Center for International and Regional Studies

Migrant Recruitment Fees and the GCC Construction Sector
2017-03-19 12:30 - 13:30 (Europe/Moscow)
While human rights issues faced by low-wage migrant workers in the Gulf region have been widely reported on, the related issue of “recruitment fees” paid by these workers in their countries of origin – central to the experience of so many migrants – hasn’t received as much attention.

There are legitimate costs associated with recruitment and migration, according to David Segall, a policy associate with New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, who researches construction industry migrant labor in the Gulf. “The point is that recruitment is not free; it costs money to find workers, to skills-test them, to process visas, to interview them, and to make sure they’re qualified for the job that you’re hiring them for,” Segall said.

But according to Segall, in the current predominant recruitment model in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, clients throughout the supply chain do not pay their suppliers for services rendered. As a result, instead of project clients and construction companies bearing these costs, the most vulnerable migrant workers usually pay for their own recruitment—and then some—in violation of GCC and international law.

“Every single player in the chain seems to have leverage over their supplier, and that leads to downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on costs of migration” ultimately borne by migrants, Segall noted in his talk, “Migrant Recruitment Fees and the GCC Construction Sector,” at the Center for International and Regional Studies talk on March 19, 2017. Fatima Al-Dosari, a research consultant at Stern, Qatari citizen, and graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., joined Segall and shared her insights on migrant workers in Qatar.

What Segall called an “inverted payment chain” has clients (such as a government, a government-sponsored development project, or a private company) at the top of the supply chain and low-wage workers at the bottom. In between, there are layers of employers/sponsors, registered recruiters in South Asian sending-countries, and unregistered local “subagents.” According to Segall, “Clients are not actually paying their suppliers for the services that are rendered . . . or they are getting paid. So it flips the entire chain, such that at the end of the line it is the migrant worker who essentially foots the bill for all of the costs of migration, plus some.”

Segall and his colleagues are trying to understand why this is occurring and what makes it so ubiquitous in the GCC for low-wage construction workers, who mostly come from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Segall and Sarah Labowitz, co-director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, have conducted more than a year of research in this pursuit, primarily focusing on workers from India and Bangladesh. They will publish their findings in a report in early April.

Segall and Labowitz found that an imbalance of power between multiple economic players leads to an inversion of the normal fee-for-service payment business model. Supply chain pressure begins with intense competition in the construction industry in the Gulf, where companies often submit bids at less than normal market value just to break into the region. In order to keep these bids competitive in such a hot market, construction firms generally do not include the cost of recruitment in their bids to clients, and they do not pay the recruiters that service them. Smaller subcontractors and GCC-based “manpower firms”—which import, employ, and lease out labor for short-term projects—also avoid paying their recruiters.

Why would a recruiter in South Asia take on work if they are not getting paid by the employer? Segall explained that recruitment is also a very crowded market, and the current expectation is that construction clients will not pay for low-wage workers. “Recruiters also have to make a living, and if we acknowledge this is a legitimate service they are providing, it would be legitimate for them to take a service fee [from the employing company] and earn a small profit,” he said. But Segall said that with few exceptions, recruitment firms will agree to take a contract without payment: “We hear time and time again from recruiters, ‘if we’re not fulfilling it, someone else will.’”

In order to keep their doors open and earn a profit, then, recruiters must take money from prospective migrants themselves. “If they are not being paid by the client, they have to get paid by somebody. They have very little leverage to push back if they are not receiving payment from the employer.” Additionally, he said, corruption among recruitment agencies is a major problem. Among the few recruiters who are paid by construction company clients, reports indicate that some charge workers anyway, essentially “double-dipping.”

Recruitment agencies (and therefore employers and their clients) themselves rely on unlicensed sub-agents to access remote populations of inexpensive labor, because they don’t have access to or requisite social networks in certain common regions of migrant origin. The subagents, who are not paid by the registered agents that commission them, in turn charge additional fees to prospective workers. Segall argued that sub-agents should be registered, legalized, regulated, and priced into bids as a legitimate cost to borne by the employer and client.

Segall said the actual cost of recruitment may be in the range of US$400-700, excluding flight costs. However, Indian migrants end up paying between $1,000 and $3,000, and Bangladeshis can pay from $1,700 to $5,200. The discrepancy is due both to layers of recruiters and subagents throughout the process—each of whom takes a cut of profit—and to markups to the cost due to kickbacks. For example, recruiters are willing to pay significant amounts to representatives of the employer merely for the right to a visa, Segall said—sometimes up to $1,300, a cost ultimately paid for by the worker. Migrants also end up paying for other illegitimate costs and markups, such as kickbacks by recruiters to visiting employer representatives and markups to flight ticket charges.

Finally, migrant workers agree to pay recruiters because of the imbalance between supply and demand for workers and jobs. If a worker doesn’t pay a recruitment fee, many others in line behind him will. Segall argued that opportunities to enter the GCC are actually quite limited. While there are twenty-five million migrants currently in the GCC, and in any given year hundreds of thousands of new workers will arrive, “there are still tens of millions more who would come if they could,” said Segall.

And although there is corruption in most migrant-sending countries—and among recruiters—according to Segall, if an employing company is not paying its recruiters, there must be corruption. “You’re essentially creating a model where there is no option but to charge the workers,” he said. “If ever there is to be a comprehensive solution to this issue, construction companies and their clients will need to adopt a ‘pay and investigate the recruiter’ model.”

Fatima Al-Dosari works on migrant workers’ welfare, which has taken her to labor camps in Qatar, where she has met with laborers and heard their concerns. She said that attitudes of Qataris toward migrant workers are changing and the Qatar government is increasing efforts toward sustainable change, but many challenges—particularly with regard to social attitudes toward migrants—remain. “Both Qataris and non-Qataris have an obligation and responsibility to create change,” she said, adding that it “won’t happen without collaboration.”

David Segall is a research scholar and policy associate with the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. The Center conducts research and advocacy on issues at the intersection of these two realms, pushing for sector-specific, standards-based approaches to the most serious rights challenges in global supply chains. Previously, Segall directed the Human Rights in Iran Unit at The City University of New York, and he served as an Associate in the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant

The "Resource Curse" in the Gulf Working Group II
2017-04-02 09:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On April 2, 2017, CIRS held the second working group under its research initiative on “The ‘Resource Curse’ in the Gulf.” During the working group, the participants presented their original contributions to the literature on rentier state theory, and covered a variety of related subtopics, including: rents, neopatrimonialism, and entrepreneurial state capitalism in the Gulf; co-optation mechanisms in rentier state theory; imperial origins of the oil curse; the resource curse, gender, and labor nationalization policies in the GCC; and military spending and corruption in rentier states.

Mathew Gray began the discussion with his paper on “Rentierism’s Siblings: On the Linkages between Rents, Neopatrimonialism, and Entrepreneurial State Capitalism in the Persian Gulf Monarchies.” In his article, Gray asserts that the politics of the Gulf have been changing rapidly for the past two decades or more, and continues to do so. The patterns of state and regime control are becoming more complex and sophisticated, and the simple rentier explanation, if it was ever suitable, is long out of date. Thus, Gray highlights the necessity of combining theories of late-stage rentierism with two other concepts, namely neopatrimonialism and entrepreneurial state capitalism, to better explain the political dynamics and arrangements in the GCC. Gray argues that rent is not only a tool of justification and co-optation used by states, but also links closely to neopatrimonialism and entrepreneurial state capitalism. Neopatrimonialism is essential to how state capitalism operates, and to ensuring that the political benefits derived from state capitalism reach the state and the ruling elite. State capitalism also provides a commercial realm within which the regime can create and manage elites, and develop the patron-client relationships that are a salient feature of Gulf politics.

Jessie Moritz led the discussion on her paper that questions the resilience of rentier theory’s hypothesis that the state effectively co-opts the public via rent disbursement, and thus avoids having to either reform or face opposition and dissent. In her paper on “Reformers and the Rentier State: Re-evaluating the Co-optation Mechanism in Rentier State Theory,” Moritz suggests that the argument that the oil and gas-rich GCC have, through their rent-based wealth distributions, effectively bought off society needs some pressing against. In her examination of informal and formal opposition in Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman since 2011, Moritz provides a nuanced analysis of the effectiveness of the rentier “co-optation mechanism” at the sub-national level. Drawing on a series of over 130 semi-structured interviews conducted with Gulf nationals, Moritz uncovers evidence of both rent-seeking behavior as well as open political dissent to state authority among nationals. Even Gulf citizens who contend with heavy material disincentives to challenge state authority do so if there are political motivations for it. Mortiz’s research highlights three underlying forces that can overpower rent-based incentives for political quiescence in the GCC states and propel the public to openly challenge the state: ideology, repression, and inequality.

Desha Girod presented her paper co-authored with Meir Walters on the “Imperial Origins of the Oil Curse.” Girod and Walters’ purpose in writing this paper is to explore why some leaders of oil-rich states invest their rentier earning in socio-economic development while other leaders largely spend this wealth on themselves and their networks of support. The rentier literature suggests that oil is a curse when it is discovered or exploited in countries that have weak institutions at the time of oil discovery or exploitation. However, this causal explanation needs to be tested further, as not all states with weak or nascent institutions at the time of oil discovery distribute hydrocarbon-derived wealth in the same way, as can be seen by the behavior of the GCC states. Other factors may exist at the time of oil discovery which incentivize leaders of states to spend on broad-based development and their populations despite the lack of existence of strong national institutions. In order to understand these dynamic in more detail, Girod and Walters trace the evolution of rent distribution in two oil-rich states in the Arabian Peninsula (Kuwait and Oman) that experienced remarkable development yet, like paradigmatic cases of the oil “curse,” contained weak national institutions at the time of oil discovery. However, unlike the classic cases, the nascent leaders and regimes in Kuwait and Oman lacked a dominant political class with access to coercive institutions capable of marginalizing their rivals. Imperial powers active in the region did not build coercive colonial institutions for extractive purposes because they had historically viewed the region as poor in natural resources. Unlike their behavior in other parts of the Middle East, imperial powers did not need to develop coercive extractive institutions nor an established hegemonic class of local clients to carry out the colonial project. As a result, at the time of independence the GCC rulers had to spend their oil revenues on development as a survival strategy and in order to placate any potential rivals. This paper thus suggests that the oil curse on development is modified by a pre-existing curse of natural resources and colonial extractive intent.

Gail Buttorff shifted the discussions with her paper (co-authored with Nawra al-Lawati and Bozena Welborne): “Cursed No More?: The Resource Curse, Gender, and Labor Nationalization Policies in the GCC.” The authors argue that recent scholarship posits that the resource curse has gendered as well as economic effects on oil-rich economies, entrenching paternalistic relationships that disadvantage women’s entry into the labor force in states such as those of the Middle East. Upon closer examination, however, it appears that oil may not be the most compelling argument to explain Arab women’s low presence in the workforce—especially since we see relatively high levels of women in the labor force within the Gulf Cooperation Council member states. The authors’ analysis suggests that oil-driven development might even boost female labor force participation as a by-product of labor nationalization policies.

Mohammad Reza Farzanegan concluded the working group discussions with his paper on “The Impact of Oil Rents on Military Spending: Does Corruption Matter?” Farzanegan’s study shows that the level of corruption matters in how oil rents affect the military spending of different countries. Using panel data covering the 1984–2014 period of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries (including Gulf Cooperation Council countries), the author argues that the effect of oil rents on military budget depends on the extent of political corruption. Oil wealth boosts military spending when corruption (measured by the re-scaled ICRG index) exceeds a critical score of five (out of six) in the MENA region. The intermediary role of corruption in the military–oil nexus is robust, controlling country and year fixed effects, and a set of control variables that may affect military spending.

These original, empirically grounded contributions have been published as an edited volume and in a CIRS special issue of the Journal of Arabian Studies.

Click here for the working group’s agendaClick here for the participants biographiesRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarGail Buttorff, University of Kansas, USMohammad Reza Farzanegan, Philipps-Universität MarburgDesha Girod, Georgetown UniversityMatthew Gray, Waseda University, JapanIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAnatol Lieven, Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJessie Moritz, Australian National UniversityGerd Nonneman, Georgetown University in QatarJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Target Markets: International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall
2017-04-05 12:30 - 13:30 (Europe/Moscow)
On September 21, 2013, four members of the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabaab attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The attack turned into a 4-day siege, as Kenyan police and military were ill-equipped to manage the chaotic and dangerous situation. In the end, at least 71 people were killed—including civilians, soldiers, police officers, and the four terrorists—and many more were wounded.

Victims and media analysts interviewed after the attack expressed their disbelief at violence entering into such a normal, everyday space. While violence and shopping may seem incongruous, Suzi Mirgani, author of the book Target Markets: International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall (Transcript Press, 2017), argues that violence is actually embedded in the history of the shopping mall, and is an integral feature of contemporary neoliberal practice.

Mirgani is Managing Editor for Publications at the Center for International and Regional Studies. She outlined the thesis of her book at an April 5, 2017 CIRS talk in which she highlighted the underlying history of militarism that permeates the concept and architecture of shopping malls as a contemporary commercial bunker. She explained the original shopping mall design from the 1950s was actually modeled on full-service army barracks, where everything could be found under one roof, including products, services, and entertainment. “In this sense, shopping malls represent an extension of the military-industrial complex,” Mirgani said.

The notion of shopping has become highly politicized and is increasingly framed as a patriotic duty, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks, in an attempt to set clear boundaries between the value systems of “us and them.” However, Mirgani noted, in an era defined by the infiltration of neoliberal practice in all forms of everyday life, capitalism, globalization, and terrorism are interconnected.

The shopping mall is a site for the production of desire and consumption, and also for the production of contestation, Mirgani argued. It is a local space filled with global flows and tensions—including the circulation of international neoliberal policies as well as international threats and security efforts. “Westgate becomes a prism that reflects the fraught relationship between a voracious global capitalism and a destructive international terrorism,” she said.

“If we look beyond the jihadist angle of the story, and examine the nexus of security, marketing, and violence, a much more complex picture of the Westgate attacks arises,” Mirgani said. The Westgate Mall is situated in the Westlands district of Nairobi, adjacent to a slum. When it was built, the mall destroyed the informal markets in the area, so it was already a site of contestation. Mirgani said there is a division between urban spaces for those who can afford to partake, and an alien and discordant one for those who cannot.

Neoliberal capitalist practices, and by implication shopping malls, assist in the propagation of unequal power relations. In developing countries, shopping malls are imported wholesale with little regard for their existing surroundings. With its ubiquitous products offered by global distribution networks, “it is in the shopping mall that Nairobi most resembles New York. An attack on one can be symbolically read as an attack on the other,” Mirgani argued.

Cities are imbued with visible hallmarks of war: surveillance technology, barricades, weapons, patrols, and armed and masked personnel on both sides of the ideological divide, Mirgani said. Veterans returning to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan are top candidates for security jobs in shopping malls. In addition, there is an infiltration of surveillance into everyday spaces. The ubiquity of surveillance and CCTV footage means terror attacks are increasingly being recorded, disseminated, and consumed, she said.

Explaining the media’s role in the Westgate attack, Mirgani presented the event as a case study to examine how media networks and extremists each played a role in creating a “spectacle of terror.” She argued: “The Westgate Mall siege was a made-for-television event from the beginning.” Since witness testimonies of the attacks varied wildly, with many disagreeing on what they saw, the only real evidence was gathered from recordings from CCTV cameras and victims’ mobile phones. There was an extraordinary array of visual material produced over the four-day siege, serving to fuel 24-hour news network competition, feeding them with a steady stream of images, audiences, and advertising revenue. Mirgani explained how news networks and entertainment networks are vertically aligned, often owned by the same parent corporation, making their content similar in style and substance.

The violence of the attack was appropriated by both al-Shabaab and the media, making the relationship between them a kind of “symbiosis,” Mirgani said. In the past, extremists had to rely on the news media for the dissemination of their message, but through social media and other channels, they no longer are dependent on editors and network owners. Now there is a reversal of the traditional roles of audiences and news media in which social media users not only report breaking news, but are the source of breaking news. “Terrorists and their critics compete with one another through commodification of violence,” she said.

Mirgani said when she saw pictures of the Westgate Mall disaster, she was reminded of another atrocity from a few months before, the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh, in which over 1,000 people died. This was an eight-story commercial building, housing garment factories producing clothing for global brands. Questions emerged for Mirgani about the relationship between international terrorism and global capitalist practice. “Rana Plaza was not made into a global media spectacle as it did not fit within the lucrative ‘fear economy,’ and the prevailing discourse of terror,” she said. “We tend to separate violences: the violence in the capitalist mode of production is ‘normal,’ and to some extent even tolerable, but terrorist violence is alien and unacceptable.”

Atrocities of the neoliberal model are viewed as the unfortunate byproduct of conducting business in the Third World—using subcontractors and outsourced organizations—and not considered to be a problem with the model itself. Violence is a feature of global neoliberal practice as well as a feature of international terrorist practice, Mirgani said. “Even though terrorism and consumerism are conceived as antithetical practices, Westgate Mall provided a ground zero for these supposedly oppositional ends of the spectrum to meet on common ground.” The Westgate shopping mall case study is a space where daily consumption is increasingly militarized and where terrorism and security are increasingly commercialized, she said.

Suzi Mirgani is Managing Editor for Publications at CIRS. She is author of Target Markets: International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall (Transcript Press, 2017); and is co-editor of Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings (with Mohamed Zayani, Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2016); and Food Security in the Middle East (with Zahra Babar, Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2014). She is an independent filmmaker working on highlighting stories from Qatar and the Gulf.

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS.

Brothers Behind Borders: Islamism and Nationalism in the Middle East
2017-04-18 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Moscow)
Abdullah Al-Arian asked his audience to reflect back six years, to the hopefulness that emerged in spring 2011, when decades-old authoritarian regimes were on the brink of collapse. Leaders of Tunisia and Egypt had been overthrown by mass uprisings in their respective countries; the regimes in Yemen and Libya were on the verge of collapse; Bashar Al-Assad was facing the largest threat to his rule in the form of a largely peaceful protest movement in Syria; and the monarchical rulers of Jordan, Morocco, and Bahrain had similarly witnessed popular mobilizations in the form of citizens demanding the recognition of their collective rights.

People across the world were witnessing what many believed to be the dawn of a new era in the Middle East, Al-Arian said, “one signified by an end of dictatorship and the rise of representative governments, equal citizenship, and respect for the rule of law.” But no sooner had the discussions about the post-authoritarian transition to democracy emerged, he said, than the conversation shifted to the question of what role Islamist movements would play in nation–states freed from the top-down imposition of secularism.

Al-Arian, professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar, presented his talk, “Brothers Behind Borders: Islamism and Nationalism in the Middle East,” at CIRS on April 18, 2017. The topic is from Al-Arian’s research for a book in progress, where he is exploring the role of Islamist movements in large parts of the Arab region currently undergoing great societal change.

During the 2011 uprisings, he said, “some critics warned that the vacuum left by secular authoritarian rulers would simply be filled by a new tyranny in the form of political Islam.” As political parties representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s school of thought emerged across the region and proved to be the social movement most capable of exploiting the nascent political openings, Al-Arian said, “it was speculated that the Arab Spring would give way to an Islamist Winter, where the parties would undermine notions of national citizenship and erode state borders, culminating in the unification of Muslim Brotherhood movements from Morocco to Yemen, and perhaps even bringing about the restoration of the caliphate.”

“Of course, anyone who closely followed the post-uprising developments in places like Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen knew this to be a complete fallacy,” he said. These political parties were far more focused on their respective domestic affairs than on fulfilling the goals of some abstract transnational ideological and political project, he said. “In fact, the posture of these parties over the course of the past several years has only confirmed what has been plain to see for some time: traditional Islamist groups that emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhood school of thought have adapted their missions to their local political and socio-economic contexts.”

Al-Arian suggested revisiting our understanding of Islamism with an eye toward its nationalist inclinations, which is the core of his research. “If we look back at the history of a transnational movement on the order of the Muslim Brotherhood, recognized by most as the prototypical representative of the phenomenon of political Islam, what would its relationship be to its respective national contexts in every place that it appeared?” he asked. “Is there one version of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, or are there many? If there are indeed many ikhwanisms, as it were, how does the national context determine what shape they have taken through the years?”

Al-Arian said there are several reasons why it is critical to reassess our understanding of Islamist movements. First, he said, by looking at the past through a fresh lens, we come away with a different image of the historical legacy of political Islam; one that would draw a vastly different conclusion about the ability or even desire of Islamist movements to form transnational bonds in a post-authoritarian order. And, in the face of a growing regional and global insurgency by groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, Al-Arian said, it is perhaps more important now than ever before to distinguish between different strands of political Islam: those that have largely remained within the modernist Islamic tradition with its acceptance of nation–states, and those that have categorically rejected the designation of states in favor of a radically different political order.

Lastly, he said, it worth reexamining the role of Islamist movements now because of the continuing possibilities they hold for the future of a region that is in one of its most turbulent eras in modern history. A starkly different picture emerges, depending on whether we examine the role of these movements in contexts like Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, and Tunisia, or their more highly contentious role in countries like Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Yemen, he said. “This is particularly crucial in light of the blanket designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization by several regional powers; a position that has been openly lauded by the current US administration.”

In light of the chronic lack of contextualization that dominates much of the policy debate around the question of Islamism, Al-Arian said, “I would argue that the Muslim Brotherhood, as a specific brand of Islamism with roots in the early twentieth-century Islamic modernist tradition, should be viewed as a nationalist force whose mobilization campaigns cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader developments within the state-building projects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Middle East. What I’m suggesting, essentially, is to write Islamists back into the nationalist histories of Arab states.”

There are several reasons why expressions of political Islam have been largely excluded from nationalist narratives, Al-Arian said. For one, scholars defining nationalism have tended to exclude any movements or ideologies that placed religious identity at the core of their program. Also, the historiography of Arab societies has privileged state-centered narratives. And, he said, “one can look at the posture of the movements themselves, which have historically disavowed any relationship to the nationalist movement and developed an ideological program that was committed to countering the dominant nationalist paradigms in their respective contexts.”

The debate around Islam and politics has come full circle, Al-Arian said. Over the course of the past decade, Islamist groups have abandoned “Islam is the solution” as a simplistic catchphrase in favor of an emphasis on particular values that their evolving interpretation of Islam promotes. “Indeed, the challenges that the latest iteration of Islamist activism faces are the same ones that confront political parties of all ideological stripes, namely, how to ensure that governments represent the interests of the majority of their citizens at a time when more people face the dangers of vast economic inequality and lack basic rights of freedom and security than at any other time in the recent past,” said Al-Arian.

Abdullah Al-Arian is Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He is co-editor of the Critical Currents in Islam page on the Jadaliyya e-zine. He is also a frequent contributor to the Al-Jazeera English network and website. His first book, Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS.

Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in the Middle East Working Group I
2017-05-21 09:00 - 2017-05-22 17:00 (Asia/Qatar)
In December 2016 CIRS launched a grants cycle to fund empirical research on the subject of “Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in the Middle East,” and on May 21–22, 2017 the first working group under this project was convened in Doha. Seven teams of successful grant awardees were brought together with a number of other scholars to discuss existing gaps in scholarship on voluntary and forced migration in the region, and how their proposed research projects address some of these gaps.

Natalia Ribas-Mateos spoke on the topic of “Borders and Mobility in the Middle East,” highlighting how globalization has created further transformation of geopolitical lines and borders we find across the world. In the Middle East, this transformation has been accompanied by two significant phenomena. First, the Middle East has witnessed a rise in restrictions placed on the mobility of refugees and migrants. Second, the region has been witnessing a decrease in the limitations on cross-border flow of goods, refugee encampments and settlements (formal and informal), human vulnerability and rights violations, and expanded border securitization. Mateos argued that these processes of transformation play out in remarkably stark fashion in border cities. Border cities in the Middle East have become a space where these contradictions are made most manifest. Such contradictions manifest in the differences between a common shared life (similar patterns among everyday border practices) and the reinforcement of borders, the deterioration of human rights conditions, and the reinforcement of the border closure. In researching the topic at hand, Mateos will investigate the transformation of geopolitical lines and borders through conducting fieldwork in selected border villages, towns, and cities in contemporary locations bordering Syria.

Rogaia Abusharaf, a professor at Georgetown University-Qatar as well as a grant awardee under this project, provided a more historicized view of forced migration through sharing insights on her project titled “A Story Worth-telling: Omani-Zanzibari Identity at the Intersection of Ethnic Cleansing and Forced Migration.” Abusharaf’s research project is based on the significant maritime networks that have historically existed for people across the Indian Ocean and the East African littoral. Although Oman’s official presence in Africa is often fixed to 1832 when Sayyid Sultan transferred the capital from Muscat to Zanzibar, many Omanis refer to migratory patterns that spanned over centuries before. Abusharaf suggests that these historic migrations, both before and after the settlement of the Al-Busaidi dynasty in the Zanzibar archipelago, lie at the heart of the creation of and persistence of a distinct Omani-Swahili identity and political subjectivity. Through the funding provided by CIRS, Abusharaf will examine the story of how the forced migration of Omanis from Zanzibar back to Muscat after the Zanzibari Revolution of 1964 affected their Omani-Swahili identity. Abusharaf suggests that the impact of this forced migration on Omani-Zanzibaris has not been explored, and her research hope to shed original light on three main questions: How do Omani-Zanzibaris think of themselves politically? How do they think of themselves socio-culturally? And how do they think of themselves linguistically? Abusharaf will conduct a multi-sited ethnography in Muscat and Zanzibar. She will gather personal narratives to elucidate the base theme of the trajectory of Swahili identities in Oman, and the extent to which these identities have been modulated by their forced migratory experience from Zanzibar. These interviews will be triangulated with archival research on the geopolitical representation of the Zanzibar revolution/genocide as established in the British National Archives and various manuscripts in Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat related to the return migration of Omani-Zanzibaris.

Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, a grant awardee, shifted the discussion to “Internal Displacement, (Re)-configuration of Gender Identity, and Potential Links to Radicalization: The Case of Syrian Refugees in Jordan.” Matar pointed out that most gender-specific work on Syrian refugees focuses on the material aspects of displacement, with insufficient attention given to the subjective effects. Muhanna-Matar’s project will study the Syrian refugee crisis’ impact on reconfiguring gender identity. There is also a gap in the scholarship in terms of whether such episodes of ‘forced’ gender reconfiguration potentially lead to forms of religious “radicalization”. Through her CIRS’ grant funding, Muhanna-Matar will explore how dynamics of coping with refuge- hood may lead to a gender identity crisis. In certain circumstances of violence and uncertainty, some men and women return to religion as a means of reaffirming a particular model of gendered identity that they perceive as being under threat. Muhana-Matar will also examine to what extent men and women’s experiences and strategies of coping with vulnerability have involved a (re-)configuration of their “normative” gender roles. In addition, she will investigate how these reconfigured gender roles are perhaps perceived as socially and culturally degrading to both men’s and women’s sense of human dignity. Finally, she will study how both men and women accommodate or resist processes of gender reconfiguration.

Leïla Vignal, a grant awardee, focused the discussion on “From Mobility to Refugee: Exploring the Mutli-layered Patterns of Syrian Refuge and Mobility in the Northern Bekaa, Lebanon: The Case of the Dayr al-Ahmar District.” Vignal pointed out that little research has been carried out in this region of Lebanon. Dayr al-Ahmar District is a predominantly Maronite area that holds religious significance to both Shia and Maronites. Vignal argued that Dayr al-Ahmar District has historically had close economic ties to Syria with seasonal migration of Syrian workers coming to the area to take up occupation in the agricultural sector. These circulatory patterns of migration that are tied to the annual agricultural cycle continue even now, during the current conflict. Vignal stated that the current Syrian conflict has however heightened tensions between confessional groups in the North Bekaa Valley. She suggested that this could partially be due to Hezbollah’s nearby headquarters and the fact that the communities hosting Syrian refugees are likely at odds with Hezbollah. CIRS’ grant allows Vignal to conduct in-depth fieldwork in the Dayr al-Ahmar region, in the North of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon (muhafazet Baalbek-Hermel). Based on her findings, Vignal aims to illuminate the dynamics and the patterns of Syrian refugees in neighboring Levantine countries. In particular, Vignal hopes to put the current forced displacement of Syrians into the larger theoretical framework of migration and mobility, and connect the current forms of the Syrian displacement and refuge to a longer history of cross-border mobility, transnational connections, and migration in the Middle East.

Building up on Vignal’s discussion, Estella Carpi, a grant awardee, presented her research on “Local Markets and Crisis Responses in Border Cities: The Cases of Lebanon and Turkey.” Carpi argued that the nearly six-year-old Syrian crisis has led to a large number of refugees fleeing into the border towns of Gaziantep (Southern Turkey) and Halba (Northern Lebanon). As a consequence, Syrian refugee newcomers, older date Syrian migrants, and locals have formed new social networks that have reconfigured these two urban settings. In this framework, the sizeable presence of the international humanitarian apparatus assisting the refugees in border towns is changing local consumption cultures and leisure activities. Humanitarianism is here to be interpreted as a neoliberal force transforming local cultures and human geography in official states of emergency. In these increasingly hybrid social settings, the transformation of local, international, and refugee socio-cultural practices–traditions, habits, and public behavioral codes–is under-researched while able to unearth how the urban patterns of Gaziantep and Halba are presently changing. Through conducting empirical fieldwork in these two cities, Carpi will explore the fluid leisure and consumption cultures in international humanitarian settings in order to elucidate institutional and human components of border urban change. She aims to investigate how everyday practices change within and between local, migrant, and refugee communities in times of emergency and in response to neoliberal humanitarian policies and emerging cultures of everyday life arrangement.

Pooya Alaedini and Florian Weidmann have been awarded grant funding to study “The Impact of Afghan Refugees on the Social and Spatial Fabric of Tehran.” Pooya Alaeidini presented the project proposal at the working group, and opened his discussion by stating that the prolonged conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to more than forty years of Iran serving as a continuous host to large groups of refugees. While Iran has become one of the biggest host countries in the Middle East there remains a need for new insight into the development dynamics of refugee communities and their impact on and engagement with their surroundings in Iran. Alaeidini pointed out that the unprecedented scale of recent migration patterns has had a significant impact on urban development dynamics, particularly in the larger Iranian cities. Afghan refugee communities have begun to transform local urbanism in Iranian cities. Using the CIRS’ grant funds, Alaeidini and Weidmann will conduct fieldwork in Tehran, will conduct interviews with officials and refugees as well as site visits to various districts of the city for further visual examination. Alaedini and Weidmann will focus in particular on three main dimensions of these communities’ impact on their new surroundings: an active and conscious participation via community representatives in order to improve certain conditions; an indirect development of new spatial realities by investment patterns and general economic interaction; and last but not least the role of cultural aspects.

Ricardo René Larémont and Mustafa Attir, grant-awardees, discussed “Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in Libya and Tunisia.” They claimed that of the three routes to Europe, the central route from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and Malta is the only one that has not been impeded and has expanded. It is the most viable route for migrants wishing to pass into Europe; yet, the effects of migration on Libya and Tunisia are relatively unstudied. The grant-awardees highlighted that Libya and Tunisia are not only points of departure for accessing Europe, but also points of destination, places where migrants often remain for extended periods of time and build permanent or semi-permanent communities. Though significant work in recent years has studied the impact of trans-Mediterranean migration on Europe, little to no research has examined its effects on North Africa. Through conducting individual and focus groups interviews, the researchers seek to address this lacuna by establishing foundational knowledge about the array of African and Middle Eastern migrants who have arrived in Libya and Tunisia. Though some of these migrants may attempt the dangerous crossing to Europe, many more choose–or are forced–to remain in these points of departure. In order to address the humanitarian tragedy and security risks that are currently unfolding in the region, this research will provide insights to understand these migrants, their experiences, and the communities they have formed.

Matt Buehler sharpened the discussion with his presentation on “Migrants in Morocco: Inclusion, Integration, and Societal Impact.” Buehler argued that scholars understand the causes of the crisis leading to the intensification of refugees and displaced persons in the Middle East and North Africa region but less is known about the native citizens’ opinions about foreign refugees who have resettled in their countries. Through an original, nationally representative public opinion poll of 2000 citizens in Morocco, a country where over 40,000 Arab and Black African refugees reside, Buehler explored whether Moroccans think African or Arab refugees have better chances of social integration and acquiring citizenship. Buehler claims that although Arab and Black African refugees fled similar conditions of conflict and war, ordinary Moroccans do not view them equally. Whereas Moroccans express attitudes of sympathy and compassion towards Arab refugees, they express attitudes of prejudice and racism towards African refugees. The poll explains this divergence in citizen attitudes, isolating the factors that predict why prejudice intensifies or abates if a refugee is African or Arab.

Thomas Schmidinger, a grant awardee, discussed “Forced Migration in Northern Iraq: A Comparative Study of Yezidis, Shabak, and Assyrians.” Schmidinger argued that the Daesh onslaught on Jebel Sinjar and Ninewah plain in Northern Iraq in August 2014 specifically targeted three minority groups: the Yezidis, the heterodox Shi’ite Shabak, and the Assyrian Christians. The Assyrians appear to have relocated to the Ain Kawa suburb of Erbil. The Yezidis have resettled in a number of refugee camps in and near Iraqi Kurdistan, but the majority appears set to immigrate to Europe. The Shabak, finally, first fled to Erbil area, but were subsequently encouraged to leave the refugee camps there and resettle in Shi’ite Southern Iraq. Through conducting fieldwork in Northern Iraq, Schmidinger and his co-PI Michiel Leezenberg will trace and compare the dispersal patterns of these groups after being driven away from their homes. The researchers aim to answer a number of questions: To what extent was there organized resistance by either KRG troops, local militias, and individual inhabitants? To what extent has there been pressure on the Shabak community to convert or assimilate to Twelver Shi’ism? To what extent has gendered violence (most famously, and notoriously, the enslavement and rape of thousands of Yezidi women) systematically been used as an instrument of war? To what extent do images of female fighters on the Kurdish side (a propaganda tool used most effectively by PKK and YPG guerrillas, but also by the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga) reflect real empowerment of women rather than a mere propagandistic ploy? And to what extent has forced resettlement had differential effects on men and women, and on gendered sentiments of group identity and group honor?

Amani El Jack shifted the discussion to “Gender Dimensions of Displacement.” El Jack argued that issues of identity, nationality, and citizenship are instrumental in developing a gender-sensitive framework. She claimed that gender dimensions of displacement manifest in three different case studies. First, it is important to examine women-women relations. She aims to interview nannies and maids in locals and expats’ households to examine how gender relations between females are managed. In the Middle East, and particularly the GCC, most of the literature addresses issues around working conditions, but not how gender issues are negotiated in relation to exploitation and possibilities for solidarity. Second, El Jack argued that different patterns of migration lead to different gender consequences. Insofar as the Syrian civil war is concerned, displacement is not a consequence but rather used as a strategy of war. In relation to Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan, do women, men, and children face displacement differently? To what extent do women have access to power in refugee camps? And despite the difficulty of displacement, to what extent has it created opportunities for women to challenge the patriarchal system? Finally, El Jack claimed that displacement, social change, and transformation should be studied in relation to one another. Displacement is not limited to people, but also value systems. This displacement of value systems triggers transformation and social changes that manifest in the renegotiation and reconfiguration of gender roles.

Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy discussed “Saudi Arabia’s Humanitarian Donorship and Yemeni Refugee: Values, Systems, and Interests.” El Taraboulsi-McCarthy looked broadly at Saudi Arabia’s humanitarian engagement in Yemen in terms of structure, allocation of funds, motivations, blockages, and opportunities. She also discussed the livelihood opportunities, remittances, blockages to survival, and regulatory frameworks of Yemeni refugees in Saudi Arabia, particularly Riyadh and Jeddah, in light of the conflict. After conducting interviews with different stakeholders in Saudi Arabia, El Taraboulsi-McCarthy argued that the structure of humanitarian donorship had changed drastically in Saudi Arabia since 9/11 up until 2015. The Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia was responsible for collecting funds from the public, monitoring the process of donations, and channeling these funds to the beneficiaries. Since 2015, the structure of donorship has started changing once again. New charitable organizations have emerged that function independently from the Ministry of Interior. For instance, King Salman Center focuses on Yemen, and acts as a channel to allocate resources and provide aid and relief to Yemen. The Center also allocates resources to crises elsewhere, such as Syria. El Taraboulsi-McCarthy argued that such humanitarian engagements are used as a tool of foreign policy to project Saudi Arabia as a “Kingdom of Humanitarianism.”

Finally, Nathalie Puetz led a discussion on “Migratory Connections between the Middle East, East Africa, and the Horn of Africa: Yemeni Refuge-seekers in Djibouti.” Puetz argued that scholarship on migration in and out of the Arabian Peninsula has focused primarily on Yemen’s (elite) Hadrami diaspora around the Indian Ocean basin or on (abject) labor migration to the Arab states of the Gulf. The current refugee and migration crisis in Yemen—entailing thousands of African refugees and Yemeni nationals fleeing Yemen for the Horn of Africa while African migrants continue to enter war-torn Yemen—demonstrates the need for sustained scholarly attention to the circular, cyclical, and mixed migration flows between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Puetz will analyze this predicament through an ethnographic study of the Yemeni migrant and refugee communities being (re-)established in ports and cities across the strait aptly named Bab al-Mandeb (Gate of Tears). Through conducting interviews in four migrant/refugee receiving countries, namely Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Sudan, Puetz will investigate Yemeni refugees and migrants’ pathways, and will continue to engage with a number of families regularly as they move geographically, politically, and socially between communities and categories of displacement and belonging. She aims to understand the conditions of mobility and modes of citizenship navigated by non-elite, hybrid (e.g., African-Yemeni) communities at the margins of states and societies.

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Click here for the participants’ biographies

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Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf, Georgetown University in Qatar

Pooya Alaedini, University of Tehran

Mustafa Attir, The Libyan Academy for Graduate Studies, Tripoli

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Matt Buehler, University of Tennessee

Estella Carpi, University College London

Assaf Dahdah, Aix-Marseille Université, France

Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Amani El Jack, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Mohammed Abu Hawash, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Michiel Leezenberg, University of Amsterdam

Ricardo René Larémont, State University of New York

Aitemad Muhanna Matar, London School of Economics and Jordan University

Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Emma Mogensen, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Nathalie Peutz, New York University, Abu Dhabi

Natalia Ribas-Mateos, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Thomas Schmidinger, University of Vienna

Sabika Shaban, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Jackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Leïla Vignal, University of Oxford

Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Florian Wiedmann, Internationale Akademie Berlin

Valbona Zenku, Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Inside the Arab State: Institutions, Actors, and Processes
2017-06-09 09:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On June 9, 2017, CIRS hosted a CIRS Research Workshop at the Georgetown University campus in Washington D.C. The workshop, which was a closed-door, one-day seminar, brought together a small number of renowned scholars to engage in a focused discussion on a book manuscript titled Inside the Arab State: Institutions, Actors, and Processes. This manuscript is currently in its final stages of preparation and has been authored by a member of our faculty, and CIRS Director Professor Mehran Kamrava. This is a book about state-society relations in the Arab world, focusing on the institutional make-up and composition of Arab states and how they have sought to establish coercive and ideological apparatuses enabling them to rule over society. Through a historical-institutional lens, Kamrava maintains that critical junctures provide a window of opportunity for state leaders to craft institutions and institutional arrangements that enable them to rule over society. Once these institutional arrangements are in place, two sets of dynamics begin to occur. At one level, as institutions mature and as their institutions become routine, they begin to develop lives of their own. Slowly, they assume internal dynamics that move them in one direction or another. The actors who created these institutions, however, may not always approve of the direction in which they are moving. Thus a potential area of tension develops between agency and structure—what state actors wish to see of the institutions of the state and how these institutions actually behave.

The participants at the CIRS research workshop are all scholars who work on the Middle East, some of who are members of the Georgetown University faculty, while the rest are affiliated with other universities and think-tanks based in Washington, DC. The workshop participants approached their individual chapters from their diverse disciplinary positions while understanding that the manuscript wished to receive a critique across conventional disciplinary divides. Each participant had been assigned specific chapters to read and review, and which they then had to present to the group and also offer their own comments. The workshop participants suggested vital changes to the manuscript in order to avoid certain pitfalls and to appeal broadly to its intended audiences.

A strong introductory chapter highlighting the core contribution of the volume to the vast literature that already exists on the post-Arab Spring Middle East was considered essential by several of the participants. The introduction ought to also provide some of the author’s reflections on and definitions of the terminology and key concepts that he uses throughout the book, such as institutions and agency. In addition, perhaps the introduction ought to introduce the larger outlines of the disciplinary debates that are currently placed later on in the volume. Some of the participants were very appreciative of the interdisciplinary approach of the workshop, but pointed out that from a historian’s perspective, the volume’s core approach towards a linear progress of the history of Middle Eastern states would be contested as such a linear view obscures the particularities of different Arab states’ experiences over time.

An additional criticism was that the book does not adequately represent the historical antecedents of the Middle East’s modern states, and provides no account of the colonial past and how there are continuities from the colonial past which have impacted the state-making and state-building processes. Some participants suggested laying out clearly at the outset how the book is addressing the agency-structure debate, and how the author is rendering a different or original contribution to the existing literature on this. Overall, several participants felt that whereas in its current shape several of the chapters have heavy theoretical components, these ought to be pulled out, either placed in the introduction or else reduced, so that there is more visibility to the book’s central narrative. The author thanked the workshop participants for these suggestions, which, he said, will greatly improve the overall quality of the manuscript.

Click here for the workshop agenda
Click here for the participants’ biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Osama Abi-Mershed, Georgetown University​
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University​
Steven A. Cook, Council on Foreign Relations
Kristin Smith Diwan, Arab Gulf States Institute, Washington D.C.
Daniel E. Esser, American University’s School of International Service
Desha Girod, Georgetown University​
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Zahra Babar, Associate Director of Research at CIRS

Middle Power Politics in the Middle East - Working Group II
2017-08-20 09:00 - 2017-08-21 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On August 20-21, 2017, CIRS hosted the second working group of its project on “Middle Power Politics in the Middle East.” Over two days, scholars discussed key gaps in the literature on the international relations of the Middle East through the lens of middle power theory. Participants led discussions on related subtopics including the role of Middle Eastern middle powers in the international system; in relation to the 2011 Arab uprisings; in terms of their domestic politics; their cooperation, competition, and norm entrepreneurship; their efforts at humanitarian diplomacy; and their forays in mediation and conflict resolution. Also discussed were a number of case studies, including Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Algeria.

May Darwich started the discussion with an exploration of middle power theory in both regional and global hierarchies. She argued that during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, middle power theory is frequently used in International Relations (IR) literature to examine the role of certain types of middle-ranking states. Although middle power theory seems to offer a rich testing ground for the analysis of state behavior in global and regional hierarchies, its application to the Middle East has been paradoxically scarce. In the region, an increasing number of states cannot achieve regional hegemony, but at the same time do not lend themselves to being categorized as small states. She argues that middle power theory affords some conceptual and theoretical adaptations to provide novel insights in comparing and assessing the behavior of this category of states in the Middle East. Darwich explores the transferability of the concept from international to regional hierarchies.

Adham Saouli focused his discussion on “Middling or Meddling? Domestic Origins of External Influence in the Middle East.” He argued that while the Middle East has failed to produce great powers, it has not been in short supply of influential regional middle power. These influential actors have played key roles in shaping the regional political order and also in both resisting and enabling international penetration of the region. Saouli discussed the constitutive and behavioral elements of middle powers in the Middle East and presented a conceptual analysis that identified six key attributes that a middle power should possess. He also examined the conditions that have enabled the pursuit of middle power politics in the region and identified four domestic variables that may hinder or induce middle power behavior. Lastly, he presented a detailed empirical analysis of three types of middle powers in the region: the Aspirant, the Constrained, and the Hesitant.

Marco Pinfari shifted the discussion to “Middle Eastern Middle Powers: The Roles of Norms in Mediation and Conflict Resolution.” Pinfari argued that one of the most recognizable behavioral traits of middle powers is their tendency—indeed, their “vocation”—to mediate in international conflicts and to engage in conflict resolution initiatives. Pinfari discussed case studies of conflict resolution initiatives promoted by three Middle Eastern middle powers since the 1980s, namely Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Despite whether or not these countries acted as norm entrepreneurs in the field of conflict resolution, he argued, there exists a sort of norm-based behavior. These cases, more specifically, includes instances of norm-driven positioning of mediators comparable to the international behavior of established middle powers like Sweden; of pragmatic but repeated use of norms as part of the content of mediation initiatives; and of norm-influenced foreign policy initiatives aimed at conflict prevention. The analysis of the political motivations behind these initiatives provides insights into the complex interplay between norm-based behavior, identity building, and symbolic rewards in the formation of the foreign policy priority by Middle Eastern middle powers, and the central role played by domestic priorities—from security concerns to regime survival—in these processes.

Jonathan Benthall examined another form of norm entrepreneurship in his paper, “The Rise and Decline of Saudi Overseas Humanitarian Charities as an Expression of Soft Power.” Benthall records and interprets the rise and decline of Saudi overseas humanitarian charities as an expression of soft power, with special reference to the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO or IIROSA). This and another prominent Saudi-based charity, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) were in effect closed down in early 2017. Founded in 1975, IIROSA grew as an expression of Saudi soft power and pan-Islamism—a policy that played a major role in the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, including support for the mujahidin in concert with Western powers. By the mid-1990s IIROSA was the world’s largest Islamic aid organization. Following the dismissal of its secretary general in 1996, and the crises of 9/11 and the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which cast a cloud over nearly all Islamic charities, IIROSA’s activities were reduced, but efforts were made to revive them. In 2017, however, Benthall argues that the kingdom’s new policy of centralization, and its disengagement from the “comprehensive call to Islam,” resulted in IIROSA’s virtual closure.

In his paper “Middle Eastern Middle Powers in a Transitioning Multi-Polar World,” Imad Mansour interrogated the relationship between domestic governance and international action for middle powers. He argued that Middle Eastern middle powers have acted in most of the twentieth century to sustain a relationship of dependence on systemic opportunities, mostly procuring strategic rents, which aided state-building processes domestically. Since then Middle Eastern middle powers developed varied governance practices that translated into different relationships with the global system. However, not all Middle Eastern middle powers achieved similar measures of withdrawal from this dependence, a reality which impacts how they acted vis-à-vis the global political economy in the twenty-first century, and how they are likely to interact with unfolding dynamics represented most recently by major power relations and China’s rise.

In “Egypt’s Middle Power Aspirations Under Sisi,” Nael Shama looks into the foreign policy of Egypt under the leadership of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi from the perspective of middle power theory. He argued that following the revolution of the Free Officers in 1952, Egypt was a leading power in the Middle East—setting trends, spreading ideas, making war, and promoting peace. However, weighed down by economic difficulties and a population boom, the country’s influence has waned over the past few decades. He also argued that under Al-Sisi, Egypt has attempted to revive its middle power status, relying on active diplomacy and a substantial upgrade of military capabilities. Its efforts to play a leading role in regional politics are mostly evident in its policy towards the civil war in Libya.

Amin Saikal discussed another case study, that of Iran. He maintained that the Islamic Republic of Iran has achieved a level of power and resource capability to be able to impact geopolitical developments within its region and beyond, in support of what it regards to be its national interests. The country’s economic, and hard and soft powers, along with its size, geographical position, culture, and oil and gas riches need to be taken into account in this respect. As such, the country is able to affect events in its neighborhood, positively or negatively, and to deal with major powers from a strong bargaining position at bilateral and multilateral levels. Yet, the republic has not exuded an ideological disposition and a model of governance and state-building that could be attractive to its neighboring states or further afield. Nor has it exhibited a mode of foreign policy behavior that has persuaded many state actors in its region to be favorably disposed towards it. The republic is in variance—both ideologically and geopolitically—with these actors, and is regarded as an oddity in the international system. Meanwhile, it does not possess the military and non-military resource capabilities to be able to project much more than a defensive posture.

In his paper on “Saudi Arabia as a Middle Ranking Power,” Simon Mabon reflected upon the extent to which Saudi Arabia can be considered a middle ranking power, and explored the changing dynamics of the kingdom’s foreign policy in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings. In doing this, Mabon examined three main points. First, he looked at the importance of Islam, which serves as a reservoir for normative influence. Second, he examined the regional security complex, looking specifically at the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and also between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Within these two rivalries, finally, he turned to the importance of diplomacy and normative values, considering how Saudi Arabia has positioned itself within the GCC, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Robert Mason shifted the discussion to “Small State Aspirations to Middle Powerhood: The Cases of Qatar and the UAE.” He argued that small states such as Qatar and the UAE can break the mold of small state classification, but the tipping point to middlepowerhood for Qatar came and went during the Morsi presidency in Egypt. He argud that although Qatar and the UAE share a common approach by investing heavily in defense, aid programs, and diplomatic mediation, and through a range of subtle power tactics, they have not been equally successful. A history of terrorism, fear of political Islam, and the GCC Cold War with Iran have combined to make UAE foreign policy out as being particularly assertive. For Qatar, regional instability created conditions for opportunism and new alliances that propelled it into the realm of middlepowerhood, manifestly proven through open intelligence with Egypt and unprecedented influence in its political economy. Being short lived, it shows that the costs of breaking more than some of the features of small statehood can be high.

In “UAE: A Small State with Regional Middle Power Aspirations,” Islam Hassan argued that the UAE is a small state due to its limited material capacity and soft power capabilities. Yet it aspires to claim a middle power status within the Middle East. This aspiration is steered by system and domestic level conditions. Insofar as system level conditions are concerned, the 2011 Arab uprisings and the status race between the UAE and Qatar have compelled the UAE to engage more assertively with regional politics. Hassan claimed that five main domestic level conditions triggered the UAE’s assertive foreign policy. These conditions include a perceived need for preempting the spillover of regional instability; the failure of the GCC to stimulate a robust defense and diplomatic coordination; Saudi Arabia’s hegemony over the council; the rising economic power of the UAE and its capability to maintain the ruling bargain domestically and to project soft power regionally; the narrative of the UAE as being a model of modernity, tolerance, and happiness; and the transition in leadership. Collectively, the system and domestic level conditions have played a significant role in the UAE’s pursuit of a regional middle power status.

Finally, Yahia Zoubir examined the case of Algeria in “The Giant Afraid of its Shadow:” Algeria, the Reluctant Middle Power.” He argued that despite its qualifying capacity and capabilities, Algeria is unwilling to play a regional and international role concomitant with its military and economic capacities. He explored Algeria’s sources of power and its role as a regional mediator, which has contributed to its position as a middle power. Zoubir then discussed the Algerian civil war and how Algeria went into a decade of isolation. This isolation was followed by a return to the regional and international system, but this time with a focus on counterterrorism as a new norm projected by the Algerian state. He argued that mediation remains a constant in Algerian foreign policy, as evident in the examples of Algerian mediation in Libya and Mali after its decade of isolation.

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Participant Biographies:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJonathan Benthall, University College LondonMay Darwich, Durham UniversityIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSimon Mabon, Lancaster UniversityImad Mansour, Qatar UniversityRobert Mason, American University in CairoSuzi Mirgani CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMarco Pinfari, American University in CairoAmin Saikal, Australian National UniversityAdham Saouli, University of St. AndrewsSabika Shaban, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarNael M. Shama, political researcher and writer, CairoJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarYahia Zoubir, KEDGE Business School, France

Article by Islam Hassan, CIRS Research Analyst

Crisis in the GCC: Causes, Consequences & Prospects
2017-09-17 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Moscow)
“Crisis in the GCC: Causes, Consequences, and Prospects” was the topic of a panel discussion hosted by the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University in Qatar (GUQ) on September 17, 2017. Featured panelists included Gerd Nonneman, Professor of International Relations and Gulf Studies at GUQ; Abdullah Baabood, Director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University; and Shafeeq Ghabra, Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. The presentation was moderated by Mehran Kamrava, GUQ Professor and Director of CIRS.

Over 350 guests attended the discussion on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis. The speakers were invited to share their thoughts on the developments since the crisis began on June 5, 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt severed ties and halted trade with Qatar. A series of drastic measures was launched by these countries, including the withdrawal of ambassadors from Doha and the expulsion of Qatari diplomats, the closure of airspace to all flights to and from Qatar, and the closure of the land border crossing between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The governments of Yemen, Libya, the Maldives, and others also severed ties, along with suspending air, land, and sea travel to and from Qatar.

A list of thirteen demands was issued, calling for Qatar to sever ties with terrorist organizations, close Al Jazeera and its affiliates, and curb diplomatic ties with Iran, along with other conditions. Last week marked one hundred days since the start of the blockade sparked a diplomatic crisis.

Gerd Nonneman began the discussion by outlining the causes of the situation and said, fundamentally, it is about how the three surrounding states want Qatar to accept what they view as its “proper” role in the region, “as a virtual vassal state that will not challenge Saudi Arabia’s leading role in the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf region, nor attempt to compete with the UAE for regional status and reach.” Qatar is a latecomer in terms of Gulf development, and its confident emergence as an independent actor since the 1990s, with the adoption of a number of policies that clash with Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini preferences, have long irked some in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in particular. The issues center around different attitudes over the possible role of political Islam in the wider region, Qatar’s relations with a number of groups that do not fit the policy preferences of other Arab regional players, and its diplomatic stance towards Iran, Nonneman said. The Arab Spring, and Qatar’s approach to it, made these issues especially acute.

Since the early 1990s, and particularly since 1995 when Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa took power, Qatar has striven to escape from underneath the Saudi shadow, Nonneman said. Hence the determination to “put Qatar back into its box”—especially in the eyes of the current leadership in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and the enabling factor of the Trump presidency.

Qatar has considered possible threats and available resources in that light, Nonneman said. An internal political threat was virtually nonexistent and, if anything, the blockade has drawn the population closer to the leadership. Initial concern over a potential military threat quickly dissipated, given the important US and other international interests at stake in pre-empting that. The societal threat has been one of the most serious, with families and kinship groups being suddenly cut off from each other in unprecedented ways. The economic impact of the crisis is serious, but ultimately sustainable. Nonneman concluded that, while the blockade is expensive and painful, and the leadership therefore would certainly prefer to find a solution, “the crisis can be sustained if the alternative would be, in effect, sacrificing one’s sovereignty.”

Nonneman did not exclude a settlement of sorts in the medium term, since the interests of the US and the blockading countries are suffering damage, too, and wiser counsel might eventually prevail. But, he added, “I cannot imagine that trust in the GCC and especially in the current leadership in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, can be restored.” He concluded that “the suspicions that Qatar [like other small GCC states] always had about the organization and Saudi hegemonic ambitions in this region, have only been reinforced.”

Abdullah Baabood said that despite studying the region for years, nothing had prepared him for a crisis like this. He asserted that the countries making up the GCC, “despite being twenty-first century states, are essentially ruled as if they were in the ‘Middle Ages.’ We are ruled by families that still have these feuds and conflicts between them. You can’t really continue in this century doing it the same way,” he said.

The problem with a “Mediaeval style of leadership” in the region, he noted, is that anything can happen. “Leaders can be erratic, crises can appear out of nowhere, and can be based on fabricated news, as was the case with the current conflict. Unfortunately, we are going to have to work with this erratic leadership for a long time,” he said, “because some of them are still young and they are going to rule us for the next forty to fifty years.” Baabood said it is the mentality of a “mediaeval tribe” that has not really evolved. “Modernity is only fabric that we see in terms of the infrastructure, etcetera, but not when it comes to the political system,” he said.

Additionally, there is conflict and a contradiction in views for how the region should develop. “We have a conflicting narrative—a narrative between what the leadership in Qatar wants to see develop—including [regarding] the Arab spring—and another narrative that wants to keep the status quo, and perhaps even go back to before the status quo, taking us to police states, whether in Egypt or some of the GCC states. And they don’t want to change. They are going to blame any trouble on political Islam, modernity, democracy.” Ultimately, he argued “That is going to create resentment, more terrorism, and radicalization.”

On the GCC, Baabood said the conflict goes against the entire principles of the organization, which is based on cooperation and integration among the member states. The GCC has entered into a number of formal mutual agreements: on security, economic cooperation, and the free flow of people, goods, services, and finance. The GCC is supposed to be a rules-based institution with a charter requiring all GCC leaders making critical decisions to do so by unanimous agreement. In this case, the decision to impose the blockade did not go before the supreme council, he said, effectively revealing the hollowness of the institution.

“What we’re talking about is a fundamental flaw in how the GCC is working. Are we going to have a GCC at the end of the day if people can’t trust the charter, the agreements that these leaders have signed or are going to decide?” he asked. “It really deals a big blow to our future integration and cooperation.

Baabood argued that Qatar, so far, is winning the war of narratives. He said: “If you look at the media, four countries’ media is attacking one small country, but yet the country that is winning in the streets and hearts and minds of the people is Qatar. They are winning on an ethical, moral ground, not playing the victim, and explaining the situation as it is.” Baabood concluded by noting that “In terms of public opinion, globally I think Qatar is winning.”

Shafeeq Ghabra spoke on how he had personally experienced the crisis. When he awoke on June 5, 2017, while spending a sabbatical at the Arab Center in Doha, to the news of the boycott and the closure of borders, it reminded him of when Iraq threatened Kuwait in 1990. “It felt like war,” and he half-expected to see tanks in the streets. The news was all the more shocking for Ghabra, because in the time leading up to the blockade, the GCC states had seemed so united. They were fighting together in Yemen; they agreed on policy toward Syria; they had all worked against Muammar Gaddafi of Libya; they supported the Iraqi system in fighting ISIS; and they were all seemingly united on the war on terror. “What does this tell me about the region and the way politics suddenly shifted overnight?”

Ghabra said that he had been relieved by the Kuwaiti mediation efforts, and as well as when the Turkish parliament made the decision to send troops to Qatar two days into the crisis. He acknowledged the effective ways in which Qatar was managing the crisis, including opening new routes to Oman and Turkey, creating connections with Iran in terms of trade and ports, and managing to build on its relations with Europe. He argued that the boycotting countries did not expect such resilience; “they expected Qatar would immediately capitulate and say ‘whatever you want.’ But this did not happen. This was a major miscalculation in this approach of blockade and boycott.”

Ghabra concluded by noting: “In this context we see a new axis in the region, a new power structure, and Qatar has a new birth of its own. It’s liberated from certain contexts and relations; it can build new strategies and structures and approaches. And the blockade and the sanctions can slowly collapse under their own weight and out of their own irrationalism.” Looking to the future, Ghabra said: “Do I still believe that in 2022 we’re going to come to the [World Cup] games here? I believe we are!”

Abdullah Baabood is the Director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University. Abdullah’s teaching and research interests are on the areas of international relations, international political economy especially on globalization and regionalism, and security and energy studies. He particularly focuses on the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economic, social and political development and their external relations. Abdullah taught at different universities and institutions in Europe and before joining Qatar University, he spent four years as the Director of the Gulf Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Shafeeq Ghabra is Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. He received a BA from Georgetown in 1975, an from MA Purdue University (West Lafayette) in 1983, and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987. He was the founding president of the American University of Kuwait (2003-2006); and Director of the Kuwait Information Office in Washington DC (1998-2002), and the Center of Strategic Studies at Kuwait University (2002-2003). He is author of Palestinians in Kuwait: The Family and the Politics of Survival (Westview Press, 1987) and, in Arabic, Kuwait and the dynamics of State and Society (Afaq Books, 2011).

Gerd Nonneman is Professor of International Relations & Gulf Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, where he served as Dean from 2011 to 2016. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter, and Licentiates in Oriental Philology (Arabic) and Development Studies from the University of Ghent, Belgium. Prior to his appointment at Georgetown, he served as Professor of International Relations & Middle East Politics, and Al-Qasimi Professor of Gulf Studies, at the University of Exeter, where he also directed the Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies and the Centre for Gulf Studies. A former Executive Director of BRISMES (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), he is editor of the Journal of Arabian Studies. He has published widely, in 12 books and some 50 articles and book chapters, on the politics and international relations of the Middle East, with a particular emphasis on the Gulf. 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.

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant

Sports, Society, and the State in the Middle East Working Group II
2017-09-24 09:00 - 2017-09-25 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On September 24-25, 2017, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a second two-day working group under its research initiative on “Sports, Society, and the State in the Middle East.” During this working group, contributors presented their draft papers on a number of subtopics related to their areas of expertise and interest, and received feedback and comments from the rest of the participants.

Murat Yıldız initiated the working group discussions by presenting his paper on “Sports in the Middle East: A Historical Overview.” In his paper, Yıldız offers a more complicated history of sports in the region by accomplishing three goals. First, he demonstrates that the spread, vernacularization, and popularization of sports in the Middle East were inextricably connected to broader social, political, economic, and cultural transformations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Second, he traces the ways in which “Western” sports and physical activities were vernacularized throughout the region. Finally, Yıldız demonstrates how nation-building and state-building projects played an integral role in shaping the spread and discursive boundaries of sports.

Nadim Nassif presented his research on “The Development of Elite Sport Policies in the Middle East.” In this paper, Nassif argues that despite the large amount of financial and human resources at their disposal, Arab countries have achieved very modest results in the Olympics. Since 1996, when all twenty-two Arab countries participated in the Summer Games for the first time, these states have collectively won fewer than half the number of medals won by Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain. Nassif’s paper attempts to answer the question of why the Arab Worlds’ resource and demographic wealth have not translated into greater national success in international sports competitions. He suggests that wealth and population are clearly not enough to ensure sports success if countries do not possess the political will to implement strategic policies for developing and supporting sports.

Nnamdi Madichie presented a paper titled “Unpacking the Internationalization of Middle East Sports Officials.” Madichie’s paper describes the trends, attitudes, behaviors, and changing configuration of sports participation in the region. Using a qualitative methodological approach—notably a mixture of observational research protocol (including personal and participant observations), ethnography and non-participant observation based on key readings of media clips on sports in the Middle East—Madichie argues that the landscape of sports business and management is rapidly changing in an environment unrenowned for certain professional sports.

Nida Ahmad’s paper on “Sportswomen in the Middle East and North Africa’s Use of Social Media: The Cultural Politics of Digital Identity Representation” examines the development of the diverse ways in which sportswomen in the region are engaging with social media to represent their identities. Female athletes are creating digital content, highlighting their professional sports identities, and establishing’s their reputations while at the same time keeping family, society, and culture in mind. Ahmad’s research paper is based on extensive qualitative interviews, and expanding the discussion to include digital platforms, Ahmad’s paper allows for an additional understanding of the sporting lives of women from the region.

Tamir Sorek presented his paper on “Ultras Hapoel Tel Aviv: Breaking Taboos and the Crisis of Israeli Liberal Secularism.” In this article, Sorek analyzes the rhetoric of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s hardcore fans and the demography of its wider circle of sympathizers. This examination reveals that the stadium rhetoric is actually an expression of fundamental social and political struggles between competing definitions of “Israeli-ness.” The transgressive rhetoric of Hapoel fans, Sorek argues, is partly related to the decline in the political power of the secular elite in Israel and the hardening of non-secular Israeli identity. In studying this topic, Sorek relies on: an online survey conducted in September 2012, the sample included 500 respondents who constitute a representative sample of the adult Hebrew-speaking population in Israel; a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in 2009, the sample included 2803 respondents who constitute a representative sample of the adult Jewish population in Israel; the website of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans; fans’ songs available on YouTube; and conversations with hardcore fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Following Sorek’s discussion, Dag Tuastad led a discussion on “Football’s Role in How Societies Remember: The Symbolic Wars of Jordanian-Palestinian Football.” Through a case study from Jordan, Tuastad demonstrates how a dominant arena for battles over national social memories has been the football arena. These symbolic battles may be organized into three phases: First, from 1970 to the Oslo-process in the 1990s: Palestinian memorization of the civil war to reassert their national identity. Second, after the Oslo-process until the Arab Spring in 2011: East Bank Jordanians’ assertions of the historical roots of the alliance between East Bank tribes and the Jordanian monarchy. And finally, he draws attention to Palestinian refugees memorizing their common ethnic origin, confirming their refugee identities while being Jordanian citizens.

Ferman Knoukman shifted the discussion to “State-Building and Establishment of Modern Physical Education in Turkey.” In his paper, Knoukman argues that physical education classes had an important role for the state building project in the young Turkish republic. In supporting his argument, Knoukman first explains the establishment of modern physical education in Turkey and discusses the importance of the role of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in this process. Nation-building and educational development, as embedded parts of the modernization project, have been a common phenomenon across the Middle East, and by specifically studying this topic from the perspective of sports education this paper addresses a key gap in the literature.

Cem Tınaz presented his paper on “Assessment of Turkey’s Recent Sport Policies.” In his paper, Tınaz provides an overview of Turkey’s recent sports policy, identifies the pathways of the state for achieving success in sports, examines problems and deficiencies in national sport, and finally articulates the state’s reasons for hosting international sports events. For this research, Tınaz relies on thirteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews with former Turkish sports ministers and other sports authorities, including the CEO of Istanbul’s 2020 bid and the president of Turkish National Olympic Committee. Data generated from the interviews were analyzed, and results were examined. In addition to academic literature, government files, newspapers and other reports were also reviewed for the evaluation of the sports policies adopted by the Turkish government.

Building up on Tınaz’s paper, Danyel Reiche led a discussion on “Legacies of Mega-Sporting Events in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Lebanon.” Reiche’s paper provides a case study on experiences with hosting mega-sporting events in developing countries. The article follows a comparative approach by analyzing the legacies of four mega-sporting events hosted by Lebanon: The Pan-Arab Games in 1997; the AFC Asian Cup in 2000; the Francophone Games in 2009; and, the FIBA Asian Cup in 2017. Reiche examines the similarities and differences of the four events, identifying patterns in Lebanon’s previous experiences in hosting mega-sporting events and determining if it is beneficial for a small, developing country to bid for mega-sporting events in the future. He argues that there is a mixed picture when assessing Lebanon’s experiences with hosting mega-sporting events, with some short-term reputational gain but only a few indicators of long-term benefits for the country. Lebanon should give priority to youth and grassroots sports programs before hosting other mega-sporting events. For future bids, co-hosting with other countries might be a way to limit the financial risks for a developing country that struggles to provide its population with basic needs.

Simon Chadwick shifted the discussion to “The Business of Sports in the Gulf Cooperation Council.” In his article, Chadwick provides a brief examination of the GCC, specifically its economic profile, and then goes on to analyze the sports industry within the GCC. Initially, several common features of the industry are examined: economy and industry; soft power and diplomacy; nation branding and national identity; health and well-being; and socio-cultural factors. Chadwick then moves on to provide a statistical profile of sports in the region, and highlight a range of data focused on each GCC countries’ interest in sports, participation in sport, commercial revenues and economic contribution of sports. Thereafter, key issues pertaining to sports in the region are explored. Specifically: consumption; risk and security; regional tensions; resource management; economic and state pressures; and general observations (which broadly includes reference to specific GCC sports, such as camel racing). Finally, Chadwick draws conclusions in the context of the above.

Craig L. LaMay examined “The World Cup and its Challenge to Free Expression Norms in Qatar.” In his article, LaMay questions the effect, if any, which sports mega-events, and especially the World Cup, will have on Qatar’s free expression norms and laws. He claims that Qatar’s current media law is almost four decades old and by international standards both antiquated and repressive, and its penal code includes some severe restrictions on speech. On the one hand, it is tempting to argue that Qatar’s World Cup will have no effect on the environment for independent media in the country. But Qatar can be fairly described as both deeply traditional and aggressively modern. Much more than other states in the region, it has been open to its critics, including international human rights NGOs. Qataris themselves feel free to discuss and voice their opinions about public affairs; “Western” ideas about human rights and free expression are, if not accepted, accepted for consideration and debate. Qatar’s constitution, the only one in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council to be approved by voters, has an explicit free speech provision. Finally, Qatar’s modernization strategy rests on four pillars: sport, education, media, and art, which are all fundamentally expressive enterprises. Of these, none draws international media attention, or global audiences, like sport. After completion of the 2018 Russia Cup, Qatar can begin to brand and promote the 2022 tournament, and the country will almost certainly come under renewed pressure from international human rights groups and international news organizations to further liberalize its media environment, to clarify its rules for media practice.

Mahfoud Amara led a discussion on “Business and Policies of Sport TV Broadcasting in the MENA Region: A Case Study of beIN Sports.” Amara argues that the State-funded beIN Sport is dominating the market in the MENA region with exclusive rights to major professional leagues and World Championships of top sports. It is also currently present via different platforms (satellite, cable, and IPTV) in North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. Amara claims that the emergence of Qatar as an affluent actor in the business of sports TV broadcasting has been met with mixed feeling. On the one hand, some welcome beIN Sports as it contributes to the finances of professional leagues that are, to a great extent, dependent on TV revenues to cover their growing expenditure, particularly rocketing players’ salaries. On the other hand, beIN Sports is grated with suspicion as it is accused of being a tool of Qatar’s international branding strategy and “soft power.” Hence in his paper, Amara examines: how beIN Sports is maintaining its dominance in the MENA region, controlling/protecting broadcasting signal, and negotiating with different national and regional TV Stations; and how beIN Sport is negotiating internationally its entry into different markets and coalitions. Finally, Amara explores the impacts of beIN Sports and Qatar international sports strategy on regional political dynamics.

Finally, Charlotte Lysa concluded the working group discussion with her paper on “Qatari Female Footballers: Negotiating Gendered Expectations through University Football.” In her paper, Lysa examines how Qatari female football players are enabling themselves to play football in a culturally acceptable way by maneuvering established social norms. By first and forehand focusing on their actions and their own recounts, Lysa explores how Qatari female footballers are using their agency to work around cultural barriers to public participation in sports. When reaching a certain age, there are special expectations in Qatari culture as for how a woman should act, in accordance with what her role in society and the family should be. Lysa argues that these expectations are affecting what physical activities women can and cannot participate in, and transgressing such norms can lead to sanctions from society, in form of a “bad reputation” and difficulties in finding a partner to marry. Centralized is the idea that “traditional” women should be modest and protected from exposure to men who are not their family members. Lysa’s research demonstrates that by participating in the “women only” spaces of university football teams, young Qatari women are bypassing social norms in society, thus avoiding possible sanctions from society.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Nida Ahmad, University of Waikato, New ZealandMahfoud Amara, Qatar UniversityZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSimon Chadwick, University of Salford, ManchesterIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarFerman Konukman, Qatar UniversityCraig LaMay, Northwestern University in QatarCharlotte Lysa, University of OsloNnamdi Madichie, London School of Business and ManagementSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarNadim Nassif, Notre Dame University, LebanonDanyel Reiche, American University of BeirutSabika Shaban, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarTamir Sorek, University of FloridaJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarCem Tınaz, Istanbul Bilgi UniversityDag Tuastad, University of OsloMurat C.Yıldız, Skidmore College

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

A Taste of Pakistan: Music & Food from the North
2017-10-09 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
On October 9, 2017, Waleed Zahoor, Publications Intern at Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), and a senior student at Georgetown University in Qatar, was invited to hold a rabab recital, a stringed instrument known as the lion of instruments played mainly in Afghanistan, Iran, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Santosh Kulkarni, a seasoned musician, accompanied Zahoor by playing rhythmic beats on the tabla. The event titled, “A Taste of Pakistan: Music & Food from the North” was attended by a sizeable audience of faculty, staff, students, and members of the Pakistani community in Qatar. Delicacies from Northern Pakistan including chapli kebab were served for the guests.

Zahoor started the performance by introducing the rabab to the audience, many of who were listening to the instrument for the first time. He shared details about the structure and making of the artistic instrument, carved from a single piece of wood and decorated with intricate inlays of pearl. Zahoor also talked about the history of rabab, noting that attestations for rabab can be found in Persian texts dating back to 7th century CE. He also discussed the religious significance of rabab in Sikhism and Sufi Islam, and elaborated on how the instrument was played in Khanqahs in Iran and Afghanistan.

In the hour-long recital, Zahoor played a diverse selection of songs in Burushashki, Dari, Hindi, Pashto, Persian, and Urdu. He introduced the songs as he played them and translated verses from the songs for the audience. Zahoor also shared the romantic Pashto folk tale of Adam Khan and Durkhanai and the story of Mullah Mohammad Jon and Ayesha, a tale of two lovers from Afghanistan. Zahoor quoted famous poets and discussed how the rabab has left its mark on Persian and Pashto poetry as it is frequently mentioned by revered poets including Amir Khusrow, Ferdowsi, Ghani Khan, Hafez Shirazi, Muahammad Iqbal, and Rahman Baba. Zahoor ended the performance with a short improvisational piece that he played with Santosh, his partner on the tabla.

Waleed Zahoor is a senior at Georgetown University in Qatar, majoring in International Politics. He works as a Publications Intern at the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS). Zahoor has a deep interest in Pashtun history, culture, music, and poetry, and is a self-taught rabab player.

Water and Conflict in the Middle East Working Group I
2017-10-15 09:00 - 2017-10-16 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On October 15-16, 2017, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a working group under its research initiative on “Water and Conflict in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, experts engaged in group discussions aimed at identifying a series of original research questions related to competition and cooperation over water in the Middle East. Topics discussed included: water conflict in the Middle Eastern context; trans-boundary water conflicts and cooperation in the Middle East; water scarcity and conflict in Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, and Lebanon; and the political and social constraints to achieving food security in water-scarce areas. Scholars also discussed ISIS and its attempts to strategically control water in parts of the Middle East, as well as how Turkey’s recent attempts to build dams on the Euphrates are affecting its relations with Iraq and Syria. Two working group sessions were also held with a specific focus on water and politics in the GCC states. The subject was discussed both with a focus on domestic political dilemmas faced by different Middle Eastern countries contending with scarce water resources at a national level, as well how inter-state relations in the region are influenced by tensions or competition over shared water resources.

Much of the Middle East is comprised of arid zones with limited available water resources. Over the past decades, the capacity of the region’s limited water resources to meet national needs has been further stretched by rapid population growth. Simultaneously, the mounting effects of pollution and waste have led to a significant deterioration in both the quality and quantity of water. In addition, poor water governance and development strategies at a national level have increased the gap between supply and demand. At the broader level, an increasing regional exposure to changing climatic events such as global warming is also of great concern. Water insecurity poses a significant challenge as well, impacting economic growth, and potentially leading to social and political instability. In many of the countries instead of investing in changing the culture of water usage and improving mechanisms for distribution, states have opted instead to expand citizens’ access to water through unsustainable means of water provision and expanding subsidies. Such behavior has intensified rather than mitigated water challenges across the region. At the national level there is a need for further research on water policies and practices, and what the social and political dynamics are that undergird them.

Scholars of the region have devoted considerable attention to studying the effects of above-ground shared water resources, and there is already an extensive body of work on the three main transboundary river basins of the Middle East, namely the Jordan River, the Nile, and the Tigris-Euphrates. What was raised during the working group was the need to examine trans-boundary or shared groundwater, particularly with regards to water conflict and cooperation in the Middle East, as this remains as an understudied subject. The region has a large number of groundwater aquifers, both renewable and non-renewable that are shared across multiple national borders. Aquifers are shared between Turkey and Syria, Syria and Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, Egypt and Libya, as well as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq amongst others. It is important to have a greater understanding of how states are navigating shared use of groundwater resources in the Middle East.

Focusing on water scarcity and conflict in Iraq, four critical issues stand out. The first issue has to do with Iraq’s geographical environment. It is a downstream state located at the tail end of the Tigris and Euphrates. This makes the country at risk of disruption in water supply caused by intentional or unintentional practices by the upstream countries. The issue of geographical location is coupled with climate change, permanent desiccation of Marshlands, change in microclimates and cross-boundary sandstorms, and divergence of priorities from investments into wetland infrastructure steered by political movements. The second issue facing Iraq is related to the hydro-politics of an emerging Kurdistan. After Kurdistan declared independence that was met by rejection from the Iraqi government along with Turkey, Iran and a number of other states, the future of Kurdish participation in multinational treaties is hard to imagine. The third issue has to do with water disputes between Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Iraqis argue that Turkish and Iranian policies have damaged ecosystems in northern Iraq. Finally, Iraq faces a critical issue of water being used as a weapon. Non-state actors can use dams and water infrastructure, given their vulnerability as targets, as strategic and psychological weapons. These four issues are affected by poor water governance, climate change, and the continuous migration and displacement patterns.

Turning to Yemen, a significant portion of water resources are underground, and renewable water resources provide less than 10 percent of the estimated national need. Conflict over water in Yemen is not directly related to the current civil war, although of course the impact of violent conflict on people’s water access is undeniable. Broader dynamics predating the civil war remain at heart of the Yemeni water crisis. Four main areas deserve further in-depth research. First, there is a critical need to expand available data sets on Yemen’s water resources, and a need to develop and deploy data collection methods that are more applicable to the socio-political structures of the country. Second, issues related to management of water distribution and water flow, wells management, payments for domestic water supplies, and major food projects remain significantly understated in Yemen. Third, scholars need to pay attention to the local politics in Yemen insofar as tensions between households and peoples are concerned, and the impact of that on the increasing water and food security risks. Finally, there is a need to study agricultural activities that require less water, are drought resistant, and have high value.

Lebanon and Jordan are no different from other countries in the region with regards to limited natural resources not being the reason behind their water scarcity, but rather external and internal factors. With regards to the external factors, Jordan has issues with Lebanon and Syria insofar as the Upper Jordan is concerned, besides the issue of sharing the Jordan River with Palestine and Israel, and the Disi Aquifer with Saudi Arabia. For Lebanon, issues of water diplomacy revolve around the sharing of the Jordan River, an aquifer with Israel, and the Aasi and Kabir Rivers with Syria. This is in addition to the Wazani Aquifer and Hasbani River which were controlled by Israel during the occupation. With regards to the internal factors, the water infrastructure in Lebanon is perished, given that water infrastructure in some areas of Lebanon predates a century. Additionally, besides issues of pollution and climate change that are common factors across the region, the influx of refugees and displaced people adds significant pressure to Lebanon and Jordan’s water resources.

The aforementioned cases share a common factor with regards to water issues. While one ought not to undermine the scarcity of water resources in the Middle East, the most critical water issues lie beyond water resources. In other words, the non-biophysical constraints limit any technical solutions for water issues in the Middle East. Examples of non-biophysical constraints include, among other factors: socio-political stability, security, land tenures, and low farm-grade prices. These constraints are coupled with the issue of addressing the wrong problem. Decision-makers focus on finding the technical solutions for water issues while neglecting the aforementioned non-biophysical constraints that are at the core of water issues in the Middle East.

Shifting the discussion to non-state actors and management of water resources, one can see that ISIS boldly uses water as a weapon. While, for example, in April 2014 ISIS withheld the Fallujah Dam to stop water-flow and to deprive Shiites downhill in Baghdad from access to water, the group did not damage the water infrastructure in Iraq. ISIS realized its need for water for its own uses and electricity, and for the populations living within seized territories in order to win their support. Such behavior by ISIS raises questions about the definition of “weaponization” of water. Would preventing access to water based on race, religion, culture, etc., during times of dispute and competition over shared resources be considered weaponization of water? Is targeting water infrastructure similar to using water as a strategic tool? The example of ISIS also raises questions around the use of water by hybrid violent actors: state actors, non-state actors, militias, regional powers, international powers, etc. Under what circumstances is water used for strategic purposes? And what are the drivers and motivations behind such use? In addition, there seems to be a gap in the literature on studying the cooperation between militant groups and international organizations to supply water to deprived people.

In terms of hydro-politics and relations with neighboring countries, participants discussed the case of Turkey and its relations with Iraq and Syria. Although competition over shared water resources is usually assumed among neighboring countries, in fact cooperation seems to be more prominent. Nonetheless, the extent to which one party dominates the cooperative arrangement remains unclear. In other words, how does hydro-hegemony develop? In Turkey’s case, for example, scholars ought to explore Turkey’s technocratic and technoscientific approach in its pursuit to hydro-hegemony over shared water resources with Syria. There is also a gap in the literature on the neighboring countries’ perceptions towards Turkey’s hydro-hegemony. For example, to what extent are the Turkish water installations in southeast Anatolia seen as having an impact on the downstream countries? On a different note, there is limited literature on the pressure added to Turkish water resources as a result of the government policies toward hosting refugees.

While discussing hydro-hegemony, the participants highlighted another form of seeking hegemony over water. Particularly, they discussed the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) quest for hegemony over the Red Sea. Over the past decade, the UAE has been in a race to acquire operational and management rights over ports and economic zones along the Red Sea. This race was coupled by a significant Emirati naval presence in the Gulf of Aden and Bab Almandab Strait, in addition to Emirati private naval security companies. The Emirati activities in the Red Sea provoke the assumption that the UAE aims to claim hegemony over the Red Sea, which embraces one of, if not the, most important global shipping lanes. In this regards, questions were raised about the rationale and objective of the UAE’s pursuit to hegemony in the Red Sea, and how international relations theory can explain such behavior by a small state; the various strategies of the UAE to claim such hegemony, and what that tells us about small states behavior; and the responses of regional actors, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and international players, such as the United States, China, and Israel to Emirati activities in the red Sea.

The working group concluded with a session devoted to the GCC crisis that began in the summer of 2017, and its impact on Qatar’s water security. The current GCC crisis did not develop suddenly and in a vacuum, but rather had its roots in the earlier diplomatic imbroglio of 2014, when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, and subtly threatened to close borders. In response, Qatar started preparing for a worst-case scenario, and enhanced strategic plans to contend with emergency conditions, particularly with regards to food and water. Given that Qatar relies heavily on imported food products, it started building closer trade ties with Iran and Turkey. Also since 2014, Qatar’s General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) invested in lowering leakage in its water infrastructure, which reached below five percent in 2017. In addition over the past three years, Qatar has been investing in local industrial base for potable water, which was clear when the locally produced potable water quickly replaced that imported from Saudi Arabia after the severing of ties. Qatar’s main water issue, unlike the other aforementioned cases, lies in its lack of resources not mismanagement. There remains a critical dilemma with regards to how Qatar should deal with water scarcity. Given that Qatar’s limited groundwater is significantly depleted, investing in innovation and technology with regards to desalination, Qatar’s only option, is always on the table. However, the inefficiency of desalination plants and their limited capability to produce potable water remains a lasting problem.

For the working group agenda click hereFor the participants’ biographies click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Farah Al Qawasmi, Qatar UniversityHussein A. Amery, Colorado School of MinesZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarNadim Farajalla, American University of BeirutMark Giordano, Georgetown UniversityIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarBart Hilhorst, Water Resources SpecialistMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMarcus DuBois King, George Washington UniversityHelen Lackner, University of LondonSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSabika Shaban, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarTobias von Lossow, Freie Universität BerlinPaul A. Williams, Bilkent University, Turkey

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

The Arab Reform Agenda: Challenges, Promises, and Prospects
2017-10-30 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
The Arab world today is experiencing “its second great fragmentation and reconfiguration of the past century,” according to respected journalist and Middle East analyst Rami G. Khouri. Acknowledging that there is not really an “Arab world,” and the Arab League only exists “on paper” anymore, he used the term “the Arab region” as a geographic description in his talk, “The Arab Reform Agenda: Challenges, Promises, and Prospects,” at the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University in Qatar on October 30, 2017.

Around World War I, the region was reconfigured by foreign powers—led primarily by Western powers—into its current state of nation-states, as countries like Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and others gradually came into being. Now, a century later, the 400 million citizens of Arab countries are experiencing another radical transformation, Khouri explained. What is different now is that local people are making many of the decisions about their fragmenting states and the reconfiguring of their society, he said. These are mostly Arab people, but also non-Arabs like Kurds, Iranians, Turks, and others, including the great powers.

Khouri shared a recent news item that captured for him the severity of the dilemma for Syria today— and for virtually all the Arab world. The Russians, Turks, and Iranians—three non-Arab powers who were engaged militarily in Syria—were meeting to agree on how to deploy their militaries inside the country. In the past, he said, “they used to meet in London and Paris or Washington to talk about what they were going to do about frontiers and sovereignties, but now they’re talking about how to behave militarily with their own troops inside Syria.” At the same time, the US and many others are also involved militarily in the country.

This example also explains in part how the Arab world got to its current situation, Khouri said. “The many different symptoms that we see: ISIS, refugees, sectarian violence, civil wars—these are all symptoms of underlying stresses, disparities, and distortions.” From about 1920-1980, he said, the lives for most Arab citizens were improving, and societies in the region were on a trajectory of relatively sustained, expanding, and equitable national development. “It wasn’t perfect, but for fifty or sixty years the region was mostly developing on the basis of nationalist developmental states in most countries,” he said.

The 1980s were the transitional period in the modern Arab world, he said. Populations grew faster than economic development; military families seized power in most of the Arab republics; and the monarchies in the region had established their own forms of governance, which were widely seen as legitimate, he said. But in the republics—Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia—the militaries essentially took over, and family rule took hold for decades on end, with some of these families still in power forty years or more later.

So the Arab region has endured decades of “autocratic, security-led, family-anchored, non-participatory, non-accountable political power, combined with the continuing negative impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its repercussions, and non-stop foreign military intervention,” which Khouri said has essentially never stopped since Napoleon arrived, with only some breaks in between foreign military action in the region. The modern period since the 1950s has witnessed almost non-stop foreign military interventions. Historically this meant the British, French, and Americans, he said, “but now we’re talking about the Russians, the Iranians, and the Turks also—actively involved militarily inside Arab countries, with their friends, allies and proxies.” And the circle of foreign military intervention continues to expand, he said, mentioning new Chinese military bases in the region, while Arab states also directly deploy their military forces in other Arab states, such as the Saudi and Emirati war in Yemen or Arab involvement in Libya.

It is no surprise that the Arab region has reached the current stage of “tumultuous conditions, chaos, warfare, some state collapse, savagery, and mass refugees in the tens of millions,” said Khouri. This did not happen suddenly, he noted, as there were many early warning signs indicating there was something seriously wrong in the region, starting in the 1970s. Surveys in recent decades revealed low trust in government institutions; people did not expect their futures would improve; poverty increased; educational results dropped across the region; corruption was perceived as being very high and permanent; there were high rates of unemployment and labor informality, especially among youth; and tens of thousands of the smartest and most dynamic young people emigrated permanently. A major early sign of stressed populations at the family level was the massive support for the Muslim Brothers in the late 1970s, he said.

Conditions worsened steadily in the 1990s and 2000s, “leading to the Arab Uprisings in 2010-2011, which was an extraordinary sign that something was seriously wrong in our societies,” he said. These and other factors led to the creation of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other radical groups of that nature. “We have no reason to be surprised by what’s going on, but we do have reason to be shocked,” he said.

Khouri offered some very rough, personal calculations for what he called the “five distinct groups of Arabs” in the region today:

Around 10% are materially well off and have a very good life; Around 30% are basically middle-class, largely employed by the government, and live a decent life; Perhaps 50% (around 200 million) are low-income, poor, marginalized, and vulnerable; The remaining 10% comprise two groups lumped together: emigrants and refugees—people who left or were forced to leave; and the radicals and militants who took up arms and created their own militias, like the Islamic State. This last segment of the population has essentially—whether voluntarily or involuntarily—left the Arab-state system.

When taking about the Arab world economically, Khouri said there are essentially two Arab worlds. There are the oil/energy producing countries—the smaller, wealthy emirates that do not suffer the same degree of fragmentation of the other states, with the possible exception of Bahrain. The other world—across the whole region—is a population that is “showing clear signs of pauperization, marginalization, disparities, and polarization between the wealthy and the poor.” This is creating intense pressures when you throw onto it foreign military intervention, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the continued Israeli colonization of Arab lands.

With the exception of the small wealthy states, in the rest of the region, “I think we can safely say the Arab States by and large have failed the twin tests of statehood and sovereignty that were initially implanted in their lands around a hundred years ago,” Khouri said. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which gave British support to a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, he argues, led to “the indirect but significant impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict continuing to this day across the Arab world, and particularly on the psyche of ordinary Arabs. It has played a major role in the coming to power and staying in power of military security regimes in countries like Syria, Iraq, Libya, and other places, and it has had a major negative impact on the self-perception of ordinary Arab men and women.”

People across the region equate the Palestinian tragedy with the wider pressures that they feel in their own societies because of foreign military intervention, Khouri said. The colonial process that took root in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration still continues today, he said, “and you see this with the Russians, the Turks, and the Iranians trying to figure out how their troops are going to coexist inside Syria, let alone people outside Syria meeting to come up with new constitution for Syria.”

Rami George Khouri is an internationally syndicated political columnist and book author, professor of journalism, and journalist-in-residence at the American University of Beirut (AUB). He was the first director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at AUB, and is now senior fellow. He also serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard University and is a recipient of the Pax Christi International Peace Prize.

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS.

Jeremy Koons Faculty Research Workshop
2017-11-05 09:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
A new book manuscript by Jeremy Koons, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (GU-Q), was featured recently in a CIRS Faculty Research Workshop. The manuscript The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars was studied and discussed by specialist scholars from Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia during a full day event on November 5, 2017.

The manuscript explains that, suitably developed, Sellars’s ethical theory has the potential to develop the tools to answer pressing moral questions. These include questions on moral statements, moral reasoning, moral judgments and motivation, and how we fit morality into a scientific view of the world. Additionally, Koons shows that elements of Sellars’s theory can be enriched by contemporary philosophical work—work by later Sellarsian philosophers, by philosophers working on group intentions and cooperative rationality, and more. In resolving these tensions, and updating Sellars’s theory with more recent work in the field, what emerges from Koons’s manuscript is a strikingly original and comprehensive theory that has much to contribute to contemporary debates.

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

This research workshop featured a talented group of internationally-recognized philosophers who specialize in Sellarsian and pragmatist philosophy. Participants engaged in a series of structured sessions on how this nearly neglected body of ethical theory has the potential to contribute to current philosophical debates on how best to answer crucial moral questions.

Participant Amir Saemi, faculty member at the School of Analytic Philosophy at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, said: “It is very exciting to know there will be a book long discussion of Sellars’s ethical works. No doubt that such a book would be a huge contribution to the current moral philosophy. I congratulate Dr. Koons for undertaking such a valuable project.”

Attendees included Bana Bashour, American University of Beirut; Arudra Burra, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; Dionysis Christias, University of Patras; Anjana Jacob, GU-Q; Bhaskarjit Neog, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Amir Saemi, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences; Lucas Thorpe, Boğaziçi University; Jack Woods, University of Leeds; and, Bill Wringe, Bilkent University.

See the workshop agendaRead biographies of participants

Jeremy Koons received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. His research focus is ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. Koons is author of Pragmatic Reasons: A Defense of Morality and Epistemology (Palgrave, 2009), and co-author, with Michael P. Wolf, of The Normative and the Natural (Palgrave, 2016).

US-Iranian Relations in the Age of Trump: Back to the Future?
2017-11-08 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
In an October 13, 2017 speech, US President Donald Trump rejected the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the arrangement made between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. The agreement had lifted economic sanctions on Iran and placed strict limits on its nuclear program, and was a signature achievement of President Barack Obama. US legislation enacted in response to the agreement requires the president to certify every ninety days that Iran is in compliance with the agreement. Trump’s refusal to certify Iran’s compliance in October did not immediately pull the US out of the deal; instead it shifted the responsibility onto Congress, which now has sixty days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran, which could kill the historic deal.

Trump has frequently criticized the agreement, which he called “an embarrassment” and “the worst deal ever.” In his speech, he claimed that Iran had been on the verge of total collapse before the deal, and the country would have collapsed had it not been for the previous administration’s lifting of sanctions. Daniel Brumberg, co-director of Democracy and Governance Studies at Georgetown University, called this assertion “demonstrably crazy and false and baseless,” and said “anybody who has an understanding of how this system works knows that it is simply false.” Brumberg delivered a talk, “US-Iranian Relations in the Age of Trump: Back to the Future?” at the Center for International and Regional Studies on November 8, 2017. He described Trump in a January 2017 article as “a narcissistic personality” and said his projections in domestic and foreign policy were a reflection of that narcissism, adding, “This is dangerous.”

“I make the argument that those arguing for renegotiation know that this will not succeed. This is just a tactic to weaken support. They know that there can’t be a renegotiation of the deal and they don’t really want one at all.”

Brumberg said that Trump’s own advisors favored certification of the agreement and did not want to abandon it, but it was well known that Trump was raging about it. They had to find a way to channel his rage into a more productive approach, and they found a “compromise” by removing Trump from having to regularly certify that the Iran deal is in fact working. After he has been so publicly outspoken against it, this avoided the potentially catastrophic consequences of him outright quitting the Iran deal.

Trump’s speech would be interpreted in Tehran as the United States has decided to forgo the agreement and is getting ready to find a sanction-based or military-based solution, said Brumberg. “It revives the perception that runs deep along the hardliners in Iran that ultimately for the US, the only solution to Iran is to have regime change,” he said. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, told Iranian President Rouhani in 2015 that he was wasting his time with the nuclear deal and the US would renege on the agreement, according to Brumberg. And in the wake of Trump’s speech, the hardliners now feel vindicated, he said. “Now there’s this clampdown on the reformists and this motley coalition of forces that Rouhani has put together at a crucial time in Iranian history.” In the next few years the critical matter of who will succeed the Supreme Leader will be determined. In that sense, Brumberg said, as far as the hardliners are concerned, “the speech could not have come at a better moment. It worked beautifully—almost as if they had written the script themselves.”

Brumberg said that politically, for Iran’s own internal politics, it’s a disaster, “but it is also a disaster for US foreign policy.” He said that because there isn’t a coherent alternative to the agreement, Trump’s decision to undermine and sabotage it leaves the US without any policy at all. “When you don’t have a coherent policy, when there’s a vacuum, the chances for war increase. Now they’ve increased that much more.” It’s making everyone justifiably nervous, he said.

For many years the US-Iran policy was incoherent and was basically forged on the basis of tactics and no clear strategic view, Brumberg explained. For a long time the consensus policy had been maintaining and increasing sanctions, and applying more pressure with the hope that the regime would change, he said. But crippling sanctions never stopped Iran’s nuclear program, and they acquired more centrifuges and more capability over time.

American policymakers didn’t want to choose because the choice was difficult to make, Brumberg said. You have to go beyond tactics and have a strategic view of what you want to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it, he explained. The problem for the US has been a short menu of choices. Brumberg said he is “thoroughly dubious” about alternatives to the JCPOA, but he offered war as one possibility, which some Congress members have advocated. “There’s no such thing as a short-term war,” he said, and “there’s also no such thing as an overnight attack.” The military would say a short-term attack will provoke a long-term war, he explained. His other suggested strategies include engagement and diplomacy, with some sort of negotiated outcome; or containment and deterrence, which can go along with diplomacy and be blended in different ways.

Brumberg explained that Obama supported the agreement because of the lack of a better alternative. He had inherited a very weak hand after the G.W. Bush term, and the choice was an agreement or no agreement. “Once you decide on an agreement you’re going to negotiate. And negotiation means that each side gives in on certain kind of things,” he said. The agreement is not just a US-Iran agreement and it is supported by the international community. He believes it is still a good agreement that provides controls and intents and supervision of Iran’s program for the next 20 to 25 years, and possibly longer.

Brumberg asserted the possibility that if this agreement were to hold, and there would be an evolution in Iran’s own political system, it might actually help over time to open up the space in Iran, because from the perspective of the hardliners, “conflict with the United States is fundamental to their existence,” he said. “As soon as you don’t have that conflict their position is being undermined.” After the nuclear agreement was struck, there was a very sharp reaction backlash from the hardliners, he said, which was a measure of how seriously they took the agreement. The backlash was against Rouhani and his people, because from their perspective the deal was strengthening their domestic positions. Rouhani had been calling for international peacemaking and a world without violence, Brumberg said.

If you look at Trump’s speech and the critiques of many of the experts who know the situation, you can see that in terms of his criticisms of the agreement, they really fell short, Brumberg said. Trump either misrepresented the agreement or he distorted the facts on many issues. He said the agreement was about one thing only: nuclear weapons. Had the Iranians been asked to negotiate on the zero-enrichment of uranium policy, or terrorism, Hezbollah, or Israel, there never would have been an agreement, he argued.

Brumberg said, there’s a “nix or fix” scenario, meaning let’s fix or renegotiate, or nix it. He argued that you can’t renegotiate an existing agreement like this; you can start or propose new talks, but you don’t renegotiate, which Trump is pushing. “I make the argument that those arguing for renegotiation know that this will not succeed. They are waiting for the nix part. This is just a tactic to weaken support. They know that there can’t be a renegotiation of the deal and they don’t really want one at all,” he said. Most of the critics of the nuclear deal actually want regime change, however that’s going to happen. Blumberg’s solution is to use the elaborate mechanisms provided in the agreement for addressing concerns. “Jettisoning the agreement is no way of dealing with this challenge,” he said.

Daniel Brumberg is Co-Director of Democracy and Governance Studies at Georgetown University. He spent ten years as a Special Advisor to the United States Institute of Peace; and also served as a consultant to the US Department of State and the US Agency for International Development. He is the author of Reinventing Khomeini, The Struggle for Reform in Iran, (University of Chicago Press). He coedited Conflict, Identity, and Reform in the Muslim World: Challenges for US Engagement (USIP Press) with Dina Shehata; and Power and Political Change in Iran with Farideh Farhi (Indiana University Press).

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS.

Parental Discrimination over Diverse Schools: Evidence from a Randomized Online Survey in Denmark
2017-11-12 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
The education achievement gap between ethnic minorities and majority populations is persistent and even widening in the United States and Europe, according to Mongoljin Batsaikhan, Assistant Professor in Economics at Georgetown University in Qatar. At a Center for International and Regional Studies talk on November 12, 2017, Batsaikhan explained that the leading explanations for the gap include segregation, discrimination, peer dynamics, and identity, which are factors that often play out early in children’s lives.

In 2015, Batsaikhan and his colleagues conducted a research study into how the ethnic composition of daycare institutions affects parental preferences in Copenhagen, Denmark. The team wanted to understand why people discriminate, and why segregation and discrimination are very persistent over generations. Many economic studies have documented the existence of discrimination, and segregating school children is known to have detrimental effects on ethnic-minority children, he said. Additionally, the environment in which kids grow up is important in forming their attitudes around diversity.

This study looked at parents’ preferences in choosing schools because parents tend to put a great deal of thought into school choice. The research team wanted to see how parents made their choices and whether they could find discrimination in the selection process. They were motivated by these questions: Does the diversity of the environment affect the children’s preference and racial tolerance? And, looking at parental preferences in daycares, how are they shaped by the ethnic composition of the daycare institution?

“It seems we have quite a lot of evidence that the environment kids grow up in is very important in forming a preference toward diversity.”

The motivation for the project was simple, Batsaikhan said. He referenced the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and its efforts to end racial segregation and discrimination beginning around the 1950s. The landmark US Supreme Court case “Brown v. Board of Education” banned the segregation of black and white children in public schools in 1954. Yet, African Americans in the US continue to face discrimination nearly sixty years later. “A lot of areas and schools have some sort of an ethnic clustering and segregation even now,” Batsaikhan said. Pointing to the Black Lives Matter movement today, he said, “People don’t just go out to the street and randomly protest. They feel discriminated against. The existence of discrimination is real.” Due to historical reasons we have this sorting and segregation problem, he said, and it persists today. The black/white achievement gap widened in the US in the 1990s, he said. “You would expect it would shrink when you remove the segregation, but it persisted and the gap persisted,” he said. The same thing has also been happening in Europe and in Denmark. When comparing ethnic Danes with minority children, often times the gap is greater, he said.

Parents’ school choice is a form of sorting, as are issues like neighborhoods with high tax rates and expensive housing that make it prohibitive for lower-income residents to enroll children in preferred schools, Batsaikhan said. Inside the school, the composition of the student population also has an effect on kids’ performance. “It’s not just the educational performance,” he said, “It is also exposure to a diverse community that will affect their future attitudes toward diversity.” Segregation creates a very strong sense of identity and people start labeling themselves and others (e.g. white, black, Asian), Batsaikhan said. Segregation affects children’s preferences and this was the motivation for this research, he said, “because parents’ preferences toward diversity become intergenerational.”

Economics literature has found that social interaction networks play a role in the formation of discriminatory beliefs toward other people, Batsaikhan said. A key question in the study was: If you have a bit of a diverse environment, will that affect children’s preference and racial tolerance? “It seems we have quite a lot of evidence that the environment kids grow up in is very important in forming a preference toward diversity,” he said.

Batsaikhan shared a 2004 study that found discrimination in employment hiring when an African American-sounding name was used in job applications. When the name of the applicant was changed to a white-sounding name, and everything else remained the same on an identical CVs, those with white-sounding names were more likely to be called for an interview. Economists then try to answer: What kind of discrimination it is: taste-based or statistical? Batsaikhan’s team attempted to answer this question using a randomized trial, a type of method to identify causality. They also used a Muslim-sounding name for the purpose of manipulating preferences and then to change parents’ perception by introducing additional information.

The Copenhagen Daycare Survey was carried out as part of a large project on daycare assignment mechanisms. The web-based survey was distributed to parents with a child aged 7-19 months. A sample of 5,000 was drawn randomly from city administrative registers and the response rate was about 50 percent. When the surveys were returned, they were merged with data held by Statistics Denmark, which holds extensive background information on citizens, such as a parent’s education and income.

In the survey, participants were initially asked to choose between two institutions that were based on sample testimonials from parents with children enrolled in daycare. Institution A was a highly-structured daycare, which is a preferred style of daycare in many cultures. Institution B values freedom in instruction and children play outdoors for much of the day. Northern countries tend to value this free-play institution more than structured daycare.

Seven different surveys were sent randomly, and each survey had six testimonials from parents sharing examples of what that liked about their school. Testimonials included a) the names of the parent and child behind the quote; b) the names plus the profession of the parent; c) no name or profession. Treatment choices included: a) only Danish-sounding names; b) a Muslim-sounding name; c) and the names with the parent’s profession included. A control group had no names associated with the testimonial.

The researchers first examined the role of the Muslim-sounding name in the survey to determine if there was a difference in the reactions to a minority name in the free-play institution versus the structured institution. The survey revealed that 75 percent of parents preferred free-play to structured daycare. The structured daycare was preferred by ethnic-minority parents, parents with lower education, low-income parents, families where the father earned more, and when the child being placed in daycare was a boy.

Interpretation was as follows:

Estimation 1. Comparing the responses of having an ethnic name in a free-play vs. structured institution; the latter had a negative and significant effect on the probability of preferring the structured institution.

Estimation 2. Changing the information about the ethnic background of the mother (a Muslim-sounding name) in the free-play institution had no significant effect on the probability of preferring the structured institution.

Regarding the type of discrimination, the researchers raised the question: Is there any effect on the preferences of information about the profession of the person behind the quote? The results showed that additional information about parent’s profession did not change the attitude toward the daycares with ethnic-minority names. This indicates that the discrimination is not statistical, at least the missing information is not associated with the profession or skill of the ethnic minority parents.

Finally, the researchers explored who preferred the structured daycare because that is where the discrimination exists. The initial exploration indicates that low educated mothers and ethnic minorities and low income families tend to choose the structured daycares. The team is planning to further explore this and identify who tend to discriminate more against the diverse daycares.

Mongoljin Batsaikhan is Assistant Professor of Economics at Georgetown University in Qatar. His research field is Applied Microeconomics, with a focus on social norms, discrimination, entrepreneurship, and small and medium enterprises in developing countries. His work has been published in Management Science, Economic Inquiry and Journal of Public Economics. He is a CIRS Faculty Fellow for 2017-2018.

Article by Jackie Starbird, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS.

Tensions in the Middle East: A Tentative Assessment
2017-11-28 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
Mehran Kamrava and Gerd Nonneman, both Professors of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar and experts on Middle East politics, gave a talk entitled “Tensions in the Middle East: A Tentative Assessment” at GUQ on November 28, 2017. They presented a broad overview of some of the major developments occurring in the region, particularly in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and some of the implications for Qatar and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Kamrava opened with some background on the region since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. He explained that a decisive factor in influencing the outcomes of the uprisings was whether militaries abandoned their civilian leadership during the uprisings. In Tunisia and Egypt when the armed forces did abandon ostensibly civilian leaders, there was a transition of power. Where the military did not abandon their civilian leadership, or where the military itself was fractured, there were different outcomes—mostly in the form of civil wars, as seen in Syria, Yemen, and for somewhat different reasons, Libya.

The fracture of the post-uprising political system in these cases resulted in civil wars, and civil wars facilitated and were also brought on by weak states—or collapsed countries. In Syria, the top command of the armed forces stayed with the civilian leadership, and Syria degenerated into a tragic and bloody civil war. “That afforded the opportunity for a number of external actors to step into Syria in the same way they had stepped into Libya and then later in Yemen, to try and expand their influence,” Kamrava said. In 2012 and 2013, Syria became a battlefield for external actors. “What we have had is a stalemate in Syria, in which now the fate of Syria is being decided by non-Syrians.”

Iran’s self-interest drove it to be involved in Syria, and those interests dictated that Iran prop up the existing Syrian regime, Kamrava said. Iran and Russia became involved on the side of the Syrians at the same time that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and initially Turkey, were trying to foster the collapse of Syrian regime. “Iran’s intervention and proactive involvement in Syria on the part of the regime only fed into and reinforced a sectarian narrative that had previously been framed by the Bahraini government and Saudi government, and Iran really only reinforced and added fuel to the sectarian fire through it’s own activities and initiatives,” he said.

“Always on the verge of implosion,” is Lebanon, whose political system is so inherently fragile that the country is susceptible to the slightest pressure from within or from the outside. The fragility of its political system has continued since Lebanon’s long civil war ended in 1991. That weakness of the Lebanese central authority continued, and the weaknesses gave birth to the armed group, Hezbollah. Kamrava said it’s important to remember that Hezbollah is a Lebanese entity. “It is a political group that is also armed, but it is also a political group that has engaged in an awful lot of civil society activities.” Hezbollah is also a close Iranian ally, which has been a point of contention for Israel, and also lately for Saudi Arabia.

Since 2013, Saudi Arabia has adopted a radically different foreign and domestic policy—as compared to any time in its history—because of the ascendance of new political actors in the Saudi system, namely the king, Salman, and his son, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Kamrava said Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic and foreign policy initiatives have repeatedly hit roadblocks since 2013. “The war in Yemen was supposed to be a two-month endeavor and it still continues two years on with no end in sight. The blockade of Qatar was supposed to be a two-week endeavor and it still continues with Qatar in no mood to settle. The competition with Iran has not gotten anywhere. Saudi efforts in Syria have reached a deadlock, and Saudi Arabia is now trying to organize its own Syrian opposition and it hasn’t gotten anywhere. And the forcible resignation of the prime minister of Lebanon seems to have backfired,” he said.

Despite these setbacks in foreign policy, Kamrava argued, Mohammad bin Salman appears to have had a number of successes on the domestic front. His domestic social and cultural reforms, curtailing the powers of the religious police, his anti-corruption drive, and his attempts at dismantling the Saudi “deep state,” all seem extremely popular with most Saudis and have so far not elicited any serious challenges.

Nonneman agreed that Saudi Arabia, and Mohammad bin Salman (“MbS”) in particular, are worth focusing on because of the country’s regional superpower status, its recent record of increased assertiveness, and the striking changes in domestic and foreign policy that have been in evidence—not least in the Qatar boycott. Yet he pointed out that the role of Mohammad bin Zayed (“MbZ”), the Crown Prince but de facto ruler of Abu Dhabi, is crucial in understanding many of these developments, given his own ambitions for Abu Dhabi and the UAE, and his influence on MbS.

He noted that when it comes to the UAE’s role in the boycott or other regional issues, it is important to distinguish the role of Abu Dhabi and its leadership. In UAE foreign policy, the sheikhdoms that really count have always been Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which are ruled by separate ruling families: the Al Maktoum in Dubai and the Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, Nonneman explained. For many years after the UAE’s seven constituent emirates came together in 1971, the federal constitution and the first president, Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Zayed, had brought a balance between unity and continued diversity—including in foreign policy and defense: Dubai had retained its separate defense force until 1997. This balance was managed to the benefit of the wider federation and of Dubai and Abu Dhabi in particular, each of which had much to offer the other.

Two shifts occurred in the UAE to change this picture, Nonneman said. First, Sheikh Zayed, the charismatic founding leader of the UAE, died, leaving his son Mohammad bin Zayed as the power behind the throne of the new emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa. MbZ was very different: “sharp, very ambitious for Abu Dhabi’s status and role, very strongly military- and security-oriented in his world view, and not particularly good at taking on board conflicting opinions.” There was, though, still a balance with Dubai and its ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid. Then came the financial crisis of 1998, where Dubai suffered grievously and might have come close to bankruptcy, had it not been for some $20 billion dollars of support from Abu Dhabi. So the power relationship has shifted, with Dubai losing much of its autonomy in matters of foreign and security policy. Hence, also, the much better relations between the Al Maktum and Qatar’s Al Thani, and Dubai’s much more pragmatic attitude towards Iran, ceased to have the effect they once had, he said.

“Mohammed bin Zayed was likely the main instigator of the level of vitriol directed at Qatar, and of the harshness of the boycott,” Nonneman suggested, “out of his concern to contain any Qatari challenge to his policy concerns regarding Iran, the role of political Islam, and his essentially autocratic vision of rule—as well as any Qatari pretenses at regional prominence.” In much of this he found a sympathetic ear in MbS. Of course there had been frictions before in the GCC, and even limited armed clashes, but “never has there been anything like this—cutting off of social and kinship relations, and buckets of vitriol being thrown at other ruling families.” The apparent and public attempts at regime change in Qatar, “that was a novelty,” he said.

Understanding this shift requires an appreciation for how leadership and decision making have shifted in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where Nonneman drew a parallel between leadership in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. “Decisions are made more impetuously than before, without serious consideration of alternatives, and without feedback from the sorts of voices that might have questioned lines of thinking.” One of the positives of the old Saudi system was there was always a variety of voices heard in decision-making circles, and “policy was carefully calibrated and possible consequences and pros and cons debated. That’s gone.” In MbS’s court, “there is nobody who dares question what he has decided.” The handling of the operation in Yemen, the boycott against Qatar, and the virtual kidnap of Lebanese Prime Minister Harari, are examples of this much-narrowed decision-making environment, he said.

Nonneman agreed with Kamrava that the domestic reform agenda of MbS in Saudi Arabia is popular and holds out promise. Yet he cautioned that the key to success will not just be new social freedoms: it will be jobs—one of the key pressure points for the Saudi economy. “If the jobs don’t appear within the medium term, then I fear a lot of latent resentments are going to bubble back up again,” he said.

What does this mean for Qatar and the blockade? Nonneman said that there was little left in the toolbox of the boycotting countries—as the military option is off the table and Qatar has the wherewithal to sustain the blockade indefinitely. He did have one concern, regarding the potential of Iran being drawn into wider regional conflicts. “If, for instance, the original Saudi plan had worked—of removing Hariri as the fig leaf for Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon—it might have led to a wider military conflict.” If such dynamics brought Iran into direct conflict with Israel and the US, it “would bring Qatar into a very difficult spot,” he suggested.

Kamrava said there is usually very little cost to countries that impose sanctions on others; they have fewer incentives to settle and to resolve the conflict. Saudi Arabia has very little incentive to end the blockade against Qatar. “For the foreseeable future I don’t necessarily see a resolution,” he said, “but the rupture is there to stay for some time.”

Article by Jackie Starbird, CIRS Publications and Projects Assistant.

Supporting Social Science Research in a Turbulent Middle East Roundtable Meeting
2017-11-29 08:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On November 29, 2017, CIRS convened a one-day roundtable meeting to bring together scholars of the region with extensive experience in carrying out social science research, to have an in-depth conversation on the topic of “Supporting Social Science Research in a Turbulent Middle East.” Over the course of a day experts engaged in a vibrant and open conversation on how the research community can address the multiple challenges encountered when carrying out studies on the Middle East.

Among other things, participants in the focused discussion discussed the value, replicability, and statistical significance of Middle Eastern case-studies; methodological issues relating to the merits of quantitative and qualitative research, as well as the potential usefulness of alternative methodological approaches adapted to conflict zones; data challenges due to lack of existing data or lack of access to (and confidence in) existing data; challenges of supporting and funding safe fieldwork in societies and countries that are in the midst of war or facing authoritarian clamp-downs; challenges related to censorship and academic freedom; the impact of restrictions and immigration controls that limit travel and free mobility of researchers both within the region and from the region to the West, limit research collaboration across borders, and diminish access to participation in international conferences; the role of the ever evolving sanctions regime and the constraints of funding or working with scholars in states which have sanctions imposed upon them; and finally the whole host of ethical and moral challenges related to protecting researchers, protecting informants, protecting scholars at risk, protecting sensitive data, protecting vulnerable communities, and protecting the rights of scholars trying to carrying out “sensitive research” that confront social values and norms in some parts of the Middle East. In the introduction to our meeting, we urged scholars participating in the discussion to not only highlight and reiterate the difficulties and dismal prospects for social science research in the Middle East, but to also help us understand their own experiences in navigating challenges, and identify for us what the possibilities for managing this difficult time are.

Key points that emerged out of the discussions were:

Conditions for social science research in MENA region are particularly challenging due to region-wide restrictions on academic freedom, increasing securitization and rigid control of the social sciences under authoritarian regimes, the existence of deeply divided societies, social sensitives that limit research topics, and the impact of US sanctions regime

The academic community of social science scholars in and of the MENA region is weak and not unified. There is a need for greater development of region-wide network of social scientists who can work with and support each other.

Mechanisms for integrating ethical concerns into social science research projects are not effective. Institutional Review Boards are only there to oversee initial proposal submissions, but there are serious shortcoming when it comes to maintaining ethics throughout the research process. Among other things discussed were the social science researcher’s obligations to ensure that his or her research is used responsibly, and also avoiding making false promises and raising the hopes of research subjects by promising that the study will make a real-life difference.

Complicated and oppositional ideas of the role of the social science researcher working in the Middle East. Some participants insisted that prioritizing and maintaining scientific objectivity is the most important thing that social scientists can do. Others had very different ideas and suggested social science researchers also have a mandate to “do good” and contribute towards the improvement or betterment of problematic conditions.

It is worth mentioning that CIRS will publish the findings of the roundtable meeting in the near future.

Read more about the research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Abdullah Al-Arian, Georgetown University in Qatar
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Abdallah Badahdah, Doha International Family Institute
Laurie A. Brand, University of Southern California
Afyare Elmi, Qatar University
Michael Ewers, Qatar University
Justin Gengler, Qatar University
Suzanne Hammad, Qatar University
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Islah Jad, Qatar University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Milli Lake, London School of Economics
Beverley Milton-Edwards, Queen’s University Belfast
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Firat Oruc, Georgetown University in Qatar
Mary Schmiedel, Georgetown University
Seteney Shami, Arab Council for the Social Sciences
Shaida Sonde, Georgetown University in Qatar
Jackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Valbona Zenku, Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Zahra Babar, Associate Director of Research at CIRS

Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in the Middle East Working Group II
2017-12-10 09:00 - 2017-12-11 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On December 10-11, 2017, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the second working group under its research initiative on “Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, scholars discussed issues around: borders and mobility of Syrian refugees in the Levant; livelihood and identity politics of Syrian refugees in Northern Lebanon and Southern Turkey; patterns of Syrian refugees in Dayr al-Ahmar region in Lebanon; the experiences of displaced Syrian refugees in Jordan from a gender perspective; the situation of Yezidi, Christian and other religious communities from Sinjar, Iraq; migration to Libya and Tunisia; African migrants in Morocco; Afghan migrants in Tehran; and Yemeni refugees in Djibouti. It is worth mentioning that five teams of researchers participating in this project were awarded grants from CIRS to conduct empirical fieldwork.

Zahra Babar started the working group discussions by presenting Natalia Ribas-Mateos’s paper on “Borders and Mobilities in the Middle East: Emerging Challenges for Syrian Refugees in the Bilad Al Sham.” In her paper, Ribas-Mateos examines the transformation of geopolitical lines and borders with the rise of globalization in the Middle East. She claims that such transformation has accompanied severe inequalities: increasing limitations placed on the mobility of refugees and migrants; fewer limitations on cross-border flow of goods, refugee encampments and settlements (formal and informal), human vulnerability and rights violations; and expanded border securitization. In examining the transformation of geopolitical lines and borders in the Middle East, Ribas-Mateos studied a number of Lebanese villages, towns and cities bordering Syria.

Building on Ribas-Mateos’s paper, Estella Carpi presented her grant-funded research on “The Borderwork of Humanitarianism during Displacement from War-Torn Syria: Livelihoods as Identity Politics in Northern Lebanon and Southern Turkey.” Carpi’s research is an ethnographic inquiry into the socio-economic practices of urban refugees, local residents, and humanitarian actors in the framework of the 2011-2015 forced migration flows from Syria into the border cities of Halba (northern Lebanon) and Gaziantep (southern Turkey). The research explores how local patterns of everyday consumption, livelihoods hunting, and labor have changed in light of the historically unprecedented humanitarian response to refugee crisis in the two border regions. The research focuses on humanitarian livelihoods programing and people’s identity work in a bid to examine the border-making effects that humanitarian practices—echoing national policies—entail. Likewise, it investigates the role of livelihoods programing in crystallizing identity categories, which crisis management typically relies on to build its outreach. The paper finally unravels an ongoing process of “identity neo-borderization” in northern Lebanon and southern Turkey.

Leïla Vignal, another grant-awardee, sharpened the discussion on Syrian refugees in neighboring Lebanon by presenting her paper, co-authored by Emma Aubin-Boltanski, on “Hosting and being Hosted in Times of Crisis: Exploring the Multi-layered Patterns of Syrian Refugees in the Dayr al-Ahmar Region, Northern Bekaa, Lebanon.” In their paper, Vignal and Aubin-Boltanski illuminate the dynamics and patterns of the Syrian refuge to Lebanon, and Syrian refugees’ relations and interactions with local host communities. Through an in-depth fieldwork in the villages of the Dayr al-Ahmar caza (sub-district) in the muhafaza (district) of Baalbek-Hermel, in the North of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, the authors study Syrian refugees through a local prism. Such prism allows rooting the host/guest relations into history and space. Similarly, the paper connects host-guest relations to specific contexts that are rendered difficult in Lebanon by the lack of economic development, the fragile organization of politics, and the lack of consensus with regards to the Syrian conflict and Syrian refugees.

Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, a grant-awardee, focused the discussion further on Syrian refugees through her discussion on “Gendering the Triangular Relationship between Vulnerability, Resilience and Resistance: The Experiences of Displaced Syrian Refugees in Jordan.” Based on empirical data drawn from the personal narratives of sixty Syrian refugees displaced in three Jordanian governorates: Amman, Zarqa and Mafraq, Muhanna-Matar explores the triangular relationship Syrian refugees have developed, through their experience of displacement, between gendered vulnerability, resilience, and resistance. Muhanna-Matar suggests that the three angles of the triangular relationship do not operate in a sequential manner, but in procession and mutual assistance. Through this relationship, vulnerable masculinity and femininity is negotiated, renegotiated, and contested through different modes of everyday acts of resilience and resistance, or resilient resistance. The article contextualizes the gendered vulnerability of Syrian refugees, how Syrian refugees cope with it, and how the international humanitarian community responds.

Thomas Schmidinger shifted the discussion to “The Situation of Êzîdî-, Christian- and Other Religious Minorities- IDPs and Refugees from Sinjar after the Genocide of 2014.” In his article, Schmidinger argues that the lack of security and the rivalry between different militias and armed groups in Iraq prevented Êzîdî, Christians, and other religious communities from Sinjar to return to their region after their forced displacement. Only a limited number of displaced persons returned to the north of Mount Sinjar, while the vast majority still lives as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Dohuk Governorate. In addition, Schmidinger claims that many members of the religious minorities who lived in Sinjar lost their trust in a future inside Iraq. They do not connect their problems just with the so-called “Islamic State,” but rather see the Islamic State as a continuation of “Muslim (Sunni) repression against religious minorities.” He adds that although many of the aforementioned IDPs would like to migrate to Europe or overseas, they also know about the difficulties refugees face by European states. This led many of them to feel abandoned by the international community.

Ricardo René Larémont and Mustafa Attir, grant-awardees, discussed “Clandestine Migration in Libya and Tunisia” (co-authored with Mohammed Jouili). Based on over 760 interviews with migrants in Libya and Tunisia, the authors argue that since the 2011 Arab Spring revolts, there has been a considerable increase of migrants from North Africa to Europe. Media and academia have focused their attention on trans-Mediterranean migration while ignoring the more important trend of migration to North Africa as a destination rather than as a transit point to Europe. The authors argue that Tunisia has witnessed a dramatic increase in migration from sub-Saharan countries, especially between 2015 and 2017. The primary motive for migration was economic. Most migrants see Tunisia as a final destination or they are involved in circular migration between Tunisia and their home countries, as they perceive employment opportunities in Tunisia as better than in their home countries even though the Tunisian economy has been in decline since 2011. The authors add that only a minority of migrants to Tunisia aspire to migrate to Europe.

Building on the previous discussion, Matt Buehler discussed “Integration of African Migrants in Morocco: Surveying the Attitudes of Native Citizens” (co-authored with Kyung Joon Han). The authors argue that whether intentional or not, more and more African migrants have chosen to resettle in Morocco, without entering the European Union. This contributed to a greater number of interactions and conflicts between African migrants and native Moroccan citizens, who have express tremendous variation in how much they support or oppose these new arrives in their homeland. Based on a 1500-respondent survey, the authors to explore this variation in native citizens’ attitudes.

Pooya Alaedini discussed “Afghan Migrants in Tehran: A Socioeconomic and Spatial Analysis.” Alaedini claims that the Province of Tehran is a highly significant area of residence for Afghanis in Iran. The overwhelming urban primacy of the national capital located in the province makes Tehran particularly important in the analysis of Iran’s Afghani migrants—as they are concentrated in several locations across the neighborhoods and hold a variety of occupations against the background of the economic opportunities offered by the city. Thus, their effects on the city are also copious and important. With these in mind and based on empirical field work, Alaedini analyzes the dynamics of Afghani residence in urban Tehran by examining laws and regulations of urban and regional planning in Iran, and Afghani migration to Farahzad, Harandi, and Aminabad neighborhoods; demographics; housing; economic situation, employment and business activities; social networks in neighborhoods; and cultural and social activities.

Finally, Islam Hassan presented Nathalie Peutz’s “In Dire Straits: Refugees from Yemen Displaced in Djibouti.” Puetz conducted empirical, on-ground fieldwork in the Markazi camp in Djibouti, the only camp for Yemeni refugees in the Horn of Africa region. Based on her empirical fieldwork, Puetz argue in her paper that much of the literature on migration, sovereignty, and territoriality focuses on how externally funded mobility restriction regimes in transit countries aim to keep migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers out of the destination countries. This is the politics of exclusion. However, what Puetz’s interviewees pointed to was the temporary extension of Yemeni/Saudi sovereignty into a transit country to contain Yemeni refugees: to keep them “in.” Puetz argues that whether restriction regimes and extension of sovereignties have any legitimacy, or the paranoid fears of people living in a heightened state of uncertainty do, what is real is that the Markazi refugees feel doubly incarcerated— both as occupants of a securitized camp and as persons who, despite having crossed the sea, have not in fact escaped the grasp of Yemen.

It is worth mentioning that CIRS will publish the papers of this research initiative in an edited volume by Zahra Babar in the near future.

Click here for the working group agenda
Click here for the participants’ biographies
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf, Georgetown University in Qatar
Pooya Alaedini, University of Tehran
Mustafa Attir, University of El-Fatah in Tripoli, Libya, & Center for Sustainable Development Research
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Matt Buehler, Harvard University
Estella Carpi, University College London
Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Ricardo René Larémont, State University of New York
Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, London School of Economics
Natalia Ribas-Mateos, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Thomas Schmidinger, University of Vienna
Jackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar
Leïla Vignal, University of Rennes-2, France
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

CIRS Screens Suzi Mirgani's Film "There Be Dragons"
2018-01-10 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
On January 10, 2018, CIRS screened There Be Dragons, a short experimental film by Suzi Mirgani, Managing Editor at CIRS. The film premiered at the Doha Film Institute’s Ajyal Youth Film Festival on November 30, 2017, one of 16 local productions showcased in the Made in Qatar program at the festival.

The three-minute film was conceived in a workshop organized by the University’s student-run Film Society, where Mirgani is one of the mentors, along with Abdullah Al-Arian. A number of Georgetown students, including CIRS interns Mohammed Al Jaberi and Waleed Zahoor, and Film Society leaders, Rawan Al-Zaini and Mehaira Mahgoub, also helped with its creation.

“There be dragons”—or, more accurately, “here be dragons” from the Latin hic sunt dracones—is a term that was once used to describe unexplored territory on a medieval map. It was designed to warn people of the unknown—an unfamiliar space that is imagined to be filled with mystery and monsters. Mirgani said “In this film, I play with the idea of the unknown in modern times, and create a kind of ‘map of modernity.’ In the age of digital technology, Google Maps, and omnipresent CCTV surveillance, is there anything left undiscovered? I argue that there is. Since most of the earth is explored, boxed, and bordered, perhaps the unknown now exists on an entirely different realm—the realm of technology. The more advanced we become, the more complex the digital devices. Does the average person know how anything works? Even though electricity and digital technologies are explained to us scientifically, there are ghosts in the machine— deus ex machina—that we will never be able to comprehend.”

In this film, flickering lights, eerie kites in flight, the random revolutions of a funhouse ride, and self-playing pianos suggest a metropolis that lives a life of its own. Advanced technologies propel cities to work in the absence of the human. Even though there are real people and a workforce catering to smooth running of urban life, this film is a reflection on the automation, and at times alienation, underlying the city. Through this film, Mirgani tries to grapple with some of these concepts to see beyond what is obvious and available. On the surface, this is a visual amble through Doha, but it is also one that uncovers an alternate side of the city that often goes unnoticed.

To show this alternative, unexplored part of the city, Mirgani combined footage she had taken of scenes around Doha over a number of years. From flickering lights to the revolutions of a funhouse ride and self-playing pianos, the films suggests that the city lives a life of its own.

“I think one of the most interesting aspects of this film is that it is both experimental and documentary,” said Mirgani. “Doha changes so quickly that it is often difficult to hold on to any specific memories of pace and place; new landscapes are brought to life, even as old landmarks are bulldozed and buried. It is both developing and super modern.”

There Be Dragons is the latest of a number a short films Mirgani has produced, edited, and directed. Her short film Caravan premiered at the Ajyal Youth Film Festival last year, and her 2013 film Doha Lullaby won the Jury Award for the Doha Film Institute’s 48-Hour Film Challenge.

The CIRS researcher, who has edited and written numerous publications on topics ranging from media and politics to food security in the Middle East, is also the director of 2014’s Hind’s Dream. That film, produced with a cast and crew of Georgetown students, won the jury award for artistic vision at the 2014 Ajyal Film Festival and has been screened at film festivals around the world.

Nation Building in Central Asia Working Group I
2018-01-21 09:00 - 2018-01-22 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On January 21-22, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) convened a working group on “Nation Building in Central Asia.” The working group took place under the larger CIRS research project which aims to examine various social and political processes that have been taking place in Central Asia following the dismantling of the Soviet Union. With the establishment of the new successor states in the early 1990s, Central Asian powers undertook the enormous task of building cohesive, unified states, while still contending with the legacy of the USSR and the challenges of trying to accommodate various minority groups and dislocated populations, all while struggling to assert full sovereign control over their newly established territories. These efforts introduced or mobilized competing ethnic, nationalistic, and territorial claims, the effects of which are still emerging. During the January working group, the group of assembled experts’ primary objective was to identity original research questions in relation to Central Asian nation-building processes and provide guidance on where the focus of the project ought to be. Some of the topics that scholars addressed during the working group included: migration and transnationalism; regional integration; food culture and identity; national identity in Kazakhstan; religion and identity in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan; and language policies in Kyrgyzstan.

Ruslan Rahimov led the first of the working group discussions, focusing on “Migration, Transnationalism, and Nation Building in Central Asia.” The fall of the Soviet Union left the newly formed Central Asian states with the encumbrance of weak territorial boundaries. Population transfers and interregional mobility patterns that had taken place during the Soviet Union’s own state formation efforts have left their imprint on the region, and these effects can be felt until today. Migration and mobility continue to be challenging features of the region that have impacted nation-building efforts of Central Asian states, particularly for the smaller states of the region. One of the key questions that still needs to be fully explored is the capacity of a small state to build a coherent nation within the context of mass migration, continuous movement and mobility, as well as brain drain as skilled citizens leave. In addition, other important current areas which need further study are the consequences of internal migration; Chinese migration to Central Asia; dependency on remittance flows from Russia; and how migrants may serve as a political tool in Post-Soviet countries’ interstate relations.

Nargis Kassenova continued the discussion by examining “Regional Integration and Nation Building in Central Asia.” Focusing on a case study of Kazakhstan’s regional foreign policy, Kassenova stated that while there is an established scholarly literature on the country’s relations and policies towards global actors such as the Russia, the European Union, Eurasia and the United States, there has been far less work on how Kazakhstan engages with its immediate neighborhood. Kassenvoa highlighted six understudied areas where there is a need for further research. First with regards to regional cooperation at the sub-state level, how do national business try to work in the region? Second, how do Central Asian youth feel about their region and their place in it? Third, what does Central Asian identity mean in terms of actual mobility and attributes of collective identity? Fourth, is Central Asia limited to the former Soviet states, or its boundaries could be extended to other countries, such as Afghanistan? Fifth, what role did the withdrawal of Russia from the region play in consolidating a Central Asian identity? Finally, to what extent is Central Asian identity influenced by outside actors such as Russia, US and others?

Aida Alymbaeva shifted the discussion to “Food Culture and Identity in Central Asia.” In her discussion, Alymbaeva highlighted the politicization of food both at the state and societal levels. In her discussion, she focused on Kyrgyzstan raising questions on multiple issues, among which: the role of media in localizing dishes, the construction of cuisine in the Soviet era versus current time, and how comparing food traditions and dishes across regions can draw a different geographical map. Alymbaeva also discussed issues around hospitality, the role of modernization and globalization in influencing the local, national, and regional cuisine, the role of food in the nationalization process, how economics influence food traditions, the revival of Islam and its influence on food culture, and the takeover of fast-food chains.

Aziz Burkhanov focused the discussion with his presentation on “National Identity and Nation Building in Kazakhstan.” Burkhanov listed four main issues that deserve further study. First is multiculturalism and the policy of ethnic particularism sponsored by the Kazakhstani government. He argued that the state funds ethnic (non-Kazakh) cultural centers questioning how this relates to “civic Kazakhstani nationhood”. Second, Burkhanov raised a question on youth, born after 1991, and their perception of Kazakhstaniness/Kazakhness in light of the rural (Kazakh)-urban (non-Kazakh) divide in the societal discourse. Third, he highlighted the usage of urban public spaces (monuments, billboards, etc.) and how the state uses such pomp for its national identity propaganda. Finally, he argued that most scholarship is based on Russian-language sources and discourse, while Kazakh-language discourse tends to be somewhat overlooked. This makes the Kazakh-language discourse, for its important and interesting discussions on various visions of identity, worth exploring.

Laura Yerekesheva shifted the discussion to “Religion and Nation Building in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.” Yerekesheva argued that the deterministic approach in studying nation-building based on political, economic, and social organization doesn’t accommodate other areas of development in ideas, consciousness, memories, traditions, etc. Thus, the concept of identity and culture–as a conglomeration of symbol-based traditions—is in fact equally or more important than political and economic variables. Yerekhsheva insisted that one has to make a distinction between cultural identity and national identity. Cultural identity can be considered as more cohesive and represents the broader identity affiliations of a group, while national identity is often imposed by the state, and tends to be narrowly defined. Germane to this discussion, Yerekesheva argued that religion is a key variable in cultural identity but in Central Asian national identity development projects, religion is often not included as a result of state restriction. In Central Asia the role and influence of religion has in principle been highlighted in the historical realm of the region without an adequate attention paid to how it informs or influences contemporary modes of identify formation. Yerekesheva suggested that as a result there are multiple areas that need further study when it comes to religion in Central Asia, and among other things suggested the need to examine: the heritage and influence of Sufism in Central Asia; national cultural heritage programs and religion; the influence of religious radicalism and state efforts to address this threat; and the role of Arab countries in preparing teaching, training, and supporting Muslim scholars and Imams in Central Asia.

Mukaram Toktogulova led the final discussion of the working group and explored “Language Policies and National Identity in Kyrgyzstan.” Toktogulova argued that language policies in Kyrgyzstan are ostensibly influenced by the pervasive ideologies adopted at the realm of the state. Since language policies are closely linked to language practice, the public interprets such policies in their own way as they practice language. In the nation-building process that has started post-independence, differences in language and dialects became more important for people as a tool to differentiate between ethnic identities. This is reflected in the integration and assimilation with first Arabic and Latin, and then Cyrillic writing systems. Toktogulova argued that the use of Russian, national language, or a mix of both has naturally resulted in a mixed language, which the state then has exerted palpable efforts to “purify”. Such efforts included issuing laws on official language, and requiring passing standardized Kyrgyz language tests for state employees. Such societal and state efforts raise questions around the pushing for regional integration as replacing Russian with Kyrgyz language obliterates one common variable that peoples across the region share. The state’s replacement of Russian with the national language also raises questions about the future of migration to Russian.

Scholars have been now invited to study some of these research questions, among others, in written papers to be presented and critiqued at a second meeting to be held next the summer. CIRS aims to publish the written contributions in an edited volume in the near future.

For more information on the working group agenda, please click here.For the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative.

Participants and Discussants:

Aida Alymbaeva, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, GermanyZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAziz Burkhanov, Nazarbayev University, Republic of KazakhstanIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarNargis Kassenova, KIMEP University, KazakhstanSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarRuslan Rahimov, American University of Central Asia, KyrgyzstanMukaram Toktogulova, American University of Central Asia, KyrgyzstanElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarLaura Yerekesheva, R. B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Science and Scientific Production in the Middle East Roundtable
2018-02-22 08:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
In February, 2018, CIRS convened a one-day roundtable meeting to bring together scholars, scientists, experts, and business practitioners with extensive experience on science and scientific production in the Middle East. Over the course of a day the participants engaged in a vibrant and open conversation on the opportunities and constraints of conducting scientific research in the region.

Among other things, participants in the roundtable explored the influence of culture, coherence, continuity, and consensus on the development of SDI; and transnational collaborations and networks, along with local patronage which funds such relationships, which enable world-class scientific research, even in areas that don’t promise immediate financial return. The participants also discussed the need to encourage scientific indigeneity and internationalization of Middle Eastern scientific production. Moreover, the participants highlighted the relationship between Islam and science, which has been one of the main issues in contemporary intellectual discourses in the Muslim world, particularly in the Middle East; and the impact of the Arab uprisings on science and scientific advancement. Finally, the participants concluded the roundtable discussions by focusing on the impact of sanction regimes on scientists and scientific production in the Middle East with a particular focus on Iran.

Key gaps in the literature on science and scientific production in the Middle East that emerged out of the discussions were:

Structural and bureaucratic limitations to the development of SDI in the Middle East. Self-censorship in disseminating sensitive research findings to the Middle East’s general public. The gap between society and the scientific community, and access to foreign technology, scientific discovery, research, etc. The role scientific networks and collaborations play in exchange of ideas and technological transfer between Middle Eastern countries and other parts of the world. Networks and transnational collaborations’ contribution to building local capacity, and continuity and sustainability of scientific research within an individual country.Sanction regimes a blessing or a curse? Although sanctions restrict external funding for research and equipping labs, they can contribute to scientific indigeneity. The issue of capturing transnational collaborations between local and foreign research institutions.

It is worth mentioning that CIRS will launch a research initiative that addresses some of these gaps, among others, in the near future.

For the roundtable agenda, click here.For the roundtable participants, click here.For the research initiative, click here.

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Is the International Criminal Court a Colonial Institution?
2018-02-28 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 1998 to ensure that war crimes and crimes against humanity do not go unpunished. Although governments usually have capable systems to enforce laws, when it comes to mass atrocities, they often lack the framework to deal with crimes of such proportions. Since its inception, the ICC has been criticized for being a colonial institution, one perpetuating the “powerful versus the powerless” paradigm. On February 28, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies hosted the talk, “Is the International Criminal Court a Colonial Institution?” presented by Mia Swart, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and research director at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa. In addition to raising the presentation question, she also offered suggestions for reforms of the ICC.

Swart provided some background on the ICC and its relationship to the United Nations Security Council, which has played an important role in international criminal justice, such as by establishing ad hoc tribunals in the aftermath of large-scale crimes, like with the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s. These organizations were the predecessors to the ICC and led to its establishment. Unlike these tribunals, however, the ICC is based on the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC’s jurisdiction and functions. States voluntarily become party to the statute by ratifying it and, as of 2017, 123 states are members.

Swart argued that, “it is uncontroversial that international law has been shaped by colonialism and imperialism,” as it is rooted in the Westphalian system that was devised by the European States. And, the idea of certain states having all the power “is inextricably bound-up with international law as a discipline.” She believes that international law cannot be conceived without its colonial roots. The paternalistic idea of the UN or Western states caring for other nations is still given a lot of importance today, she said, and “at the center of this debate is the ICC’s nearly exclusive focus on African countries until very, very recently.”

This matter of whether the ICC is colonial is of particular interest for Swart, as a South African. And the issue has been a “burning issue nationally,” as South Africans are deeply concerned over how many of the institutions within their country are deeply colonial, she said. Additionally, when Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir arrived in Johannesburg in 2015 to attend an African Union summit, it triggered an enormous debate over colonialism in South Africa. Subsequently, the South African government attempted to withdraw from the ICC, and the African Union continues to support a mass withdrawal by its members.

Al-Bashir had been charged by the ICC with crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur in 2009, and it was the obligation of South Africa, as a member of the ICC, to have him arrested upon entering the country. That did not happen. The expectation of the ICC was that member states were obliged to arrest Al-Bashir if he stepped foot in their countries. What is notable about this situation is that Sudan is not a state party of the ICC. In fact, Al Bashir had travelled to thirteen member-countries with a fair amount of immunity and without being arrested.

Swart said immunity and impunity for sitting heads of state is an international hot topic. “My view is that the Rome Statute trumps traditional rules of immunity and if you signed that statute then you are obliged to operate and arrest.” However, she said, it was simply inconceivable that South African President Zuma would arrest Al-Bashir because of long-standing diplomatic relations between the two countries. During this incident, there was a lot of opportunistic use of the term colonialist, she said. Claims were made that Al-Bashir should not be arrested because the ICC is colonial, whereas “what was really going on was friends protecting friends.” Certain governments just refused to break diplomatic ties even if they knew that international crimes were committed, she said.

This was the context that really created a lot of the debate around whether the ICC is neocolonialist, Swart said. She clarified that using the term colonial really means neocolonial. That the word colonial does not mean literally invading and taking over other countries; rather it’s a continuation of economic and political control, and is equally damaging. Especially, she said, “China these days is a major neocolonialist on the African continent, and the United States, certainly.”

Swart believes the ICC is capable of evolving and becoming more understanding of global diversity, and she noted that international law can also be counter-imperialistic. International law both reinforces the idea of colonialism and it also talks about liberation, which is “the unstable nature of the international law,” she said. However, she said it should not be ignored that some entities like Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) are deeply critical of international law, as it views the system as continuing the exploitation of the Third World by the West. And there are plenty of critics from the West who would agree that the system is internally flawed, she said.

The ICC is fundamentally colonial in two ways: in its design and in its funding, Swart argued. Its relationship to the Security Council allows it a measure of decision-making power, and this influence can be obstructive, as in the cases of Syria and the Al Bashir debacle, she said. In terms of funding, whereas the ad hoc committees are funded by UN, the ICC is funded by a variety of states. The top funders are all from Europe (and Japan), giving them considerable ability to “pull strings in all kinds of ways.” This is an under-acknowledged way in which Western states plays a role in influencing the situations, Swart said. Additionally, the ICC prosecutor is acutely aware of the interests of these states, she said, “so she will never threaten the interests of United States and Japan, for example.”

Selectivity is another critical factor, Swart said. “In a world full of international crimes where a lot of international crimes are being committed, the ICC is fairly arbitrary.” The ICC does not choose a country, it chooses a situation, she explained. For example, they will not choose Sudan or Congo, but will select a particular situation within a country. All of the issues that the ICC focuses on make a statement about how it views its role in the world, so how it chooses these situations is extremely meaningful. “Selectivity is the Achilles’ heel of international criminal justice; the aspect that gives it a dubious legitimacy,” she said.

This gives rise to the question: Why did African nations chose to become a part of the ICC if they had initial reservations? One theory is that some African states were pressurized to sign the agreement because the UN refused to provide them aid if they did not do so. An alternative explanation is that the African nations believed in the ICC’s ability to make a difference. In its early years, the organization did not seem to be characterized by the traditional dialectic of North and South. The opinion about South Africa’s position on the ICC today is divided. “There is no question that the African nations are hostile toward the ICC,” Swart said. The African Union is now in the process of creating their own instrument for international justice.

Swart argued that the effect of the ICC on African states has not only been negative; it has had some positive effects in that it has given African states something to mobilize around. For example, Kenyans have strongly mobilized against ICC and they are not afraid to assert themselves in the Assembly of State Parties (capitals), she said. A pivotal question that this leads to is: How can the ICC be reformed? Swart offered the following strategies. Structurally, it can be amended, as their statute allows for it. The assembly of state parties can also play a much more important role in advocating for change, and the ICC can be much stronger in its own rhetoric. “Perceptions matter,” she said, so the way the ICC communicates with the public is of key importance. The gravity threshold of the ICC prosecutor remains very unclear, and they can have a more inclusive focus. And, finally, she argued that it is important to note that the constant focus of the ICC on Africa and their condescending attitude threatens the very existence of the court. There is a real chance that African states might actually withdraw, which would mean over thirty states leaving the ICC, greatly affecting its influence and legitimacy.

Mia Swart is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and research director at the HSRC in South Africa. Her research focus is on transitional justice, international criminal law and comparative constitutional law. She is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and was Professor of International Law at the University of Johannesburg and Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand before joining Brookings. Her work has been cited by South African courts as well as by the International Criminal Court. Her co-edited book, The Limits of Transition: The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission 20 Years After, was published in 2017.

Article by Khansa Maria, CIRS Student Assistant

Informal Politics in the Middle East Working Group I
2018-03-10 09:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On March 10, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies held its first working group under its research initiative on “Informal Politics in the Middle East.” During the working group, a number of scholars were convened to discuss various questions on a number of related topics: tribes and the Yemeni state, women and non-governmental organization (NGOs) in Iran, the role of the Diwaniyya in Kuwait, the informal politics around access to natural resources, and spaces for activism and inclusion in the Middle East.

Charles Schmitz started the working group discussions with his session on “Social Organization or Political Actor: Tribe and State in Yemen.” Schmitz argued that there has been no agreement in the literature on what “tribe” constitutes given the ostensible differences in the structures of and roles played by tribes. For instance in Yemen, there are major differences between tribes based on where they are geographically located. In his discussion, Schmitz focused on the northern tribes who play a major role in relation to the state. He argued that Yemeni tribes are unique as they have always been settled unlike tribes elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula. This contributed to the establishment of tribes in Yemen as small sovereignties. Such sovereignties are usually strong when the state is weak, and are weak when the state is strong. However, although the tribe was originally merely a social order for which the Sheikh had collective responsibility and mediated and arbitrated between its members after the Republican Revolution sheikhs became influential in the political realm of the state. Since then, the state used tribes as administrative circles and often distributed “tribal subsidies” to the Sheikhs to take care of their communities’ needs.

Shahla Haeri shifted the discussion to “Women and NGO Participation in Iran”. In her session, Haeri discussed the issue of citizenship and women in Iran, the history of NGOs, and women who established NGOs in Iran. Finally, Haeri listed a number of understudied topics related to her discussion. With regards to the issue of citizenship, she claimed that the relationship between state and society, and particularly women, in Iran has been inconstant. In the wake of the Islamic Revolution, the state supported women education. This contributed to women’s perception of their autonomy. Hence, the state tried to control and restrict their agency fearing challenges to the principles the Islamic Republic was founded on. Such principles, which are embedded in Iranian legal structures, place women somewhere between a subject and a full citizen. That is to say that while both men and women have the capacity to execution, women’s capacity to obligations always remains restricted. With regards to NGOs, Haeri drew a distinction between NGOs and GNGOs (NGOs that are sponsored by the government). It was only when Khatami came to power that the state in Iran approved the bylaws of the Charter of NGOs. Yet, there seems to be significant mistrust between the state and NGOs that results in the state supporting and funding GNGOs while neglecting real NGOs. Haeri listed a number of cases of women who started NGOs in Iran, such as Touran Mirhadi, and initiatives by women such as schools for Afghan immigrants in Tehran, and the Thursday Bazaar for women, on which the film Braving the Wave was made. Finally, Haeri suggested conducting research on issues around informal women organizations, known as dorehs, and women as entrepreneurs who create jobs and help women thrive in these NGOs.

Clemens Chay shifted the discussion to Kuwait in his session on “Social and Political Influence of the Diwaniyya”. Chay argued that most of the literature discusses the role of the diwaniyya during elections in Kuwait disregarding the social and diplomatic aspects of the diwaniyya. Historically, the diwaniyyas were located on the shore of the Persian Gulf, and were used by big merchant families in Kuwait to observe the sea state. However, the social role of tribal diwaniyyas has significantly changed. Now, the diwaniyya has extended inland. Almost every house has an attached diwaniyya. The purpose of the diwaniyya has also metamorphosed as it has become a space for collective belonging, sharing ideas, and expressing issues and concerns. Recently, there has been a proliferation of “youth diwaniyyas” that are ostensibly distinctive from traditional diwaniyyas. These new youth diwaniyyas are less strict on diwaniyya etiquette, and serve as a space for young Kuwaitis and their invitees to spend their spare time. However, tribal diwaniyyas remain central to Kuwaitis lives. This is for the role they play in bringing members of the tribe together, discussing political issues, hosting diplomats and ambassadors, and serving as a medium of communication between the state and the tribe. Towards the end of his discussion, Chay raised a number of questions, among which: Is Kuwaiti exceptionalism related to the establishment of the parliament, or is it a social space that is continuously evolving? What role does the diwaniyya play for the opposition when the parliament is dissolved? And to what extent is social media replacing the diwaniyya?

Nejm Bennessaiah focused his session on “Informal Politics and Access to Natural Resources in the Middle East”. In his presentation, Bennessaiah focused on three main issues related to the access to natural resources in the Middle East: voluntary association, infrastructures, and local customary regulations. With regards to voluntary association, he claimed that rural population makes up about 41 percent of the Middle East’s population, and in countries such as Egypt and Syria these numbers can go up to 50 percent. Such high percentages add pressure on access to resources and markets. At the same time, the Middle East has been witnessing a significant constriction insofar as participation in natural resources decision-making processes is concerned. However as maintaining such constraints have become difficult for states in the Middle East given their limited institutional capacities, voluntary associations were allowed in many countries across the region. In Morocco, for example, associations were allowed in 1998 after the food riots as long as they do not have political agendas. However, some associations, such as the Farmers Association, have succeeded in putting pressure on elected officials to meet their demands. This increase in associations’ strength and influence led to their thriving. In Morocco, the number of associations has mushroomed from around 73,000 associations in 2008 to about 93,000 associations in 2018. With regards to infrastructure, Bennessaiah claimed that a new field in anthropology has been building on political ecology. In light of this, there seems to be limited research on the impact of desalination, particularly in the UAE, on the development of knowledge, and how new infrastructure projects serve as sites for political engagement by local communities. Moreover, to what extent does informal politics play a role in influencing policy-makers in determining which areas receive better maintenance and higher pressure insofar as water distribution is concerned? Finally, Bennessaiah highlighted the role of local customary regulations that are based on local consultation and verbal agreements on land uses. He argued that local sanctions and customary law remain understudied in the Middle East.

Deen Sharp concluded the working group discussions with his session on “Informality and the City: Spaces for Activism and Inclusion in the Middle East”. During the Arab uprisings of 2011, public squares have shown to be vital sites of mass political activism. However as much as the urban landscape of many of the region’s old cities facilitated political action, relatively newly developed cities seemed to be designed in ways that foreclose certain types of politics. In light of this, Sharp discussed the role of multinational and international construction corporations in the political life in the Middle East. Despite the fact that that the corporation is not in any of the constitutions in the Middle East or viewed as a formal political actor, Sharp argued that the corporation could be considered to be one of the most powerful political entities in the region. The joint-stock corporation is increasingly becoming a key institution in the Middle East and integral to shaping contemporary urban life in the region. Since the 1990s, there has been a significant expansion in corporate power particularly within the urban context in the Middle East. Today, if you look at the skyline of downtowns throughout the region, in particular in the Gulf cities like Dubai and Doha, but also in Cairo and Casablanca, the joint-stock corporation has transformed the urban landscape. The joint-stock corporate city makes itself present by the proliferation of its urban mega-projects, including skyscrapers, downtown developments and gated communities; retail malls and artificial islands; airports and ports; and highways. Such projects are not only being executed in urban cities, but have expanded to urbanize rural areas that have acted also as sites for protests during the Arab uprisings. Corporations, such as Emaar and Damac, are now household names. Stock markets have also recently opened in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and significantly expanded in Egypt and Iraq. In sum, Sharp argued that the corporation is more than a mere business and is a key component of contemporary political life in the Middle East.

To read the working group agenda click here.To read the participants’ biographies click here.Read more about this research initiative.

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarNejm Benessaiah, Georgetown UniversityClemens Chay, Durham University, UKKristin Smith Diwan, Arab Gulf States Institute, Washington, DCShahla Haeri, Boston UniversityIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarDavid Ottaway, Wilson Center, Washington, DCMarina Ottaway, Wilson Center, Washington, DCCharles Schmitz, Towson University, BaltimoreDeen Sharp, Terreform, Center for Advanced Urban Research & CUNY Graduate CenterElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

Refusing the Uniform: Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Women's Activism in Denmark, 1967–1997
2018-03-19 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
The Center for International and Regional Studies invited GU-Q student Emma Mogensen (class of 2018) to present her senior thesis, “Refusing the Uniform: Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Women’s Activism in Denmark, 1967–1997,” at a public talk on March 19, 2018, in which Mogensen shed light on an often-overlooked period of activism in Danish history. This event formally inaugurated the CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement (CURA) initiative.

In the thirty-year period from 1967 to 1997, there was a dramatic increase in immigrant and ethnic minority women’s activism in Denmark. Frustrated with their social standing and economic situations, immigrant women from various minority ethnic backgrounds began to rally together to oppose the discrimination they experienced. Mogensen’s study on immigrant and ethnic minority women’s activism in Denmark analyzed content from publications by immigrant women’s organizations from the late 1960s to the 2000s. Mogensen began her talk with a news story from 1975, which depicted two Pakistani women in Denmark who were denied unemployment benefits because they had refused job offers. The women argued that these were not actual refusals, however, because the Danish hotels had offered them positions that had mandatory uniform rules requiring women to wear short skirts, which went against the womens’ particular social norms.

The Female Workers’ Union (FWU) might have been expected to support these women in their case because they were members of the organization. But the union failed to address the “inherently gendered discriminatory policies of hotels that required women to wear revealing uniforms,” and instead chastised the women for their refusal of the jobs and the uniforms. In an article in The Foreign Workers’ Magazine, the union hinted at larger tensions between the union and immigrant women. A union spokeswoman generalized the women’s refusal as “allegedly emblematic of problematic attitudes of immigrant women,” further nothing that “if we accept the foreigners’ excuses we discriminate against the Danes. We wish to treat everyone the same.” These comments were remarkable because the Danish women’s movement and the FWU had been actively advocating for wage equality and universal access to childcare for decades prior to this case.

“Immigrant and ethnic minority women have challenged Danish feminist organizations, trade unions, and politicians between 1967 and 1997 through their commitment to combating intersecting forms of discrimination.”

“The Female Workers’ Union’s criticism implied its inability to see the Pakistani women as facing similar systemic challenges as Danish women,” Mogensen said, adding that its criticism conveyed a “maternalist” attitude. This revealed the FWU’s exclusionary treatment of immigrant women, despite their commitment to strengthening women’s solidarity. This position was further supported by the Pakistani community’s accusation that the union had intentionally set up the women to have their benefits revoked since they had arranged the jobs. Although the resolution of the event is unknown, Mogensen said this case was representative of tensions between both immigrants and Danish unions, and immigrant women and Danish women’s organizations.

Mogensen’s central argument was that “immigrant and ethnic minority women have challenged Danish feminist organizations, trade unions, and politicians between 1967 and 1997 through their commitment to combating intersecting forms of discrimination.” They pushed for more complex understandings of how various forms of discrimination functioned simultaneously in Danish society based on gender, race, class, etc. Immigrant women activists forged international networks with immigrant women and feminist organizations, understanding how oppressive systems like sexism were not territorially limited.

Mogensen explained that immigrant women experienced double discrimination on the basis of both race and ethnicity. She shared a quote from a 1989 Danish-immigrant women’s magazine: “We are doubly oppressed—as women and as black.” Today, the term “intersectionality” is used to describe this phenomenon—a term that was practically unheard of in Denmark in the 1980s, especially when it came to questions of race and ethnicity.

Denmark had received immigrants for centuries, but the late 1960s marked a turning point in Danish immigration history through the Guest Worker Program. Like many other Western European nations, Denmark experienced an economic upturn following WWII, leading employers to bring in foreign workers to meet growing labor needs. In 1973, the Danish economy entered a severe recession with increasing unemployment due to the global oil crisis. This pushed the Danish parliament to restrict the flow of migrants, and later that year they enacted a law ending all labor immigration.

Fearing that migrant workers would leave Denmark to return to their families, employers lobbied to open up legal avenues for workers to bring their spouses and children to Denmark. Their efforts succeeded in 1974 when the parliament passed a new family reunification law. Through this new law and Denmark’s subsequent acceptance of refugees, many female immigrant activists arrived in Denmark. The early period of immigrant women’s mobilization efforts was marked by discrimination at the hands of Danish trade unions and women’s organizations. These women’s activism was generally spontaneous and ad hoc, and centered on individual ethnic or linguistic groups. Through their opposition to such discrimination, these early activists exposed contradictory and hypocritical policies theoretically dedicated to supporting female immigrant workers, as seen with the FWU.

In the late 1980s, immigrant women in Denmark expanded their efforts to create more permanent multi-ethnic organizations. Rather than operating on an ad hoc basis, they developed institutional roots, which allowed them to more comprehensively address immigrant women’s issues, according to Morgensen. While earlier activists had discussed the multidimensional sources of discrimination, starting in the late 1980s, immigrant women explicitly placed intersectionality at the center of their mission. Through these organizations, immigrant feminists also forged links with existing international feminist movements.

The first such organization in Denmark was Soldue, which was founded in 1988 by a diverse group of immigrant women, and the focus was on shared experiences rather than nationalities. Soldue focused on intersectionality and criticized the discrimination immigrant women faced at the hands of Danish authorities and Danish women’s organizations. Many women used the organization’s magazine to discuss gender discrimination in their own communities. From the beginning, they recognized that racism and sexism were intertwined. From 1993, their efforts began to impact Danish legislation, and started leveraging influence by collaborating with Danish women’s groups and the government on policy issues.

One of the main objects of Soldue’s advocacy was the Three-Year Rule, introduced in the 1983 Aliens Law. Soldue was highly critical of how the law tied foreign women’s legal status in Denmark to their spouses. It argued that the law rendered immigrant women especially vulnerable to domestic abuse, since leaving an abusive partner before the end of three years could result in their deportation. According to Soldue, domestic abuse was common everywhere, and thus the law needed to protect immigrant women as it did Danish women. In 1993, Soldue was appointed to a special commission on immigrant women’s legal status in Denmark set up by the Ministry of Interior. The parliament eventually incorporated the commission’s recommendations into law by amending the Aliens Law in 1996. Not satisfied with parliament’s limited concessions, Soldue activists continued to argue against the Three-Year Rule even after the amendment, Mogensen found.

Soldue simultaneously increased their local and global influence, increasing their outreach and international networks. A new generation of Danish-born children of immigrants was becoming politically active. They had never immigrated, but they had experienced various forms of discrimination. Although they built on the efforts of their predecessors, they developed their own strategies based on their position as Danish-born minorities. “Their increasing political activity was especially marked by debates over citizenship,” Mogensen said.

Immigrant and ethnic minority women actively confronted the multilayered forms of discrimination they experienced in Danish society. Through their activism, they argued for the need to understand how various forms of discrimination intersected. They engaged with international feminist and activist movements and paved the way for a new generation of ethnic minority women’s activism. The activists who took a principled stand in 1975 for their right to reject a mandatory revealing uniform, “paved the way for a new generation of ethnic minority women’s activism in Denmark from the 1990s onwards,” Mogensen said.

Article by Khansa Maria, CIRS Student Assistant

Emma Mogensen is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in International History at Georgetown University in Qatar. Originally from Denmark, she has lived in Qatar since 2009. She works as a Research Assistant at the Center for International and Regional Studies at GU-Q, where she has conducted research on labor migration and citizenship in GCC countries, among other topics concerning international migration. Her research interests revolve around migration and transnational activist networks, as well as global understandings of citizenship and feminism.

CIRS Book Launch: Contemporary Politics in the Middle East
2018-03-21 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Moscow)
“There is always a sense of timeliness about the politics of the Middle East,” and a pressing sense of the issues, according to Beverley Milton-Edwards, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. “It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is, what time of year it is—the Middle East is always in the headlines.” Milton-Edwards is a professor of politics at Queen’s University in Belfast, and a security theme leader at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. She has lived in the Middle East for thirty years as a researcher, and was at CIRS on March 21, 2018, to launch the fourth edition of her book, Contemporary Politics in the Middle East.

Milton-Edwards focuses her research on security sector governance in the Middle East and the challenges of political Islam. The author said she found the need to publish a fourth edition of her book because the Middle East is such a dynamic region, internally and externally. The book covers issues ranging from colonialism, political economy, conflict and lack of peace, nationalism, women, ethnicity, and minorities. She said her ambition in writing the book was modest and that it is meant to provide understandings for people new to the study of the region.

Milton-Edwards discussed the entirety of the volume, as well as what the book meant to her personally, noting: “I have been in the region for some of the most pivotal political moments in recent times, being caught up in events where leaders have been assassinated, where regimes have crumbled, populations have revolted, and peace on occasion may have looked possible. And because of these field experiences, I was also afforded the opportunity to be able to make small contributions on the ground, in particular, to management of conflict and the achievement of peace, because I do believe that the Middle East deserves peace.”

The author’s research for the book is based on extensive on-the-ground fieldwork “whether in overcrowded refugee camps, presidential compounds, or in the shadowy, complex lairs of rebel leaders or urban battle zones,” she said. Milton-Edwards argued that it is impossible to study the region only from textbooks or media sources; that one must learn from various experiences that are diverse in nature. She wrote the book through interacting with different cross-sections of society—state and non-state actors alike—to understand the essence of their myriad perspectives.

“I am not attempting to change the world one student at a time, but I feel that the book is a resource that can open up the opportunities for looking at a region in other ways.”

Milton-Edwards said that her work as a researcher gave her unique insight into political and social interactions in various situations, such as corruption, foreign policy, the interaction of states in Middle East with Western policymakers and politicians, and, most importantly, security dimensions. Over decades, her research has charted the rise and collapse of state nationalist projects, the fixation on what she calls “strong man politics and the tragic consequences of states waging wars against their own populations or against other states in the region in order to distract from the problems at home.”

What struck her when speaking with ordinary people was issues such as “regional wealth, inequality, labor mobility and unemployment, Islamism, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, and the US in the Middle East.” These everyday concerns are the themes and contents of the book, and her way of “making sense of the politics of this vast ethnically, politically, religiously, and socioeconomically diverse region.” One of the main points she makes in the book is that “the politics of the contemporary Middle East is not as exceptional as many in the West would have us believe.” She said the curious thing is why the world sees itself as different from the Middle East. The region reflects the lasting effects of “colonialism, power relations, lack of political participation or apathy, poor economic growth, increasing urbanization, and a return to faith and faith-based discourses,” she argued. The contemporary politics of the Middle East is driven by the same broad dynamics of change over the last century as elsewhere across the globe.

Milton-Edwards also argued that, for the foreseeable future, the “politics of the region—within the region and between the people and the state, as well as by the region and other parts of the globe—will stay animated in one way or another to one degree or another by these same issues.” She pointed to youth as one such issue. In the UK in 2017, youth were central to the emergence of new forms of political mobilization in the general elections, and, in the US, youth are challenging the powerful gun lobby. “Youth in the region represent a powerful intersectionality of class, gender, nationality, and faith,” as evidenced by the role they played in the Arab uprisings. “The same grievances are levied, the same challenge to authority, and dismissal of obsolete and out of touch political structures—the same intergenerational struggles,” she said.

“I am not attempting to change the world one student at a time,” Milton-Edwards said, “but I feel that the book is a resource that can open up the opportunities for looking at a region in other ways.” This is because, as each chapter, theme, and case study illustrates, the context does actually matter and shapes the issue under scrutiny, she said, and local context and history matter. For this reason, the book goes back in history and explores the profound impact of colonialism. For so many political constituencies in the Middle East, “the past is still very much present,” affecting people’s lives in what she called “everyday insecurities.” She also cited the example of violence, arguing that it is a “reaction to the politics of authoritarianism, ethnic domination, rights denied, and freedoms reneged on,” which explains the phenomenon of terrorism and violence in the Middle East.

Concerning where we are today and where we go from here, Milton-Edwards pointed to the last chapter of the book titled, “The Arab Spring and the New Era of Uncertainty.” She read a segment from the chapter: “The future of the region is almost impossible to predict. Many of the issues outlined in this book, such as political economy, political Islam, and the state and its rulers will probably continue to determine the political systems which will develop over the next decade. Not least of which will be the unfolding legacy of the Arab Spring, and the resilience of authoritarian regimes. They will continue to be tested and challenged by the region’s citizens.”

Article by Khansa Maria, CIRS Student Assistant

Beverley Milton-Edwards is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. She is professor of politics at Queen’s University Belfast and security theme leader at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. She is known for having pioneered both scholarship and practice in the field of conflict management, including ceasefires. She was the principal investigator to the European Union’s Civil Police Mission to the Palestinian Territories Program in 2006–2010. Her recent books include: The Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab Spring, and its Future Face (2016); Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945 (2013); Jordan: A Hashemite Legacy (2012); The Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, A People’s War (2011); and Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (2010).

Karl Widerquist CIRS Book Workshop
2018-03-26 09:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The Center for International and Regional Studies hosted a workshop on Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiments. This was part of the CIRS-Faculty Book Series, which provides an opportunity for faculty members to present book manuscripts to scholars and receive critical feedback in advance of publication. The workshop was held on March 26, 2018, and included four sessions, in which eleven scholars from around the world critically assessed and provided suggestions on the manuscript, The Devil’s in the Caveats: A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments for Researchers, Policymakers, and Citizens, by Karl Widerquist, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University in Qatar.

Widerquist’s book discusses an important new topic in social science, large-scale experiments devoted to testing UBI—a policy that would assure every citizen a steady income regardless of whether they work or not. Several similar experiments were conducted in the United States and Canada in the 1970s, and recent interest in UBI experiments has returned with more than a half dozen experiments underway or under consideration in countries around the world.

The book discusses the difficulty of conducting UBI experiments and communicating their results to nonspecialists in ways that successfully raise the levels of debate. This is because of the inherent limits of experimental techniques, the complexity of the public discussion of UBI, and the many barriers that make it difficult for specialists and nonspecialists to understand each other. The book suggests that researchers stay focused on the public’s bottom line: an evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of a permanent, national UBI policy. Even if experiments can examine only a few questions relevant to that overall evaluation, they need to draw the connection between what they can do and what citizens evaluating a policy option really need to know.

In response to the growing debate over Unconditional Basic Income, several governments and NGOs around the world have begun or are seriously considering conducting UBI experiments. This book argues that a large gap in understanding exists between the researchers who conduct UBI experiments and the citizens and policymakers who hope to make use of experimental findings. The usual solution—a simple list of caveats—is not sufficient to bridge that gap. The problem is not simply that nonspecialists have difficulty understanding experiments, but also that researchers conducting experiments have difficulty understanding the role of experiments in that debate. These gaps create risks of misunderstanding, misreporting, oversimplification, spin, and what researchers call “the streetlight effect”—examining the most easily answered questions instead of the questions in most need of answers. This book is an effort to help bridge those gaps in understanding to avoid potential problems. It examines the many ways in which experiments can go wrong or be misunderstood, in an effort to help researchers conduct better experiments and communicate their results in ways more likely to raise the level of debate.

“The devil’s in the details” is a common saying in policy proposals, and the author suggests that perhaps we need a similar expression for policy research, something like “the devil’s in the caveats.” This is both because nonspecialists (the citizens and policymakers who are ultimately responsible for evaluating policy in any democracy) have great difficulty understanding what research implies about policy, and because specialists often have difficulty understanding what citizens and policymakers most hope to learn from policy research.

This problem creates great difficulty for UBI experiments that are now getting underway in several countries. These experiments can add a small part to the existing body of evidence people need to fully evaluate UBI as a policy proposal. Specialists can provide caveats about the limits of what research implies, but nonspecialists are often unable to translate caveats into a firm explanation of what that research does and does not imply about the policy at issue. Therefore, even the best scientific policy research can leave nonspecialists with an oversimplified, or simply wrong, impression of its implications for policy.

Karl Widerquist is Associate Professor at SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University. He specializes in political philosophy and his research is mostly in the area of distributive justice—the ethics of who has what. He holds two doctorates: Political Theory from Oxford University (2006), and Economics from the City University of New York (1996). He coauthored Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press 2017) and authored Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). He coedited Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research (Wiley-Blackwell 2013); Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model (Palgrave Macmillan 2012); Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform around the World (Palgrave Macmillan 2012); and The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (Ashgate 2005). He was founding editor of the journal Basic Income Studies, and he has published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters. His articles have appeared in journals such as Analyse & Kritik; Eastern Economic Journal; Ethnoarchaeology; Political Studies; Politics and Society; Politics, Philosophy, and Economics; Journal of Socio-Economics; and Utilitas. He has been co-chair of Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) for several years and was a founder of the US Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network and its coordinator from 2000-10. He was NewsFlash editor for USBIG from 2010-15. He was also a founder of BIEN’s news website, Basic Income News, and its principle editor for its first four years.

A Conversation with George Osborne
2018-03-28 12:45 - 13:45 (Europe/Moscow)
On March 28, 2018, George Osborne, former British Conservative Party politician and current editor of the London Evening Standard, was invited by CIRS to deliver a Focused Discussion in which he spoke to Georgetown University-Qatar faculty, staff, and students about the increasingly challenging state of international politics. He began the conversation by noting that “there is quite a profound pessimism about the direction that the world is heading in.”

There are several reasons for this general distrust in international politics, including “an erratic president” in the United States, an aggressively expansionist Russia reaching into Ukraine and Georgia, the uncertainties associated with Brexit, and a progressively fragmenting Europe in which the far right is coming to power in many countries. “The EU, NATO, the IMF—all of these institutions created in the aftermath of Second World War seem like they are struggling and like they are failing,” he said. In the Middle East, the problems continue, with the Syrian conflict looming large, and fears of an escalation in hostilities between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“All this makes the world look very gloomy,” Osborne said, but, despite the ongoing negativity, he offered “three reasons to be cheerful” regarding the current political climate. The first is that, despite his inflammatory rhetoric, President Trump has not made substantial policy changes, and has taken a surprisingly orthodox stance when it comes to the Middle East, even more so that of Bush and Obama before him. The US president has spoken of “fairly alarming policies, but these did not turn out to be that big of a threat,” Osborne argued.

“All this makes the world look very gloomy.”

Even though Osborne noted that “I did everything in my power to stop Brexit,” he argued that a second reason for optimism is that despite Britain’s exit from the European Union, it will continue to be intimately involved with the EU, and will not be completely isolated.

The third and final reason to be cheerful, according to Osborne, is the steady but measured rise of China. Although the country’s ascendance has caused some governments to be wary, he noted that “China is keen on asserting its rights, but it is also keen on doing so through international channels.” China may have firm nationalistic aims, but not at the cost of peace. “One thing that I learned from China in many years is that, above all, they are interested in stability,” Osborne said.

Osborne ended with some statistics to support his optimistic conclusions. Despite the current state of world affairs, in 2017, he said, fewer people in the world died of hunger, disease, or violence as compared to any previous year in human history. Even with the many problems, conflicts, and challenges we face today, “something is working,” he concluded.

Article by Khansa Maria, CIRS Student Assistant

George Osborne was Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 2001 to 2017. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2016, during which time he also served on the National Security Council. From 2015 to 2016, he served as Britain’s First Secretary of State. He is Chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a not-for-profit organization he created to promote economic development in the North of England.

The UAE in the Red Sea and East Africa
2018-04-11 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The Center for International and Regional Studies invited, Islam Hassan, CIRS Research Analyst, to present his study, co-conducted with Nael Shama, at a Dialogue event on April 11, 2018. Hassan noted that, for the past decade, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has had foreign policy objectives in the Red Sea and East Africa in its pursuit of security and influence in the Middle East. The country has been heavily engaged in establishing military bases and acquiring operational and management rights over ports and economic zones in and around the Red Sea. This foray into one of the most important global shipping lanes is coupled with a significant naval presence in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al Mandab Strait. Additionally, the presence of private Emirati security companies in the region has expanded for the purposes of conducting anti-piracy operations and providing protection for UAE ships.

During the long years of Sheikh Zayed Al-Nahyan’s rule (1971–2004), the UAE’s foreign policy was more idealistic than realistic and more reactive than proactive, according to Hassan. It was “pan-Arabist at the zenith of pan-Arabism in the 1970s; turned slightly pan-Islamist in the heyday of pan-Islamism in the 1980s; and then became increasingly pragmatic in the decades that saw the decline of ideologies, the 1990s and after,” he argued. And in the precarious early years of the UAE federation, founded in 1971, Zayed had to contend with the ordinary challenges of state formation. Iran’s occupation of three Emirati islands in the same year meant that the UAE “was put on test from the first day of its formation,” Hassan said.

After the death of Sheikh Zayed, the UAE witnessed five major developments on the domestic and regional levels: the massive wealth the country has generated in recent years; the 2011 Arab uprisings; the country’s intense rivalry with Qatar; the tension between the US and the UAE during the late years of the Obama administration; and the new leadership’s outlook.

The UAE’s economy enjoyed significant growth in the last decade. Since 2004, the country’s GDP has more than doubled, placing the country at third-highest in the Arab world for GDP per capita. This economic robustness has encouraged the new leadership to search for increased political influence and foreign investment opportunities, especially in the Red Sea countries whose economies have been rising in recent years, and are expected to grow in the future, according to Hassan.

Since 2011, the Arab landscape changed dramatically, especially following the uprisings. “A pan-Arab awakening that crossed borders with ease and unleashed deep forces of change; the Arab Spring sent shock waves throughout the ruling establishments in the Gulf monarchies,” said Hassan. The UAE was not immune to the uprisings, which struck the shores of Bahrain and neighboring Oman, and echoed inside the UAE itself. Fear of potential spillover effects rose, he said. With urgent appeals for reform and equality, “particularly worrying to the Emirati leadership” was the potential for the local Al-Islah Islamist movement to become more active and influential. These regional developments were coupled by “deep cracks that have swept the GCC,” and, consequently, the competition that has taken root with other Gulf states, including Qatar, he said.

“A pan-Arab awakening that crossed borders with ease and unleashed deep forces of change; the Arab Spring sent shock waves throughout the ruling establishments in the Gulf monarchies.”

Hassan explained there were also three nearly simultaneous developments that “poisoned the strategic UAE-US alliance:” the gradual US shift from the Gulf region to the Asia-Pacific region; the US administration’s tacit embrace of the Arab Spring; and the landmark nuclear deal in 2015 with Iran. These developments cast doubt on the US commitment to maintaining its long-standing security umbrella over the Gulf region. Additionally, fallout with Washington contributed to the strategic reformulation in the foreign policy of the UAE, whose contours began to emerge more clearly after 2011. This included a disposition towards using military means, he said.

The aforementioned domestic and regional developments were interpreted through the prism of “the overly ambitious new leadership” (Khalifa bin Zayed as the President of the UAE, and Mohamed bin Zayed as Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi) that rose to power in 2004. The new leadership has a regional and international outlook that is conspicuously different from that of their reserved father, according to Hassan. They tend to be more pragmatic, realistic, and confrontational in dealing with regional challenges. So rather than merely focusing on diplomacy, mediation, dialogue, and foreign aid—tools used by Sheikh Zayed—the new leadership has sought influence through military engagement, massive foreign direct investments internationally, and military and naval presence beyond the country’s vicinity, particularly in the Red Sea, East Africa, Yemen, and Libya, he said.

This foreign policy change, which the UAE witnessed during the past decade or so, involved not only a change in means (from soft to hard power), but also in goals (seeking security and pursuing increased regional influence), Hassan said. “These two objectives—security and influence—have been the driving motivations behind the UAE’s intervention [through economic investments and military presence] in the Red Sea and East Africa.” The UAE’s economic aid to East African countries has increased twentyfold between 2011 and 2013, Hassan reported. The country’s “heavy investment with cash and guns” in the Red Sea region has included supplying economic aid, building ports, providing maritime services, and establishing military and naval bases.

The regional competition over the Red Sea, and its islands, ports and straits, has intensified in recent years with Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, and is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, according to Hassan. “The transformation that has taken place in the foreign policy of the UAE over the past few years has been huge. It has not only involved a change in foreign policy means, but also in the identification of new foreign policy problems and goals,” he said. Whether the UAE can sustain such distant foothold in the Red Sea and East Africa despite competition with regional and international powers, and maintain its alliance with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which allows the country to be active in areas always considered strategic depths of the two regional powers, are things for time to unfold, he said.

Article by Khansa Maria, CIRS Student Assistant.

Islam Hassan is the Research Analyst at the CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar. His current research interests include state-building in the Gulf States and comparative politics and international relations of West Asia and North Africa. He coedited “The State of Middle Eastern Youth,” a special issue of the journal The Muslim World (2017). His publications also include “The GCC’s 2014 Crisis: Causes, Issues and Solutions” (in Arabic and English, with Al Jazeera Research Center, 2015); and “Jordan on the Brink,” International Journal of Culture and History (2016).

CURA Seminar: Water and Conflict in the Middle East
2018-04-12 10:00 - 12:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On April 12, 2018, CIRS convened its first CURA Discussion Seminar under the center’s new initiative: CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement. The seminar was introduced to support the research needs of undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Qatar, and to provide them with opportunities to hone their research skills. As part of the seminar, CURA fellows discussed and critiqued two papers from the CIRS research initiative on “Water and Conflict in the Middle East.”

Mohammed Al-Jaberi (class of 2019) started the conversation with a brief summary of Marcus DuBois King’s article, “A Watershed Moment: Hydropolitical Trends and the Future of Iraqi Kurdistan.” This paper addressed the increasingly contentious issue of water stress on the region, due to Iraqi Kurdistan’s emerging socio-political trends, as well as environmental changes such as demographic pressures; dam building by Iran and Turkey; declining water quality; recurring drought; climate change; and earthquakes. The author concluded that if the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) did not at least recognize the latter trends’ increasing threat to security, they would further compromise the regions’ water security. King theorized that in order to avoid the adverse impact on Iraqi Kurdistan, the KRG must place water stress as a priority and develop a comprehensive strategy to address the issue.

Rawan Al-Khulaidi (class of 2018) presented Nael Shama and Islam Hassan’s article “In Pursuit of Security and Influence: The UAE in the Red Sea and East Africa.” The article explored the ways through which the United Arab Emirates has attempted to assert its authority over the Red Sea and its ports, showing the importance of the Red Sea and East Africa in the new Emirati leadership’s strategic interests. The article demonstrated how the UAE’s actions and policy arrangements in relation to the Red Sea and its ports reflect a larger change in its foreign policy, which has been evolving for over a decade. This change in Emirati foreign policy is driven by the UAE’s economic wealth; the “rise of Islamism in the region;” the UAE’s military agendas in the border states of the Red Sea – especially those of Djibouti and Yemen; the political environment of the UAE post-Zayed; the shock of the Arab Spring politically and socio-economically; and, finally, UAE-US relations.

Following the presentation of each paper, the CURA fellows engaged in an insightful discussion on the structure and organization of the paper, the employed theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and the clarity of the argument. By focusing on the topic of water and conflict in the Middle East, the students were able to employ the tools and skills of their respective majors—namely international politics, culture and politics, international economics, and international history—to assess, critique, and provide feedback on the papers. Following the discussions, Mohammed Al Jaberi and Waleed Zahoor (class of 2018) presented the fellows’ comments and feedback at the CIRS Working Group, “Water and Conflict in the Middle East.”

For the participants’ biographies, please click here.

Article by Amie Hewka, CURA Fellow at CIRS

Water and Conflict in the Middle East Working Group II
2018-04-15 09:00 - 2018-04-16 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On April 15–16, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted the second working group meeting of its research initiative on “Water and Conflict in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, scholars came together to present their research papers on a variety of topics including, water mismanagement in the Middle East, the “weaponization” of water by the Islamic State, Hydropolitical trends in Kurdistan, community-based water practices in Yemen, Emirati activities in the Red Sea and East Africa, Turkish hydro-hegemony, and groundwater use in the Middle East and North Africa.

Hussein Amery commenced the working group by presenting his draft article on “Water Mismanagement and Conflict in the Middle East.” In his article, Amery highlights how competition for water supplies between riparian states has become more intense due to the significant increase in water demand. This increase in demand has been a result of a number of factors such as rapid population growth, the improved quality of life, climate change, and geophysical conditions. Amery suggests that distrust between different water stakeholders within a country, unilateral development along international water basins, and gross mismanagement of water resources accentuate the problems facing several Middle Eastern states and raise the specter of water conflict. Amery’s paper is focused on two case studies: the Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict over the Grand Renaissance Dam over the Nile river, and the completion between different riparian states along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. While filling a huge reservoir, as part of a new large dam project, is the principal trigger of conflict in the aforementioned cases, historical distrust between governments, water mismanagement, as well as political instability remain the structural triggers for these conflicts.

Tobias von Lossow presented his paper on the “Weaponization of Water in the Middle East: ‘Lessons Learned’ from IS.” In this article, von Lossow examines how actors engaged in armed conflict use water resources as instruments of power and war. The Islamic State weaponized water both as a tactic of war, and also used water as a political and social tool for garnering people’s support and for state-building purposes. While von Lossow agrees that historically there have been numerous instances of water being deployed as a strategic weapon during conflict, he suggests that the way in which IS weaponized water was different from what had previously been seen.

Marcus DuBois King’s article on Iraq examines hydro-political trends within Iraqi Kurdistan. Although Iraqi Kurdistan enjoys abundant water resources, water stress has been increasing over the last few years. Water stress is being driven by changing demographics, an increase of dam construction in neighboring countries, and an overall declining quality of water. King argues that as water stress increases in the region conflict over water resources will inevitably increase. He concludes that water stress is likely to have an adverse impact on the security of Iraqi Kurdistan unless the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) recognizes addressing water stress as a priority and subsequently develops a comprehensive strategy to achieve that goal.

Helen Lackner shifted the discussion to “Revitalization of Community-based Water Practices in Yemen.” Lackner claims that in recent decades, there have been calls for public participation in addressing most development issues, whether rural or urban. Insofar as water management in Yemen is concerned, for many years the rules of customary water management were the officially recognized mechanisms by the state. However, these rules were transformed through political, social, and economic changes. Such transformation was driven by both domestic dynamics and external funding agencies. Lackner claimed that these developments had a significant impact on state institutions. The domestic- and external-led development interventions limited the control of water resources to state-bureaucrats and pro-state private beneficiaries. Finally, Lackner argues that these developments coupled the rhetoric of ‘community empowerment’, which has not empowered the community as much as it prioritized the concerns and interests of a minority at the helm of the state.

Islam Hassan presented his co-authored article with Nael Shama on “In Pursuit of Security and Influence: The UAE in the Red Sea and East Africa.” The article highlights how in order to safeguard its stability and security at home, thwart the threat of the burgeoning den of militant Islamists in Somalia, Yemen, and other East African states, secure its trade relations and oil transportation routes, and extend its regional influence, the UAE decided to retain a strong foothold in East Africa. The control of ports and islands, and the establishment and administration of military bases, training centers, and economic zones in the Red Sea, the Arabia Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Mandeb Strait has offered the UAE the chance to achieve these objectives. As illustrated by this case study, the authors argue that UAE’s foray into the Red Sea and East Africa is a manifestation of a significant transformation in the foreign policy of the UAE over the past few years. This transformation has not only involved a change in foreign policy means, but also in the identification of new foreign policy problems and goals.

Paul Williams discussed his article on “Turkish Hydro-hegemony and the Impact of Dams”. By focusing on the last three main dams of the Southeast Anatolian Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi or GAP), Williams highlights how Turkey has exhibited positive and negative types of basin-centric hegemony. He argues that the legitimacy of Turkey’s hydro-hegemony and GAP depends not only on Turkey’s measurable progress towards meeting infrastructure targets, but also on the perception of GAP’s by both Turkey’s basin neighbors and intended beneficiaries living in Southeast Anatolia, including large numbers of ethnic Kurds. He concludes that Turkey’s past threats to halt flow or its actual stoppages and its intended use of dammed water to flood guerrilla transit routes could alienate both the downstream states (relatively silent during the Syrian civil war) and Kurdish nationalists. Such broadcasting of dams as military objects, Williams argues, could make them targets and trigger conflict between the different stakeholders.

Elizabeth Wanucha concluded the working group discussions by presenting an article on “Supply, Use, and Implications of Groundwater Use in the Mideast/North Africa: A Review” co-authored by Mark Giordano, Katalyn Voss, and Signe Stroming. Giordani et al. argue that groundwater in the Middle East/North Africa has emerged as a critical resource to support the drinking water supply for booming population centers as well as agriculture expansion to promote food security. While we know groundwater resources are overused in most of this region, as elsewhere, an overall, quantitative understanding of the available groundwater supply and use is missing as is an understanding of the social and political mechanisms that could help ensure equitable and sustainable management. In their paper, Giordano et al. investigate the interplay between the technical understanding of groundwater resources in the Middle East/North Africa and the political, economic, and social dimensions driving use. They summarize the existing data on groundwater supply and demand, discuss emerging points of tension among groundwater scarcity, food security, and global markets, and highlight the challenge of transboundary water management as it relates to shared groundwater aquifers as well as the interplay between international rivers and their respective groundwater basins. The authors conclude with a commentary on the need to leverage emerging technologies and data to better understand trends in groundwater supply and use across the region, but more importantly, suggest approaches for dealing with the short and long term political consequences likely to emerge as groundwater resources continue to diminish, competition for water resources increases, and food availability declines.

For the working group agenda, click hereFor the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Hussein A. Amery, Colorado School of MinesMohammed Al-Jaberi, Georgetown University in QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarIslam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMarcus DuBois King, George Washington UniversityHelen Lackner, University of LondonAnatol Lieven, Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarTobias von Lossow, Freie Universität BerlinElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarPaul A. Williams, Bilkent University, TurkeyWaleed Zahoor, Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS
