental resources, straining existing water and energy sources and leading to discussion of how to curtail waste and consumption patterns. While discussing the political ecology of renewable and non-renewable resources and how the GCC landscape has been shaped by its fossil fuel industry, participants raised the need to develop a more robust literature on environmentalism, environmental attitudes, and environment behavior in the Gulf as only a fragmentary collection of data on these topics exist. Since large numbers of foreigners reside in the Middle East, the discussants also stressed the need to learn more about the attitudes and behavior of non-nationals in Gulf in relation to conservation and environment.

In addition to a general overview of the region, the Working Group included country specific studies to highlight certain environmental problems. Mining of a less known natural resource – the sand, to meet the increasing demands of the global construction industry was examined. According to statistics, sand in Morocco is being extracted at a greater rate than it is being renewed. This has a severe impact on the environment resulting in degradation of coastline, destruction of wetlands, rising sea levels and subsequent flooding. Hence, sand mining poses a threat to the Arab World where most of the capital cities are located on the coast. The issue of aforestation and “greening projects” in the United Arab Emirates was also discussed. Dubai has a vision to establish the first Middle East rainforest for educational and cultural purposes by 2020. However, most of the species being used for that purpose are exotic ones that rely on too much water which exacerbates the already water-stressed conditions in the Emirate. During the Working Group experts discussed the need to counter current greening trends in the GCC and invest more energy in researching how indigenous species that use less water and have the ability to withstand high temperatures could be more broadly planted. Across the Middle East there is also a need to invest in genetically engineered crops that have stress-tolerant genes to withstand the frequent droughts that have been recently plaguing the region.

The discussants noted that the Middle East is a very water scarce region, expected to experience acute water shortages in the near future as a result of population pressures and climate change. Rising temperatures and a decrease in precipitation have adversely impacted the water levels. There are more heat waves, prolonged droughts and destructive floods in the region than before. For example, Yemen is facing a serious water crisis with UNICEF anticipating the country to run out of water by 2020. The majority of the population in Yemen lacks access to safe water, and water-borne diseases are widespread. There are studies which attribute the current state collapse to the severe water crisis in the country. Water scarcity is the most direct environmental issue for the Middle East, and has a major impact on food security as agricultural production depends on water availability. Water shortages are devastating for the Yemeni economy as the country is also increasingly food insecure and need to enhance domestic agricultural production. In order to address water and food security concerns, GCC countries have established institutions to increase domestic production despite the precarious nature of their water resources, and also to develop overseas farmland in order to secure their food imports. For example, Qatar, amongst other GCC states, has acquired farmland in Sudan and well as in other destinations, although to date none of these efforts has led to active agricultural production overseas.

While the participants in the Working Group addressed a multitude of topics ranging from geopolitics to environmental problems in the Middle East, they all acknowledged that there is limited scholarship and data available on the environment in the region from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Through this research initiative the hope is to fill some of the existing gaps in literature.

See the working group meeting agendaRead participant biographiesRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Madalla Alibeli, United Arab Emirates UniversityZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFarid Chaaban, American University of BeirutJill Crystal, Auburn UniversityLaura El-Katiri, Oxford Institute for Energy StudiesAli El-Keblawy, University of SharjahClement Henry, National University of SingaporeMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMartin Keulertz, Texas A&M Nexus GroupLaurent Lambert, SESRI – Qatar UniversitySuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMaria Snoussi, Université Mohammed V in Rabat, MoroccoJeannie Sowers, University of New Hampshire, DurhamWessel N. Vermeulen, University of OxfordElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarEckart Woertz, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs

Article by Umber Latafat (SFS ’16) and Zahra Babar, CIRS Associate Director for Research

Environment and Human Insecurity in the Middle East
2015-09-29 18:00 - 20:00
CIRS invited Jeannie Sowers, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, to deliver the inaugural Monthly Dialogue of the 2015-2016 academic year on September 29, 2015. The lecture titled “Environment and Human Insecurity in the Middle East,” highlighted how human well-being and health are directly and indirectly affected by environmental challenges. Important challenges include the provision of urban infrastructures for water and sanitation and the impacts of man-made climate change on the Middle East and North Africa on water resources.

Sowers introduced the notion of an ecological shadow to highlight how environmental challenges often require decision-making and participation across multiple scales. An ecological shadow, she explained, is the “environmental harm from patterns of production, consumption, and disposal that is displaced elsewhere. This displacement can be to other people, it can be to other places, it can be, of course, displaced to other countries,” as well as to future generations. While environmental awareness has been steadily increasing over time, the conceptual distancing of ecological harm remains a serious and widespread problem all over the world, and is, essentially, a prerequisite of economies driven by mass production and consumption. Industrial and industrializing nations often defer negative ecological costs upon those who are most vulnerable to ecological shifts, including those weakest on the political scale, such as poor communities and other species.

Sowers argued that there are a whole host of everyday issues that are often neglected when considering environmental challenges and the causes of human insecurity. One such example is the ubiquitous plastic water bottle that is widely produced, consumed, and discarded in the countries of the Middle East. Despite the seemingly innocuous everyday use of plastic water bottles, Sowers argued that the material is a local as well as a global hazard at the level of its production and disposal. Around 8 percent of the global production of fossil fuels is used to sustain the plastics industry, as a feedstock and as energy used in manufacturing. Even if Middle Eastern countries made serious efforts to encourage or enforce the reuse and recycling of plastics, there still remains a problem with the material’s non-biodegradability. The seemingly small and everyday issue of plastic water bottles, thus becomes a wider issue of environmental politics related to the political economy of plastic, and the ecological shadow it casts.

Inadequate government policies and activities regarding the collection and disposal of solid waste, especially in the poorer countries of the Middle East and North Africa, means that the accumulation of garbage, and especially plastics, have become serious problems for the surrounding environment, including the contamination of air and water, with direct negative consequences for human health. Such solid waste problems also persist in “developed” countries. Despite some success with recycling efforts, to date, “the dominant strategy of waste management in the United States remains simply putting it somewhere else,” Sowers said.

Landfills are something that can perhaps be tolerated by countries with large, empty landmasses, but for a small and overcrowded country like Lebanon, for example, this solution is unsustainable in the long term. With the closure of the main landfill on the outskirts of Beirut, there was a build-up of solid waste on the streets if the city, and an outcry by the affected residents. “For environmental studies, this whole field of inquiry about ecological shadows has been very closely tied to research on environmental justice, which, of course, calls our attention to the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harm for a given activity, or a given product,” she said.

Sowers offered Beirut’s “You Stink” campaign as a case study example of the convergence of political failure, the environmental effects of mass production and everyday consumption, and the resulting social activism that calls for environmental justice and government accountability. “The campaign itself,” she said “is very interesting in that it mimics many of the strategies, the tactics, and the discourse that we see not only in other environmental campaigns in the Middle East and North Africa, but also, of course, in the Arab uprisings more broadly.”

Ultimately, the ecological shadows associated with the global fossil fuel economy have a long-term effect on climate change and the disruption of weather patterns, which for the Middle East, is a concern considering the already arid nature of many countries. Climate change and increases in weather and water pattern instability has a direct effect on human health and wellbeing, with many communities becoming increasingly displaced, both internally and internationally.

In conclusion, Sowers asked a basic, but fundamental question: “what can we do to reduce the intensity of these shadows?” She gave several suggestions, including technocratic resource management; increasing resource efficiency for any given product; engaging in demand management; increasing mechanisms for environmental accounting by exposing hidden costs to consumers, producers, and governments; and environmental regulation and taxation. Ultimately, however, none of these suggestions will work successfully unless there is a unified, systemic, and inclusive approach to ecological shadows. “In order to have social engagement, you have to start dealing with patterns of economic and political exclusion,” Sowers concluded.

Jeannie Sowers focuses on the intersections between political economy and environmental issues in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt where she has conducted extensive field research. She holds a PhD from Princeton University and a BA from Harvard University. Selected publications include Environmental Politics in Egypt: Experts, Activists, and the State (Routledge, 2013), The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt (co-edited with C. Toensing, Verso, 2012), and articles in Development and Change, Climatic Change, Middle East Report, and International Environmental Agreements. She is on the editorial boards of the journals Global Environmental Politics and Middle East Report.

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

China and the Middle East Working Group Meeting II
2015-10-04 09:00 - 2015-10-05 17:00
On October 4–5, 2015, CIRS held a second working group meeting under its research project on “China and the Middle East.” Contributors were assembled to receive critical feedback and commentary on the draft chapters that they had written on range of topics, including amongst other things, the nature of Chinese foreign policy interests in the region, China’s increasing security engagements in the Middle East, the applicability of the “Chinese Model” to Middle Eastern states, and China’s role in the Iranian nuclear deal negotiations. Case studies were also presented on Israel’s role in the development of Taiwan’s military and defense capabilities, on the Sino-Saudi relationship and on Sino-Turkish relations.

Chinese policy makers tend to view the world through four concentric geographic circles, and rank countries in order of importance to Chinese interests based on their proximity to China. Accordingly, China’s primary attention is devoted to ensuring the security of its domestic realm and sovereign territory, followed by prioritizing relations with those countries that press upon its immediate land and sea borders. Subsequent Chinese foreign policy engagement is more or less active depending on whether or not a state is located close or far to its immediate periphery. Within this analysis, the location of the Middle East may not make it one of the most critical regions drawing Chinese commitment and attention. Yet, for a number of reasons in spite of its somewhat geographic remoteness from the Chinese borders, the Middle East is growing in importance to China. One of the reasons for this is that, in the Chinese imagination, the Middle East is in fact an extension of the Chinese periphery, and particularly if seen through the lens of its cultural and historical connectivity to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Central Asia and its neighborhood certainly falls into China’s direct realm of hegemony and fundamental interest. Additionally, internal discussions in China on the spillover and impact of extremism and terrorism that may threaten China’s domestic security, Chinese scholars and analysts clearly identify linkages with the Middle East. The Middle East is also increasingly central to China as a source of energy, and Chinese economic investments in the region have been growing exponentially over the past decade.

Despite the growing importance of the Middle East, China continues to demonstrate a reluctance to step outside the parameters of its traditional role in the region, or to change its standard policy line of offending no one, maintaining or attempting to maintain cordial relations with everyone, and avoiding direct conflict or confrontation with any of the states in the region. Working Group participants discussed the obvious mismatch between Chinese interests in the region and China’s efforts to protect those interests, and suggested that in the Middle East China punches below its weight. However, despite the fact that we see no obvious signs of China taking on a stronger military presence in the Middle East, there are indications that Chinese security-related activities are expanding. Amongst other things, Chinese peacekeeping forces have been deployed in the Middle East, combat fleets have been active in the Gulf of Aden, and China has also taken part in joint military exercises. In addition, with the growing presence of Chinese economic investments and infrastructural projects the security of Chinese citizens has become of paramount concern and there are now several Chinese private security contractors operating across several Middle Eastern states.

China also appears to be seeking to develop more robust partnerships within the Middle East and has expanded its diplomatic efforts in the region. A case in point is the initiative shown by Beijing in terms of playing a key role in mediating Iran’s nuclear settlement with the West. China has a long standing history with Iran, and has carefully cultivated this relationship as it sees Iran as one of the pivotal countries in the Persian Gulf sure to play a leading role in the years ahead. At the same time, Chinese engagements in the Middle East are clearly informed by the necessity of avoiding antagonizing the United States or of being perceived as adopting a position contrary to American interests in the region. Up until 2013 in relation to the nuclear issue China adopted a policy of trying to keep both the United States and Iran happy, however post 2013 Beijing adopted a much more proactive role in bringing about some resolution to the ongoing hostility between Iran and the West. Amongst other factors propelling this change in direction were China’s strategic calculations in maintaining stability of Persian Gulf energy supplies, an increasing wariness in China around the possibility of a full scale militarized conflict between the United States and Iran, as well as the ascension of Xi Jinping to the Chinese Presidency and the impact this has had on China’s global engagements.

During the Working Group scholars also discussed the applicability of the “China Model” of political and economic governance to the context of the Middle East. It was suggested that despite the similar authoritarian and state-centric modes of governance visible in China and most of the Middle East, the Chinese Model cannot be easily replicated in the region primarily because of the lack of state capacity, weak institutional structures, and also the very different economic preconditions existing in Middle Eastern states as compared to China. While the China Model of developmentalism may remain appealing to Middle Eastern elites as an ideal type, the necessary requirements for establishing it are lacking in the Middle East.

Working Group participants also presented select case studies on the historical evolution of Taiwanese-Israeli military cooperation, how Islam has informed the Sino-Saudi relationship, and the changing dimensions of Turkey’s relations with China. While Israel has publicly prioritized its relationship with the PRC, it has also actively engaged in working with Taiwan over the decades on developing Taiwanese defense systems, often through private or backdoor engagements. Although Israel has been a provider of both arms and technology to Taiwan, its key contribution has perhaps been in the provision of “software” in the shape of the expertise and knowledge of Israeli scientists who worked actively to develop Taiwanese military capacity.

While the Sino-Turkish relationship has not always been an easy one, at the current juncture both countries consider the other to be a strategic partner with whom they must work. Both states have serious economic incentives which propel them to cooperate, despite the fact that politically they have very different views of the Middle East. Turkey has long been a close ally to the United States and NATO member states, and also has a self-perception as a “civilizational” power in the Middle East and Asia. Turkey considers itself to be a normative regional model for the Middle East, and adopts an agenda for supporting reform across the region. For China it is current quite critical that it inoculate itself from international criticism on how it is managing the Uighur issue, and in this context the relationship with Turkey becomes quite critical. China and Turkey are placing considerable effort in developing their bilateral relationship, albeit primarily fixed in economic cooperation, and showing considerable restraint in terms of avoiding any confrontation on the political or foreign policy front.

Saudi Arabia continues to be one of China’s most important relationships in the Middle East. Existing academic scholarship on the Sino-Saudi relationship tends to focus on the economic and strategic underpinnings of this relationship, quite naturally so given that the Kingdom is a pivotal energy provider to China. Invariably some of these works also address the role that Islam has played in China’s engagements with Saudi Arabia, particularly from the perspective of the state. The Working Group concluded with a broader discussion examining “Islamic connectivities” that have historically existed and have informed the Sino-Saudi relationship. Group discussion touched upon the role of various non-state actors and groups, including Islamic missionaries in Chine and the ways in which Islamic symbols are employed and utilized by the two states.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Mohammed Al-Sudairi, Hong Kong University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
John Garver, Georgia Institute of Technology
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Tugrul Keskin, Maltepe University
Michael McCall, Leiden University
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
James Reardon-Anderson, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service
Andrew Scobell, RAND Corporation
Yitzhak Shichor, University of Haifa
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Zahra Babar, CIRS Associate Director for Research

Managing the Saudi-Iranian Regional Rivalry
2015-10-27 18:00 - 20:00
Ibrahim Fraihat, Senior Fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on “Managing the Saudi-Iranian Rivalry” on October 27, 2015. With a background in conflict resolution, Fraihat offered an analysis of how to reduce tensions in the Middle East region using two different approaches.

The first approach offered by Fraihat isolates individual conflicts as an exclusive case requiring specific solutions targeted at particular nations. The second approach takes a more regional stance, and perceives of Middle East conflicts as somewhat interrelated. This approach posits that many of the current conflicts, including those in Yemen and Syria, are the result of proxy wars, and are linked, in one way or another, to larger regional rivalries. Fraihat argued that the second approach was more useful in its holistic view of regional conflicts being the result of spillover tensions generated elsewhere.

He explained that “most, if not all, of the conflicts in the region are linked in one way or another to Tehran and Riyadh, or to the Saudi-Iranian relationship…If you are able to reduce the tension, or achieve some rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, then by the time you bring them to the table to sit and talk and have some understanding, then probably 50 percent of the conflicts will disappear.”

Fraihat gave a complex characterization and background to the history of the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, arguing that there have been peaks of hostility related to specific regional incidences over the years. Leaving aside the legacy of a centuries-old Arab-Persian enmity, more recent regional concerns were stoked with the onset of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution and the rise of a rival political and Islamic power prepared to challenge Saudi regional hegemony. Concerns about Iranian dominance led Saudi Arabia to support Iraq in its war against Iran in the 1980s. A further escalation of antagonisms began in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which, effectively, changed the regional order, and led to a power vacuum in which Saudi Arabia and Iran vied for geopolitical influence. There was a new and sour turning point in the Saudi-Iranian relationship during the events of the 2011 Arab uprisings that fueled the conflict in Syria, further increasing regional tensions.

A central question about the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, and especially one asked from the perspective of the Western media, is whether or not the conflict is sectarian in nature. While sectarianism has been used to fan the flames of the rivalry, and to advance certain agendas, this is an over-simplification that only serves to reduce a longstanding antagonism into a simple sectarian binary. Importantly, the fraught Saudi-Iranian relationship has evolved over the years for a number of different reasons, including those related to national interests, economic development, and gains in geopolitical power, but not all can be properly identified or agreed upon by scholars, analysts, and policymakers. There is a variation of views and opinions on both sides, making the rivalry difficult to manage. “Even within the parties themselves, there is no clear understanding about what the conflict is really about,” Fraihat argued.

The two regional giants tend to take two distinct positions on regional issues, as seen in the cases of Yemen and Syria. However, despite the many instances of opposition, Fraihat argued, there is a surprising amount of overlap between Iran and Saudi Arabia’s mutual needs, especially as they relate to security interests and environmental concerns. “Don’t be led, or misled actually, by the obvious positions of the two countries,” he said.

Fraihat gave several strategies for addressing the finer points of the rivalry, including mediation, dialogue, confidence-building measures, credible peace plans, zones of peace, developing areas of interdependence, and restoring the balance of power. “At the end of the day,” he said, “there is no alternative to the parties talking,” and this is the key first step to mediating any rivalry. Switzerland, Norway, and Qatar have a history of mediation, and they could act as effective hosts for any potential negotiations. This would mean, however, that Saudi Arabia and Iran must be willing to engage with each other in a serious manner.

Another opportunity for mediation is the intervention of a powerful third party. Turkey, the United States, and Pakistan all play a role in the region in one way or another. In addition, Fraihat said, “Iraq here has a huge role to play in minimizing and reducing the tension and contributing to better management of the conflict.” This can only occur if the implicated powers agree to build a free, independent, and democratic Iraq.

In conclusion, Fraihat argued that, when it comes to solving regional tensions, analysts tend to talk about official “track 1” solutions between governments, but the potential of building peace between the two countries can also be advanced with “track 2” diplomacy—unofficial dialogue between influential societal figures like academics and religious leaders to build relationships and encourage new thinking that can inform policymakers. Finally, a conducive “track 3” approach is to encourage citizens of Saudi Arabia and Iran to engage with each other at the grassroots and communal level, which is another approach that could lead to a sustainable peace between the two countries.

Ibrahim Fraihat (also known as Ibrahim Sharqieh) previously taught international conflict resolution at George Washington University and George Mason University. His research focuses on conflict resolution in the Arab world, with a particular emphasis on conflict management and mediation, transitions, national reconciliation, national dialogue, institutional reform, and post-conflict reconstruction. He has published extensively on Middle East politics, with articles appearing in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, Al-Hayat, and the Christian Science Monitor, on the CNN and Al Jazeera websites, and elsewhere. He is the author of the book Unfinished Revolutions: Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia after the Arab Spring (Yale University Press), and the co-author of Libya’s Displacement Crisis: Uprooted by Revolution and Civil War (Georgetown University Press). Professor Fraihat received a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University in 2006. He is the recipient of George Mason University’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2014) for his achievements in the field of conflict resolution. Fraihat can be reached at fraihat.writer@gmail.com. Follow Ibrahim on Twitter @i_fraihat and on Facebook: Ibrahim Fraihat.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Youth in the Middle East Working Group Meeting II
2015-11-08 09:00 - 2015-11-09 12:00
On November 8–9, 2015, the Center of International and Regional Studies (CIRS), in collaboration with Silatech, hosted the second working group meeting as part of their research project on “Youth in the Middle East.” Eight distinguished scholars were invited to provide critical feedback and remarks on the draft papers, submitted as part of this project, which covered a wide range of issues faced by youth in the Middle East both domestically and in diaspora. This included themes such as employment, education, religion, political views, gender, fatherhood, economic inclusion, and social cohesion.

For decades, most of the scholarship on youth has been concerned with issues such as human capital, problems and challenges faced by youth, and their contribution to the growth of their respective countries. These concerns have spiked, insofar as the Middle East is concerned, after the wave of uprisings that hit the region in 2011. Numerous social scientists have been addressing youth issues in the transition period post Arab Uprisings; yet, there are still areas that need further in-depth analysis and critical examination. In collaboration with Silatech, CIRS launched the “Youth in the Middle East” project in 2014.

The second working group meeting focused on dynamics and challenges faced by youth in the Middle East. Its aim was to identify gaps in the available literature, suggest areas for further scholarly investigations, and recommend policies to decision-making circles.

The first paper, presented by Samar Farah, examines “The State of Education in the MENA Region and its Implications for Youth.” This paper sheds light on the education system in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa by exploring data presented in international assessments in recent years. Farah focuses on three levels of analysis—school, teacher, and student levels—in order to better understand the challenges facing the education systems, and their implications on youth living in the region.

Michael Robbins’s paper examines “Youth, Religion, and Democracy after the Arab Uprisings.” Robbins compares the experiences of youth in Egypt and Tunisia—two countries that experienced dramatic changes after the Arab uprisings—by investigating public opinion data gathered by the Arab Barometer Research Project. Robbins addresses the process of political learning among youths, specifically in the cases of Egypt and Tunisia.

Jennifer Olmsted’s paper focuses on “Gender Priorities and the Arab Uprisings.” Olmsted examines gender equality in the transition period after the Arab Uprisings, explores the various transitions that both males and females generally experience, and focuses on various health outcomes as well as questions about political voice. In doing so, Olmsted examines a number of social and economic indicators in order to address broader questions about control of assets and access to services, equal access to schooling, trends of marriage and household formation, and gendered patterns emerging in labor markets.

Natasha Ridge, Soohyun Jeon, Soha Shami, and Ann-Christine Niepelt, presented a paper on “Conceptualizing the Role and Impact of Fathers in the Arab World.” Using data from a pilot study on Arab fathers collected in the United Arab Emirates, the authors explore the role and impact of Arab fathers retrospectively, as reported by adult children, on involvement and self-esteem. They also examine gender, socioeconomic status, and nationality in order to study the influence of father involvement on the experiences of males and females in the Arab world.

Edward Sayre presented paper titled “Youth Economic Inclusion in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings.” This paper examines the influence of the educational levels of individuals and their parents on their ability to secure employment after leaving school. Using both non-parametric (Kaplan Meier) and parametric approaches, this paper assesses the different roles family background plays in the case of women compared to men. It also addresses the issue of inequality of opportunity and its impact on educational achievement and attainment, as well as labor market outcomes. Sayre relies on the 2013 “School to Work Transition Survey” by the International Labor Organization to estimate the determinants of the length of time to find work after leaving school for young Palestinians, specifically those aged between 15 and 29 years old.

Another paper was presented by Samer Kherfi titled “National Employment Policies in the Gulf: Achievements and Challenges.” This paper links the salient features of the GCC labor market to various governmental efforts aimed at nationalizing employment, particularly in the private sector. It also provides an assessment to decades-old policies to boost employment via the direct imposition of minimum quotas for nationals at the firm, industry, and occupation levels. In addition, the paper examines the recent price-based nationalization measures as well as other active labor market interventions.

The Working Group’s last paper was presented by Sherine El-Taraboulsi and is titled “Navigating British-ness: British-Libyan youth, the Arab unrest and debates on immigration in the United Kingdom”. This paper investigates the discourse on immigration in the United Kingdom, and its implications on the sense of belonging of British-Libyan youth, especially at a time of social and political upheaval in the Arab world. In exploring this issue, El-Taraboulsi unpacks topics related to faith, ethnicity and citizenship of Libyan youth in diaspora.

The second working group meeting was concluded by Mehran Kamrava, the Director of the Center of International and Regional Studies, and Paul Dyre, Senior Consultant at Silatech. As part of a collaborative effort between the two institutions and through facilitating original contributions to the topic by experts, the Working Group moved the study of youth in the contemporary Middle East further along. CIRS and Silatech expect to publish the products of this research initiative in the near future.

It is worth mentioning that this working group is part of the Center of International and Regional Studies Research and Scholarship’s initiatives that aim to fill in existing research gaps, and contribute towards furthering knowledge. Each of these initiatives involves some of the most prominent scholars of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region who address prevailing issues related to the security, economic stability, and political realm of the region.

Click here to view Meeting Agenda
Click here to view Participants Biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Tom Chidiac, Silatech
Brian Chung, Al Qasimi Foundation
Paul Dyer, Silatech
Sherine El Taraboulsi, Overseas Development Institute in London
Samar Farah, Columbia University
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Soohyun Jeon, Al Qasimi Foundation
Nader Kabbani, Silatech
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Samer Kherfi, American University of Sharjah
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Edward Sayre, University of Southern Mississippi
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Afghanistan: War Without End?
2015-11-09 18:00 - 20:00
Anatol Lieven, Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue titled, “Afghanistan: War Without End?” on November 9, 2015. Lieven recounted his experiences as a journalist reporting from Afghanistan in the 1980s, and visiting the country for research in recent years, and offered comparisons between the effects of Soviet military withdrawal in 1989 and the withdrawal of most US troops today. The main difference between the two time periods in Afghan history is that the local government created by the United States is arguably weaker than the one the Soviets left behind, and this is exemplified by the fact that Afghanistan continued as a communist state even after the fall of the USSR. A similarity between the two time periods is continued “overwhelming dependence of the Afghan state on outside help…Around 90 percent of the Afghan state budget and 100 percent of the security budget depends on outside financial aid,” Lieven said.

President Obama pledged the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by the end of his time in office, but there are three major reasons for why this still has not been accomplished. The first obstacle is the rise of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. The establishment of a local branch made up of Afghan and foreign fighters spells further drastic consequences for the US if it ever evacuated the country. The second is the revolt of the Islamic State in Iraq following the US military withdrawal from there, and the near collapse of the Iraqi state. Lieven argued that “the US cannot afford another collapse of a client regime, or an Islamist militant force taking over another large area in the Muslim World.” The third reason for why the US cannot withdraw from the country comes in the form of the Taliban’s resurgent strength and its temporary seizure of Kunduz in September 2015, highlighting the group’s tenacity, and their willingness to fill the impending power vacuum should the US withdraw its military support.

Also disastrous for the future of Afghanistan would be withdrawal of European and US economic aid. Lieven explained that much, if not most, of the international aid money directed towards Afghanistan has been pilfered or squandered, leading Western governments and media to decry the high levels of corruption within Afghanistan, and to call for a halt in future funding. However, Lieven proposed an alternative reading of the situation. He argued that much of the money “redirected” within Afghanistan and by the Afghan government, can be considered a crucial form of state patronage. While this redistribution is illegal—insofar as legality has any meaning in Afghanistan today—it works towards the concentration of wealth and power in Kabul as opposed to its decentralization into the hands of regional warlords, and can be viewed as a better option than depending on profits generated through the enduring heroin industry. The heroin trade is profitable for individual actors, and results in the decentralization of power across groups of actors, including members of the government operating in a non-official capacity, and, of course, the Taliban. In this sense, where the West perceives corrupt practices regarding international aid, the Afghan government perceives a consolidation of the central government’s position, and thereby, a strengthening of the state.

Adding further complexity to the state of Afghan affairs, Lieven pointed out that much of the current aid money bestowed upon Afghanistan has, in fact, been pilfered and redistributed, albeit “legally,” by the very Western organizations hired to help in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Highlighting a further hypocrisy, he said that the strategy of buying the support of local warlords was the very one devised by the US government upon invading Afghanistan in 2001.

In conclusion, Lieven gave some insights into the future of Afghanistan, positing that neither the Afghan regime, nor the Taliban opposition are united any longer. Indeed there is a sort of competition between them as to which disintegrates faster.

The Taliban used to be a formidably united force under the charismatic leadership of Mullah Omar, but since the belated acknowledgment of his death this summer, the movement has split, with large sections refusing to accept the legitimacy of his official successor, Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansur, leader of the Taliban Political Committee based in Pakistan. The fact that this dissident faction includes some leading Taliban field commanders makes it a dangerous opponent to Mansur. Meanwhile, other Taliban radicals have left the movement altogether to join the Islamic State (IS), which has set up a branch in eastern Afghanistan. IS has attracted supporters from members of the Pakistani Taliban and international militants from the former USSR, who have been driven across the border into Afghanistan by the successful offensives of the Pakistani army earlier this year.

This ought to give the Afghan government a major opportunity to push the Taliban back, but unfortunately it seems as if the Taliban on the ground—like the Mujahidin of the 1980s before them—are still capable of uniting to fight the Afghan National Army. However, it does not seem likely that they can ever conquer most of the non-Pashtun areas of the country, since even if the USA does withdraw completely, India, Russia, and Iran will support their allies within Afghanistan.

Moreover, the government is itself deeply split and indeed almost paralyzed between the competing authorities of the president, Ashraf Ghani, and the “chief executive,” Abdullah Abdullah. Analysts warned at the time against the power-sharing deal cobbled together by the USA to end last year’s political crisis over the disputed presidential election results. They said that it could not possibly work—and it hasn’t. So bad has the political situation become that there is strong support for the idea of calling a new national assembly and bringing back former President Hamid Karzai—something that would be disastrous for Western public support.

Amongst other things, the split in Kabul makes it extremely difficult, or even impossible, for the government to make a peace offer to the Taliban that would appeal to the pragmatists who support Mullah Mansur, and might draw them into an alliance against the Islamic State.

As a final word, Lieven noted that the nature of the Afghan state, as created by the United States, can only function as an extension of US hegemony. The current Afghanistan cannot exist autonomously, and will certainly collapse if the US security scaffolding is removed. “As things stand,” he said, “the most likely future seems to be one of long-term messy warfare between multiple actors,” controlling different parts of the country.

Anatol Lieven is a professor in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service based in Doha, Qatar. He is a visiting professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. His latest book, Pakistan: A Hard Country was published in 2011. From 1986 to 1998, Lieven worked as a British journalist in South Asia and the former Soviet Union, and is author of several books on Russia and its neighbors. From 2000 to 2007 he worked at think tanks in Washington DC. A new edition of his book America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism was published in 2012. Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

The Gulf Family Working Group Meeting II
2015-11-15 09:00 - 2015-11-16 17:00
On November 15-16, 2015, the Center of International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted the second working group meeting under its research initiative on “the Gulf Family” at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Over the course of two days, ten experts—five of whom are CIRS grant-awardees who have carried out fieldwork—presented papers that covered a wide range of issues related to the family in the Arab states of the Gulf. Papers presented and discussed at the meeting touched on a variety of topics, including tribalism and the family; the marriage institution; cross-national or “mixed” marriages; social stratification and the family; Family Law and the rights of the child; sexuality and the family; the impact of war on Iraqi families; gender relations; power and politics; and bilingualism.

The family has historically been an integral unit of society, and its structure and formation are continuously adapting to evolving social, economic, and political developments. The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have witnessed massive transformation since the discovery of oil, having emerged over the past few decades as strategically important and ostensibly modern states. This transformation across the region brought with it changes to the nature and functions of the state that were paralleled with equally rapid changes in society, culture, and economy. The Gulf family has of course been influenced by these broader social dynamics, but academic scholarship on the topic remains limited and the family in the Arabian Peninsula is still quite understudied.

CIRS’s research initiative has supported original research that explore questions related to the family institution in the Gulf, including those that focus on family structure, demographic dynamics, the role and impact of policies, tribes, kinship ties, customs, and values. CIRS awarded five competitive grants to scholars proposing original fieldwork on the topic. Building up on the first working group meeting, at the November meeting scholars presented papers and core research findings. During the meeting, participants engaged in critical discussions of each paper, providing comments and feedback on the various contributions.

The working group kicked off with Sebastian Maisel’s examination of “Tribalism and Family Affairs.” Maisel’s paper examines the tribal character of Gulf families, focusing on the influence of tribalism in the conduct of family affairs. The paper investigates whether or not current social and cultural practices of families from the region can be classified as “tribal”. Since there is debate over the notion and meaning of “tribalism” in existing literature, this study begins by introducing a framework and definition of what tribal values actually are, and how these have impacted the pre-oil and post-oil dynamics of the Gulf family. Maisel’s research effort provides a historical lens of analysis, and is based on a series of structured interviews that have been conducted in three Gulf States.

Jihan Safar, another CIRS grant recipient, has carried out research on “the Soaring Bride-Price (mahr) in a Context of Modernization: A Complex Variable that is Affecting the Formation of the Gulf Family: The Case of Oman.” Safar’s research answers some fundamental questions on how the mahr amount is determined and negotiated in Oman, and how this is impacting trends in marriages in the Sultanate. Her research unravels some of the main reasons as to why the costs of mahr in Oman continue to escalate despite trends of modernization, the education and employment of women, urbanization, and new individual aspirations. Safar identifies variables that determine the mahr amount, including geographic location, arranged and non-arranged marriages, religious affiliation, and ethnic identity. This study provides us with a more nuanced understanding of patriarchal family structures, state regulations, notions of masculinity and femininity, and how the family, as a unit, continues to influence the marriage institution in Oman.

Mohammed Mohieddin, Sanaa Alharahsheh, and Feras Al Meer of the Doha International Family Institute presented their research that focuses on “Mixed Marriages among Qataris.” The study provides an in-depth analysis of the phenomena of Qataris marrying non-Qataris, which, they argue, has been a growing and visible trend over the past few years. This research project, based on existing data sets on marriage in Qatar, explores a relatively understudied subject. Amongst other things, this research demonstrates that there is a high number of Qatari women marrying foreigners, and the authors highlight the constraints for the children of Qatari women who are denied citizenship rights if their father is not Qatari. The paper suggests that changing demographic and economic conditions have had a direct impact on marriage trends in Qatar.

Another contributor, CIRS Research Analyst Islam Hassan, has studied “Family, Marriage, and Social Stratification in the Qatari Society.” Hassan’s paper fills-in a gap in literature by examining the role of social dynamics, specifically the family and marriage institutions, in the sustenance and reproduction of the social order and stratification scheme in the Qatari society. The study tests available literature against datasets that have not yet been systematically analyzed. Hassan’s analysis shows how the family institution—through influencing marriage choices—preserves and reproduces the culture; traditions; values; customs; and social hierarchy in the Qatari society.

Lena-Maria Möller has carried our research on the subject of “Gulf Family Law and the Best Interests of the Children: The Multiple Meanings of a Vague Legal Concept.” Mölller’s paper highlights the international framework in which the recent reforms of child law in the Gulf have been situated. She also considers the influence of the introduction of the “best interests of the child standards” on the codification of family law in Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE. Finally, Möller explores the relationship between the interpretation of the concept of “best interests of the child” and the changing societal values, family structures, and present-day attitudes towards motherhood and fatherhood in the Arab states of the Gulf.

Haya Al-Noaimi, formerly with CIRS and currently a doctoral candidate at SOAS, presented a paper entitled “Hiding and Masking Your Sins: The State of Sexuality in the Gulf Family.” Al-Noaimi’s paper has three main foci. First, it highlights how the Gulf nuclear family and the larger society define sexual norms and scripts. Second, it examines the role of the state in policing sexuality through a brief analysis of sexual morality laws, and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses such legislation posits. Finally, it concludes with some of the ways in which Gulf families, in collaboration with the state, can attempt to implement realistic policies that protect youth and sexual minorities through discussion, education, and legislation.

Laura Sjoberg’s contribution centered on “War Families and the Iraq Wars.” This paper looks at Iraqi war families, families constituted by and constitutive of the Iraq wars. She reviews stories of the complexity of families living the wars, and explores changing demographic, nutritional, and health dynamics of Iraqi families over the progressive years of war and conflict in Iraq. Sjoberg concludes with a contextualization of war families, and a look forward for families in Iraq’s near future.

Sophia Pandya presented a paper entitled “The War Took Us Backwards: Yemeni Women Activists, Revolution and War.” This study analyzes gendered dimensions of the “Yemen Spring” and the subsequent 2015 war, with a focus on the role of religious groups. It examines the reasons behind the failure of Yemeni women’s extraordinary activism to produce significant change in their gendered statuses. The study also highlights the conditions in which political activities offer potential for change, in this case offering women greater lasting access to formal political power instead of “reintegration” into the way things were before the “Yemen Spring.”

Dionysis Markakis, formerly with CIRS, contributed with a paper entitled: “A Family Affair: Power in the Persian Gulf.” This paper explores the role of family in relation to the exercise of power in the Gulf states, and argues that the variable of familial kinship is crucial to understanding the exercise of power and the continuity of the Gulf ruling families. It also explores the main characteristics, features, and trends present in familial governance in the Gulf, examines the processes of succession in the Gulf, and considers the main threats to the continuity of the phenomenon of “ruling families” in the Arab states of the Gulf.

The final paper, presented by Ali Kemal Tekin, focuses on “Bilingual Children of the Gulf: The Case of Oman.” Tekin’s fieldwork explores why and how Omani parents promote bilingualism, to what extent bilingualism impact the inter-generational relations, and the effects of bilingualism on children’s everyday lives. The study concludes with offering implications and areas for further research, and recommendations for policy makers.

Zahra Babar, Associate Director for Research at the Center for International and Regional Studies, concluded the working group meeting by highlighting the participants’ contributions to scholarship through their papers, which will be published in an edited volume by CIRS in the near future.

It is worth mentioning that this working group is part of the Center of International and Regional Studies Research and Scholarship’s initiatives that aim to fill in existing research gaps, and contribute towards furthering knowledge. Each of these initiatives involves some of the most prominent scholars of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region who address prevailing issues related to the security, economic stability, and political realm of the region.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Sanaa Al Harahsheh, Doha International Family Institute, Qatar
Feras Almeer, Doha International Family Institute, Qatar
Haya Al-Noaimi, School of Oriental and African Studies
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Amira El-Zein, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Sebastian Maisel, Grand Valley State University
Thomas Michel, 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, Qatar
Lena-Maria Möller, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Sophia Pandya, California State University at Long Beach
Jihan Safar, Sciences-Po, France
Ayman Shabana, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Laura Sjoberg, University of Florida
Ali Kemal Tekin, Sultan Qaboos University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Robert Wirsing Focused Discussion and Farewell
2015-11-18 16:30 - 18:00
CIRS hosted a Focused Discussion and farewell gathering for Robert Wirsing, Professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS, addressed the audience made up of faculty, students, and staff, as he recollected Wirsing’s long and illustrious career spanning over four decades. Kamrava said that Wirsing’s scholarly pursuits were defined by a thorough internationalism in which he traveled the world, embracing a variety of global adventures and endeavors. Wirsing’s career has been one devoted to learning, appreciating, and understanding diverse cultures, and engaging with people of all backgrounds—characteristics that have been equally applied to Wirsing’s classrooms. Kamrava said that “Professor Wirsing is someone who meets people on their own turf, and on their own terms. He brought us civility, and reminded us what it means to be a gentleman and a scholar.”

Wirsing, in turn, thanked the audience, saying that Georgetown University in Qatar was a unique institution built on collegiality, congeniality, and the basic humanist tenets of international relations. He concluded by saying: “If you scratch the very thin veneer of cultural difference there is a tremendous amount of commonality. Human beings are very alike despite their different nationalities.”

CIRS Hosts "Iran-GCC Dialogue"
2016-01-13 09:00 - 17:00
On January 13, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University in Qatar’s flagship research institution, recently hosted a roundtable on Iran-GCC Dialogue.

The day-long meeting brought together distinguished scholars and academics from Iran and neighboring countries to explore historical, religious, cultural, social, and political ties between Iran and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The CIRS-led Iran-GCC dialogue included as many as twenty renowned scholars from Iran, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and a number of other Arab countries, with proceedings conducted in both Arabic and English. Presentation titles included “Common Historical Roots of Iran and the GCC,” “Iranian and Arab Cultural Relations,” “Cultural Commonalities of Iranian and Arab Women and Families,” “The Role of Religion and Culture in the Development of Relations,” and “The Role of Common Art and Literature between Iran and the GCC.”

Speaking on the role of academics in better informing regional leaders, Director of CIRS, Dr. Mehran Kamrava, said that “at a time of increasing tensions in the region, exploring areas of mutual interest and commonality between Iran and the GCC is of fundamental importance. There are numerous areas of overlap and common bonds between Iran and the states of the GCC. It is our hope that scholarly analysis and dialogue will enable policymakers to make better and more informed decisions.”

Kamrava added that “The work of CIRS “involves conducting globally recognized research on a broad range of important topics in the areas of international relations, political economy, and domestic politics of the Gulf. We routinely take the lead on identifying emerging socio-economic issues, and so we are particularly well placed to initiate and bring together the leading scholars who participated in this roundtable. Not only do we seek to create mutually beneficial links between various educational institutions, we also focus on providing further insights into current events by adding to the general body of knowledge about the region.”

A follow-up to the recent CIRS Iran-GCC dialogue is likely to be held in Tehran in a few months involving a greater number of regional academics and scholars.

In addition to sponsoring events such as the recent Iran-GCC dialogue, CIRS engages in in-depth research throughout the academic year, publishing their results in Occasional Papers, Summary Reports, and numerous books. Through its various publications, CIRS provides in-depth examination of ideas and issues of contemporary academic and political significance.

See the meeting agenda
Read participant biographies
See Media Coverage of the event:

Gulf Times
Qatar Tribune
Qatar is booming
Doha News
AMEinfo

Participants and Discussants:

Salah Al Fadhli, Information Systems Specialist
Ali Al Hail, International Fulbright Visiting Scholar and consultant to Qatar Media Corporation
Nayef Nahar Al Shamari, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Qatar University
Fatima Alsmadi, Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abdullah Baabood, Gulf Studies Program – Qatar University
Sultan Barakat, Brooking Institution’s Doha Center
Mousa Bidaj, Shiraz magazine
Youssef Choueiri, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Salah Eddin Elzein, Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Masoud Fekri, Razi University
Ibrahim Fraihat, Brookings Institution’s Doha Center
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mohammad Masjed Jamei, Former Iranian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Batoul Meshkinfam, Alzahra University
Mohamad Ali Mohtadi, Journalist and Researcher of Middle East Affairs
Mahdi Khaleghi Rad, Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Qatar
Samer Shehata, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and the University of Oklahoma
Luciano Zaccara, Gulf Studies Program – Qatar University
Mahjoob Zweiri, Qatar University

Inside the Arab State: Re-Envisioning the Arab State Working Group I
2016-01-17 09:00 - 2016-01-18 17:00
On January 17–18, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) convened the first Working Group under its new research initiative, “The New Arab State: Actors, Institutions, and Processes.” The working group brought together scholars and experts representing a variety of disciplines including political geography, sociology, history, and political science. The purpose of the meeting was to identify central research questions on the evolving role of the Arab states in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings. Over the course of two days, participants discussed a variety of topics ranging from the definition, conception, and evolution of the Arab state, the state’s functions and institutions, as well as key topics such as state sovereignty, legitimacy, capacity, state-society relations, political engagement, and civil-military relations across the Arab world.

The Working Group began with a discussion of the conception and definition of the “Arab state.” The 2011 revolts as well as the subsequent disintegration of several Arab states have reinvigorated scholarly interest in the most fundamental questions around statehood in the Middle East. Since 2011, several states in the region have experienced social and political turmoil (Egypt and Lebanon) while others have rapidly disintegrated into “failed” or “failing” states (Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya). During the working group, participants debated the validity of the very classification of the “Arab state,” and highlighted the need for further exploring what constitutes a state as being Arab. There is a general assumption that an Arab state is where the majority of the population identifies as being Arab and speaking Arabic.

At the same time, there is something more nuanced when theorizing the validity of the Arab state as a distinct sub-category that needs to move beyond ethno-linguistic conceptions and boundaries. The participants also discussed the issue of legitimacy within the Arab state, and suggested that determining or measuring state legitimacy is also not always clearly defined by scholars of the Middle East. There was discussion over whether it is the state itself that provided legitimacy through its domestic arena, through its society and citizenry, or was it a result of the confirmation of legitimacy provided by the international community and the international order. Participants stressed the role of foreign powers when discussing the Arab state, given the pivotal role played by external actors during processes of state formation in the Middle East in the last century, and because so many outside powers still continue to exert their influence.

At the current juncture, with increasing conflict and war, the political map of the region may potentially be redrawn in ways yet unknown. Boundaries established by the colonial powers have remained remarkably durable since the evolution of the post-colonial arrangements in the Middle East. Notwithstanding this, enthusiastic cartographers and Middle East experts have often taken to producing imaginative re-drawings of the Middle East, seeking to illustrate how the region could look if “properly” demarcated based on history, ethnicity, and linguistic affiliation. Yet these highly creative versions of the territorial construction of the Middle East may not appear so far-fetched or fantastical in the current context. With the rise of ISIS and its incursion onto the territory of two fragile Arab states, understanding the durability of borders and territory, as well as their meaning to the citizens, has once again become important. Working Group participants considered the reconfiguration of borders within the Arab world and the politics around sovereignty and space.

Additionally, the post-2011 environment has exposed the fundamental weakness of institutions within the Arab. The failure of the states to deliver essential public services and good to their citizens has been compounded by limitations on political freedom expression, inadequate economic security, and corrupt and inept state institutions. As a consequence, extremist movements like ISIS have stepped into the picture with promises of providing order, stability, peace, and security to the people. Members of the Working Group noted that most Islamic oppositional forces arrayed against regimes do not want to abolish the state system; instead, they are seeking to either control the state or present an alternative, Islamic model of political rule.

Following the 2011 uprisings, the Arab world has been plagued by a widening gulf between state and society, and rapid state deformation in countries such as in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Syria. The 2011 protests differed from the earlier ones: whereas the earlier protests had been a demand for the repair of the regimes, the 2011 uprisings grew out of a conviction among the middle classes that the social contract had been broken by the state. Even the states which experienced very modest levels of protests, such as Qatar, felt threatened due to the fear of the contagion effect. The Working Group examined “Arab political thought” to the topic of the Arab Spring, examining whether Arab intellectuals were organically tied to the political action on the streets or were aloof in relation to what was happening. The 2011 protests represented populous movements that sought to resist Arab authoritarianism by demanding justice, democracy, equality, and rights for all citizens. Contemporary Arab political thought addresses these issues and calls for a new social pact between state and society. However, the social movements gradually fizzled out despite their intensity, and the possibility of a reoccurrence is yet to be determined.

The participants debated over the presence or absence of a viable political “center” in the Arab region. Michael Hudson, one of the participants at the Working Group, sees the political center as something between extremist Islamic movements on the one hand and authoritarian states on the other. While some scholars believed that there has never been a political center in the Arab world, others argued that it was shrinking rapidly due to authoritarianism and the outlawing of political parties. They considered the reasons that in the immediate aftermath of 2011 uprisings, an Arab center not materialize out of something that offered more than the two extremes. Moreover, the participants explored the transformations that are taking place in the political economy of the Arab state and repeated economic shocks since the 2011 uprisings. Citizens in different kinds of Arab rentier states have responded in their own ways to cracks in prevailing ruling bargains. For example, citizens in the Gulf states have looked to the state to protect their economic interests in difficult times, whereas in weak states such as Algeria and Iran, they blame the state for their failures. However, given the currently changing nature of the rentier states, it is difficult to say whether the citizens will continue to look to the state for protection.

Historically, Arab states have had a troubled relationship with citizenship, and minority groups especially, who by and large have not been considered as equal citizens. The Arab states have therefore devised citizenship policies that give ruling states the power to decide who will be included in or excluded from the state. The Gulf states have frequently used the act of withdrawing citizenship for political purposes and have recently aligned their citizenship policies with anti-terror laws—a phenomenon leading to statelessness and not unique to this region as illustrated by the anti-terror laws in Canada and Australia. Added to this is the refugee problem in the Middle East region: a significantly large number of people have either been displaced or have become stateless due to political turmoil or the disintegration of central authority in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Since there is not much scholarship on citizenship in this region, the group agreed that the topic should be further explored as part of a broader re-envisioning the Arab state.

Another topic of discussion revolved around the evolving nature of civil-military relations in the region. Generally, armies are designed to provide national defense. Yet the purpose of the Middle Eastern armies is unclear. In the rentier states, armies are normally financed by oil revenues, with major foreign powers providing military assistance to the state. Moreover, some political systems in the Arab world have dual militaries—ideologically armed forces alongside professional security forces—that provide a visible manifestation of the powers of the state or the ruling elite. Many of these security forces had to be called in order to quell the 2011 uprisings. However, the character of the military involvement varied from state to state. In Tunisia the police was much stronger than the military, whereas in Egypt the army continued to play an important role because of its long history of intimate involvement in politics.

Participants also compared current transnational Islamist movements to the Pan-Arabist movements of the 1960s and the 1970s, both of which challenge the conception, functions, and legitimacy of the Arab states. As these states continue to face threats to their sovereignty and legitimacy, they have tried to consolidate their powers and security by forming state-based alliances with outside patrons.

While the participants in the Working Group addressed a multitude of topics ranging from the conception, functions, and institutions of the Arab state to the basic challenges to its legitimacy and sovereignty after the 2011 uprisings, they all acknowledged that there are gaps in the existing literature where more research is required. Hence, the Working Group concluded by identifying areas of research where further analysis is needed. These included the conception and terminology surrounding the very notion of the Arab state, the position and application of political boundaries, ideologies and discourses of the state, engagement between state and the citizens, and the perseverance or change of prevailing ruling bargains particularly in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings.

See the meeting agenda

Read participant biographies

Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Fateh Azzam, American University of Beirut

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

Michaelle Browers, Wake Forest University

Juan Cole, University of Michigan

Stephanie Cronin, University of Oxford

Ahmad Dallal, American University of Beirut

Alasdair Drysdalem, University of New Hampshire

Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Steven Heydemann, Smith College

Michael C. Hudson, Georgetown University

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

Rami G. Khouri, American University of Beirut

Beverley Milton-Edwards, Queen’s University

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

Adham Saouli, University of St. Andrews

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

Article by Umber Latafat (SFS ’16), Research Intern at CIRS

The U.S.–Saudi Arabia Relationship: ‘Special’ or Broken?
2016-01-19 18:00 - 19:00
Michael C. Hudson, the Seif Ghobash Professor of International Relations and Arab Studies, Emeritus, at Georgetown University, delivered the first CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the Spring 2016 semester on “The U.S.–Saudi Arabia Relationship: ‘Special’ or Broken?” on January 19, 2016. A long-term scholar of the Middle East, Hudson argued that the Middle East region is in an extremely turbulent condition, necessitating the reexamination of traditional alliances. He paid particular attention to the state of the US-Saudi relationship, which was once described as “special” and which is now under considerable strain.

Highlighting some key moments in the history of the US-Saudi relationship, Hudson noted that it was established after World War I, when companies backed by the US government began formalizing business ties and facilitating the establishment of the Saudi oil industry during the 1930s. Subsequently, “a modus vivendi was established that allowed this engine of modernization to function without really interfacing with, or let alone disturbing, the traditional political culture of the Kingdom,” he argued. In order for this businesses relationship to continue flourishing, the Americans remained uncharacteristically uncritical of the domestic politics of Saudi Arabia. This arrangement suited both parties, as each could get along with its business interests despite having many antithetical notions regarding each other’s cultures, religions, and politics. In this regard, Hudson argued that “the relationship, although special, was not deeply rooted in American politics, in the American mind, or within the American public. The relationship depended upon a rather narrow spectrum of interests, expertise, and influence,” and was established on a strategic basis between political and business elites.

In order to further secure these shared US-Saudi economic interests, the alliance was eventually expanded to other related political engagements and foreign policy alignments over the decades. During the Cold War, Saudi Arabia proved to be a strategic ally in securing US interests, and guarding against communist advances into the region. The importance of Saudi Arabia was further amplified after the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the collapse of the US’s alliance with the Shah.

In light of current turbulent political developments in the Middle East, the accepted historical basis of the US-Saudi relationship has come under questioning, and is in an increasing state of flux. Regional security concerns regarding the rise of sectarian tensions, the machinations of the Islamic State, and the easing of sanctions on Iran, have all worked towards straining the US-Saudi relationship, and are further magnified by domestic Saudi woes in the form of falling oil prices, a weakening economy, rising unemployment, a young population riddled with unrest, and a new royal regime taking an increasingly combative stance in the region.

Hudson mused on how these issues are likely to affect the future of US policy in the Middle East. Since the dangers posed by the Islamic State have become so central to regional and international political discourse, Hudson noted that it is unlikely that the US security umbrella in the Middle East will see any drastic change, and that the United States will continue to see Saudi Arabia as a key ally in its attempts at regional influence. While the solid historical and material interests, business connections, and security contracts between the United States and Saudi Arabia remain largely intact, “there is a rising chorus of hostile analysis and hostile criticism of Saudi Arabia in important political circles in the United States,” that argue in favor of taking a more lenient stand towards Iran, and reversing the balance of regional power. Today, “much of that debate is focused on foreign policy in the Middle East despite President Obama’s wish that he could pivot away from the Middle East and work on Asia instead.” However, Hudson concluded, current policies regarding the special US-Saudi relationship may indeed be altered depending on the results of the upcoming US presidential elections.

Michael C. Hudson is a former Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), and from 2010 to 2014 he was the first Director of the Middle East Institute and Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He was the Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative in spring 2015. Hudson has held Guggenheim, Ford, and Fulbright fellowships and is a past president of the Middle East Studies Association. His publications include The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon; The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators; Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy; The Palestinians: New Directions; and Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration (editor and contributor). His most recent books are: Gulf Politics and Economics in a Changing World and The Arab Uprisings: Catalysts, Dynamics, and Trajectories.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

The Negotiating Process and Recent Developments in Cyprus
2016-02-02 18:00 - 20:00
H.E. Emine Çolak, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Northern Cyprus, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on February 2, 2016, titled “The Negotiating Process and Recent Developments in Cyprus.” The talk shed light on the promising political developments in Cyprus between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot people.

After decades of prolonged negotiations, H.E. Çolak said, the impasse on the island was expected to be relieved in 2004 with the United Nations (UN) Comprehensive Settlement Plan. However, it received 65 percent approval from the Turkish Cypriot people and was rejected by 76 percent of the Greek Cypriot people. Since then, there has been some progress, resulting in a Joint Declaration on February 11, 2014, which would enable the two sides to endorse their objectives for the formation of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation based on political equality, and headed by a single sovereignty stemming equally from the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots.

The negotiations resumed more auspiciously following the election of His Excellency Mr. Mustafa Akıncı as the new Turkish Cypriot President. With the presence of the UN Special Adviser, Espen Barth Eid, on May 15, 2015, the two leaders, Akıncı and Anastasiades, expressed their interest and strong commitment to proceed towards a comprehensive settlement in a constructive fashion. Included in these agreements is the desire by the two parties to work on confidence building measures to ameliorate the living standards of the two communities. Discussing the outcome of this new process, H.E. Çolak summarized the five confidence building measures pursued by the two sides as “the opening of more crossing points between the two sides; interconnecting electricity grids; mobile telephone interoperability; prevention of radio frequency interferences; and establishing a committee on gender equality.” After substantive negotiations revealed that convergences on legislative and judicial affairs are consistent with the political equality of the two peoples, negotiations after November 2015 entered a more intensified stage with property at the center of the discussions. Agreeing on the categories of property, the parties decided to pursue the issues of territory, security, and guarantees at the end of the process.

Maintaining its commitment to the result-oriented principles of the 2014 Joint Declaration, the Turkish Cypriot side is optimistic about the prospects of reaching an agreement within months, not years. In the context of achieving that goal, H.E. Çolak also stressed the role of the EU, Greece, and the international community in supporting and defending the negotiations in order to ensure productive engagement from both sides of the island. She also added that it was necessary for the Turkish Cypriot side to be heard on all international platforms to further facilitate the process.

The reality of the situation, however, reveals the subjection of the Turkish Cypriot people to restrictions that have denied them basic human rights. From representation in international mediums to trade and tourism, the constraints imposed on Northern Cyprus for over five decades have proved to be a hindrance to the country’s cultural, academic, and sporting relations with the rest of the world. On this note, H.E. Çolak referenced UN Security Council reports in which both the then Secretary-General Mr. Kofi Annan, and the Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-moon, urged the international community to collaborate bilaterally to eradicate the restraints that isolate and obstruct the progress of the Turkish Cypriots. In addition to the support expressed by the UN, she reflected on the declaration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) “to fully cooperate with and put an end to the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot people by calling upon the Member States to strengthen effective solidarity with the Muslim Turkish people of Cyprus and to help the Turkish Cypriots to overcome the inhuman isolations imposed upon them by increasing and expanding relations in all fields.”

In conclusion, H.E. Çolak condemned the unwarranted state of isolation that continues to preclude the Turkish Cypriot people from exercising their basic human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This, she said, is a blatant violation of the UN Charter and had no justification. She concluded her speech by reiterating the resolutions and declarations of the UN and OIC and acknowledging the positive impact that the lifting of the isolation would have on settlement efforts.

The Pedagogic State: Translation and the Cultural Revolution in the Early Republican Turkey
2016-02-03 12:30 - 13:30
Firat Oruc, Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and the 2015-2016 CIRS-SFSQ Faculty Fellow, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on “The Pedagogic State: Translation and the Cultural Revolution in the Early Republican Turkey” on February 3, 2016. The lecture drew on central themes from Oruc’s current book project examining the cultural and ideological transformations forged during the early decades of the Turkish Republic, with particular emphasis on importation and translation of classics in world literature.

With the forming of the new Turkish Republic, a new Turkish identity was crafted on the principles of nationalism, modernity, and secularism. “In order to create a new society and country out of the now gone Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his comrades envisioned ‘a total revolution’ in all aspects possible,” and especially in language reform, replacing Arabic script with Latin script. For the reformers, “translation from European languages would enable Turkish to ‘free’ itself from the historical ‘yoke’ of Arabic and Persian words, idioms and expressions.”

In answer to questions such as: “Why would a state need world literature?” and “What was this ‘foreign element’ doing in the midst of the Turkish cultural revolution?” Oruc explained that the Kemalist state saw reading as means of cultivating “civilized” citizens with a crusade against “ignorance” based on reason and knowledge. The European humanist canon was taken as the philosophical basis for the republican reforms that would lead to a “Turkish renaissance.” This “cultural engineering” and the creation of a new national canon relied on a campaign of translation in which the state was the central actor. “Thus, an organized, and government administered operation of translation contributed to the state regulation of the language,” Oruc argued. However, this celebration of a cultural revolution was not supported by a corresponding implementation of a social revolution, and many in Turkish society remained illiterate and impoverished, and incapable of partaking in the grand visions presented by the elite.

In conclusion, Oruc pondered the question of the complex tensions and contradictions involved in the formation of world literature in non-western societies such as Turkey. He argued that, even though the study of world literature purports to be a global humanist project, the grand narratives of the discipline have been largely shaped by specific European histories and ideologies. In order to problematize the power relations enacted through the world literature discourse, Oruc proposed engaging with the perspective of other nodes in the global network. “The state has so far never been discussed as an actor in the field of world literature. Whereas, in the Turkish case, the state is right at the center,” where world literature was coopted as an ideological apparatus.

Firat Oruc received his Ph.D. in Literature from Duke University in 2010. His teaching specialties include contemporary global literature, 20th century Anglophone writing, literatures of the Middle East, and world cinema. Before joining SFS-Q, he taught in the Comparative Literary Studies program at Northwestern University (2011-2013) and the departments of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (2010-2011). His scholarly interests center on the intersections of cultural globalization and transnationalism, postcolonial studies, world literature theory, and translation studies. His recent work has appeared in literary criticism journals such as English Language Notes, Criticism and Postcolonial Text. His current book project is a comparative study of world literature and institutions of translation in Turkey, Egypt, and Iran.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Art and Cultural Production in the GCC Working Group II
2016-02-07 09:00 - 15:00
On February 7, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies held its second working group meeting on “Art and Cultural Production in the GCC.” Project participants, as well as other scholars, engaged in critical group discussions, and provided feedback to the authors on draft chapters. The chapters written under this project address a variety of subjects, including amongst other topics: utopian ideals and art museums in the Arabian Peninsula; public art in Gulf cities; aesthetics, artistic production, and censorship in the GCC; art as modernity and “soft power”; and art and discourses of culture and “authenticity” in the UAE.

Over the course of three decades, economies of the Arab states of the Gulf have been experiencing immense growth. This has influenced the political significance of these states on the international and regional levels, and the social fabric of these states, due to the influx of expats from all around the world, on the domestic level. The pace of changes in the social fabric of these states has influenced the development of artistic and cultural institutions. The limited existing scholarship tends to focus on the rapidly growing museum culture and the acquisition of foreign art as indicative of several Gulf states’ use of oil revenue. This project builds on available literature by contributing towards furthering knowledge on the prevailing issues around art and cultural production in the Gulf. The contributed chapters explore the process of art acquisition and certain GCC governments’ investment in museums and artworks, and investigate the effects of art importation and assimilation on citizens’ perceptions of identity and self.

The working group commenced with Karen Exell’s chapter on “Utopian Ideals, Unknowable Futures, and the Art Museum in the Arabian Peninsula.” In her chapter, Exell explores the idea of the utopian in relation to art museums and the contemporary moment in the Arabian Peninsula. The transference of global art museums—constructed according to dominant western art historical principles and museological practices—to the Arabian Peninsula has brought with it the rhetoric of post-Enlightenment humanist idealism. The ability of these museums to instrumentalize international peace and understanding, as well as offering solace on an individual level through solitary communion with works of art, results in a transcendental experience. This experience is desirable in a secular society, but perhaps unnecessary and even problematic in an Islamic one. The chapter addresses the differing ideologies at play, and concludes by evaluating some of the futures posited for global art museums in the Arabian Peninsula.

The second chapter was presented by Nadia Mounajjed on “Public Art in Gulf Cities.” Mounajjed claims that although “public art” refers to artworks, either permanent or temporary, commissioned for sites with open public access, in the Gulf it is only discussed in the context of architectural production and urban design. This steers her investigation on the nature of the public and the public realm in the Arab cities of the Gulf. She explores the specific “parameters of publicity” and the potential of public art to act as a force for social discussion, place making and collective memory. In her chapter, Mounajjed raises a series of questions around: what counts as public art, and what does not? What does “public” mean? Who is public art intended for? Who funds public art? And how is public art tied to notions of place, identity, and social diversity?

In the third presented chapter titled: “Of ‘Gray Lists’ and Whitewash: The Aesthetics and Artistic Strategies of Complicity and Circumvention in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries,” Nancy Demerdash examines the GCC’s “areas of gray” in artistic censorship. She claims that the processes by which works receive endorsement and acceptance, or scrutiny and rejection, by a combination of private sponsors, patrons, or the public, presents a complex fabric of actors beyond the state apparatus, extending to institutions and organizations. In addition, Demerdash examines suppression and artists’ complicity or subversion, and analyzes the outlets through which aesthetic alternatives arise. She also illuminates a more nuanced perspective of artistic freedom and aesthetic choices with respect to the cultural spaces, institutions, and biennials of the GCC. Throughout her chapter, Demerdash raises a series of questions: in what ways do we define artistic freedom generally within the GCC? How do artists of the Gulf engage with customs of religion and everyday politics of the region? In what ways do such artists wittingly self-censor, effectively depoliticizing their practice? How does the intended viewership of an artist inform his or her production? If art of the Arab world, in recent years following the so-called Arab Spring, has become increasingly situated or defined as “activist,” “political,” or “revolutionary,” where is the place of these types of art forms in the Arab states of the Gulf? What shape does this engagement with unstable or transgressive content take? And what are the aesthetics of art forms that cannot be openly dissident or subversive?

Lesley Gray presented the fourth chapter on “Contemporary Art as Modernity: Art and Global Identity in Azerbaijan and the Gulf.” Using textual and media discourse analysis for both academic and popular media, Gray examines the factors that were instrumental in the rise of contemporary art as part of a strategy of international engagement, and contextualizes this information with the opinions of those who work in the art scene in Baku. Moreover, within the context of other similar geographies in the Arabian Peninsula who share Azerbaijan’s energy wealth, Azerbaijani modernity is one that has incorporated elements of Western-style economic progress propelled by oil wealth without the accompanying personal, social, and political freedoms and rights. Specifically, this chapter asks how can we define Azerbaijani modernity, and under what conditions has it arisen? How has the media shaped the image of Azerbaijan to an international audience? How has contemporary art developed in the post-Soviet era and how does it express Azerbaijan’s modern identity to the international art community? What does the contemporary art scene look like from the ground up and who is their public? And how does Azerbaijan, and specifically Baku, compare to other similar cities like Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Dubai?

In the final chapter on “Authentic Culture in the UAE,” Elizabeth Derderian argues that the “museum boom” in the Gulf region raises questions of authenticity and cultural appropriation. Focusing largely on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this chapter explores the concept of authenticity and how its deployment affects exclusion in particular ways. Derderian examines the ways in which authenticity claims create the need for experts and serve as forms of knowledge production that rely on and reproduce different structures and dynamics of power. In addition, Derderian parses cultural exchange from cultural appropriation, focusing on hierarchies of power and exclusion.

Mehran Kamrava, the Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies, concluded the working group meeting by highlighting the participants’ contributions to scholarship through their papers, which will be published in a forthcoming special issue of an academic journal.

See the meeting agenda
Read participant biographies
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Participants and Discussants:

Haya Al Noaimi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nancy Demerdash, DePaul University
Elizabeth (Beth) Derderian, Northwestern University
Karen Exell, University College London in Qatar
Lesley Gray, University College London in Qatar
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nadia Mounajjed, Abu Dhabi University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Museums and Modernity in the Arabian Peninsula
2016-02-23 18:00 - 19:00
Karen Exell, Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Qatar, and a consultant at Qatar Museums, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture, titled “Museums and Modernity in the Arabian Peninsula,” on Tuesday February 23, 2016. Highlighting some key arguments from her forthcoming book Modernity and the Museum in the Arabian Peninsula (Routledge, 2016), Exell recounted that when she first arrived to Qatar with the task of setting up an institution to cultivate professional museological practices, the general consensus was that no such practices existed in the local context, and that Qatar was a “tabula rasa” in need of such imported knowledge and services. However, after spending time in the country and researching the local museological landscape, she argued that a very different picture emerged.

Exell explained that there are two simultaneous and oppositional discourses of cultural production currently being articulated in the region. These are presented as oppositional in terms of both style and content: modern art is seen as a product of Western art history, while traditional cultural practices draw on the oral histories and traditional practices of the region. These binary cultural productions are also presented as providing contrasted cultural experiences: one evokes an internationally-recognized art world, while the other invites a dialogic and immersive interaction with traditional regional productions. In order to examine how these discourses have been put into practice, Exell compared the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar with the Saif Marzooq Al-Shamlan and Bait Al Outhman museums in Kuwait.

“The Museum of Islamic Art draws extensively on the Western paradigm of museological expertise,” she said, and is a prestige project that attempts to create a new global cultural center within Qatar. Such “engagement with Western-style museums was and is a strategic choice by the ruling families and elite actors,” and has been geared towards realizing a multitude of agendas over the years. Following independence, museological practices aided in nation-building, creation of consistent historical narratives, and legitimizing the status of the region’s ruling families. In the contemporary period, they are “a means of branding nations and gaining symbolic global power through accessing cultural capital,” she noted.

The Saif Marzooq Al-Shamlan and Bait Al Outhman museums in Kuwait, meanwhile, represent centers for the protection of local histories and traditional knowledge. Since these cultural forms are “rich in the kind of heritage that orthodox Western heritage models struggle to accommodate: intangible, performative, and embodied,” they are hard to promote or export. Simply put, they do not fit within the Western museological paradigm. However, Exell argued, while these local museological practices are deemed of little international value, they are of extreme importance in supporting and creating national identities and narratives.

It is by examining the rhetoric surrounding these supposedly contrasting cultural spheres that one can begin to understand how the two discourses actually play towards specific and strategic regional agendas, she said. As the Gulf states attempt to exploit the immense wealth created through hydrocarbon industries, these nations must also answer to how they are protecting against the encroachment of rapid regional transformations. Even as certain elements of modernity are being celebrated, there is a simultaneous call to strengthen local heritage as defense against what is perceived to be an onslaught and effacement of local histories anc cultures. This balancing act between the old and the new is exemplified in the two types of cultural engagements practiced in the region.

Ultimately, Exell argued, “the rhetoric of fusing the traditional and the modern represents the region’s approach to modernity…an agenda of retaining cultural identity in balance with aspects of a more secular modernity, while the rhetoric of engagement with global art and ideas of the universal is a method of discursively bridging cultures—bridging the East and the West and bringing people together—is repeatedly emphasized by actors investing in and producing the global art projects.”

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Karen Exell directed the MA in Museum and Gallery Practice at UCL Qatar from 2011-2015, after teaching museums studies and holding curatorial positions in university museums in the UK for several years. She is currently involved in two QNRF-funded research projects, as a PI on project researching museum pedagogy in Qatar and the region, and as LPI on project exploring the concept of national identity in relation to the planned new National Museum of Qatar. Her recent publications include the co-edited volumes, Cultural Heritage in the Arabian Peninsula: Debates, Discourses and Practices (Ashgate, 2014), and Museums in Arabia: Transnational Practices and Regional Processes (Ashgate, 2016).

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Managing Editor for CIRS Publications.

What the U.S. Presidential Election Means for the Middle East
2016-02-24 12:30 - 13:30
On February 24, 2016, John Hudak, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director at the Center for Effective Public Management Governance Studies–Brookings Institution, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion titled “What the U.S. Presidential Election Means for the Middle East.” Hudak, an expert on U.S. elections and campaigns, stated that it is difficult to gauge the positions and policies of the U.S. presidential candidates on the Middle East region since they are often vague and variable, especially during the primaries. Compared to previous election cycles, however, the 2016 elections are unique due to the rise of foreign policy as a critical issue for both parties’ candidates. Hudak also discussed the foreign policy credentials of the Republicans and the Democrats, and explored which party has generally seen itself as the bastion of U.S. foreign policy goals.

The first part of Hudak’s talk focused on describing the convoluted nature of the U.S. presidential elections. Before running for the general election, presidential candidates have to participate in a competitive primary campaign to become the party’s standard-bearer. During the primaries, candidates compete with each other for delegates who represent the constituents of the states. As the results of different states emerge, starting with Iowa and New Hampshire, it becomes a little clearer to see who is better positioned to become the party’s representative. However, the 2016 race has still not been decided since some candidates can surge while others sink. “If we take a step back one year and look at what our expectations were about this race, they are entirely turned on their head,” said Hudak, “the realities of the election this year are very different than what expectations were in February of 2015.” By the end of July 2016, the winning candidates will be announced at the parties’ national conventions and will begin the rapid race for the general election.

After familiarizing the audience with the intricacies of the election process, Hudak shifted the discussion to the factors behind the increased prominence of U.S. foreign policy in the 2016 elections. Hudak attributed this shift to two main points: the topical interest in the Middle East’s crises—particularly the conflict in Syria and the rise of Islamic States—and the fact that both parties view foreign policy as the winning issue in this general election. “There are a lot of serious conflicts in the world where either the U.S. is involved, or there is an expectation for American leadership,” said Hudak, “either to help ameliorate the challenges, or to fix the problem.” The level of interest in foreign policy usually increases when such situations arise; the most recent example was the 2004 election when John Kerry and the incumbent president, George W. Bush, fought a contested election that hinged on the decision to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan. In contrast, the elections of 2008 and 2012 focused on domestic policy and the economy, particularly after the 2008 recession.

In most election years, “the Republicans, in terms of polling, are typically much more trusted in terms of dealing with policy issues than Democrats are,” said Hudak. Democrats, on the other hand, focus more on the “bread and butter” issues that concern domestic affairs, such as the economy, jobs, and issues of social justice and equality. In 2016, however, both parties approach foreign policy as their winning issue, and both parties have candidates with strong stances. Hillary Clinton believes she is well versed and experienced with the major foreign policy issues from her time as Secretary of State, and this makes her unique among Democrats. She also sees it as a benefit for her candidacy because she is a woman, and foreign policy is commonly seen as the purview of men. “In that sense,” Hudak reasons, “she sees it as a transformational thing, both for herself, gender, and her party […] that is the thinking within the campaign.” While Clinton has not focused as much on foreign policy as she would have liked, she will likely prop up her foreign policy credentials again in the general election. In contrast, the Republicans pride themselves on their traditional focus on foreign policy, and their campaigns have especially focused on pointing out the disastrous aftereffects of Clinton’s time as Secretary of State.

Finally, Hudak concluded by discussing potential areas of foreign policy interest for the next president such as Syria, Israel, and Iran. After taking the presidential oath on January 20, 2017, Syria will be priority for whoever is elected. Hudak stated that either the new president will dramatically change course from Obama’s policies or mildly alter them, depending on whether a Republican or a Democrat emerges victorious. Regardless, Americans can be sure that there will be a change in policy, and foreign policy will remain one of the most vital issues in the first 100-200 days in office. Other important foreign policy issues on the president’s mind will be alleviating the U.S.’s strained relationship with Israel—one area both Democrats and Republicans agree on—and working out the next steps for the nuclear deal with Iran.

John Hudak is Senior Fellow and Deputy Director at the Center for Effective Public Management Governance Studies, Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. His research examines questions of presidential power in the contexts of administration, personnel, and public policy. Additionally, he focuses on campaigns and elections, bureaucratic process and legislative-executive interaction. You can access his complete bio, click here.

Article by Salman Ahad Khan, Senior Publications Intern at CIRS

Pluralism and Community in the Middle East Working Group Meeting I
2016-03-06 09:00 - 2016-03-07 15:00
On March 6–7, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a working group on “Pluralism and Community in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, a number of distinguished scholars discussed issues related to ethno-linguistic and religious pluralism in the Middle East, identified gaps in the existing literature, and pointed to potential areas of original research. Amongst the various topics discussed, Working Group participants examined pluralism and diversity as represented through governance and legal regimes; social inclusion/exclusion and policymaking; the role and symbolism of iconoclasm in the Middle East; architecture, the urban space, and identity; digital culture, political communication and regional notions of “multiculturalism;” language; and literature and cultural representation. Two specific case studies, the Amazighs and Armenian Christians, were also discussed.

The Middle East’s pluralistic social and political fabric has gone through several historical changes, and ethnicity, religion, language, and political ideologies play pivotal roles in contemporary identity affiliations across the region.

National and regional conflicts often intensify subnational identities, and this has especially been the case in the Middle East over the last several years. Working Group participants identified a series of original areas of research regarding the on-going intensification of identities in the Middle East, including the relationship between the conceptions of the state and inclusion of some identity groups and the exclusion of others; the impact of globalization and transnational communities; the historical legacy of the Ottoman millet system; sectarianism in the post-Arab Spring era; the role of intellectuals and social media in identity formation; and the underlying causes and consequences of increasing religiosity.

Governance and state policies impact the social, economic, and political inclusion or exclusion of communities in the Middle East. Working Group participants discussed the multiple linkages between statehood and identity-formation in the Middle East. They questioned the relationship between communities and sites of power; and challenges international law’s values and principles pose on states’ traditional governance. The participants also discussed topics related to the parallel development of local human rights traditions along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a sort of self-determination in the decision-making processes, and the role of state institutions in enforcing social harmonization and cohesiveness.

State policies dealing with education, families, kinship and law, mobility of labor and capital can directly impact social inclusion and exclusion. In recent years, state policies have greatly impacted foreign, national and private educational institutions. Although this is not unique to the Middle East, there is limited literature on the notions of inclusion and exclusion in Middle Eastern educational curriculums. The relationship between policymaking and ways in which families are being constructed also has direct bearing on education. The participants claimed that the nature of communities’ relations both with each other and the state could be seen as a result of exclusionary and inclusionary policies. In addition, the participants discussed issues related to mobility of people and ideas, social representation in the education system, globalization, and war on terror and school curriculum in the Middle East.

Modern nation-building processes began roughly in the middle of the twentieth century in several states of the Middle East, such as Egypt and Iraq. Driven by ideology, politics and religious beliefs, states, and recently non-state actors like ISIS, have used iconoclasm as a tool to limit the multiple identities within the nation state, and reinforce a monolithic identity. The practice of iconoclasm has impacted the material culture and visual heritage of the different religious and ethno-linguistic communities that comprise the region’s demography. Archeological negligence, and inconsiderate urban planning have also contributed to this erasure of visual pluralism. In addition, participants also discussed the role of social media, media and film in encouraging and countering iconoclasm in the Middle East.

Urban spaces in the Middle East have been going through swift progression in some countries, and massive urban decay in others. Master planning of urban spaces is very politicized in the Middle East, with various socio-economic drivers and consequences. The planning of gated and smart cities, and new capitals segregates communities by nationality, class, ethnicity, and religion. The participants posed questions related to the definition of public good, social representation in master planning, public contestation, access to public information, democratic decentralization, communities’ quarters, gentrification of communities, security, citizenship, and urban equality and inequality.

Media is a tool of communication greatly influenced by states in the Middle East. It propagates certain convictions insofar as religious and ethno-linguistic communities in the Middle East are concerned. The participants identified four main topics that are insufficiently researched: labor and digital media; citizenship; border; and knowledge production. Within these four main topics, questions around the usage of media by migrant workers and expatriates in the Gulf, redesigning of borders, under-representation in political and media institutions, capitalism and cognitive knowledge, memory preservation, and production of knowledge were identified as important areas of original research.

Language and linguistics are germane to the discussion on pluralism in the Middle East. Members of ethno-linguistic communities have been attempting to maintain their languages and dialects despite attempts by states to undermine their languages and reinforce the official language of the state. The participants suggested research questions that examine the influence of local groups and authority over language, communities’ resistance to states’ language policies, unification and fragmentation among different ethno-linguistic communities, Shiite-Sunni dialect differences, preservation of dialects, linguistic class processing, media and film, and different usages of colloquial and classic languages.

“Minor literature” is literature produced by the colonized in the colonizer’s language that resists colonization. Post colonization, minor literatures have emerged as a form of resistance and denationalization produced by religious and ethno-linguistic communities in contestation to their marginalization by their respective states. Minor literatures in Turkey often refer to Greek, Jewish, Armenian, and Yazidi literature. The body of literature was always studied in relation to the past. The place and role of minor literature in the imagined futuristic social and political conditions of post nationalist Turkey remains understudied. Ethnographic studies on the readership of minor literature in Turkey also remain under-studied. Thus, the participants suggested original research questions that addressed the engagement with minor literature in Turkey, diasporic migrant experience and minor literature writers, representation of communities in mainstream literature, engagement of Turkish minor literature with the international literary community, engagement among different communities in Turkish minor literature, and targeted audience of Turkish minor literature.

Insofar as the Armenian Christian community in the Middle East is concerned, the participants discussed four original areas for research. These areas looked at the issue of Muslim Armenians, and whether Islam is not compatible with Armenian identity. They also discussed the question of Armenian citizenship and if practicing Christianity is a pre-requisite. The participants identified also other gaps in literature that included: the role of Armenian media, communal publications and propagation of Armenian political agenda, the tension between Eastern and Western Armenians, perception of Armenians in diaspora on the Armenian state, usage of national language, objectives of Armenian publications, Armenian urban space in the Middle East, Armenian scouts, Armenian transnational networks, media and film, Armenian progressive national movements, and the relationship between Armenians and Hezbollah.

Finally, the participants discussed the Amazigh community in North Africa. The participants claimed that the main gaps in research have less to do with how the Amazigh community has changed, but more with how to change the methodological lens through which the community and its struggles can be viewed and analyzed. Regional and transnational analysis can contribute to the study of the Amazigh community in North Africa as it addresses larger political questions, and recognizes the unintended consequences of pluralism. Four gaps in literature were identified: regionalism, transnationalism, localism, and language policy. Under these four main thematic topics, the participants posed questions that touched on topics that included: the relationship between foreign policy and identity formation, Amazigh activism, differences between first and second generation Amazigh immigrants, urban versus rural elitism, institutionalization and politicization of Amazigh as an ethno-linguistic minority, and concepts of inclusion and exclusion.

See the meeting agenda
Read participant biographies
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Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
James Barry, Deakin University
Kathleen Cavanaugh, National University of Ireland
Paolo D’Urbano, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Amanda Garrett, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Shak Hanish, National University, California
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Umber Latafat, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Catherine Miller, Aix-Marseille University
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Firat Oruc, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Annika Rabo, Stockholm University
Diane Singerman, American University, Washington
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Antonio Zarandona, Deakin University

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Is Black Money Really Black? The International and National Fight Against Money Laundering
2016-03-23 18:00 - 19:00
Reem Al-Ansari, a professor at Qatar University’s College of Law and the 2015-2016 CIRS Qatar University Fellow at Georgetown University in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on March 23, 2016, on “Is Black Money Really Black? The International and National Fight Against Money Laundering.” The talk focused on the billions of dollars criminals launder through the global financial system, the staggering social, economic, and political fallout they cause, and what countries like Qatar are doing in response.

Beginning her lecture by defining the term “money laundering,” Al-Ansari said that: “In its simplest form, money laundering refers to an amount of money leaving from destination A, and using techniques to make it seem like the funds were obtained from destination B, a legal source.” Once the money has moved through several banks in different countries, it can then be returned to its owner, ready to be used as legitimate funds.

Al-Ansari, who is also the Director of the Legal Research and Studies division at Role of Law and Anti-Corruption Center (ROLACC) in Doha, listed the various countries targeted for money laundering, as well as the nations that serve as destinations for newly cleaned money. Adding that Qatar is also a target of this criminal activity, she said that Qatari authorities have taken steps to respond to the threat of money laundering by introducing a specific law to mitigate against it. This comprehensive law was enacted following the unsatisfactory conclusion of an IMF-led evaluation report of Qatar’s banking system. “Qatar is awakening to the threat, and it led to the new law,” she said.

The newly established regulations are particularly important as a result of the criminal opportunities posed by the upcoming World Cup in 2022, she said. Further strengthening Qatar’s anti-corruption commitment, she added that, “Qatar now adheres to the series of recommendations that FATF has developed and that set the international standard for combating of money laundering,” referring to the nation’s membership to the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental policy-making body, established in 1989 to promote effective implementation of measures for combating threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

The consequences of unchecked money laundering, she concluded, are severe, including increased criminal activity and currency inflation in developing economies, which bear the consequences of economic collapse when critical funds simply disappear as they continue through the multi-step money cleaning process.

Reem Al-Ansari received her LLM from the University of Michigan Law School–Ann Arbor, and earned her Doctorate degree from Georgetown University’s Law Center in Washington D.C., marking her as the youngest Qatari lawyer and doctorate degree holder in the state. In addition to lecturing, Al-Ansari is the Director of the Legal Research and Studies division at Role of Law and Anti-Corruption Center (ROLACC) in Doha, Qatar. Previously, she worked at the World Bank headquarters in the Governance and Anti-corruption (GAC) unit, and is the recipient of two EED awards for education excellence. She is currently working on a book tackling the issue of money laundering and corruption, and tweets under @ReemaAlAnsari.

Shantayanan Devarajan on "How the Arab World Can Benefit from Low Oil Prices"
2016-03-24 12:30 - 13:30
Shantayanan Devarajan, Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on “How the Arab World Can Benefit from Low Oil Prices” on March 24, 2016, in which he proposed that the widespread concern about plummeting oil prices, particularly among rentier states, is not a predicament to be solved, but an opportunity to be harnessed.

Devarajan highlighted four key problems facing the Arab world today. The first of these is that the region has the highest unemployment rates in the developing world, a figure that reflects the systematic exclusion of women and young people from the labor market. The second problem is the lack of economic diversification, and especially in the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, concentration on the exports of a single commodity, whether oil or gas. Made more visible by the events of the Arab uprisings, the third problem includes the poor quality of public services, such as the widespread lack of sustained electricity and sanitation in many Arab countries. The final problem concerns the high volatility of already declining average growth rates for countries such as Egypt.

All of these issues, he argued, are intimately connected with the prevalent policies decision-makers have implemented across the Arab world in recent times. Devarajan identified and discussed three key adverse policies. The first concerns a variety of policies that have led to the non-optimal use of public resources, whether deliberately or inadvertently. The second adverse policy involves the high proportion of civil servants in the labor force, making the ratio of public to private sector workers in the MENA region the highest in the world. In Kuwait, for instance, 95 percent of the male labor force works in the public sector. Exemplifying the high levels of volatility in the region, the third policy underscores the pro-cyclical strategies that allow countries to enter into an expansionary mode when oil prices are up, often with the risk of debt, and contraction when prices drop.

Devarajan emphasized the connection between poor policymaking initiatives and the four major problems facing the Arab world. As an example, he examined the impact of fuel subsidies on energy-intensive industries, arguing that the persistent subsidizing of these large, old, and capital intensive firms hinders these small firms from growing, ultimately affecting the labor market and precluding employment growth. Young and small firms, on the other hand, which do create jobs through growth and expansion, are associated with non-energy-intensive firms. Thus, unemployment in many Arab countries can be partially, but not exclusively, attributed to energy subsidies. Similarly, the policy of Arab countries maintaining a large civil service has the effect of crowding out the private sector. The relatively more stable working conditions for those employed in the public sector, in both oil importing and exporting countries, discourages nationals from working in the private sector, thus limiting overall economic growth.

These examples, Devarajan noted, constitute the “bad news.” However, the “good news” has been steadily taking shape since the price of oil fell in 2014-15 when the region began witnessing remarkable systematic investments in energy subsidy reforms by oil importers and exporters alike. “The UAE, basically, has eliminated its fuel subsidies,” Kuwait, Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt have followed suit, and “Lebanon has addressed its water subsidies,” leading to a positive environment of policy reform. In the civil service sector of many Arab countries, partial reforms are being undertaken, where governments are cutting back on civil service wages, benefits, and wasteful expenditures. Underpublicized are also efforts by some of these countries to improve energy efficiency, including investing in renewables. Owing to recent subsidy reforms, and by association, the drop in oil prices, oil-dependent countries are unexpectedly moving towards renewables, even faster than some European countries, thus making a larger contribution to the mitigation of global climate change. In contrast to times of stability, therefore, low oil prices allow for the formation of political coalitions necessary to pursue a variety of political and economic reforms. The reason for these changes, Devarajan explained, is budgetary pressure. “It is actually the right thing to do even if there were no budgetary pressures. This is something that should have been done a long time ago if you wanted to solve these problems of unemployment and poor quality services.”

Even though Devarajan acknowledged many of the major advancements made, he said there remains much work to be done. He suggested further improvements that can be implemented, including a variety of public service reforms to overcome the “credibility trap” where mistrust of the government’s ability to improve public services paralyzes public contributions to financing those services. Further, the persistence of reactionary decisions and policies towards changes in oil prices underscores the necessity of adopting standardized fiscal rules to overcome obstacles to economic growth. Lastly, the civil service in oil-exporting countries, particularly those with small citizen populations such as Kuwait and the UAE, function as a system for redistributing oil revenues. “There is no reason to have 95 percent of the labor force in the civil service. There are not that many jobs. There is not that much work to be done in the public sector to have so many people employed,” he argued. Devarajan concluded by sharing his optimism for further positive change in a low oil-price Arab world due to already demonstrated possibilities for reform.

Shantayanan Devarajan is the Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region. Since joining the World Bank in 1991, he has been a Principal Economist and Research Manager for Public Economics in the Development Research Group, and the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network, South Asia, and Africa Region. He was the director of the World Development Report 2004, Making Services Work for Poor People. Before 1991, he was on the faculty of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The author or co-author of over 100 publications, Devarajan’s research covers public economics, trade policy, natural resources and the environment, and general equilibrium modeling of developing countries. Born in Sri Lanka, Devarajan received his B.A. in mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Article by Hazim Ali, Center for International and Regional Studies

Uday Chandra Faculty Research Workshop
2016-03-28 09:00 - 17:00
On March 28, 2016, CIRS hosted a Faculty Research Workshop on Uday Chandra’s book manuscript Negotiating Leviathan: State and Tribe in Modern India. The manuscript explores how and why certain people and places came to be seen as “tribal” in modern India, and in turn, how “tribal” subjects remade their customs and communities in the course of negotiations with colonial and postcolonial states. Dr. Chandra argues, briefly, that the state and tribes make and remake each other recursively in the margins of modern India, historical processes of modern statemaking shaping and being shaped by myriad forms of resistance by tribal subjects. Implicit here is a critique of theories of “subaltern” resistance that treat tribes and peasants as vestiges of a pre-modern past and at odds with the workings of modern states. Comparatively speaking, the manuscript carries much relevance beyond South Asia, especially in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, where “tribes” continue to be politically salient yet widely misunderstood as pre-modern vestiges.

Research for this book, which comes out of Dr. Chandra’s doctoral project, was conducted over the past decade. Archival research in London, Delhi, Kolkata, Patna, Pune, Bangalore, and Ranchi permitted Chandra to piece together a history of the modern Indian state in its “tribal” margins over the past two centuries. These archives, far from being mere repositories of the state’s own perceptions of tribal communities, presented a polyphonous chorus of voices, ranging from paternalistic British and Indian officials and Christian missionaries seeking converts to tribal subjects from diverse backgrounds speaking in different tongues. In-depth ethnographic research over three years in the forests of Jharkhand in eastern India complemented work in the archives by offering a close-to-the-ground understanding of the everyday lifeworlds of tribal communities residing in this region. As the author lived and worked among the Mundas of central Jharkhand, he listened to their songs, stories, and histories, and observed the ways in which their ways of life were enmeshed with those of the state. Indeed, even the Maoist movement, which was spreading across the region, coexisted curiously with the state, and ordinary men and women lived under circumstances of dual sovereignty.

The participants at the CIRS research workshop came from universities in India, the Gulf, and Europe. These historians, political scientists, anthropologists, and sociologists specialize in the study of modern India. The book manuscript as a whole presented them an opportunity to grapple with the totality of his project rather than just smaller article-length chunks of it. The workshop participants approached the manuscript from their diverse disciplinary positions, though they appreciated that the author wished to speak across conventional disciplinary divides in clear, jargon-free prose. Each participant had been assigned specific chapters, on which they offered detailed comments and criticisms in each session. Other participants raised their own questions for the author, who took copious notes and responded to calls for clarification as well as queries on the specific goals each book chapter sought to accomplish.

The workshop participants suggested vital changes to the manuscript in order to avoid certain pitfalls and to appeal broadly to its intended audiences. Firstly, they recommended rewriting the introductory chapter entirely for a general audience unfamiliar with the subject matter of the book. The introduction, they explained, should reflect the core strengths of the book, namely, the author’s interdisciplinary approach and deep familiarity with his fieldsites and their inhabitants. Secondly, some participants suggested laying out clearly at the outset how the data were collected, especially during ethnographic fieldwork, and rendering the author more visible in the book’s narrative. Doing so, they claimed, would permit readers to appreciate the uniqueness of the research and the author’s close relationships with informants, both of which are implicit rather than explicit at present. Thirdly, other participants argued for a closer braiding together of the historical and ethnographic parts of the manuscript. Each chapter could, of course, make its own arguments, but to the extent that the author argues that the past matters for the present, they need to be brought into close conversation with each other across chapters. Lastly, a number of workshop participants advised the author to clearly define key terms such as the “state,” “resistance,” and “negotiation” so that readers are certain of how they are being deployed in the book. The author thanked the workshop participants for these suggestions, which, he said, will greatly improve the overall quality of the manuscript.

Dr. Chandra is currently in discussions with Stanford University Press regarding the publication of his book. Two other leading university presses have expressed an interest in publishing the book. Since the subject matter of the book should appeal to multiple audiences across regional and disciplinary boundaries, the author has written it in a way that makes sense to even undergraduates unfamiliar with the region of study. The manuscript should be ready for submission this summer, and may be expected to be in print sometime during the 2017-18 academic year. By that time, Dr. Chandra will have commenced work on a second book, tentatively titled Democracy and Fascism in Modern India, which traces the historical entanglements of democratization in the public sphere and fascist tendencies therein that have favored the rise and growth of Hindu majoritarianism over the past century or so. CIRS will be supporting that book project too.

See the Workshop AgendaRead Participant Biographies

Uday Chandra is an Assistant Professor of Government. He received his B.A. in economics from Grinnell College and his PhD in political science from Yale University in 2013. He received the 2013 Sardar Patel Award for writing the best dissertation in a US university on any aspect of modern South Asia. Before coming to Doha, he held a prestigious research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Goettingen, Germany. Uday’s research lies at the intersection between critical agrarian studies, political anthropology, postcolonial theory, and South Asian studies He is interested in state-society relations, power and resistance, political violence, agrarian change, rural-urban migration, popular religion, and the philosophy of the social sciences. Uday’s work has been published in the Law & Society Review, Social Movement Studies, New Political Science, The Journal of Contemporary Asia, Contemporary South Asia, and the Indian Economic & Social History Review. He has coedited volumes and journal special issues on the ethics of self-making in modern South Asia, subaltern politics and the state in contemporary India, caste relations in colonial and postcolonial eastern India, and social movements in rural India today.

Geopolitics of Natural Resources in the Middle East Working Group Meeting II
2016-04-03 09:00 - 2016-04-04 15:00
On April 3-4, 2016, CIRS held a second working group under its research initiative on “Geopolitics of Natural Resources in the Middle East.” On the course of two days, working group participants presented draft papers on a number of related topics including, amongst other things, on the politics of natural resources in the Middle East; scarcity and economic development; environmental and social mobilization; the securitization of natural resources in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states; “greening” policies in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf; Tunisian phosphate mining; coastal sand mining in Morocco; piracy and illegal fishing in Somali territorial waters; and illegal charcoal trafficking from Africa to the GCC states.

Georgetown University’s Harry Verhoeven initiated the group discussion by suggesting that there are three principal paradigms that can serve as a guiding analytical framework through which we can study the politics of natural resources within the Middle East. The first is a fundamentally positivist approach, which conceives of the natural world as a separate realm that is disconnected from the actions of human beings. Within this framework, politics is withdrawn from the equation, and development and environment can be reconciled, particularly through technological intervention and innovation. A second paradigm is resoundingly negativist and Malthusian, conceiving of human behavior as ultimately destructive in relation to the environment. A third paradigm suggests that human society and the environment are inexorably entwined; and thus, any conversation concerning the environment is fundamentally political.

Following Verhoeven’s largely theoretical discussion, Wessel Vermuelen presented a paper titled “Scarcity Derives Economic Development: The Effect of Energy Subsidies on Export Diversification in the Middle East.” Vermuelen tests the effect of energy subsidies on export diversification, particularly focusing on varieties of exports, and the number of export destinations. His research points out that energy subsidy reform remains a critical challenge in many developing countries, and particularly within the Middle East and North Africa. Subsidy reform is considered difficult to implement due to resistance from both the general population and the private sector. However, over the longer term, reductions in energy subsidies remain inevitable if the Middle Eastern states are economically integrated with the rest of the world and advanced economies in particular.

Building on Vermuelen’s paper, Jeannie Sowers offered an examination of “The Evolution of Environmental and Social Mobilization in the Middle East.” Through her research Sowers explores the changes and continuities in patterns of environmental mobilization as seen across the region. Sowers situates Middle Eastern environmental mobilization within broader studies of activism, social mobilization, and state-society relations. Her analysis draws attention to existing structural economic and ecological challenges across the region, and discusses which of these have proved more salient to environmental activism. Sowers also identifies the dominant forms of environmental mobilization seen in the Middle East, from the popular campaign (hamla), to the state-donor project (mashru’), as well as the mobilization driven by NGOs. In her paper, Sowers draws on the popular environmental campaigns that occurred in Egypt and Lebanon.

Jill Crystal shifted the group’s focus to the Arabian Peninsula, presenting a paper on “Securitization of Natural Resources in the Gulf.” Crystal examines the political construction of a broad security framework in the GCC states insofar as natural resources are concerned. She argues that when the GCC’s critical energy infrastructure was threatened by terrorism, governments created a language of anti-terrorism and developed a discourse of securitization to frame energy resources. After the Arab uprisings, new modes of authoritarian behavior have been observed across the region, and the securitization discourse has infiltrated a number of domains. Amongst other things, in her paper Crystal argues that the historical trade-off between political quiescence and economic satisfaction has been replaced by political quiescence in exchange for security.

Ali Al-Keblawy sharpened the focus on the Arab states of the Persian Gulf further through his paper “The Greening of the Gulf,” in which he claims that the landscape and vegetation of deserts in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf have been significantly altered during the last fifty years by a variety of factors. These factors include: livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use, urbanization and its attendants, oil exploration and production activities, and introduction of exotic species. Several other factors have slowed natural recovery of the desert vegetation after disturbance, some of the most notable of which include unpredictability and scarcity of rainfall, repeated drought, extreme high temperatures, intense sun light, high wind storms, and the low fertility of desert soils. However, many of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf paid too much attention to the recovery and greening of the deteriorated landscapes. Al-Keblawy argued that working with, not against, the harsh conditions of the environment would help in creating a sustainable green landscape. He suggests a number of alternatives that include, among others, plantation of native trees, genetic modification of crops, sea watering, and usage of halophytes.

Another paper, by Abbas Maleki, focused on “The Politics of Natural Resources in the Caspian Sea.” Maleki claims that the Caspian region today is a zone of interest to the United States, Russia, European Union, China, Turkey, Japan, Iran and India, largely because of its promising oil and gas resources. These resources exceed those of the North Sea. Under the bottom of this trans-boundary body of water, which is the largest lake in the world, there is four percent of the world gas and oil reserves. Given the amount of oil and gas reserves, Maleki argues that the geo-economic power has not fully surpassed more traditional, military control of territory in this context, which continues to be complex on several geopolitical scale. In his paper, he studies the geopolitics, ecosystem, energy politics and economics, and legal debates insofar as the natural resources in the Caspian Sea are concerned.

Francis Ghiles and Eckart Woertz’s contribution focused on “Tunisian Phosphates and the Politics of the Periphery.” In their paper, the authors presented a historic overview of Tunisian phosphate mining and its role in regional development. They also analyzed the politics of Tunisia’s periphery, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail’s role within it, and the emergence of new social actors. They presented a detailed examination of how such conflicts played out during the strikes in the phosphate mines in 2008 and after 2011, concluding with some thoughts on possible future developments.

Maria Snoussi provided a critical review on coastal sand mining in Morocco through her paper on “The State, Business, and Morocco’s Environmental Strains: The Case of Coastal Sand Mining.” Snoussi investigates the main causes that have impeded the authorities to effectively manage sand mining. She argues that these causes lie in the lack of comprehensive and integrated policies governing coastal sand resources, and the weakness and lack of enforcement of legal frameworks. This is compounded by a shortsighted vision on the potential value of the coast as a natural capital. Finally, Snoussi argues that only a decisive policy shift toward resource conservation, integrated coastal zone management, and legal reforms regarding sand mining could lead to a different outcome.

Afyare Abdi Elmi led a discussion on his research on “Piracy and Illegal Fishing from Somalia to the Middle East.” Elmi argues that Somalia’s territorial waters are of critical importance and that seventy percent of the Middle East’s transit goes through the Gulf of Aden. Elmi points out that the piracy that has been dominating Somali waters is rooted in a previous history of illegal fishing from vessels originating from Yemen, Iran, and other Middle East countries. Elmi provides a deep analysis of the political and economic explanations and consequences of the causes of piracy, the links to illegal fishing, as well as how this particular political economy is connected to the Middle East. His research suggests five principal causes: statelessness or weak statehood; profit; business opportunities; illegal overfishing; and toxic waste material dumping.

Finally, Illyaa Gridneff shared the findings on “Illegal Charcoal Trafficking in the Middle East.” Gridneff has investigated the economic and environmental consequences of the illegal charcoal trade in Somalia that have led to political tensions on the local, regional and international levels. His work suggests that illegal charcoal trade links Somalia to the Middle East and particularly Arab states of the Persian Gulf. In southern Somalia, acacia tress have been cut and burned to create charcoal and subsequently exported to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The demand for Somali charcoal, which is one of the world’s finest, and the income that comes with it, has led to competition over influence in Somalia between African Union forces and neighboring countries on the one hand, and aboriginal forces in Somalia, Al Shabab, on the other. The Somali charcoal trade, a source of income to Al Shabab, constitutes an environmental as well as a political and security threat to both Somalia as well as to the broader Middle East and Africa regions.

See the meeting agendaRead participant biographiesRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJill Crystal, Auburn UniversityAli El-Keblawy, University of SharjahAfyare A. Elmi, Qatar UniversityFrancis Ghilès, Barcelona Center for International Affairs (Cidob)Ilya Gridneff, Sahan ResearchIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarUmber Latafat, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAbbas Maleki, Sharif University of Technology in TehranSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMaria Snoussi, Université Mohammed V, MoroccoJeannie Sowers, University of New HampshireHarry Verhoeven, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarWessel N. Vermeulen, University of OxfordElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geography and the Road Ahead
2016-04-05 18:00 - 19:00
Mehran Kamrava, Professor and Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture to discuss the findings of his most recent book, The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geography and the Road Ahead (Yale University Press, 2016), on April 5, 2016. Explaining why he felt the need to write this book, Kamrava said that what he had learnt about Palestine as a student and professor of the Middle East bore little resemblance to the reality of what he experienced when he began conducting fieldwork in Palestine. He recalled this disconnect by noting, “I was immediately struck, while I was on the ground, by the inconsistency between my own assumptions—what I had studied and what I had thought about over the years—and the reality on the ground.” Kamrava argued that the Oslo Accords, an exciting development in the stalemate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, offered little to alleviate the struggle of Palestinians and lead to further entrenchment of the continued struggle raging on the ground.

Introducing the thesis of his book, Kamrava explained: “If you think about Palestinian history, Palestinian society, and Palestinian politics, a Palestinian state is impossible. The realities on the ground as they have unfolded have made a Palestinian state impossible and improbable.” However, he continued by saying “a Palestinian nation, or, more specifically, a Palestinian national identity will continue to live on and will be extremely vibrant. In fact, the vibrancy of Palestinian identity—of what it is to be Palestinian lies largely because of the impossibility of the Palestinian state.”

In order to examine this thesis more closely, Kamrava adumbrated three complicated reasons that have made a Palestinian state impossible. The first of these is a result of the complex political forces that have shaped Palestinian history and continue to dictate its current predicament and future direction. Within this category, Kamrava examined four subsets of these political dynamics, including Israel’s military and territorial conquest and defeat of an ill-equipped Palestine in 1948; the subsequent decades of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through outright violence as well as through “legal” administrative policies resulting in the stealthy “silent transfer” of Palestinian communities from their historical homelands; the systematic defeat of Palestinian armed struggle taken up since the 1970s; and, finally, the international community’s betrayal of the Palestinian leadership in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords.

The second reason for the impossibility of Palestine, Kamrava explained, is due to the debilitating geographic segregations introduced after the Oslo Accords. Palestinian mobility became increasingly restricted with the division of the West Bank into three separate territories: Area A, under Palestinian control; Area B, under Israeli military control and Palestinian civil and administrative control; and Area C, under complete Israeli control. “This,” he said, “is result of the Oslo Accords. This is the Palestine that the Palestinian leadership agreed to.” These political dynamics conspired to divide Palestinian territories into a series of dysfunctional and ungovernable entities, thus disempowering Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and undermining any notion of a future Palestinian state.

The third, and most consequential, reason for the impossibility of a Palestinian state is the critical changes that have been taking place in Palestinian society, and the multiple factions therein. Kamrava stated that, despite their eagerness to offer assistance, a multitude of civil society and non-governmental organizations have, in many ways, hampered the constitution of a Palestinian state. While these organizations have often been supportive, they are, ultimately, beholden to their foreign funders, who then dictate where support can be given and where it should be withheld. Many of these decisions have been politically motivated, seriously curtailing the areas in which civil society organizations are allowed to operate. Over the years, the proliferation of such organizations has meant that non-governmental support has developed its own type of bureaucratic bankruptcy. Kamrava explained that “with unintended consequences, Palestinian society, today, in the West Bank and to a lesser extent in Gaza, has become paralyzed because of the work of these civil society organizations.”

Kamrava concluded with what the road ahead might look like for Palestine, and offered three possible scenarios for the future of Palestine. The first of these is the model of a national rebirth in the wake of almost total annihilation, similar to Poland in the post-WWII period; the second is a model in which a nation is overtaken almost entirely by another civilization, similar to modern-day Tibet; and, finally, the third is a model in which a community of people are deliberately segregated into islands of deprivation, similar to the dispossession of native populations in America and Australia.

Mehran Kamrava is Professor and Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He is the author of a number of journal articles and books, including, most recently, The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geography, and the Road Ahead (2016); Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (2015); The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War, 3rd ed. (2013); and Iran’s Intellectual Revolution (2008). His edited books include Fragile Politics: Weak States in the Greater Middle East (2016); Beyond the Arab Spring: The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East (2015); The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf (2012); The Nuclear Question in the Middle East (2012); and The International Politics of the Persian Gulf (2011).

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

CIRS Hosts Reception for Dean Nonneman
2016-04-18 18:00 - 20:00
CIRS hosted a reception for Gerd Nonneman, dean of Georgetown University in Qatar, on April 18, 2016. The reception was attended by Georgetown University in Qatar faculty, students, and staff, as well as members of the Qatar community, including diplomats, community leaders, and invited members of the general public. Gerd Nonneman served as dean of Georgetown University in Qatar for five years, a period in which he oversaw a series of institutional developments leading to an expansion of the Qatar campus, an increase in specialized faculty, establishment of the Arabic heritage program, and sustained community engagement. Although Nonneman is stepping down as dean of the university, he will return to Georgetown University in Qatar as a professor and researcher in the coming academic year.

Dr. Gerd Nonneman, Professor of International Relations & Gulf Studies, holds an M.A. in Middle East Politics (1985) and Ph.D. in Politics (1993) from the University of Exeter. He also holds Licentiates in Oriental Philology (Arabic) (1980) and Development Studies (1981) from the University of Ghent, Belgium. Prior to his appointment as dean, he served as Professor of International Relations & Middle East Politics, and Al-Qasimi Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter, where he has also directed the Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies and the Center for Gulf Studies. A former Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), he is also a Council member of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES). Aside from his academic work, he has worked in the private sector in the Gulf region, and acted as a consultant to a range of companies, NGOs, governments and international institutions. Dean Nonneman is Associate Editor of the Journal of Arabian Studies (Routledge). Among his recent publications are: Al-Mamlaka Al-‘arabiyya al-sa’udiyya fi-l-mizan [Saudi Arabia in the Balance] (updated Arabic edition: Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2012); ‘Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States: Elite Politics, Street Protests and Regional Diplomacy’ (Chatham House, 2011); ‘Europe, the US, and the Gulf after the Cold War’, in V. Mauer & D. Möckli (eds.), European-American Relations and the Middle East: From Suez to Iraq (Routledge, 2010); ‘Terrorism and Political Violence in the Middle East and North Africa: Drivers and Limitations’, in A. Siniver (ed.), International Terrorism post 9/11 (Routledge, 2010); ‘Political Reform in the Gulf Monarchies: From Liberalisation to Democratisation? A Comparative Perspective’, in A. Ehteshami & S. Wright (eds.), Reform in the Middle East Oil Monarchies (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2008); Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs (New York University Press, 2006); ‘EU-GCC Relations’, (Gulf Research Center, 2006); and Analyzing Middle East Foreign Policies (Routledge, 2005).

Highly Skilled Migration to the Gulf in Comparative Perspective Working Group I
2016-06-01 08:30 - 2016-06-02 14:00
On June 1-2, 2016, The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted a working group on “Highly Skilled Migrants: The Gulf and Global Perspectives.” This working group is an outcome of a joint research project on Highly Skilled Migrants in Qatar that Zahra Babar, CIRS Associate Director, and two co-collaborators, Nabil Khattab of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and Michael Ewers of Qatar University’s Social and Economic Survey Research Institute recently began working on. The working group provided Babar, Khattab, and Ewers with the opportunity to share their preliminary research results and receive feedback. A number of other scholars with regional and global experience on the topic of skilled migration were invited to present on their own research during the working group. The gathering allowed the group to revisit some of the fundamental assumptions about the nature, patterns, and processes of labor migration to the Gulf region, through the lens of highly skilled migration.

Zahra Babar, Michael Ewers and Nabil Khattab started the discussion by introducing their pilot project on “Highly Skilled Migrants in Qatar.” They shared the results of a survey of 300 highly skilled migrants that was carried out in Qatar in January 2016 and also some of the preliminary findings of a few in-depth interviews that they have carried out in the past month. The survey and qualitative interviews address a number of areas, including among other things: highly skilled migrants’ careers and professional lives in Qatar, motivations and drivers for coming to the country and reasons for staying, human capital development— both the tacit skills and know-how that they contribute to their work, organizations and the country— and their values and aspirations relating to their mobility, as well as life strategies and future aims and life strategies.

Building on the first session and allowing for a very interesting comparative geographic perspective, Micheline van Riemsdijk led a discussion on the “Integration of Highly Skilled Migrants in the Workplace: A Multi-Scalar Model” which is focused on highly skilled migrants in Scandinavia. Dr. van Riemsdijk’s research examines the integration of foreign-born skilled migrants within Norway’s petroleum industry. Just as in Qatar and in other hydrocarbon producers, Norway draws on an international workforce to populate its petroleum industry. Through her study of foreign-born engineers and other highly skilled migrants in Norway’s petroleum industry, Dr. Van Riemsdijk argues that integration and retention of skilled migrants is essential to the success of the sector, as these foreign workers contribute to knowledge creation and innovation in their host countries. Van Riemsdijk has developed a multi-scalar model to assist her in studying the socio-cultural integration of skilled migrants in the workplace. This model includes several interdependent variables that influence the integration of skilled migrants in the workplace, including societal values, industry characteristics, companies, managers, and the agency of migrants. This model can be useful to the broader literature on immigrant integration and international skilled migration.

Mathias Czaika led a group discussion on “High-Skilled Migration Policies and Practices in Emerging Economies.” Dr. Czaika’s research focuses on emerging economics, in particular the “BRICS plus” of Brazil, Russia, India, China, Turkey and Indonesia, as “new hubs” of global migration that are drawing highly skilled workers. Dr. Czaika’s work on recent developments in migration policy-making reveals that in highly developed (mostly OECD) states, policies to attract the highly skilled are implemented, as are carefully crafted migration policies that allow for selectively allowing the highly skilled to immigrate. The newly emerging migration hubs of the BRICS plus are at a different stage of development, and as a result they are experiencing a “migration policy transition”. Dr. Czaika concluded by suggesting that the “global race for talent” is not so much a race for the new migration hubs as it is for the old.

Martin Hividt’s presentation was on the role and impact of highly skilled migrants in developing economies of the GCC. Dr. Hvidt’s research demonstrates that the contribution of highly skilled migrants to the GCC is vital, particularly given the focus on creating a knowledge economy. While highly skilled migrants are certainly an important component of the skilled labor force, in larger and more mature industrialized societies, in the GCC the countries could not transform into knowledge-based economies without the international skilled workforce.

Payal Banerjee shifted the regional focus once again, by sharing her research on Indian IT workers in the United States technology sector. Dr. Banerjee’s research helps us to unpick and think through some of the binaries that exist that suggest that migrants who are “skilled and highly skilled” face less exploitation or obstacles in their lives than migrants who are considered “low skilled.” Dr. Banerjee’s work suggests that there is in fact a fluidity to migration categories and visa classes. Her works demonstrates how the development of capitalism and neo-liberal economic globalization have impacted the creation of immigrant categories and work visas in the United Sates, such as the H-1B, L-1, and B-1. According the Dr. Banerjee these visa programs allow for the differential construction of immigrant statuses in terms of producing different entitlements, pay-scales, rights, and protections under law. Banerjee argues that there is a troubling disjuncture between the neoliberal rhetoric of “free market” policies and the daily practices of subordination and control witnessed in the methods of subcontracting-based immigrant recruitment.

Building up on the differences between migrants in terms of governing and rights, Binod Khadria discussed “The Gulf Divide: Indian Highly Skilled vs. Labor Migrants.” He examined whether the so-called “Asian Century” has sowed the seeds of a paradigm shift in the GCC states, ushering in a change of trend in the ratio of “knowledge workers” to “service workers.” More Indians are migrating as generic workers and students with varying endowments of knowledge, experience, and training. These migration trends turned high-skill migration to the GCC states from “occupation-tied” to “occupation-wide.”

The last session was led by Neha Vora on “Western ‘Experts’ in an Age of Knowledge Economy.” Dr. Vora explored the experiences of highly-skilled migrant workers who have been hired for their expertise to develop GCC’s knowledge economies. These highly-skilled migrants, who are predominantly Westerners, include: consultants, administrators, and educators in all areas of research, development, and education sectors, and primarily those who participate in projects of liberal education. Vora examined the role of “whiteness” and self-segregation in Western migrant experiences, whether they rehearse earlier colonial and civilizational attitudes to projects of development and modernity, and their articulations of their place within highly stratified ethno-racial and class regimes of migration and labor.

​

See the meeting agenda
Read participant biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Payal Banerjee, Smith College
Mathias Czaika, University of Oxford
Michael Ewers, The Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at Qatar University
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Binod Khadria, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Nabil Khattab, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Martin Hvidt, Zayed University
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Micheline van Riemsdijk, University of Tennessee
Neha Vora, Lafayette College
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Leading the Faithful: The Role of Religious Authorities in the Middle East Working Group I
2016-08-22 09:00 - 2016-08-23 15:00
On August 22-23, 2016, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the first working group meeting under its research initiative on the topic of “Leading the Faithful: The Role of Religious Authorities in the Middle East.” During the course of the two days, scholars identified a number of key gaps in the literature on the position and role of religious leaders of different communities present in the Middle East, as well as broader themes relating to the issue of religious authority across the region as a whole.

The Working Group commenced with a discussion led by Dr. Reem Meshal on “The Crisis of Religious Authority in Egypt and the Arab Spring.” In particular, Meshal raised three current crises relating to the issue of religious authority in the Middle East that need further scrutiny: the crisis over who demonstrates legitimate religious authority in Sunni Islam, the crisis of revitalized sectarianism, and the crisis in the academy produced by limiting our understanding of religious orthodoxy via the secular critique. Meshal suggested that in Egypt it is challenging to identify a religious leader who hold a monopoly over authority over Sunni Islam. Many contending and oppositional sources, like Al Azhar and the Muslim Brotherhood, claim to speak for Sunni Islam, but none can serve as sole authority over it. Recently, spreading sectarianism is another crisis that has produced most visible results in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and to an extent in Egypt and also points to a crisis in religious authority. Additionally, Meshal raised a question of whether we might be in the midst of a “third reformation period” of Islamic history where state actors and technocrats presume to speak for religion. Meshal stressed the need to question orthodoxy in a more nuanced and complex manner than what is provided by the secular critique, and to address it as a process that is constructed, rather than given.

Dr. Sajjad Rizvi moved the discussion forward by raising areas of inquiry related to “The Changing Marjaiyyat and Shiite Religious Authority in the Middle East.” Rizvi started his discussion with the impact of certain moments in the history of the Middle East on Shiite religious authority. He discussed the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and how it further established the idea that clerics possess authority; and the Iraq war of 2003, and how it raised the question of who is going to take over religious authority. Rizvi also discussed the structures of Islam in Shiite theology, and how they are more resilient than those of Sunni Islam. Rizvi followed this discussion by a series of questions that, he believes, are understudied. Amongst other interesting and original research questions Rizvi identified the following: how is a Marja produced now days? What are the impacts of social media, new media, new forms of communication on the role and relationship of the Marjayyat and believers? How are the financial flows and networks of the Marjas managed? And how has the militarization and militia-making changed the role of the Marjayyat? Additionally, Rizvi raised some very interesting points relating to the relationship amongst different Shiite clerics, as well as on the difference between traditional mode of religious authority, networks arranged around piety of particular figures and their philanthropic work, and contemporary figures that take on different and broader roles. Rizvi also questioned what impact class, ethnicity, and race play producing Shiite religious leadership, and whether a Marja could be produced outside of Najaf and Qom.

Robert Bianchi led a discussion on the topic of “Religious Authorities and the Politics of Hajj in the Middle East.” Bianchi raised four main themes that could benefit from extended study, and would add to the existing scholarship. First of all, Bianchi suggested that it is important to consider the implications of the changing demographic composition of Hajj pilgrims, who are no longer primarily for Arab states, but rather from Asia and elsewhere. This demographic change has had implications for power relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority states. Secondly, Bianchi suggested that over the past few decades the management of Hajj has become increasingly internationalized with a number of other states and private sector actors involved in management and organization of the Hajj, and this also needs to be more closely examined. As a third area of research, Bianchi suggested studying Hajj as part of the global pilgrimage system, and from a comparative and complementary perspective. The Hajj has seldom been in comparison to other religious pilgrimage global as performed by devotees of other faiths, and it would be interesting to provide this new and comparative framing of Hajj. And finally Bianchi offered the suggestion of discussion to what extent there are possibilities for reinventing, reforming or re-imagining the Hajj, to make it both more practical as well as more inclusive.

Stephane Dudoignon led a session on Iran, focusing on the role of “Sunni Religious Leaders and Inter-Confessional Relations in Iran.” Dudoignon argued that the re-activation of historical memory of religious minority identity versus majority identity had cemented the complex interaction of interests between the Shiite and Sunni religious binary in Iran. Iran also provides an interesting case-study for examining what role local religious authorities play in a context where tribal identity and transnational affiliations also exist. Amongst other understudied areas of research on Iran, Dudoignon suggested the need to carry out a study of the Sunni ulama as a distinct power group within Iran, to deepen our understanding of the complex interaction between the Sunni and Shiite “universes,” to examine how Iranian religious authorities articulate or engage with ethnic, tribal, religious, and linguistic identity in Iran, and finally the role of Sunni clerics in secularizing Iran.

Zachary Wright and Usama Alony discussed “Personalized Religious Charisma in Jihadi Islamist Circles.” Wright started with a broad discussion on long-standing theological debates around leadership and authority amongst religious scholars of different Islamic schools of thought. Wright highlighted the importance of examining the development of doctrine in Salafi Jihadi circles. Following this, Alony spoke about variations in core ideologues of different Salafi religious authorities associated with different transnational movements. Based on qualitative research conducted in Syria in 2013 with interviews of a number of military leaders of various Jihadi movements in Syria, Alony provided details on who these Jihadi leaders are, where they come from, what their ideology is, and how they see themselves and their lives post-civil war Syria. Alony stated that based on his field research he would suggest that while religious leadership continues to be important, it is not the sole motivator for Jihadi militant groups in Syria. Wright and Alony suggested that it is important to address gaps in the scholarship on the religious authority and legitimacy of Daesh, and on the subject of charismatic leadership and different sources of religious authority in Salafi groups more broadly.

Leon Goldsmith, Albert de Jong, and Michael Leezenberg all provided focused case-studies on different, smaller religious communities in the Middle East. Leon Goldsmith provided a lot of insight on the topic of “Alawite Religious Leadership, the State, and Politics in the Levant.” In his discussion, Goldsmith suggested that it currently it is not clear whether religious leadership continues to be of real importance for Syrian Alawites and whether Alawite religious figures remain influential. It could be argued that decades of Ba’athism successfully coopted, dismantled, or significantly limited the authority of Alawite religious figures and limited their ability to influence decision-making for and by the community. In terms of broader gaps in our understanding, Goldsmith suggested that there was limited work on actually defining Alawite identity and whether Alawite religious leaders attempt to influence the formation and development of Alawite identity. Goldsmith also discussed the publication of the Alawite Declaration in April of this year, which could be considered an historic turning point as it attempted to dismiss previously existing notions of Alawite identity. Among other gaps in the literature Goldsmith stated that this project should attempt to provide further study on the following suggested topics: Alawite Religious Leadership in the Levant (who, where, what etc), the Importance and Influence of Alawite religious leadership on the Community, Alawite Religious Authority and State Co-optation in Syria and Turkey, and Fragmentation or Unity in Crisis: Current Status of Alawite Religious Leadership.

Albert de Jong led a discussion on a very understudied community in the Middle East about whom little is known, the Mandaeans. De Jong commenced his session on “Mandaean Tarmida, Mandaean Identity, and Religious Authorities in Iraq and Iran” by stating that there is very limited scholarship on Mandaeans in contemporary times, and what work does exist tends to be historical. As such there are multiple gaps and questions that need to be addressed. Among other areas to study de Jong identified two in particular worth exploring within this topic: the dissolution of religious diversity in the Middle East, and the death of a religion, or how does a religion die? Does it really die out or transform into something else? In both these topics multiple communities facing similar dilemmas could be incorporated into the discussion, the Mandaeans, Zorastrians, and Yezidis. Michael Leezenberg concluded the working group with a discussion on “Shabak and Yezidi Religious Leaders and the Iraqi State.” Leezenberg started his discussion with questioning if Iraq is currently a full functioning “state.” During his presentation Leezenberg highlighted some interesting areas of original research that ought to be undertaken on Shabak and Yezidi religious leaders. Among other things he suggested that it was necessary to study how the recent spate of violent upheaval across the Middle East is affecting these communities, and in particular how the growing instability has shaped the leadership of these groups. Are there in fact even distinct religious leadership bodies for these groups that engage with state and non-state actors in Iraq?

The discussions reflected the significance of the role religious leaders play in the Middle East through their interactions with both sates and publics. They also revealed the extent to which this significant role is understudied in scholarship, especially in light of the developments that swept the region post the 2011 Arab uprisings. Through the aforediscussed topics, this research initiative addresses an increasingly important but largely understudied topic in Middle Eastern studies.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Usama Alony, Northwestern University in Qatar
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Robert Bianchi, Shanghai International Studies University
Albert de Jong, Leiden University
Stéphane Dudoignon, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRF)
Nazarbayev University of Astana, Kazakhstan
John Fahy, Georgetown University in Qatar
Leon Goldsmith, Massey University and University of Otago, New Zealand
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Michiel Leezenberg, University of Amsterdam
Reem Meshal, Qatar University
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Sajjad Rizvi, University of Exeter
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Zachary Wright, Northwestern University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Pluralism and Community in the Middle East Working Group II
2016-09-18 09:00 - 2016-09-19 15:00
On September 18–19, 2016, CIRS held a second working group under its research initiative on “Pluralism and Community in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, working group participants presented draft papers examining pluralism and diversity within the contemporary Middle East, addressing amongst other things: how governance and legal regimes incorporate or engage with issues of plural communities; how architecture and urbanism in the Middle East reflect changing notions of identity and inclusion; iconoclasm and heritage destruction undertaken by the Islamic State (IS); education in plural societies of Lebanon and Syria; the economic conditions of Sunni communities in Iran; the evolution of Armenian nationalism and identity in the Middle East; race, ethnicity, and identity in Iran; and Qatari social structure.

The working group commenced with a presentation of Kathleen Cavanaugh’s paper on “Governance and Legal Regimes in the Middle Eastern Plural Society.” In her paper, Cavanaugh appraises the normative universalism of human rights principles in addressing issues of pluralism and inclusion, examines how these principles have influenced governance in the Middle East, and provides a robust critique of ‘secularism’ as being the prescriptive means by which to foster greater inclusion in the Middle East. Cavanaugh’s paper suggests that that there is a need to undertake a pragmatic assessment of the ways in which the language of the “universal” and the “secular” have actually suffocated voices of diversity and allowed states to suppress culture and identity.

Nezar Al Sayyad presented his paper “On the Changing Identity of Architecture and Urbanism in the Middle East during the Era of Globalization.” Al Sayyad argues that the Middle East serves as a convincing geographical space from which to argue that “universal modernism” is only or at least mainly a European phenomenon. The permanently hybrid and evolving nature of architecture and urbanism in the Middle East make it impossible to accept an inflexible or static idea of what is “universal.” Al Sayyad’s paper suggests that the history of the world demonstrates a movement towards greater cultural differentiation as opposed to homogenization, and at an individual level this means that a person considers himself or herself to simultaneously hold multiple affiliations and identities. If hybridity is also accepted as an inherent constituent of national identity, this means the ensuing forms of urbanism must be accepted as only a reflection of a specific transitional stage or era within any society. Since culture has become increasingly placeless, urbanism will likely become one of the few remaining arenas where one may observe how local communities and nations mediate the tensions between the local and the global.

James Barry tackled another facet of the question of identity in the Middle East through his paper on “Millet Ethnicity: Christianity, Islam, and the Politics of Armenian Identity in the Modern Middle East.” He claims that the Armenian perception of “Armenian Muslims” as a contradiction is gradually being challenged, although the centrality of Christianity, nominal or otherwise, to Armenian identity still holds fast. In the Turkish context, the ethnic gulf that separates the Armenian-Christian from the Turkish-Muslim remains a potent legacy of the millet system, which in the modern context has “ethicized” religious identities. He also argues that in the Armenian Diaspora, there has been a change in attitude towards Muslim people of Armenian descent who are living in Turkey. Finally he claims that the contemplation of the potential Armenian-ness of both the Hopa Hemshin and the Islamized Armenians, coupled with the enthusiastic engagement by the Diaspora with these two groups, demonstrates that there is a change afoot in modern conceptions of what it is to be an Armenian, and indeed to be a Turk.

Following Barry’s discussion, Taghreed Al-Deen discussed “Cultural Cleansing and Iconoclasm under the ‘Islamic State’: Attacks on Yezidi and Christian Humans/Heritage.” Al-Deen argues that the devastating brutality and heritage destruction carried out by the IS has included deliberate attacks against two of the most vulnerable minorities in Iraq and Syria: Yezidis and Christians. Such attacks on the human/heritage dimension of a given community ultimately rupture their identity, dismembering their connections to each other and to their collective past. More to the point, attacks by the IS on Christian sites such as the Armenian church in Deir ez-Zour and the villages along the Khabur River appear to be deliberately designed to conjure sharp memories of the Armenian Genocide and the Siemele massacre. Re-enacting earlier waves of genocide allows the IS to connect their contemporary brutality—ideologically, temporally, physically—to those moments in Yezidi and Christian history that are most sensitive and painful. These attacks also intends to erase any vestige of a cosmopolitan and diverse Middle East towards the creation of a monolithic and oppressive caliphate governed by the most perverse interpretations of Islamic law.

Annika Rabo presented a paper on “Educating Citizens in Lebanon and Syria.” Rabo paper draws attention to criticism that Arab educational systems have frequently received, particularly for inadequately preparing pupils for managing contemporary challenges, and for failing to create an educational environment that develops and nurtures open-minded and creative future citizens. Rabo argues that, in any context all, elements of an educational system—from public policies of education, to classroom learning practices and teaching methods, to curriculum development and teacher training—are an essential place to examine how a state and society are managing larger issues of inclusion and exclusion. Through an in-depth examination of two comparative case studies on the evolution of educational systems in Lebanon and Syria, Rabo presents evidence of two very different approaches to managing pluralism and identity. In Lebanon, a society where pluralism and a more open and liberal approach to politics co-exist with highly politicized and at times sectarian identity issues, the educational system reflects ongoing struggles over curriculum and a lack of harmonious adoption of texts and teaching methods. As a result there exist a proliferation of schools catering to the country’s many different religious, linguistic, and ethnic communities, with the end result that parochial citizens are created who are cosmopolitan and engaged with the outside and broader world, but ill-equipped to negotiate the challenges of their own complex plural society. Syria in its pre 2011 form offered a stark contrast to Lebanon, at least within its educational system where there was suppression of ethnic, linguistic and religious identity, and an ideological approach of flattening identity down to a nationalistic unified identity with no acceptance of differences.

Afshin Shahi shifted the discussion to examine notions of inclusion and exclusion in Iran through a paper on “Economic Conditions of the Sunni Community in Modern Iran.” Shahi claimed that Sunni Iranians’ economic situation in modern time is multi-angled and influenced by various elements. Each of these elements had different level of importance in various historical periods. In their paper, Afshin Shahi and Ehsan Abdoh Tabrizi focus on the contemporary era of Pahlavi monarchy (1925-1979) and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although they shed light on the general economic situation of the Sunni Iranians in general, the main focus is on ethnic Sunni Iranians, including the Baloch, Turkmens and Kurds, who still comprise the majority of Iran’s Sunni population. The authors argue that the uneven modernization and imbalanced growth brought by Pahlavi policies automatically disfavored Iran’s Turkmen, Kurdish and Baloch ethnicities, yet these policies were not driven by sectarianism or anti Sunni sentiment. Under the Islamic Republic, although certain economic elements of rural Iranians—including Sunni ethnic Iranians—have improved, the State’s economic policies still disfavor Sunni Iranians, like the Pahlavi policies, but this time such policies are driven by sectarianism and discrimination.

Following up on Shahi and Tabrizi’s paper, Firoozeh Kashni-Sabet presented her paper on “Colorblind or Blinded by Color?: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Iran” providing a historical review of the evolution of notions of race and skin color in modern Iran. Kashani-Sabet’s analysis of archived graphics and texts suggests that conversations about race in Iran, while rooted initially in linguistic and ethnic differences, and while far from color-blind, became more politicized over the course of the twentieth century. She further suggests that the production of knowledge about race, ethnicity and identity in Iran over the twentieth century moved away from colonial actors and institutions, and became instead the function of Iran’s state institutions, which at times reproduced the prejudices first introduced by colonial administrators. By the 1960s, however, even as the state remained stunted in its understandings of culture, ethnicity, and race, key Iranian intellectuals moved away from discourses of Aryanism and participated instead in the larger struggles of peoples and nations who had long been subjected to colonialism or racial discrimination.

Islam Hassan concluded the working group’s discussions with his paper on “Qatari Social Structure and the State: Problems of Inclusion and Exclusion.” Hassan claims that the historical narrative of the composition and evolution of Qatari society is an imaginaire that contributed to the reproduction of the current social inclusion and exclusion scheme. This historical narrative emphasizes on the role of Arab tribes in the inhabitation process, evolution of governing authority, and creation of statehood in Qatar disregarding a major faction of the society, particularly those of slave and Persian backgrounds. He also argues that the Qatari State has been playing a major role, by adopting a social conservatist approach, in maintaining and further stimulating the existing social hierarchy and inclusion and exclusion scheme. This can be viewed by examining two main issues: the State’s effort to narrow down the definition of the Qatari national identity; and articles of the constitution and legal system, symbols, and official history of Qatar that have been perpetuating the social inclusion and exclusion scheme through resisting marriages that could challenge the existing social order.

Mehran Kamrava, Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies, concluded the working group meeting by highlighting the participants’ contributions to scholarship through their papers, which will be published in an edited volume by CIRS in the near future.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Taghreed Jamal Al-deen, Deakin University, Melbourne
Nezar Al Sayyad, University of California
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
James Barry, Deakin University, Melbourne
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, University of Pennsylvania
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Firat Oruc, Georgetown University in Qatar
Annika Rabo, Stockholm University
Afshin Shahi, University of Bradford
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS
