The GCC Crisis: Qatar and its Neighbors Working Group I
2019-04-07 09:00 - 2019-04-08 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On April 7-8, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the first working group under its research initiative “The GCC Crisis: Qatar and its Neighbors.” The two day meeting brought together several scholars to discuss a range of topics. These included, Qatar’s management of the crisis; the UAE’s perspective and position on the regional crisis; the roles of Oman, Kuwait, Iran, and Turkey during the rupture of GCC relations; the impact of maritime law in the lead up to and the immediate aftermath of the dispute; economic readjustments in Qatar during the embargo; the effects of the crisis on the Qatari stock market; reconfigurations of nationalism and national identity in Qatar; and, public opinion in Qatar after the blockade.

Mehran Kamrava commenced the working group with a presentation titled “Small State: Crisis Politics.” Kamrava highlighted the lack of nuanced, academic study of the GCC crisis and suggested that the current crisis needs to be contextualized within the context of broader and older tensions in regional relations, particularly those between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Such tension is a natural result of a small state being in proximity of a much larger state with regional ambitions. Much of the policymaking, state narrative, and perspectives of Qatari decision makers is driven by the fact that Qatar is a small state. Kamrava proposed several research questions, including: What does the crisis tell us about how small states manage their supply chains during times of crisis? Have Qatari nationalism and national identity gained greater salience over tribalism and kinship? What is it about Qatar’s decision-making process that has enabled the state to respond effectively to the current crisis? And, is there more to the notion of “subtle power?”

David Roberts followed with a presentation on “The Unhappy Neighbor: The View from the UAE.” Roberts applied the notion of “ontological security” in international relations to the ongoing GCC crisis. Roberts suggested that the ontological security concept can provide us with interesting insights into the UAE’s foreign policy, as well as the motivations behind Mohamed bin Zayed’s foreign policy objectives. Roberts argued that states may prioritize ontological security over physical security, and, as a result, often undertake specific actions in the foreign policy domain that may not meet any hard security concerns or interests. Ontological security could be applied to conducting an individual-level analysis by studying the moral principles of the UAE leadership and how these translate into the country’s assertive foreign policy, as seen in the country’s current leadership’s rise to power in 2004.

Muna Al-Marzouqi discussed “The Blockade of Qatar and Maritime Law,” highlighting four main research areas. First, Al-Marzouqi maintained, there is a need to examine how the maritime blockade on Qatar is contributing to the fostering of international maritime trade and strengthening maritime trade partnerships with countries such as Oman. Second, there is need for a legal analysis of issues related to disturbed shipping liability caused by the blockade. Third, there is the issue of the hijacking of Qatari fishing boats by the UAE. Finally, Al-Marzouqi posed the question of whether the maritime blockade can be considered as an act of aggression under international law.

Steven Wright focused his discussion on “Economic Readjustment in Qatar after the Blockade.” Wright highlighted five areas of potential research. To start, the shifting trade flows and changing economic linkages that have occurred since the rupture in regional relations need further examination. Wright asked: How has the loss of 40 percent of imports previously coming through Saudi Arabia and the UAE been addressed by Qatar? There was a spike in trade with Iran at the beginning of the blockade, as Qatar tried to quickly find new means of addressing its need for critical imports, particularly in food and agricultural products. However, more recently the percentage of trade between the two states has dipped to even lower than what it was before the blockade. New trade relations have been formed with a number of African and Asian countries, and the shift away from Iran may well be due to deliberate political considerations and a calculated desire of the Qatari leadership to limit its reliance Iran.

Also important, according to Wright, are the significant changes in the energy sector since the blockade, most noticeably in the behavior of the large state-owned oil and gas companies. Wright suggested that since the GCC crisis began, there has been an intensification in the role of Qatar Petroleum, and in particular its subsidiary Qatar Gas, in actively undertaking international engagements and building partnerships with international energy companies. These new developments, and how they impact Qatar’s long-term energy policy, can benefit from deeper examination.

Since the start of the crisis, Wright maintained, a strong narrative has appeared in Qatar around the need to develop self-sufficiency and to more actively involve the private sector towards this goal. Since the blockade, great emphasis has been placed on achieving self-sufficiency and security in food and agriculture. Two years on since the blockade, Qatar is now a net exporter of poultry products. Also, there has been a considerable upsurge in company registration in Qatar’s financial center. Wright proposed that there is a need to study whether this increase indicates anything significant.

Wright’s final point revolved around the question of how the Qatari economy has adjusted to the attack on the country’s currency? Following the blockade, there was threats of war, but a more significant threat was that of debasing the currency. However, Qatar has a strong credit rating, and there was a massive upsurge in the bond market, which made it easier for the country to secure its currency. Lastly, in-depth analysis of Qatar’s logistical supply management during the blockade merits further study.

Alanoud Al-Maadid led a discussion on the impact of the blockade on GCC stock markets. Al-Maadid focused on the financial performance of the stock markets, the high degree of market integration between GCC countries, and how positive or negative political and business news have impacted the performance of the regional markets since the Gulf crisis. Al-Maadid’s data demonstrates the most of the political news content in GCC newspapers leans towards the positive, while economic or business news reporting is often considerably more negative. She noted that when the stock market is in an upwards or strong position, the impact of negative news appears insignificant. However, when the stock market is in a weaker position, the impact of negative news seems to have a significant impact. Additionally, political news appeared to have less impact of on the stock market than business and economic news. Al-Maadid highlighted the GCC’s “cross-border effect,” arguing that the boycott of Qatar has negatively affected all GCC countries’ stock markets, and, if lifted, it will have a positive cross-boundary impact for all stakeholders involved.

Abdullah Al-Arian discussed the Muslim Brotherhood factor in the GCC Crisis. Al-Arian provided some insights into why the Muslim Brotherhood is so vigorously targeted by several GCC monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Al-Arian suggested that one of the primary reasons behind the distrust and dislike of the Brotherhood is the view that it cannot be “bought off” or co-opted by the Gulf states’ leadership. In addition, the Brotherhood’s transnational networks allow it to accumulate cross-border support and to potentially mobilize national populations across borders. The Brotherhood has frequently called for political reform, and its anti-monarchical stance instills unease in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Further complicating the matter is the different variations of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations in the Middle East, which makes it challenging to suppress the organization entirely or to it shut it down.

Al-Arian suggested that there are several potentially interesting areas of study to be undertaken. First, the overall impact of limited movement on the group due the blockade, needs to be studied. Second, the study of broader political order, needs in depth analysis. It is important to study whether Muslim Brotherhood groups are being used as proxies for political gains by the blockading countries. A third question to consider is whether the anti-Muslim Brotherhood stance is a form of regional Islamophobia being deployed by Gulf rulers in order to garner international support. Finally, it is important to have a deeper understanding of why Qatar has adopted a pro-Muslim Brotherhood position, and what benefit it perceives to accrue from its relationship with the Brotherhood.

Abdullah Baabood led a session on the role of Oman during the crisis. Baabood stated that Oman has been caught in the crossfire during the blockade, and while the leadership of Oman has tried to balance its relations with its various Gulf neighbors, the Omani public has demonstrated a more openly pro-Qatar stance in the midst of the crisis. While Kuwait played a more proactive role to play in mediating between the UAE/Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Oman has demonstrated an active interest in supporting a resolution of the ongoing dispute. Oman has a more complex and multicultural make-up than most of its GCC neighbours, as well as a different pattern of historical development, which has made its leaders more attuned to the need for compromise and peaceful accommodation. Oman is also suffering economic strains, which has been worsened by plummeting oil prices, and is facing increasing pressure from its own citizenry for better employment and financial conditions. Powerful neighbors like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have taken advantage of this and at times have further manipulated the situation to gain an upper hand. Economic concerns and domestic political stability are occupying most of the Omani leadership’s attention, which leaves it with little capacity to actively engage in resolving regional issues or taking a very strong stand in the matter.

Juan Cole focused on Iran’s role in the GCC crisis. Cole suggested that Iranian-Qatari relations are not usually of any great significance or importance to either state, but every once in a while relations are galvanized as was seen at the onset of the breakdown in GCC relations. Iran is not a militarily aggressive state, nor does it have hegemonic interests in Qatar, although occasionally there are tensions with Qatar in regards to the North Field gas reserves, which are shared by both states. In Syria, Iran and Qatar have been supporting opposite sides in the conflict, not due to ideological reasons, Cole suggested, but because Iran has critical, realist interests in the preservation of the Assad regime. Cole stated that it would be beneficial to the exciting literature to carry out a study on whether there is any long term traction to the Iran-Qatar relationship—will Qatar aim to strengthen and develop its economic and political relationship with Iran, or was the closeness early on in GCC crisis just a temporary marriage of convenience? Is there something significant in terms of the GCC crisis serving as a turning point in Qatar-Iran relations, or will this continue to be a relationship based on ambiguities?

Bulent Aras shed light on the role of Turkey during the crisis, and specifically its active support for Qatar as opposed to Saudi Arabia. It is important to study Turkey’s military presence, military cooperation, and joint defense arrangements with Qatar during the crisis, and what it signifies about Turkey’s expanding role in the region. Turkey’s deployment of military personnel to Qatar after the blockade directly provoked concern from NATO and European states. But whether the surge in Turkish military presence in Qatar was done out of genuine and strategic considerations or merely for symbolic reasons requires deeper analysis. Do Turkey’s growing military and economic relations with Qatar reflect the AK Party’s broader ideology of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, or have these relations expanded as a result of other strategic and realist interests? Aras adduced that it may be a combined reflection of both nationalism and ideology that is driving this relationship, while also remembering that perhaps the support to Qatar is being extended mainly by Erdogan and the AK Party rather than the country itself.

Jocelyn Mitchell discussed how the Gulf crisis has led to reconfigurations in Qatari national identity, as well as different forms of expressions of nationalism. Mitchell suggested that nationalism can be conceptualized and studied at many different levels. In one respect, nationalism is ideational and serves as an ideology of who belongs and who does not to a particular imagined political community. Civic nationalism is constructed and developed, comes with various legal criteria and legal instruments, and is based on rights and duties of states and citizens towards each other. Civic nationalism can be more exclusive or more inclusive, based on how it is legally defined. Ethnic nationalism tends to be innately more bounded, as is based on common language and shared cultural heritage, which means it is hard to include broader groups within it. The sorts of nationalism that emerge in different contexts and eras change. This change, Mitchell suggested depends on lived experiences of social groups, and the means by which states try to develop or integrate parts of both civic and ethnic nationalism.

Following on from the GCC crisis, Mitchell suggested three particular areas of research regarding Qatari nationalism. First, to what extent is nationalism and national identity in Qatar changing, especially from one based on a regional ethnic narrative to one that is local ethnic and/or local civic national narratives? Second, if the various Qatari social groups are being incorporated into a new form of nationalism, how is this being done, and what are the mechanisms for new inclusions? Lastly, if the forms of nationalism and national identity are changing in Qatar, in what areas are these changes occurring, especially in the political and legal realms, or in terms of new socio-cultural behavior and norms?

The working group’s final presentation was by Justin Gengler. Gengler discussed the importance of public opinion, especially as a powerful tool for gathering data. Although Qataris have remained politically supportive of their state, especially since 2017, research needs to be conducted on various aspects of public opinion, especially citizens’ negative response to the payment of taxes; how many people blame the state for the crisis; whether or not social relations between citizens and non-citizens have changed; and the changes in tribal differences within the society. Gengler believed that these questions would return interesting results and seeking answers to them is essential to understanding the blockade.

The scholars discussed a range of issues related to the blockade and also identified key gaps in research. The issues discussed at the working group included the role of various countries, their ties with Qatar, and the use of tools such as public opinion.

To view the working group agenda, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Abdullah Al-Arian, Georgetown University in QatarAlanoud Al-Maadid, Qatar UniversityMuna Al-Marzouqi, Qatar UniversityIan Almond, Georgetown University in QatarBulent Aras, Sabancı University, TurkeyAbdullah Baabood, University of Cambridge, UKZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarChaïmaa Benkermi, Georgetown University in QatarJuan R.I. Cole, University of Michigan, USJustin Gengler, Qatar University Islam Hassan, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJocelyn Sage Mitchell, Northwestern University in QatarKhushboo Shah, Georgetown University in QatarJames Reardon-Anderson, Georgetown University in QatarDavid B. Roberts, King’s College London, UKElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSteven Wright, Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar

Article by Islam Hassan, Research Analyst at CIRS

The History and Evolution of American Torture and Secret Prisons (1898–2008)
2019-04-16 12:45 - 14:00
GU-Qatar senior Ritica Ramesh presented her thesis research at a CURA Focused Discussion on April 3, 2019, in a talk entitled “History and Evolution of American Torture and Black Sites (1898–2008).” Ramesh outlined the history of the US government’s use of torture as an official policy in its warfare, going back to the Philippine-American War of 1898. Her initial interest in this topic developed during a semester abroad at Georgetown’s main campus in Washington, DC, when she was researching the criminal justice system, prisons, and punishment in the US.

Ramesh takes the cases of the Philippine-American War (1898–1902), the Vietnam War (1965–1972), and the Global War on Terror (2001–present), to demonstrate how the US government has devoted massive resources to the study and development of torture, and how various techniques have evolved over the last century—including the construction of “the ideal physical space in which to conduct torture,” she said.

Ramesh explained that although the United Nations Convention against Torture includes the physical and psychological aspects of torture in its definition of the term, it is difficult to find a concrete definition of torture due to the political nature of the practice, and because the definition has changed throughout history. Another important term is “black sites,” which she said are “usually—but not always—classified facilities that operate in an extralegal capacity, where clandestine military or intelligence operations are carried out.” The definition of black sites is contested and does not constitute a legal term; this is important because the US government has used black sites extensively to carry out torture.

“After the abolishment of slavery in 1865, torture against African Americans became more institutionalized, and this continued in the form of convict leasing and chain gangs.”

While Ramesh’s primary thesis was on torture conducted by the US government abroad during wartime, the development of torture in early American history took place on American soil. “American torture is closely linked to the domination of Native Americans as well as African Americans,” she said. As part of a domestic imperial project, American military forces frequently targeted indigenous peoples through reservation policies imposed in the late 1700s. During this time, people were forced into concentration camps, starved for days on end, and torture was used as a form of punishment, she said.

Slaves, especially Africans, faced horrendous abuses throughout American history. Slavery was a form of torture, along with practices such as branding people with hot metal, brutal beatings, and rape. Ramesh reported, “After the abolishment of slavery in 1865, torture against African Americans became more institutionalized, and this continued in the form of convict leasing and chain gangs.” She pointed out that in the American south, African Americans “were arrested for pretty much just existing,” and were compelled to perform exhaustive labor without pay under the convict lease system. When that practice was banned, another exploitative scheme arose—that of chain gangs. These are examples of how “the use of torture very much existed in America much before the American colonial project moved abroad,” Ramesh said.

“When the American colonial project began in 1898, America brought with it a very punitive system of policing and punishment that it fully exploited in the Philippines,” Ramesh said. During the Philippine-American War, “local Filipinos were seen as savages who needed harsh methods in order to be civilized like the whites. This really drove much of the American ideology during the Philippine-American War,” Ramesh said.

Interrogators in the Philippines experimented with torture techniques, including stress positions and beatings, and many Filipinos were imprisoned in concentration camps, where overcrowding, starvation, and diseases were very common, according to Ramesh. One of the foremost torture techniques used for the purposes of obtaining confessions in the Philippines was the “water cure,” in which water was forced into a victim’s throat and nose to induce a sensation of drowning. It is extremely painful and known to cause severe psychological trauma. This was a precursor to the torture technique known as waterboarding today, which is illegal under US and international law. However, the Central Intelligence Agency was discovered using waterboarding in secret prisons following the 9/11 attacks, justified as “enhanced interrogation.”

By the Vietnam War, other torture methods had been developed, particularly psychological control. The US government created a program called MKUltra, which studied the usefulness of LSD and other drugs for the purposes of interrogation and torture. The Phoenix Program marked the first time in American history that the government recognized the importance of conducting torture in a specialized physical space. Additionally, Ramesh reported, the US Army and the CIA created interrogation manuals that were used in military training curricula beginning in the late 1980s, but especially after 9/11 to increase effectiveness of torture in places like Guantanamo Bay. “The practice of torture abroad as well as in the domestic sphere are closely interlinked and cannot be separated,” she said.

After 9/11, the CIA opened black sites all around the world, including in Thailand, Afghanistan, Cuba, and Iraq, Ramesh said. However, when these illegal sites were discovered, public anger over US torture practices drove the government to establish floating prisons, which allowed the military to evade international law as well as domestic law, and the practice of torture was continued.

President Trump was vocal about his positive views on torture during the election campaign and throughout his presidency. Although a US senate investigation found that torture is not actually effective, Ramesh said, Trump has openly said that he would bring back the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program and water boarding, because he believes that it works. The rise of international law and norms has not deterred the use of torture, Ramesh said, but it has only encouraged the US government to come up with new evasive strategies.

Ritica Ramesh (class of 2019) is a Georgetown University in Qatar senior majoring in International History with a certificate in American Studies. She served as president of the Human Rights Club and was a founding member of the Future is Female Program. Her main research interests are American history, and the US criminal justice system.

Article by Abdul Rehmaan Qayyum, CURA Research Assistant

Firat Oruc CIRS Faculty Publication Workshop
2019-06-10 09:00 - 17:00
On June 10, 2019, CIRS hosted a Faculty Publication Workshop for Firat Oruc, Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at Georgetown University in Qatar, to discuss his forthcoming book Petromodernity and Film: A Cultural History of the Moving Image in the Arabian Peninsula. Several cinema studies scholars were invited to read parts of the manuscript, and to share their critiques with the author and each other during the one-day meeting. The research pivots around a key, yet unanswered, question: in what ways is the moving image a key source for tracing the cultural and political history of the Arabian Peninsula in the aftermath of the discovery of oil? Although film emerged in the last century as one of the most pervasive forms of communication, its social, historical, and cultural role in the early formations of hydrocarbon modernity in the Arabian Peninsula is yet to be explored.

With the recent regional and global rise of the Arabian Peninsula as a financial and political power, the establishment of film industries has been a shared ambition across these countries. As emergent new players in the regional as well as global media landscape, these countries have not yet achieved a commercially successful and globally influential film industry but have begun laying the foundations for a more sustainable cinematic infrastructure. These efforts toward the development of a film industry not only vary from one country to another but also take place on a peculiar terrain, where financial capacity clashes with “cultural conservatism;” the backing of the rentier state with abrupt official interventions; commercial goals with the arthouse model of the festival circuits; and global ambitions with local constraints. This project places the current Gulf cinema phenomenon in a historical context. The historical dimension brings forth important genealogies of film culture that are rooted in the early formations of hydrocarbon modernity in the region.

This project traces the history of film and visual representation in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula—namely, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia—in six stages: 1) The colonial emergence of cinema in the Arab Gulf in the 1930s under the regulation and monitoring of the British network of administrative personnel; 2) The use of film for publicity and propaganda purposes by the British Empire’s Gulf stations in the 1940s; 3) The production of documentary films by petroleum companies in the 1950s and 60s to represent (make visible) “the magic of oil;” 4) Visual ethnography and expedition films of the Arabian Peninsula by Western travelers, sailors, anthropologists, and archeologists; (5) The use of “militant filmmaking” to support left-leaning popular movements that emerged in the region in the 1960s and 70s; and 6) The emergence of indigenous filmmaking after independence. I argue that the history of the moving image through these stages and beyond offers us an important critical lens to analyze the modern development of Arabian societies and cultures.

The project’s primary objectives: The primary objective of the project is to analyze the historical development film and visual culture in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula; namely, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The project will offer a narrative of the modern development of Arabian societies and cultures through their visual representation.

Scholarly impact: This project will be the first comprehensive study of the history of film and visual culture in the Arabian Peninsula. It will make a unique original contribution to the scholarship on the cultural history of Arabia, on the one hand, and to world cinema studies, on the other. As such, the project promises to be a key reference source for scholars specializing in these fields. The project is also directly relevant to Qatari society and furthers the priorities established in the Qatar National Vision by constructing a visual cultural history of Qatar (along with other Gulf countries).

Expected outcomes of the project: The project is planned as a monograph for publication with Cornell University Press Persian Gulf Studies series.

To view workshop agenda click hereTo view Participants biographies click here

Participants and Discussants:

Hend F. Alawadhi, Kuwait University

Dale Hudson, New York University Abu DhabiMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSheetal Majithia, New York University Abu DhabiBindu Menon, Delhi University

Negar Taymoorzadeh, New York UniversityAlia Yunis, Zayed University

Russia and the Middle East Working Group II
2019-08-25 21:30 - 2019-08-26 17:00
On August 25-26 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the second working group under its research initiative on “Russia and the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, the convened scholars presented and received feedback on their papers that tackled a wide array of issues, including: Russia’s Middle East Policy, Russia and GCC relations; Russia and the Yemeni civil war, Russian-Iranian relations, Russia and the Maghreb, migration between Russia and the Middle East, Russian intervention in the Syrian conflict, and Russia’s state-Islam relationship.

Leonid Issaev initiated the working group discussion with his paper, on “Domestic Factors in Russia’s Middle East Policy.” In his paper, Issaev argues that analyses of Russia’s policy towards the Middle East need to be aware of the influence of Russian domestic politics on foreign policymaking. Particularly during President Putin’s second presidential term, domestic politics has been significant in determining Russian foreign policy. Following the end of the Cold War, Russia’s desire to avoid confrontation with the United States and as well as their preoccupation with internal matters meant that the Middle East occupied the periphery of Moscow’s attention. The Middle East began to draw significant interest from the Russian leadership Moscow with the onset of the Arab uprisings in 2011-2012. Domestic factors such as the protests against the results of the State Duma elections as well as the impact of lower oil prices on the Russian economy served to make the Middle East more important for Russia. Issaev suggests in his paper that Vladimir Putin also needed a new narrative for public mobilization during his third term in office, and engagement in the Middle East served this purpose well. For a number of reasons, Putin’s foreign policy on the Middle East has gained popularity and support from the political elite. However, Issaev concludes his paper by suggesting that in the current moment, the Russian public, especially the youth, are less interested in foreign policy and more concerned with critical domestic matters.

Elizabeth Wanucha presented Viacheslav Morozov’s paper on “Russia’s View of the Post-Cold War Global Order and its Policy in the Middle East.” The paper examines the significance of the Middle East for Russia as it has emerged within the Post-Cold War global order. The author argues that, despite the end of the Cold War, Russia’s relations with the West continue to influence its view of global affairs, and this includes how Russia positions itself in the Middle East. The chapter provides a genealogical account of Russia’s current engagements in the Middle East and focuses particularly on the drivers behind Moscow’s military intervention in Syria. Supporting the core argument of Issaev’s paper, Morozov suggests that Russian foreign policy is also influenced by domestic factors. As historical evidence of this, Morozov draws attention to Russia’s backing for the US intervention during the first Gulf war, suggesting that this was possible as at that time domestic political forces in Russia were decidedly pro-Western. The decision to support President Bashar Al-Assad against the general tide of the US and Western states backing the Syrian opposition was also partially made possible due to a change within Russian domestic politics and the anti-Western sentiments on the rise. The author concludes that Russia’s relationship with the United States and its allies will continue to drive future Russian foreign policymaking. However, challenging internal economic conditions, mounting strains on the social security system and increasing domestic protest might mean that Russian authorities are less able to confront the United States and will need to adopt a more measured approach.

Sergey Markedonov’s paper also combines domestic issues with foreign policymaking, as his paper examines “Russia’s State-Islam Relationship: Significance for the Middle East.” Markedonov studies the evolution of Russian foreign policy towards the Middle East through the lens of the state’s complex relationship with domestic Islam. Russia’s position of deliberate non-intervention in the Middle East has transformed considerably over the years, as its direct role in Syria clearly demonstrates. Markedonov suggests that one of the drivers for Russia’s activist role in the Middle East is the concern that Russian leadership has over the transnational mobilization capacity of political Islam. For the Russian state, transnational political Islam is seen as threatening primarily due to its indigenous Muslim population. The paper suggests that while there is a lack of adequate data regarding certain estimates suggest that the Muslim population of Russia is around 16-25 million people. The Russian state has a strong role in controlling Islam within the state and has clear red lines regarding what it considers to be unofficial Islam versus “traditional” or state-recognized Islam. Russia’s relationship with Middle Eastern states is at least partially based on its desire to control external influences that might influence its population of Muslim citizens, and particularly to suppress any political mobilization or radicalization on the basis of Islam.

Zahra Babar presented Mark N. Katz’s paper entitled “Different but Similar: Comparing Moscow’s Middle East Policies in the Cold War and Putin Eras.” In his paper, Katz examines and compares the Soviet era and Putin’s foreign policies towards the Middle East. Katz argues that the successes and failures of Moscow’s Middle Eastern foreign policies have occurred not only as a result of their deliberate efforts or mistakes but also because of the contexts and conditions in which they were developed and launched. Russia’s efforts in the Middle East have either been hampered or aided by policies pursued by the US and other actors. Katz also suggests that despite the great efforts that the Soviet Union made to engage in the Middle East, it can be argued that the Putin regime has actually managed to develop a better position for itself than the USSR ever did. With its clearly defined strong alliances that were ideologically based, the Soviet Union suffered in its ability to reach out to many other states that were in the US or Western alliance system during the Cold War. Some of the successes of Putin’s foreign policy in the Middle East can be attributed to the fact that Putin has managed to establish cordial relations with many different Middle Eastern states and stakeholders, through its strategy of balancing its multiple relationships without any ideological drivers. However, Katz does conclude that whether all these relationships will actually enhance or strengthen Russian interests in the region remains unknown at this stage. Russia today does not demonstrate the means or capacity to ensure resolution to regional conflicts it is engaged in, and without that and a return to stability the investments it has made may not necessarily pay off in any meaningful way.

Andrei Korobkov shifted the discussion to “Migration between the Middle East and Russia and the Post-Soviet Space: Structure, Scale, and Dynamics.” Korobkov’s paper looks at the forces at work in terms of migration flows between the Middle East and Russia as well as parts of the former Soviet Union (FSU). The collapse of the of USSR created six Muslim majority states that resulted in the creation of inter-regional migration patterns that have evolved into forms of international migration today. The author focused on flows of migrants from the Middle East to both Russia as well as other parts of the FSU. Korobkhov suggests that there is a potential for the development of existing chains of migration between the two regions that include emigration, immigration, and migrant transit. The types of migrant exchange that exists between the two regions include, trade migrations, both forced and voluntary, refugees, elite migrations such as students and highly skilled migrants, investment migration, labors, as well as traditional migration for settlement which primarily relates to Jewish Russians emigrating to Israel. The paper maintains that majority of these migration patterns are newly created and the percentage of exchange is currently low, with small numbers of people migrating from the Middle East to Russia and the FSU, and vis versa. These new migration corridors have a potential for expansion and diversification. However, this would require the formation of supportive migration policies, internal reforms, and simplification of visa and work permit acquisition in Russia.

Ghoncheh Tazmini presented a paper on “Iran: A Strategic Partner or a Provisional Counterweight?” Tazmini’s paper, which provides an in-depth discussion of Iranian-Russian relations, states that despite consistent contradicting strategic and ideological stances and frequently conflicting interests, Russia and Iran share a similar critical view of a global order that exists under Western hegemony. These similar views are shaped by both states’ historical experiences as ex-Imperial powers, geographic realities, and worldviews that stand in contrast to those imposed by Western-mandated norms of international relations. The author argues that within Russia’s challenge to the universality of the US-led liberal international order, Iran stands as a critical partner. Tazmini highlights that there is a methodological gap in the existing literature that does not factor in the role of ideas and identity in foreign policy, which is key to understanding Iran and Russia’s complex relationship. The paper sheds light on different areas of cooperation and solidarity between the two nations and looks at the patterns of convergence. The author concludes that for Russia, Iran is a strategic partner, and more than a bargaining chip to be leveraged to as part of Moscow’s mission to challenge the Western liberal international order.

Samuel Ramani discussed his paper on “Russia and the Yemeni Civil War.” Ramani’s article looks at the Russian policy of strategic non-alignment in the Yemeni civil war, which is in contrast to their military assertiveness in Syria. Russia’s stance of non-alignment has made it stand out from other nationals involved in the conflict and enabled it to have amiable diplomatic relations with different factions involved in the civil war i.e. President’s Hadi’s coalition, which is recognized by the UN as the legitimate government in Yemen and is backed by the Saudis, the Houthis, who control Northern Yemen and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which has UAE’s support. The author states that this has helped Moscow gain the image of a potential referee and dialogue facilitator, as well as an important partner to reach any post-conflict resolution to the civil war. This has also situated Russia in a better situation to assume a greater role in securing oil exports through Bab el-Mandeb. The chapter also analyses Russia’s role in the Yemeni civil war and the impact it is having on its strengthening relationship with Iran and the impact on Moscow’s partnership with different Gulf monarchies. The paper concludes that though Russia has gained achievements through its stance of non-alignment in the Yemeni civil war, its successes are not entirely unquestionable and articulates how their policy would convert into an actual vision of peace settlement in Yemen.

Misba Bhatti presented Roy Allison’s paper on “Russian Normative Claims for its Intervention in the Syrian Conflict since 2015.” Allison argues that analyses of the Russian intervention in Syria, since 2015, lacks attention to legal and normative claims that the Russians have used to justify the major use of force in Syria. These claims are important, as they are not just abstract and juridical but have political and policy consequences. Moscow has tried to construct a convincing legal and normative case to gain the support of the states from the region and international community under the banners of counter-terrorism and upholding the Syrian state sovereignty. Russian leadership asserts that their intervention in Syria is “lawful” and “rightful” on the bases of intervention by invitation by the legitimate Syrian government. Moscow uses this card to question the legality of western state’s military strikes on Syrian territory, to deflect negative criticism received on the annexation of Crimea and to convey the legality of their intervention to its domestic political elites and public. Despite these efforts, Russia has received heavy critique from the international community, regarding the political legitimacy of the military operations, the legal authority of the Assad’s invitation and the gross violations against civilians by Assad regime. Allison states that despite Russia’s diplomatic response to these criticisms, Moscow has suffered serious reputation damage among many Middle Eastern states and its legal and normative claims have had little impact in convincing Middle Eastern public of the legitimacy of Russia’s military involvement in Syria.

Nikolay Kozhanov discussed “The Drivers of Russia-GCC Relations Post-2011.” Kozhanov discusses that after the Arab uprisings of 2011, a complex mixture of factors drive and impact the Russian-GCC relations. These include the ever-changing US-Russian relations, evolution of the energy markets, growing Russian presence in the region, regional rivalry and GCC-US relations. The author looks at Russian relation with two Gulf monarchies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar during the Arab Spring and Russia’s active support to Assad’s regime and states that though there was a period of geostrategic opposition, the channels of dialogue resumed in 2015 and now demonstrates a tendency of normalization. Russia’s growing involvement in GCC is concentrated in three arenas; first is political, to promote Russian option and stance on the world order, and create leverage to affect US and EU behavior, second economic, to ease pressure on Russian economy due to sanctions, involvement in OPEC+ and protect Russian interests in energy market and lastly security, to reduce and counter-terrorist threat emerging from the Middle East. The paper concludes that there is a limit on Moscow’s capacities to develop these relations further, as they are closely tied to Western approaches to the region and Moscow’s ability to fulfill its role as the regional broker. Also tied to this is Russia’s domestic policies that might affect the political relations with the GCC.

Yahia Zoubir shifted the discussion to “Making Up Lost Time: Russia and the Maghreb.” Zoubir draws attention to Russia’s increasing involvement in the Maghreb and argues that the Russian involvement in the region never completely ceased to exist but only diminished during the period when Russia was going through internal domestic problems. The paper looks at the history of Russian-Maghreb relations, particularly the central Maghreb, i.e., Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and states that Putin has been able to capitalize on Soviet efforts in the region, to build a stronger Russian presence. Moscow has reestablished associations with Algeria and establish ties with traditional pro-Western allies, such as Morocco and Tunisia. Zoubir highlights that the main reasons for Russia’s growing presence in the Maghreb is its aspiration to reaffirm itself as a superpower and align countries in the region towards its anti-hegemonic sphere against the West. Moscow’s interest in the Maghreb also lies in its counter-terrorism efforts as well as being a market for Russian armaments and military equipment. For the Maghreb, Russia provides a credible counterweight to the US and is better received, as it does not impose any ideological conditionality. Zoubir concludes that though Russia cannot compete with China in terms of the resources it can provide, it is establishing a strategic presence in the Maghreb.

It is worth mentioning that CIRS plans to publish the aforementioned papers in an edited volume in the near future.

To view the working group agenda, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarLeonid Issaev, National Research University in Moscow, Russia Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAndrei Korobkov, Middle Tennessee State University, USNikolay Kozhanov, Qatar University Sergey Markedonov, Euro-Atlantic Security Center at the MGIMO Institute for International Studies, RussiaJoshua Mitchell, Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSamuel Ramani, University of Oxford, UKJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarGhoncheh Tazmini, London Middle East Institute at SOAS, UKElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarYahia H. Zoubir, KEDGE Business School, France

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

Karine Walther on "American Missionaries, ARAMCO, and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889-1955"
2019-09-18 18:00 - 20:00
Karine Walther is Associate Professor of History at GU-Q, and a 2019–2020 CIRS Faculty Fellow. During her fellowship at CIRS, Walther is completing research on American missions in Saudi Arabia at the end of the nineteenth century and the ways in which the groundwork they laid over subsequent decades paved the way for American oil interests in the area. She presented her talk, “Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries, ARAMCO, and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889–1955,” also the title of her forthcoming book, at a CIRS Dialogue lecture on September 18, 2019.

Walther outlined the historical and ideological ties linking American religious, commercial, and political interests in the Middle East, beginning in 1889, when medical missionaries under the Reformed Church of America (RCA) arrived in the Arabian Peninsula as the “Arabian Mission.” Western medicine was the primary tool used in the missionaries’ efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity, and, within a couple decades, several mission stations and hospitals were opened in Basra (Iraq), Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman. By the end of World War I, the Mission had become the most important source of western medicine in the Arabian Gulf.

Using the Mission’s foundational documents, Walther demonstrated how the missionaries’ religious beliefs overlapped with secular understandings of the world at the time. Arabian societies had been placed on a ladder of historical development, in which “the United States was understood as occupying the most advanced rung, with a religious and moral duty to bring about the advancement of non-Christian societies,” she said. In addition to medical work, the missionaries opened schools at their mission stations to teach children the English language and industrial skills along with Christian biblical lessons.

Over time, the RCA missionaries forged close relationships with Gulf rulers, including the founder of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, whom they met in 1914. Over the next three decades, the missionaries provided medical treatment to Ibn Saud, his family, and his soldiers. Walther reported that British political agents in the Gulf were, at the time, concerned about increased American political influence brought by the missionaries, given that establishing hospitals and public health programs was a tactic also employed by the British Empire to solidify its political control in the region.

According to Walther, “American oil developers benefited directly from the missionaries’ network of contacts, and later relied on their cooperation in advancing their strategic interests in the area.” The connection between American missionary work and the granting of oil concessions was made explicit in 1933, she said, when Ibn Saud signed a concession with Standard Oil—later ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company). Walther quoted the ruler’s own words: “The British want our oil … but wherever they go they take over. Our experience with Americans has been nothing but good. They’ve helped us. They’ve come here and served us. So I’ve given my concession to the Americans.”

Walther found substantial claims of America’s many contributions to Saudi Arabia’s development in a public relations book commissioned by ARAMCO in 1955—a time when the company was being accused of economic imperialism. Yet, Wallace Stegner’s Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil, contained no acknowledgment of the missionaries’ role in the country’s development. “ARAMCO had coopted missionary rhetoric about progress and development and adopted the public health and education programs they had put in place in the five decades preceding the arrival of American oilmen in Arabia,” she said. Furthermore, while celebrating ARAMCO’s “benevolent presence” in Saudi Arabia, the book also ignored the company’s well known exploitative and racialized labor practices, she said.

According to Walther, Discovery! maintained that ARAMCO’s development work served as a “private Four Point program” in Saudi Arabia. This was in reference to US President Truman’s 1949 Point Four program calling for aid to help the Global South become “modern.” Under this Cold War policy, technical assistance was provided to developing countries in an array of fields such as science, agriculture, education, and economics. Walther said, “Modernity in this case was largely defined by the United States’ own strategic interests, the most important of these being the adoption of free market capitalism.” The primary goal of the Point Four program was to ensure developing countries aligned with the US in its ideological battle against Soviet Communism, she said.

RCA missionaries reflected wider trends in the mission field, Walther said, which maintained that missionaries should learn local languages and customs and study the religious faiths of the people they were trying to convert. As such, “in the first decade of the twentieth century, this type of missionary education would become more organized, more institutionalized, and more global,” she said. Thus, specialized schools were opened for the purpose of training missionaries in theological seminaries throughout the US, including at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. At the same time, the British opened schools such as the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for the purposes of training future imperial officers. “This tells us quite a bit about the difference between British and American interests in the Middle East during this time period,” Walther said.

Knowledge about the Middle East was becoming increasingly important to Americans, and, after WWII, ARAMCO also saw the advantage of its executives understanding the languages, history, religious beliefs, and cultures of Arabia, Walther reported. By the late 1940s, the US Department of State began calling for the creation of Middle Eastern Studies departments in American universities, “again driven by the goal of advancing American strategic interests in the Middle East,” she said. ARAMCO strongly backed these efforts and contributed substantial funding for these academic programs, Walther noted. Universities, in turn, relied on existing experts in the field, which included ARAMCO executives, US Department of State officials, British orientalists, and former missionaries.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, ARAMCO dramatically expanded its industrial education programs in Saudi Arabia to train young Arabs to work for ARAMCO. It also enlarged its medical facilities and set up malaria eradication programs—initiatives similar to those established by the Mission in previous decades. By the mid-1950s, the missionaries’ cooperation with ARAMCO brought unintended consequences that would make their own work obsolete in Arabia. Medical missionaries began competing with new facilities and hospitals provided by oil companies and governments. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Arabian Mission closed most of its hospitals and missionary stations due in part to this redundancy.

In conclusion, and “unsurprisingly, the missionaries’ goals of using technology to convert and ‘occupy’ Arabia were never realized,” Walther said. Even though Americans working for ARAMCO had more success in achieving their goals, they too would be forced to leave eventually. “The United States may have succeeded in spreading a certain faith to the Saudi State, but it was a faith in capitalism, not Christianity, that eventually won out,” she said.

Karine Walther is Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University in Qatar. She is the author of Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821–1921 (UNC Press, 2015). Her second book, Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries, ARAMCO and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889-1955, will be published in 2020 by University of North Carolina Press. Walther is a CIRS Faculty Fellow for the 2019/2020 academic year.

Summary by Jackie Starbird, CIRS Publications and Projects Assistant

CURA Seminar: Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East
2019-09-26 12:00 - 15:00
On September 26, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a CURA Seminar under its CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement initiative. During the seminar, CURA Fellows came together for an active discussion of research papers that were submitted to CIRS research initiative on “Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East.” The papers were critiqued, and the collective feedback was gathered, which was later shared with the research working group. CURA was introduced to support the research needs of undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Qatar, and to provide them with opportunities to enhance their research skills by discussing and analyzing papers from CIRS research initiatives.

Irene Ann Promodh (Class of 2021) opened the CURA seminar by presenting Esfandyar Batmanghelidj’s paper titled “The Ins and Outs of Iranian Industrial Resiliency under Sanctions.” The paper explores Iran’s economic situation and ability to sustain its industrial input under sanctions by analyzing the trade patterns between Iran, China, and Europe through graphical and statistical data. The author discusses the concept of re-export, which focuses on the trade patterns between Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through which Iran has been able to maintain its supply of European Industrial inputs. The main critique of the paper by the discussants is the structure and lack of explanation of graphs and observed data that describes the trade patterns between Iran and other countries.

Shaza Afifi (Class of 2022) presented Ashraf Mishrif’s paper titled “GCC’s Unsettled Policy for Economic Integration.” Mishrif examines factors explaining the retreat of economic integration in the GCC through the analysis of global and regional challenges. The paper evaluates the strength and capacity of the GCC as a union and explores how the setbacks of the European Union with Brexit, and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) affected regional economic integration globally. He argues that economic integration, in GCC, is undermined by the slow pace of political integration, lack of a monetary union, and the blockade imposed on Qatar in 2017. The main critique of the paper by the discussants is the lack of in-depth exploration and analysis of the GCC region that affected economic integration.

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. After the discussions, two CURA fellows, AbdulRehmaan Qayyum (Class of 2021) and Khushboo Shah (Class of 2022), served as ambassadors to the “Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East” working group and shared the comments and critique brought up at the CURA seminar.

For the participants’ biographies, please click here

Article by Salma Hassabou, CIRS Administrative Fellow

Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East Working Group II
2019-09-29 09:30 - 16:30
On September 29, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the second working group under its research initiative on “Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East.” During the meeting, the convened scholars presented and received feedback on their papers that tackled a wide array of issues, including: economic integration in the Levant and GCC, the Iranian economy under sanctions, fiscal decentralization in the Islamic Republic of Iran and anti-extractivist social movements and re-envisioning the political economy in North Africa.

Ashraf Mishrif commenced the working group discussion with his paper on, “The GCC’s Unsettled Policy for Economic Integration.” The paper presents a broad picture of the political-economic (dis)integration of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since its inception in 1981. The study suggests that the GCC’s ineffective institutional structure and the lack of political will among its member states to implement and reinforce coordinated policies are the main factors that have led to a lack of meaningful integration. Mishrif suggests that currently, at a global level, there is a retreat from regionalism, as can be seen in some of the leading organizations such as the EU and NAFTA. While to retain relevance for its regional integration mission, the GCC must strengthen its institutional structure. Currently, the domestic political environment of its member states makes it unlikely that this can occur. GCC member states lack fundamental institutional components, such as elected parliaments and legislative bodies, which are needed to institute supranational policy-making. Mishrif also states that ideological differences, the rise of ambitious young leaders in Gulf ruling families, and differing foreign policy interests demonstrated by GCC member states have shown that politics and national interest trump economic logic when it comes to the GCC. The paper concludes that there is a low interregional trade between the member states (sixten percent in total) and that there is a need to reexamine and reevaluate the process of integration.

Angela Joya shifted the discussion to North Africa, with her paper, “Alter-globalization in the Middle East and North Africa: The Case of Anti-Extractivism in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.” Joya argues that the rise of new grass root rural movements in North Africa indicates that marginalized communities in the Middle East are beginning to press against processes of globalization and neoliberal economic logic. Joya’s paper presents a series of case-studies of different rurally-based social movements in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, as examples of how people are rejecting neoliberal authoritarianism. The case studies suggest that local communities are mobilizing around environmental concerns and resource-extraction projects, and are demanding an alternative development model that better serves public needs. Mobilization against phosphate mining in the Gafsa basin in Tunisia, silver mining in Imider, Morocco and the fracking of shale gas in Ain Salah in Algeria, demonstrates that anti-extractivism lies at the core of these social movements. People are protesting against government policies that have not brought enough economic development at the local level, not significantly enhanced the quality of life for the people living in these regions where natural resources are being extracted. Conversely, some of these resource-extraction projects have led to deepening inequality among the local population, have had adverse environmental consequences, depleted local natural resources such as water, and negatively affected health conditions as a result of pollution. Joya argues that these people’s movements in North Africa show that the public is questioning the effectiveness of the growth-based economy model, which, while meant to counter unemployment and bring in investment to the country, has been capital intensive and has had negative consequences for rural communities. Joya states that these movements are broadening the demands for economic, social, and political justice and inclusion of local preferences and knowledge with environmental protection to bring about a change in the current development model.

Kian Tajbakhsh discussed his paper on “The Political Economy of Fiscal Decentralization under the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The article looks at the fiscal decentralization of local government in over 90 cities and municipalities in Iran. Using descriptive data and empirical analysis, the paper provides a detailed study of Iranian municipal finances and examines the extent to which fiscal decentralization has led to strengthening local government. In particular, Tajbakhsh questions whether the decentralization policy has created structures of local governance that are more responsive and accountable to voters’ preferences. In 1999, a new reform of establishing elected local government was implemented and backed by four political actors; the ruling Islamists, the Islamic reformists, the developmental Islamists, and the apolitical technocrats. Each had their motivation for supporting decentralization, which led to three distinct projects. The study conducted reveals that the elected municipalities have a narrow set of responsibilities and limited legal autonomy from the central government. Many of the municipalities collect revenues from local sources; however, this revenue decentralization is not accompanied by expenditure decentralization, which has led to a system of “perverse economy.” The author argues that the evolution of the local government in Iran, over the past two decades, can be explained by the theory of local electoral authoritarianism, in which the central government aims to install local electoral institutions to enhance its influence rather than allow dispersal of autonomy.

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj’s paper, “The Ins and Outs of Iranian Industrial Resiliency under Sanctions,” looks at the Iranian economy and industrial resiliency under sanctions and examines the relationship between the availability of industrial inputs and total industrial output and growth of the non-oil exports in Iran. Batmanghelidj argues that the sanctions imposed on Iran have been effective in cutting back Iran’s energy exports. However, for the past fifteen years, Iran has steadily increased its non-oil exports, through which the country is earning its foreign exchange. The increase in non-oil exports also has paved the way for Iran to trade with regional countries, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper looks at how Iran’s imports are being sustained to maintain industrial output. The author identifies a process of “import reflection” through which Iran is able to maintain the availability of industrial input (intermediary and capital inputs) and steadily increase its industrial output. The study examines the trade data of Iran’s main partners, EU, China, UAE, and Turkey and Total Productivity Index of Central Bank of Iran, and demonstrations that the sanctions on Iran temporarily affected the relationship between European industrial exports to Iran and Iranian industrial productivity. However, Iran was able to substitute European industrial inputs with Chinese inputs and re-export required European goods via UAE and Turkey further, which enabled it to stabilize industrial productivity and bypass sanction pressures.

Misba Bhatti presented Imad El-Anis’s article on “Transport Infrastructure and Regional Integration in the Levant.” This chapter contributes to the study of regionalism by investigating the relationship between hard infrastructure and economic integration in the Levant. The author argues that regionalism and economic integration relies on the development of domestic and cross border transport infrastructure. The author assumes that a higher level of trade leads to economic integration, which leads to interdependency and political cooperation and stability. Despite the presence of commercial institutes, tariffs, and international institutions, such as Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA), any previous initiatives to deliver regional public goods and enhance domestic economic progress have been unsuccessful in the Levant. The chapter investigates the physical transportation infrastructure in the Levant and its impact on regionalism by addressing two main questions: 1) What is the condition of domestic and cross-border transport infrastructure in the Levant?; and, 2) What is the relationship between domestic and cross-border transport infrastructure? As a result of the study conducted, the chapter concludes that domestic and cross-border transport infrastructure performance is weak in several of the countries studied and that this weakness hinders regional economic integration.

To view the working group agenda, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Adel Abdel Ghafar, Brookings Doha Center, QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarEsfandyar Batmanghelidj, Bourse & Bazaar, IranMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAngela Joya, University of Oregon, USMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAshraf Mishrif, Sultan Qaboos University, OmanAbdul Rehmaan Qayyum, Georgetown University in QatarKhushboo Shah, Georgetown University in QatarJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarKian Tajbakhsh, Columbia University, USElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

CURA Workshop: The Art of Hearing and Seeing Data
2019-10-10 12:00 - 16:00
On October 10, 2019, CIRS hosted a CURA workshop titled, “The Art of Hearing and Seeing Data: Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods,” by Assistant Professor of Government at GU-Q, Dr. Uday Chandra. The workshop provided participants with an insightful breakdown of the practical fundamentals of qualitative research and data observation. Ranging from freshmen to seniors, the participants actively engaged with the material and discussions led by Prof. Chandra, enabling them to build upon each other’s interpretations of the significance of plausible data across various forms of qualitative research. Through a simple ethnography-inspired observation exercise that students were required to complete prior to the workshop, students were able to contextualize the role of hearing and seeing data at the most rudimentary level, within the overarching theme of conducting qualitative research. As part of the discussion, students compared the sights and sounds they observed in public spaces at various campuses, in comparison with the audio-visual elements of the social atmosphere at the atrium in GU-Q itself, and explored the interactions between independent variables such as academic concentrations and gender ratios.

The workshop initially delved into the basics of quantitative and qualitative research, emphasized that each method has shortcomings, and can be used only to answer certain, specific research questions. Recognizing the “seduction of quantification” and the difficulty of demonstrating causation, not just correlation, and to accurately reflect social reality, enabled participants to contextualize the role of qualitative research methods within the wider framework of data observation. Prof. Chandra also highlighted the pitfalls of qualitative research in its inability to identify macro trends, geospatial mapping of micro-level data, establish patterns for large numbers of cases or variables, or even solve existential problems. Students learned that different methodological approaches should be used to strengthen the certainty of their theses.

Prof. Chandra used a personal example of his doctoral research titled, “Negotiating Leviathan: State-making and Resistance in the Margins of Modern India,” to demonstrate the practical workings of qualitative research. He shared his own experience in overcoming challenges pertaining to fieldwork. Salma Hassabou, CURA Administrative Fellow and workshop participant, commented, “I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Prof. Chandra’s personal experience with qualitative research because much of what we study is mostly theoretical in nature that not everyone knows how to apply it in practical research. The example he shared regarding his fieldwork tied the entire workshop together, and I found it incredibly helpful.”

The workshop also addressed concerns regarding the importance of credible research design and the need for a focused research question. The conversational nature of the workshop also allowed students to engage with the topic very closely and clarify areas of ambiguity within the spheres of both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The workshop had a total of twenty-four participants, and the attendees who successfully completed all required tasks were awarded electronic badges to certify their enrollment and completion of this CURA workshop. CIRS hosts CURA workshops once every semester to encourage student research and to equip the GU-Q student body with the skills and practical knowledge needed to produce original research in the students’ respective fields of interest.

Article by Irene Promodh (class of 2021), CURA Research Fellow

Football in the Middle East Working Group I
2019-10-27 09:00 - 2019-10-28 17:00
On October 27-28, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the inaugural working group for its research initiative on “Football in the Middle East.” The meeting brought together regional and international scholars and experts to discuss some of the understudied areas related to football in the region and to identify original research questions in their respective areas of focus. Over the course of two days a number of topics were discussed, including, football academies, women’s football in Turkey, the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar, beIN and sports broadcasting rights, football management and administration, football players’ perception of national identity, football clubs in Iran, Palestinian football players in Lebanon, youth refugees and football, football and regime legitimization, and football fans and protests in Algeria.

The working group began with Dr. Valter Di Salvo’s talk on Qatar’s strategies to build a high-performance football environment. Dr. Di Salvo, the Director of Football Performance and Science at Aspire Academy, compared the football environment of three countries, Spain, England, and Qatar, and stressed that building a successful football environment in Qatar needed an understanding of the local social context. A seven-goal plan was implemented by Aspire to develop and strengthen the game in Qatar. This included, data collection on a players’ performance and abilities; recruiting a professional group of staff and trainers; assessing the needs of coaches and players; formulating and implementing a training strategy; building of training facilities and assessment labs; integrating knowledge throughout the process; and finally sharing of knowledge with other partners for development of the game. The last goal led to the formation of the Aspire Fellows Community that presently has representation from 50 globally-renowned football clubs and federations and has 260 presentations in its database for knowledge sharing.

Building on the discussion of Qatar’s football development strategy, Dr. Wadih Ishaq spoke about Qatar’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Dr. Ishaq pointed out that while scholars and analysts have addressed football, politics, and socioeconomic issues, there is little work that offers an internal perspective on the World Cup and its implications for Qatari society, economy, and culture. Among other topics, it is important to study sports and education in Qatar, and the long term educational opportunities and job security for athletes.

Simon Chadwick spoke about the off-field management of football and highlighted a study by Jasoor Institute that measured the size of the sports economy in the Middle East. The study examined the broader sports landscape in the region and drew attention to major clubs and federations in the GCC member states. Chadwick suggested that in order to address the question of football management in the GCC, five areas need to be studied; fan engagement, investment, sponsorship, brands and branding, and industrial networks. Professor Chadwick identified a number of core research questions: How can football in the GCC region establish and build sustainable match day attendances? What role in the development of football in the region should investment play? What purpose do the portfolios of GCC region football sponsors serve? Can football club brands in the GCC region ever rival those of their international rivals? How is football contributing to broader industrial challenges facing the GCC region?

Ross Griffin explored the question of national identity and football players of the Qatari national team. The composition of the Qatari team contains a host of players born in countries such as Sudan, Iraq, Algeria, France, and Portugal. Their success as a national team presents the opportunity to revisit the complicated relationship between nationalism, football, and national identity from a player perspective. The identity dilemmas that inevitably ensue when athletes are naturalized has been given significant consideration by scholars of sport and nationalism. Financial gain, cultural affinity, and professional ambition have all been cited as motivating factors influencing an athlete’s decision to switch allegiances. Nevertheless, the majority of these analyses have been undertaken with the construct of a team, the fan, or the nation in mind. Ross Griffin suggested that there is a need to include the subjective perspective of players themselves in their performance of national identity.

John McManus stated that creating a strong legacy for the World Cup was an inherent component of Qatar’s bidding pitch. Training and development of sports administrators and industry experts are part of this legacy. McManus argued that the literature on sports administration often focuses on mega sporting events, and there is very little attention given to other forms of organized sporting competitions. It was suggested that there is a need to examine Qatar’s wider sporting landscape and to look at organizations such as beIN, Qatar Sports League, and Aspire Academy and address their roles when it comes to sporting legacy building. Some of the research questions that were put forward included looking at expatriate games and their administrations; examining what it means to be a sports administrator; exploring the administration of football clubs and federations; What is an event gypsy?; as well as moving away from western-centric literature and focusing on the Middle East specific context.

Craig LaMay drew attention to the beIN network and broadcasting rights in the Middle East. Pay television has changed the way people watch sports in the region, and other broadcasters often view beIN’s monopoly over broadcasting rights as aggressive. The network has 40 percent of global media rights, and these include copyrights and audio/visual rights over broadcasting. However, the network is not just limited to sports channels but also has several entertainment stations. Sixty percent of the content produced is in Arabic, and according to statistics, 66 percent of total viewership over television for the FIFA 2018 World Cup was through beIN sports channels. An understudied area with regards to the beIN network is the entry of the beOUTQ network, which is a pirate pay-television broadcaster and is an example of industrial level piracy of broadcasting. The network not only pirates channels from the beIN network but also channels from Europe and the US. Craig LaMay suggested the need to examine the nature of pay television and the issue of piracy in broadcasting and its implications for beIN in the long run.

The literature on sports gives examples of how sports can be used as a medium through which refugees can be integrated into the social and political fabric of a country. However, this is not always the case, as seen with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The Palestinians in Lebanon are a stateless people, and the football federation in the country has put a cap on the number of Palestinian players that can play in a team. Each club team is allowed to have only one Palestinian player, and they cannot play as a goalkeeper. Palestinian are also restricted from holding property in Lebanon as well as are banned from 30 professions, which is another form of discrimination that they have to face. In response to these restrictions on joining Lebanese football clubs and teams, Palestinians have formed their leagues under which they have formed teams and hold matches. Danyel Reiche’s presentation shed light on these issues and proposed four areas, which could be studied in regards to Palestinian football players, i.e., Palestinian diaspora clubs elsewhere, Palestinian football in Israel, the condition of Palestinians as stateless people in Lebanon and the efforts to gain statehood by recognition. Reiche’s focus would be to examine the cap on players, when and why it was introduced, and discrimination of Palestinian players in Lebanese football.

Middle Eastern rules have frequently used football as a tool for regime legitimization. While much of the literature on this focus on the soft power aspects of football, Abdullah Al-Arian, proposed that there is more to states’ instrumental usage of football than soft power and brand-building. Abdullah Al-Arian suggested that football is used by states to pursue and achieve hard political objectives. States have used football for extending neo-imperial control and power consolidation, regime legitimization, countering threats, political repression, and to mask unpopular regional and domestic policies or sports-washing. None of these forms of legitimization are mutually exclusive, and states have used multiple of these at the same time. Furthermore, emphasis in the literature has been on identifying policies related to the national teams and federations, and not a lot has been written in regards to economic expansion and using clubs and ownership to explain some of these categories.

Maher Mezahi, detailed the history of football in Algeria, with the arrival of the game in the country with colonial rule, the formation of the first Algerian football club and the national team as a tool of protest against the colonizers and the subsequent use of football stadiums to protest against the political regime after independence. Football fans and club ultras express their political, social, and economic demands during matches in forms of songs that they produce and publically distribute. Mehar stated that the protesters who are currently rallying on the streets for regime change replicate the football fan behavior. They gather after Friday prayers, at a famous square, peacefully march around the town in Algiers, sing songs that are produced by football fans, and display anti-government calligraphy and tifos. The support from organized ultras and football fans has enabled the protesters, to organize and execute street protests and overcome the fear of law keepers.

Ramon Spaaij brought the discussion back to football’s role in the development and inclusion of refugees with a focus on youth refugees. Spaaij expressed that there is a Eurocentric focus and bias on the research conducted on the topic and that there is a mismatch between research sites and the locations where the majority of the world’s displaced people reside, with Turkey being the main exception. The reliance on policy categories limits academic research by constraining the type of questions asked, the objects of study, and the methods and analysis adopted. There is a need for research that uncritically accepts the boundaries of the field imposed by policy categories will tend to confirm and legitimize the assumptions made by actors. Some of research gaps that were identified included; over-emphasis on instrumental dimension vs experiential dimension of football, decolonizing research, ethical relationships in research, looking at different innovative methods, strengths-based approaches and reframing of refugees in terms of risk, threat and deficiency and capturing the diverse voices of refugees regarding their own sporting aspirations, needs and achievements as opposed to merely echoing dominant sport policy agendas.

The debate around gender issues and sports, particularly football, is a prevalent theme in the Middle East. The participants looked at female football players in Turkey for the following session. Yagmur Nuhrat identified three areas for further research on the topic; equality for women, with focus on the dynamics of equality rather than justice; knowledge production and better education for female football players; and the issue of space and spatiality and how that relates to the environment of playing fields and neighborhoods. Some of the questions that were put forward were; Can we achieve equality, and what kind of equality are we talking about when it comes to female football players? What are some of the elements of this struggle and resistance? What are the discourses when it comes to physical strength? How women’s’ empowerment is conceptualized by footballers and how they view this discourse? Female athletes may feel physically unsafe if they were not in a structured space. Even if it is exclusionary, how does this structured space create feelings of safety for women?

Alireza Farsi closed the working group meeting, with his presentation on politics and football clubs in Iran. Farsi detailed the playing history of the Iranian national team and explained the structure of the football federation in Iran. Iranian federation has sixteen registered teams, out of which only one is privately owned, whereas the rest of the fifteen teams are owned and managed by the government. It was proposed that the football in Iran needs a component of social responsibility, and the main driver behind should be the privatization of the clubs. Farsi gave an example of the income generated by the Premier League in England and stated that the privatization of the game could bring in economic and industrial growth as well as build up the private sector and cash revenues. The presentation also proposed strategies to initiate social responsibility and privatization plans, which could be applied to various federations across the Middle East.

In conclusion, Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS, thanked the participants for identifying key gaps in the literature on football in the Middle East. It is worth noting that the participants will contribute empirically grounded papers addressing these questions, among others, to be published in an edited volume under the auspices of CIRS.

To view the working group agenda, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Ahmed Abbasi, Qatar Football Association, QatarAbdullah Al-Arian, Georgetown University in QatarNajwa Al-Thani, Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, QatarMohammed Al-Thawadi, Aspire Academy, QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarChaimaa Benkermi, Georgetown University in QatarMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSimon Chadwick, emlyon Business School, FranceValter Di Salvo, Aspire Academy, QatarAlireza Farsi, Shahid Beheshty University, IranRoss Griffin, Qatar UniversitySalma Hassabou, Georgetown University in QatarWadih Ishac, Qatar UniversityMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarCraig LaMay, Northwestern University in QatarJohn McManus, Qatar UniversityMaher Mezahi, Independent Football Journalist, Algeria Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarYagmur Nuhrat, Istanbul Bilgi University, TurkeyIrene Promodh, Georgetown University in QatarAbdul Rehmaan Qayyum, Georgetown University in QatarDanyel Reiche, American University of BeirutKhushboo Shah, Georgetown University in QatarRodney Sharkey, Weill Cornell Medical College in QatarRamon Spaaij, Victoria University, Australia Betsi Stephen, Georgetown UniversityElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

Sport, Politics, and Society in the Middle East
2019-10-28 18:00 - 19:30
The Center for International and Regional Studies launched Sport, Politics, and Society in the Middle East at a CIRS Dialogue Series event on October 28, 2019. The edited volume examines the role that sports have played in the contemporary socioeconomic, cultural, and political milieus of the region. Danyel Reiche, Associate Professor for Comparative Politics at the American University of Beirut, presented an overview of the CIRS research project and the book, which he coedited with Tamir Sorek, Professor of Sociology at the University of Florida.

Reiche began his talk by emphasizing the growing significance of sports in the Middle East, notably in the midst of Qatar’s preparations for the FIFA 2022 World Cup. The increased attention on sports in the Middle East is reflected not only in the media, he said, but also in academia where a “growing body of scholarship, particularly on Qatar,” is shifting to sport studies. Reiche shared his observations of the close ties between the Middle East and the world of sports in the rising number of mega-sport events hosted in the region, for example, and in the sponsorship of European football clubs by Middle Eastern countries, such as Paris Saint-Germain by Qatar and Manchester City by the United Arab Emirates.

The project’s primary research questions considered the factors behind the establishment of sport in the Middle East, whether there were common patterns and dynamics throughout the region, the different roles of sport, and whether sport is serving societal change. Reiche highlighted the uniqueness of the book in terms of the research process employed. Utilizing a range of interdisciplinary social science approaches, the ten authors drew from ethnographic research, academic literature, archival work, interviews, and surveys. The chapters fall under two broad themes: the “politics and economics of sport” and sport as a “contested terrain where struggles over meaning, resources, and rights are fought.”

“Sports in the Middle East are much more than an interesting angle through which to popularize academic themes. As major political and economic forces, they not only reflect, but also shape both individuals’ lives and large-scale social processes.”

The development of modern sports in the Middle East arose in the early twentieth century in urban areas such as Istanbul, Tehran, Cairo, Beirut, and Damascus. According to Reiche, different dynamics were apparent, where “men mainly played football and basketball, while women were particularly into gymnastics.” In the contemporary era, one author used digital ethnography in researching how female athletes in the Middle East presented themselves to the public through their social media accounts. Among the similarities with Western female athletes were the use of these platforms for “self-branding and to raise awareness on the sport,” however, Middle Eastern women tended to “present themselves in a culturally more appropriate manner,” he said.

An audience member asked whether the World Cup might lead to liberalization in Qatar—in the media, for example. Reiche’s response was, “Qatar will liberalize, but on its own terms.” He also shared a “new trend in hosting mega-sporting events,” that is, co-hosting them. For example, the European Football Championship in 2000 co-hosted by Belgium and Holland, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup co-hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico, among others. Whether Middle Eastern countries might co-host mega-sporting events given persistent problems in the region, Reiche suggested a scenario where, for example, Qatar could “host a world championship and then give few matches to a country like Lebanon.”

In conclusion, Reiche stated, “sports in the Middle East are much more than an interesting angle through which to popularize academic themes.” As major political and economic forces, sports “not only reflect, but also shape both individuals’ lives and large-scale social processes,” he said.

Danyel Reiche is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the American University of Beirut. He graduated with distinction from Leibniz University Hannover and joined AUB in 2008 after working as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. His past research focused on energy as well as sport policy and politics, the latter his recent priority. Reiche published Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games (Routledge, 2016) and edited, with Tamir Sorek, Sport, Politics and Society in the Middle East (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2019). His peer-reviewed articles have been published in area study journals such as International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics and Journal of Energy Policy, and in broader-oriented journals such as Third World Quarterly and The Middle East Journal. He has written op-eds for international newspapers such as The Washington Post and Spiegel Online and is frequently interviewed and quoted by major media outlets such as Le Monde and The New York Times. Reiche chairs the Political Studies Association’s Sport and Politics Study Group.

Article by Chaïmaa Benkermi, Publications Fellow

Tunisia in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings Working Group I
2019-11-10 21:00 - 2019-11-11 17:00
On November 10-11, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the first working group under its research initiative, “Tunisia in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings.” This was a Faculty Research Project under the intellectual leadership of a member of the Georgetown University faculty, Professor Mohamed Zayani. CIRS invited a group of scholars to discuss various topics and identify the gaps in the existing scholarship. The presentations took several different approaches ranging from theoretical deliberations to practical implications to historical narratives. Some of the topics discussed by the participants included political Islam, civil society in Tunisia, economic challenges, social justice, youth involvement and identity politics, security challenges, media dynamics, power politics, and authoritarianism in the Middle East. Via a multi-disciplinary approach, the meeting offered an in-depth discourse on post-revolutionary Tunisian state.

The initial discussion focused on the persisting conditions of authoritarianism in the Middle East and how they are affecting the transition in Tunisia. It was argued that when taken into context, the conditions pertaining to transition in the Middle East are very different from other regions, i.e., Latin America and South Africa. The existing literature on transition points towards a degree of awareness on the part of political leaders that a change is required, which is missing in the context of the Middle East and thus makes it more difficult for a transition to take place. Populations all over the Middle East are weary of the current status quo. The uprisings in these second wave of protests have more of a political element than an economic agenda. However, the political elites in many of the countries across the region are not ready to introduce change to the existing political arena. Though transitions have been more successful when guided from the top, in the case of the Middle East, the transition has to happen in a context that is different, i.e., has to come from the bottom. The relative success in the case of Tunisia can be attributed to limited foreign intervention compared to other countries and the non-politicized nature of the military. However, there are elements of the old regime still in place, and the leadership needs to realize that democracy comes with compromise.

The discussion then shifted to the power politics in Tunisia, and scholars looked at methods to transform the deep political power frameworks that currently exist. The overshadowing of politics by the state has had severe consequences in the post-revolutionary Tunisia. Some of the research questions that were proposed included examining how Tunisia political culture can translate into real politics; How and what kind of local leadership can emerge in this second phase of the transition; What does the success of Kais Saeed’s success indicate and point to regard political outsiders? What kind of new conflict resolution tools can be expected in the upcoming period? In addition, the participants discussed the rise of populism in the country and its impact on Tunisian politics.

The conversation was then centered on the topic of political Islam, and it was contended that are no political Islamists nor Salafists exist in Tunisia today and that the present-day situation is a reflection of post-2011 Tunisia. Ennahda became a major topic of study after 2011; however, the question remains as to how much of its Islamists agenda is the party going to pursue now that it is in power. One of the understudied areas in the Tunisian case highlighted was the separation of politics and da’wa and what it meant for Ennahda. Other areas for potential research identified were a reconfiguration of a religious public sphere and examining what is a religious public sphere in Tunisia today, historical account of the Salafists, and their specific categorization in Tunisia and Salafist Jihadists.

The discussion on Tunisia’s reinvigorated civil society expressed the importance of establishing the value of analyzing the formal associational sphere where groups and organizations would, by necessity, register through state-established parameters. It then laid out a working definition of civil society and then contextualized the concept within two broad overarching narratives that often run in parallel to one another, democratization, and neoliberalism. The number of legally registered associations in Tunisia in 2010 was 9,996; in 2012, this number increased by approximately 50 percent to 14,966, and as of October 2019, there are now 22,954. Some of the research questions proposed were; Is the role of civil society in good governance as it relates to time-dependent democratization serving as a mechanism to plant the seeds/lay the groundwork for stronger and more pluralistic engagement; Are Tunisia’s economic grievances being met by civil society organizations by providing social welfare services to marginalized communities the state is unable/unwilling to reach? Is civil society filling a gap left by the state? Following the uprisings, is civil society now ’embedded’ in Tunisia? Which institutions would need to be examined to determine civil society’s engagement in good governance and in holding state institutions accountable?; What can we say about the fabric of civil society today – is this a pluralistic space? Where are the exclusions [marginalized groups outside larger urban centers], and are there surprising inclusions? Where are the rivalries and divergences in post-uprising Tunisia today?

The scholars next discussed Tunisia’s economic challenges and it was stated that per capita income in the country had tripled since the revolution and that major leaps had been made in the education sector. Prior to 2010, Tunisia was in good standing in terms of its macroeconomics with low public debt and inflation rates. However, inequality in terms of income distribution, environmental problems, the impact of globalization, and corruption were some of the factors that led to the uprisings in 2011. Post-revolutionary Tunisia is still dealing with inequality; the young population in the country is demanding radical change but is hardly aware of what that means. The Islamists party has managed to be the strongest party; however, the political landscape is very much divided, and this can impede the democratic transition. There are no plans for an economic strategy and no response to people’s expectations. There is a declining business environment in the country with minimal investments being made. Not much has been done in terms of development; there is higher inflation, much lower growth in the country, and very little has been done in terms of improvement of fiscal resources. The need for a new social contract was expressed with better management of micro finances in the country and improving the quality of the services.

Precarity and social justice were next deliberated. The meaning of the term precarity was debated and examined in the context of Tunisia. An anthropological approach was taken that views precarity as a master term that designates new forms of social mobility and labor regimes. It was expressed that it is applied to a new class of a dangerous heterogeneous group of people and refers to the social condition of vulnerability and capital forms of labor. Precarity in Tunisia can be seen in terms of revolutionary uprisings and may be understood as a resolution of the precariat. The majority of social movements in Tunisia have been about demanding employment from the state, preferably in the public sector. Work in the private sector is often exploitative because of the absence of a contract and legal safety. Another aspect examined was the mobility practices in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Massive waves of Tunisian youth have migrated after the uprising, and it was suggested that in order to better understand the cross border survival strategies and mobilization of jihad as a form of migration, explaining these mobility practices of precarious Tunisian would be necessary. In terms of social justice, it was suggested that corruption under transition needed to be studied as it has become democratized. More nuanced accounts of channels of corruption and marginalized groups, such as women and youth from interior regions, were suggested as an area for further research.

Media dynamics and freedom was also discussed and was categorized into four main areas in post-revolutionary Tunisia, the quasi-non-governmental organizations, particularly the political talk shows on TV and radio, the political structures and electoral debate, the advocacy groups, such as closed Facebook groups and the revival of the Tunisian cinema. Some of the research questions proposed included looking at in what conditions have these quasi-non-governmental organizations have been created in Tunisia? What are some of the strategies that they employ? Which sector has more priority, and how can we account for these priorities? How could the presidential debate be a precedent for the re-appropriation of TV shows? Looking at the participatory politics of media through these talk shows; studying the performance of citizenship via facebook groups; and lastly examining how the revival of the cinema in Tunisia was the way the movie directors set themselves free from ongoing moral codes, in terms of the subjects they chose and the type of films they made.

The discussion was then shifted to Tunisian history and some of the legacies that impact the current political and social dynamics in Tunisia today. Two significant vestiges, both from the Ottoman and the French colonial eras that are relevant are the land distribution and people’s identity either as an Islamist or secularists. Awqaf was a religious, administrative institution established during the Ottoman era, which was demolished during the colonial rule. Ennahda has introduced the idea of reestablishing the system under the current administration, which has had some opposition. It is seen as a political body that could operate outside the control of the state system and has serious consequences. The two political figures, Salah ben Youssef and Habib Bourguiba that rose to prominence during the French rule and introduced two different sets of ideologies also have impacted the political system today. It was proposed that further research could look into Tunisian history in three different ways; examine the different periods of history and their impact; look at the development of the political parties in Tunisia; and study the mechanism of reproduction of political alliances and affiliations that are passed down either through familial channels or educational institutions.

The attention was then shifted to youth involvement and identity politics, and it was specified that the youth mobilization in a current period different from in 2011. The ongoing narrative among the youth is that the revolution never took place in reality as some elements of the Ben Ali regime are still evident. The majority of the youth and street activism lack leadership and have not been developed into political engagement. The current wave of mobilization is driven by the question of dignity and the struggle for recognition. Some elements of these mobilization share similarities with the demands that are being voiced in western societies, such as recognition and equal rights of the LGBT community. Youth in Tunisia cannot be perceived as a homogeneous group, and a clear categorization is required. Youth in Tunisia feel as sub citizens where they are often excluded from the political scene. The problems faced by the youth need to be brought to the forefront, and the local context and cultural aspects also need further examinations. Some of the research gaps identified were examining the commonalities shared by the older generation and the young Tunisian, studying and comparing rural youth to their urban counterparts, and deconstructing the educational system and identifying how it contributes to the current economic divide.

The attention was then shifted to contestation and social movement in Tunisia after the revolution. The argument made was that the protests are an ongoing process in Tunisia and can be looked at from three different dimensions, the protests themselves, the interplay between protestor and state sponsors, and the role of international actors. The existing literature has looked at the sociological influence of the protests, and there are different case studies that have been examined. The democratization process has not opened political opportunities and cooperation in Tunisia, and this leads to the question of whether Social Movement Theory can be applied to the MENA region. Protests erupted over substantial injustices, i.e., provision of necessities and rights, as well as procedural injustices, i.e., corruption. This lends to institutional questions when talking about protests, i.e., how people organize and what they want in protests? Another important aspect highlighted was the state’s response to the protests and whether there has been any fundamental change? Examining the limited role of IMF and its impact comparatively was also suggested.

The last topic discussed was Tunisia’s security challenges in terms of policies implemented in the country and radicalization. The group also looked at the help Tunisian security forces have been getting from external actors, namely the EU and the US, since the revolution, such as the creation of G7+ and training programs for the security forces. The various terrorist attacks and political assassination in Tunisian polity have been aimed at creating an international emergency and deem Tunisian as an unsafe state. This leads scholars to question the kind of polity the Tunisian state is leaning to; What are the different rationales behind the various terrorist attacks? As a countermeasure, local security committees have been formed in various regions and introduced new forms of micro surveillance. Some of the questions posed were, Why is there a large number of jihadist Tunisians? What are some of the strategies through which the state is empowering the citizens? How can societal resistance be fostered? What are some of the dominant discourses that shape the security agenda in Tunisia? Moreover, to what extent state security hinders ontological security?

The participants will contribute empirically grounded papers addressing these questions, among others, to be published in an edited volume under the auspices of CIRS.

To view the working group agenda, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Maram Al-Qershi, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAlexandra Blackman, New York University Abu Dhabi, UAEAmel Boubekeur, MENA program at the European Council, AlgeriaMongi Boughazala, University of Tunis El-Manar, TunisiaEdwige Fortier, SOAS University of London, UKZouhir Gabsi, Deakin University, AustraliaRuth Hanau Santini, Universita Orientale Naples, ItalySalma Hassabou, Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarEnrique Klaus, Galatasaray University, TurkeyFabio Merone, University of Ghent, BelgiumAlyssa Miller, University of Pennsylvania, USSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMarina Ottaway, Woodrow Wilson Center, USIrene Promodh, Georgetown University in QatarAbdul Rehmaan Qayyum, Georgetown University in QatarKhushboo Shah, Georgetown University in QatarElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Irene Weipert-Fenner, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany Mohamed Zayani, Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

CIRS Dialogue Series by H.E. Dr. Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari
2019-11-27 18:00 - 20:00
On November 27, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) invited H.E. Dr. Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, State Minister of Qatar with rank of Deputy Prime-Minister and Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) Ambassador in Residence, to deliver a talk on his experience with international institutions. In his own words, this experience “started with UNESCO, and ended with UNESCO.”

In his talk, Al-Kawari highlighted the challenges he faced as he built up his career by “choosing the difficult way of knowledge and education.” While holding the position of ambassador, he simultaneously earned degrees from several institutions, including Saint-Joseph University in Beirut, La Sorbonne, and Stony Brook University. During his studies, he became ambassador to five European countries and later became the permanent ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He explained that “opportunity comes, but if you don’t hold it well, it goes.”

“The best gift or award that could be given to distinguished Georgetown students would be to send them for one moth to the United Nations during a General Assembly, as they would acquire a lot of knowledge.”

After five years of learning French and two years of studying at La Sorbonne, he moved to New York which, along with the United Nations, are “in themselves some of the biggest schools.” He advised the Georgetown University in Qatar administration that “the best gift or award that could be given to distinguished Georgetown students would be to send them for one moth to the United Nations during a General Assembly, as they would acquire a lot of knowledge.” Al-Kawari is an advocate of the determination to “learn and re-learn,” which is also the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) motto.

Al-Kawari then discussed the benefits and challenges of working in multilateral organizations, as opposed to a bilateral ones. He emphasized that “all of the ambassadors work in the same building and see each other every day,” so “all of the work is collective work.” During his tenure as Ambassador to the United Nations from 1984 to 1990, Al-Kawari also represented Qatar as official delegate to the UN for the country. He was simultaneously elected Deputy Chairman of the General Assembly of the United Nations at its fortieth session and Chairman of the Special Political Committee (4th Committee) at its 42nd session. As the latter dealt with the Arab-Israeli conflict, “at that time it was not easy for an Arab to be the head of this organization,” he said. He later held multiple ministerial functions in Qatar and wrote a “cultural autobiography,” which he published in the form of a book titled, The Global Majlis: An Intellectual Autobiography (Doha: Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press, 2015).

H.E. Dr. Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari is State Minister with rank of Deputy Prime-Minister and GU-Q’s Ambassador in Residence. He is a Qatari diplomat, statesman, and an intellectual. He has been the Minister for Culture, Arts and Heritage of Qatar from July 2008 to January 2016. He was previously the Ambassador of Qatar for France, the United States, the UNESCO and the UN. He is married and the father of three children. Dr. Al-Kawari was Qatar’s candidate for the post of UNESCO Director General. He led the vote in pole position for 4 rounds and lost the fifth for a single vote, with 28 votes against 30 for the French candidate.

Article by Chaïmaa Benkermi, Publications Fellow

The GCC Crisis: Qatar and its Neighbors Working Group II
2019-12-01 09:00 - 2019-12-02 17:00
On December 1-2, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the second working group for its research initiative on “The GCC Crisis: Qatar and its Neighbors.” Over two days, the convened scholars presented and received feedback on their papers that tackled a wide array of issues, including: the Regional implications of the GCC crisis, impact of the crisis on Qatar’s Supply Chain, public narratives of nationalism and identity in Qatar after the blockade, Turkey’s role in the crisis, ontological security and the GCC crisis, and post-blockade relations between State and Society in Qatar.

The working group began with Kristian Coates Ulrichsen’s discussion of his paper on “The Regional Implications of the Gulf Crisis.” Ulrichsen argues that the 2011 Arab spring signaled the transition of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE into assertive regional actors. Differing foreign policy trajectories, as well as regional actions, were taken by Doha, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi during and after the Arab Spring strained relations between the three states and limited the chances of future regional cooperation. The rupture of relations between the three Gulf states has highlighted the inherent weakness of the GCC as a meaningful institution through which member states can mediate regional disputes. The GCC, a loose collection of like-minded states without any significant centralization of authority or decision-making, has always suffered as a result of being viewed as a Saudi-dominated organization. Following the Arab Spring, any chance of building greater regional cooperation was further fragmented by a zero-sum mentality of the member states. Ulrichsen’s paper also highlights the pressure faced by the new Qatari leadership from Saudi Arabia and UAE and how this has raised concerns in other GCC states, namely Kuwait and Oman, over their own vulnerable positions as they too approach leadership transitions. The paper also examines the new relationship between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and its impact and implications on the regional order.

Frank Himpel and Willy Kempel drew attention to the impact of the GCC crisis on the supply chain in Qatar with their paper on “Supply Chain Management in Turbulent Time.” The paper focuses on how the blockade impacted Qatar’s ability to import goods and how the State addressed the challenges faced. The authors highlight various strategies that states can adopt to manage their supply chain during times of crisis. In the Qatari case, the State sought to diversify the external components of its supply chain, while also developing greater indigenous capacity in areas where this was possible, with the long term goal of making its supply chain independent from its immediate neighborhood. Qatar sought to build new cooperative relationships at the regional and international level and sought to alleviate the pressure on its supply chain by seeking new routes of import and export via air and sea. The authors highlight that due to Qatar’s successful efforts in building and reinforcing its resources, the embargoing countries failed to achieve their purpose, and the long term benefit is that it has led to Qatar further developing its infrastructure and capacities.

Jocelyn Mitchell then presented a discussion of her paper “Narratives of Nationalism and Identity in Qatar after 2017,” which she has co-authored with Mariam Al-Hammadi. In this paper, the authors examine the impact of the ongoing regional crisis on nationalism and national identity in Qatar and argue that the rupture in regional relations has reduced the salience of a Khaliji identity amongst Qataris while increasing expressions of nationalism and national identity. The paper uses the case study of the recently opened National Museum in Qatar to examine society’s response to the narrative of a unified Qatari national identity represented at the Museum. The authors suggest that Qatari identity, as represented at the National Museum, appears to elide historical identity differences amongst Qataris, and in particular, do so by refraining from any representations of previously existing ‘badu’ vs. ‘hadar’ affiliations. This is viewed by the authors as a deliberate effort by the state to consolidate a single Qatari identity with the intent of increasing social unity amongst the public. The authors, through a series of interviews with female Qatari citizens, attempt to discern how this representation of a solidified and singular Qatari national identity expressed at the Museum is received by the Qatari population, and whether there are social tensions around identity that are not captured through the Museum’s depictions.

David Roberts, in his article on “Ontological Security and the GCC Crisis: Uncovering the Bitterness at the Heart of Qatari-Emirati Relations,” attempts to shed light on the UAE’s foreign policy goals and regional behavior by applying the theoretical lens of ontological security. Ontological security argues that individuals and states are driven by the need to secure their complex sense of identity. If a state perceives that its core identity is under threat, then it will engage in behavior to address the source of that threat. Roberts applies this argument to explain UAE’s reasoning behind their current foreign policies to support Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt in their blockade against Qatar. Roberts argued that in the time of regional flux, UAE simultaneously faces internal challenges and concerns in regards to tackling multiple identities within its territory. With UAE focused on promoting a modern and globalized image, Qatar’s regional support for Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups and political Islam was considered a threat by the leadership in Abu Dhabi. With Qatar and UAE building identities that are mutually incompatible, it has led to an increase in UAE’s hostility towards Qatar.

Justin Gengler moved the focus to post-blockade State and Society in Qatar with his paper on “Society and State in Post-Blockade Qatar.” With this article, Gengler examines whether the blockade altered relations within society and between society and state or if it rippled some of the changes that were prevalent even before the blockade. The data was collected via multiple surveys conducted in Qatar before and after June 2017. The analysis of the findings demonstrates that the blockade has not given rise to new waves of mutual trust and acceptance between different social groups, however, it has been a factor in decreasing some of the social tensions between different groups. Another result shows that Qatari citizens had a growing interest in politics that experienced an unprecedented spike during the blockade. It is argued that the blockade had a reverse effect than the Arab Spring on the Qataris, who viewed the blockade as a stabilizing force against external aggression.

The discussion was brought to a close by Bulent Aras with his paper on “Turkey’s Diplomatic and Military Role in the Gulf Crisis.” Aras discusses Turkey’s geopolitical positioning and its diplomatic and military role in the Gulf region in light of the 2017 blockade against Qatar. The analytics framework of geopolitical reasoning has been applied to explain the foreign policy decisions made. The leaders in Ankara sought to build a regional foreign policy narrative that could be justified both domestically and internationally. Turkey turned to hard power military foreign policy, which, according to its leadership, would raise its regional profile to a new level. For Turkey, Qatar provides to be an Arab partner that helps deepen its links in the Gulf. In contrast, policymakers in Ankara are often on the rival end to their counterparts in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Aras concludes that whether this scenario of partnership with Qatar and schism with Saudi Arabia and UAE will persist will depend on the momentum gained from this geopolitical competition.

It is worth mentioning that CIRS plans to publish the aforementioned papers in either in an edited volume or a special issue of a journal in the near future.

To view the working group agenda, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies, click hereRead more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Mariam Ibrahim Al-Hammadi, Qatar UniversityBülent Aras, Sabancı University, TurkeyZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJustin Gengler, Qatar University Salma Hassabou, Georgetown University in QatarFrank Himpel, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarWilly Kempel, Ambassador of Austria to QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJocelyn Sage Mitchell, Northwestern University in QatarGerd Nonneman, Georgetown University in QatarDavid B. Roberts, King’s College London, UKKhushboo Shah, Georgetown University in QatarKristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University, USElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine
2020-01-13 12:45 - 13:45
Dana El Kurd, Assistant Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, delivered a CIRS talk on January 13, 2020, on the effects that authoritarian strategies have had on polarization and collective action in Palestinian society. The talk was based on her recently published book, Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine, which examines the impact of international involvement on political development and state-society relations in the Palestinian territories, particularly in the deterioration of democratic processes.

El Kurd explained that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been in power in the Palestinian territories since 1993 (and today, just in the West Bank). The PA emerged in the mid-nineties out of the Oslo process, and was meant to serve as an interim government, to govern until the expected Israeli withdrawal from territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 1999. However, Israel did not adhere to this agreement. In the meantime, the PA bureaucracy quickly expanded, created various security and police forces, and became the largest employer in the territory under its control. Furthermore, international organizations became increasingly involved in Palestinian politics, and external funding strengthened the power of the PA, entrenching its position. Numerous Palestinian opposition groups arose to challenge the PA’s centralization of power; these included, for example, Hamas and other Islamist groups.

Some have argued that the Palestinian Authority has “acted as a ‘subcontractor of repression’ for the Israeli occupation, in the sense that they police on behalf of the Israeli occupation. They have become a kind of authoritarian indigenous regime overlaid on top of a foreign occupation.”

According to El Kurd, some argue that the PA has “acted as a ‘subcontractor of repression’ for the Israeli occupation, in the sense that they police on behalf of the Israeli occupation. They have become a kind of authoritarian indigenous regime overlaid on top of a foreign occupation.” The PA has been able to co-opt large segments of the Palestine population and they have increasingly used repression to control people, she said. Their security apparatus has greatly expanded since 2007, following the Hamas victory in the 2006 legislative elections (and subsequent removal from power), and there is greater coordination with the Israeli occupation. “There have been well-documented increases in torture and arrests, and limitations on academic and media freedom,” she said.

“After the Arab Spring, we saw this sort of rise in polarization and fragmentation,” and El Kurd examined the conditions that have divided Palestinians and divested them of political power. “We all know that the main goal of authoritarian regimes is to control their populations, and they utilize different strategies or combinations of strategies, such as cooptation or repression,” El Kurd said. However, regimes target different groups using different strategies, and she suspected those strategies themselves might be at the root of social polarization in Palestine and a decline in political mobilization.

El Kurd conducted a survey experiment in the Palestinian territories in conjunction with the Palestine Survey Research Center, and she held interviews with Palestinian decision makers to collect their views on democracy and accountability to assess the role of international involvement in determining attitudes. She used lab-in-field experiments, qualitative data, and statistical analysis with a protest dataset. Her primary research questions were: What is the effect of varying authoritarian strategies on polarization? And, how does that polarization affect collective action?

Her theoretical argument links authoritarianism and polarization, and she explained that authoritarian regimes use strategies selectively, bringing certain groups into the fold while repressing others. While El Kurd argued that authoritarian strategies generate polarization, she also explained that the type of strategy matters: “cooptation is inclusionary and repression is exclusionary.” Additionally, she found inclusionary strategies generate polarization to a smaller degree than exclusionary strategies. Consequently, she argued that the selective nature of authoritarian strategies is a cause of polarization, translating into a “lack of capacity for collective action through two main mechanisms: insularity within groups, and grievances between them.”

El Kurd was able to measure the Palestinian people’s willingness to engage in collective action in various and diversified ways. Her findings indicate that repression strategies lead to a decline in the willingness to engage in collective action, specifically for what she considers as targeted groups: the Islamists and leftists. This “exclusionary strategy seems to generate less willingness to cooperate” than the cooptation strategy.

El Kurd found that exclusionary strategies had the greatest effect on behavior, with repression causing polarization in society. “In the Palestine case, this helps to explain why different groups—who might have similar ideas about the Palestinian Authority, and similar ideas about the occupation—are not coordinating properly, and they seem to be unable to surmount these coordination problems.” She also explained that this finding applies to dynamics in the broader Arab world, where authoritarian governments have had similar effects on societal cohesion.

Dana El Kurd is a Researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, and Assistant Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in the Critical Security Studies program. She specializes in comparative politics and international relations. She has published in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Al-Araby al-Jadeed, and academic journals such as Parameters, Journal of Global Security Studies, Contemporary Arab Affairs, Middle East Law and Governance, and the Journal of Arabian Studies, among others. She is the author of the Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2020).

Article by Chaïmaa Benkermi (Class of 2021), Publications Fellow

CURA Open House
2020-01-14 12:00 - 14:00
On January 14, 2020, CIRS hosted its first open house event for GU-Q students to learn more about CIRS and the CURA program for undergraduate research advancement. The CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement program (CURA) aims to facilitate research opportunities for GU-Q undergraduate students through providing focused mentorship and a chance to publish and present their original research as part of the CURA Paper Series and CURA Lunch Talks.

During the event, Professor Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS highlighted that two years ago, CIRS launched the CURA program to advance undergraduate research. He remarked that, “the aim of the program is to enhance the research skills of our students and we do that by offering number of opportunities for our Fellows and for the entire student body.”

One aim of CURA is to enhance the undergraduate experience by helping students develop a range of research skills and publish their original research. To this end, Elizabeth Wanucha, Operations Manager of CIRS announced a new opportunity for GU-Q students under the ongoing CURA Paper Series. The CURA Paper Series opened a paper competition that will span the Spring 2020 semester, with a submission deadline of February 12, 2020. She added, “the winner of this competition will be coached by CIRS staff through the peer review and editorial process to publish the paper by the end of the semester as a distinguished publication under the CURA Paper Series.” The winner will also be issued an electronic certificate that highlights the achievement on LinkedIn and other social media sites.

“The aim of the program is to enhance the research skills of our students and we do that by offering number of opportunities for our Fellows and for the entire student body.”

Ngoc Nguyen (class of 2021) said that she enjoyed meeting the staff of CIRS at the open house. “It was a great opportunity to learn about research opportunities that CIRS is providing for Georgetown students. I will definitely participate in more CIRS events in the future.”

In addition to the paper competition, GU-Q students also have the opportunity to showcase their original research by submitting it for consideration to the CURA Paper Series. The process of selecting papers is rigorous and competitive. CIRS has a wide network of scholars, and publishing with the CURA Paper Series will disseminate the selected research across the globe. CIRS publishes the CURA Papers online, prints and distributes the hard copies, and disseminates the research via the CIRS research e-newsletter.

CIRS also helps GU-Q undergraduate students develop skills related to research through its CURA fellowship program. CURA Fellows provide research assistance in three areas: publications, research and administration. Through the CURA peer mentorship program, fellows learn hands-on about the research field and develop analytical skills by convening one seminar each semester on a current CIRS research project. Fellows are invited to discuss papers written by experts in their respective fields, and share their conclusions with the authors of the papers in the CIRS Working Group organized around that research project.

Chaïmaa Benkermi (class of 2021), a CIRS publications fellow said, “Having been part of CIRS for two years has been continuously rewarding. I have acquired unique skills that I have come to apply in all fields and disciplines, developed new research interests, and simply gained more confidence in what I do and what I deliver to others, which is also part of my CURA fellowship experience.”

Article by Shaza Afifi (Class of 2022), CURA Publications Fellow

Big Data in the Middle East Roundtable
2020-01-19 09:00 - 2020-01-20 17:00
On January 19-20, 2020, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted a Research Roundtable on Big Data in the Middle East. The meeting was held in order to generate an initial conversation on how big data can be meaningfully applied to deepen our understanding of social and political phenomena in the Middle East. With the growing availability and amount of different data and the enhanced capacity of data scientists to use computational tools for analysis, social scientists around the world are increasingly turning to big data to address some of their fields of research. How far these innovative developments in research are being demonstrated in the Middle East and how social science research questions can be explored through these new data sources and analytical tools was the primary purpose of this roundtable. Over the course of two days, participating scholars and experts engaged in a fruitful dialogue that explored several important areas, including: big data and healthcare, social media and user-generated content, analyzing data produced in Arabic language, social science research, food security, big data and museums, opportunities in the defense sector, female employment as well as religious discourse on social media and hate speech.

The discussion was initiated by Dr. Ingmar Weber, Research Director for Social Computing at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). Dr. Weber’s presentation was centered on the topic of changing demographic trends in the Middle East and big data applications to measure these changes. Using Facebook as a platform for accessing user data and using various variables such as places lived and mobile phones used, it was reasoned that researchers could collect data on wealth distribution and income level of the users. These variables can also be used to extract data from other platforms like Twitter and Snapchat to get demographic data. This, in turn, can be used to track, International migration, Poverty, and digital gender gaps. The online digital platforms provide access to over 2 billion users, and the data can be used to address traditional attributes like interest, as well as understand the selection bias of users. However, there are limitations to this as models for bias correction are required and only include people that are online. For future research, a number of topics were identified that included interdisciplinary research efforts, conducting surveys to collect data from hard to reach population, and the use of satellite imagery to get onsite data.

Chiara Bernardi then steered the conversation to user-generated content and social impact. It was stated that social data is intervened with social behavior, and this creates essential knowledge and meaning. The social impact of these can be used to drive policies and legislation. Marketing is one industry where the relevance of this content is widely used; however, there are limits to this. There is a need to understand how this influences the strategy, and mixed frameworks are needed to interact with the industry data with the academics settings. In order to bridge the gap and understand what we can learn from user-generated content, a methodological framework in the Middle East is required. The term big data also needed a clear definition in terms of its volume. Content generated from multiple languages requires mapping and visualizing in order to understand the impact on behavior. Academics need to recognize the role and, at the same time, bridge the gaps in order to contextualize behavior on digital media. The structure of the platform and design was also highlighted as an essential component as it leads to different behaviors.

Challenges to analyze data produced in Arabic was next discussed by Wajdi Zaghouani, who stated that data in Arabic is becoming more and more available, and that data is the new oil. However, analyzing this data is difficult, as Arabic is a very challenging language. There is a lot of ambiguity and variation in the written and spoken format of the language, which requires new processing tools. In addition, the romanization of the language also poses a problem when it comes to processing. It was stated that there was a need for tools to separate the noisy data and convert it into a usable format. Fine graining of tools to analyze dialects and less commonly used Arabic variety was also highlighted as a key area. Speech processing and lack of concentrated collaboration of researchers were also identified as gaps. Zaghouani also identified the detection of hate speech, polarization, and sarcasm as an understudied area that requires further research.

Zahir Irani looked at the topic of food security and big data in the Middle East and argued that much attention has been paid to the food waste from the plate, but very little to food lost during the supply chain. It was argued that food security was a challenge around both availability and accessibility and that efforts were needs that maintain the sustainability of food production and less fluctuation on the viability. It is estimated that our food needs over the next 40 years will be greater than in the past 10,000 years. This is attributed to a number of factors, including food waste and loss, and an increase in the global population. Science and technology can be to understand the issues at hand. New technology and geological surveys can present a better picture of the physical environment and lead to increased food production. Irani highlighted that some of the drivers of food (in)security include population, income, water supply, food supply, soil erosion, imports, wastages, yields, demands, seasonality, consumption, safety and nutrition, and health wellbeing. The question of feeding future generations has become a global challenge and safeguarding food disruption, and consumption through circular economy principles requires quality big data.

The participants then discussed the topic of big data and healthcare in the Middle East. Mowafa Househ highlighted 3 core research areas; privacy and responsibility, the cultural and religious dimension of collecting data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data. AI has huge impacts on healthcare. Computing power and data being generated has changed the way healthcare is practiced, diagnosed, and cured. Narrow AI and better performing computers can help gain insight into different populations of different social and physical conditions. However, this data can help detect correlation but not the causation. In terms of privacy laws, countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain have certain policies in place however state still have access to the health data of the people, even with the implementation of privacy laws. What the state can do with the data and what kind of approach can be taken, is a question that needs further examination. Many countries in the Middle East have a multiple-tier system that separates the people. Data is collected and disseminated differently from different groups (citizens and residents), which leads to missing data points. How do academics apply ethical frameworks where there is no discrimination among the various groups and what are the values that you put into the algorithm, were some of the research gaps identified? Culture and religious sensitivities also need to be taken into consideration when it comes to health data collection in the Middle East. Engaging the local stakeholders and policymakers and involving them in the conversation was also highlighted as a critical area for future research.

Lisa Singh addressed different ways big data can benefit social science research and stated that there are different kinds of big data that can be used. Currently, every discipline has its own methodology, and there is a need for more integrated ways to use these big data. Researchers need to study big data as a field rather than independently for various case studies. Another area highlighted where big data and social science could collaborate was early warning mechanisms, which are technically challenging, and lacks strong political will. Currently, researchers lack a more holistic picture of the methodology required, which stresses the need for integration of data and various ways that it can be brought together.

The participants also discussed social media and religious discourse in the Arab region. Walid Magdy presented examples of how big data is helping answer questions in social sciences. One of the studies conducted included looking at people’s opinions and the change in perception due to major events and trends. It was highlighted that results from the study indicated that global change in trends does not mean change in individual opinion. In regards to religion and social media, a case study conducted emphasized that many users used social media platforms to have discussions on topics such as atheism, share positive tweets about Islam and religion in general and re-share or re-post tweets as a form of ongoing charity. There is a need to complement these findings with anthropological studies, and innovation and technology are required for sentiment analysis, especially for data generated in Arabic. Social media is vast and represents many people, which in turn presents many opportunities to measure user behavior but requires the collaboration of social and computer scientists.

Marc Owen Jones broadened the discussion on social media by addressing the question of hate speech and propaganda. Jones addressed the issue of data weaponization and colonization, platform manipulation, and the notion of ethics. There are different approaches to data collected from diverse sources; this data can be used to gauge audience usage and behavior on social media. In many of the previously observed cases, hate speech tends to be controlled by automated bot accounts. This leads to the question of who has the power to manipulate the data and how a small number of people have the influence to shape the discussion on social media. In addition, the question of how data is weaponized to promote certain political views and ideas that are held by a group of people and not the general public needs examination. Other areas for future study involve examining the political economy of the technological companies, governance of platforms, and integrity and quality of the data.

Georgios Papoaiannou shifted the focus of discussion to big data and museums and emphasized that museums collect a large amount of data on a daily basis. This data can be used to address some of the challenges and implications of big data and museums. When it comes to big data and museums, there is more than one reality and a number of issues that need academic focus. Qatar museum authority opened 4 new museums in the past 5 years. These institutes generate data on a daily basis that can be used to address ways to help make these museums better in various ways. One of the research areas identified was the need for data-driven museums and policies through which correct and meaningful information could be collected. Papoaiannou also stressed addressing sentiment via textual or image data and the pros and cons of doing this, as a gap in the existing literature.

Eid Mohamed analyzed Egyptian culture through big data and looked at the question of whether Egyptians still cared about the Arab Spring. The cultural data can provide evidence of growing revolutionary consciousness in the general masses. Most excitingly, an analysis of such great masses of source material offers the research community the opportunity to work on the challenge of discovering the appropriate epistemologies for coming to terms with emergent transcultural identities and a transformed Arab world in the making. Digital humanities, in general, offer a new set of methods for dealing with such an abundance of materials. The Arab Spring needs to be explored through an approach of localizing the change by using local stories. The pre-2011 context of significance concerns earlier moments when popular resistance came to the fore, moments that 2011 has been considered to be a continuation of or inspired by. These can be traced to the writings of Taha Hussein and other revolutionary writers. Computational tools are required to analyze the vast body of corpora as well as online and offline activism.

The dialogue then moved to the discussion of big data and female labor in Turkey. Gunes Asik stated that female employment is essential for development and that big data is not just user-generated data but also can mean large administrative data. This includes population data kept by the government in time series. Though this data is reliable, it is very difficult to access as government approval is required. Female employment and labor demand, in general, is affected by a number of factors, including discrimination, government policies, and the emergence of new sectors. Some of the determinants of female employment include education, conservatism, child and elderly care, health, and lack of social protection. Asik identified a number of research gaps, such as the impact of informal employment, the effect of domestic violence, and using Google search and social media to collect the data, as well as the automation of jobs and its impact on different genders.

Charbel Chedrawi talked about opportunities for big data in the defense sector and detailed that defense data is a black box. Data for this sector is not easily accessible, and there are very few scholars working on the topic. Big data is the strategic assets of the 21st century and is a valuable raw material for security and defense. However, there are certain barriers in generating and applying this data, including infrastructure, human barriers, such as lack of IT professionals in the organization, and lack of proper training and financial barrier, as budget is allocated mainly to weapons rather than research and development. Chedrawi identified 5 areas of further study; identifying the resource gaps in defense sector and the limitations associated with it; the hazards of outsourcing; isomorphism of the institutions; the type of technology required for mining the data and the role of big data in reducing the transaction cost and how can the defense sector benefit from such economies.

As a general takeaway, the roundtable discussions indicated that for social scientists studying the Middle East who want to use new data sources, it is of fundamental importance that they bridge the disciplinary divide and develop partnerships with data scientists. In order to make the best use of the variety of new data available and apply them to critical social sciences research questions in the region, there is a need to actively develop interdisciplinary collaborations. Working with data scientists who have the requisite expertise in data analytics will help social scientists make sense of and extract meaning from data from multiple sources. Moving forward with the discussions at this roundtable CIRS plans to launch a research project in the near future with a thematic focus on some of the core issue(s) and big data in the Middle East.

For the roundtable agenda, click here. For the research initiative, click here.
Participants and Discussants:
Shaza Afifi, Georgetown University in Qatar Gunes Asik, TOBB Economics and Technology University Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Mongoljin Batsaikhan, Georgetown University in Qatar Chiara Bernardi, University of Stirling Chaïmaa Benkermi, Georgetown University in Qatar Misba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Charbel Chedrawi, Saint Joseph University Salma Hassabou, Georgetown University in Qatar Mowafa Housef, Hamad Bin Khalifa University Zahir Irani, University of Bradford Marc Owen Jones, Hamad Bin Khalifa University Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Walid Magdy, University of Edinburgh Eid Mohamed, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies Emad Mohamed, University of Wolverhampton Phoebe Musandu, Georgetown University in Qatar Georgios Papaioannou, University College of London- Qatar Khushboo Shah, Georgetown University in Qatar Lisa Singh, Georgetown University Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Ingmar Weber, Qatar Computing Research Institute Wajdi Zaghouani, Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

CURA Workshop: Evaluating Credibility: Sources for Academic Research
2020-01-23 12:30 - 16:00
On January 23, 2020, CIRS hosted a CURA workshop titled, “Evaluating Credibility: Sources for Academic Research,” with GU-Q Professor Jim Reardon-Anderson and Librarian Paschalia Terzi. The workshop was focused on scholarly resource analysis and determining the authenticity of sources for research projects. Professor Anderson led the workshop and outlined some of his preferred techniques in determining the authenticity and validity of the sources. The workshop’s interactive nature made it a valuable learning experience. Furthermore, students gained substantial research strategy skills by engaging in this professional and encouraging environment.

Professor Anderson’s primary experience and scholarly insight further added to the meaningfulness of the workshop. He underlined how the right sources build on the internal validity and reliability and help strengthen the quality of the research project. Borrowing from his rich career experiences, Professor Anderson shared how he, as a researcher and historian, uses primary and secondary sources for his research projects. He outlined the necessity of a detail-oriented analysis to the research process, which benefited the students and encouraged them to be reflective of their own research experiences. His reflection prompted the students to understand the limitations of their research process and how to overcome some of the hurdles faced.

“The most useful and inspiring part of the workshop was Prof. Anderson’s personal description of what a researcher’s life is really like.” – Hussam Aitelqadi, sophomore at GU-Q.

Engaging with Professor Anderson, students questioned on how to accommodate the variety of sources available; for example, how to engage with multimedia resources such as newspapers, magazines, websites, and social media platforms, was one of the quires raised. Professor Anderson narrated how intersectional mediums and methods can boost one’s research and how students can benefit from the vast resources the Georgetown library provides. Hussam Aitelqadi, a sophomore at GU-Q who attended the workshop, commented on how participating in the workshop was an enriching learning experience. He reflected that, “the most useful and inspiring part of the workshop was Prof. Anderson’s personal description of what a researcher’s life is really like.” Another student, Jawaher Al-Sulaiti, also reflected on how the workshop helped her to gain a “better understanding of the tools of evaluation.”

In the second half of the session, GU-Q Librarian Paschali Terzi led the workshop through an interactive exercise. Building on Professor Anderson’s valuable insight, Paschalia showed students how to apply their practical learnings from the workshop. Students engaged with scholarly material and used a template to determine the credibility of the source. This was facilitated by accessing journals available on research databases and analyzing how social media can be used as part of research. This hands-on activity solidified the workshop experience; by immediately applying what they learned, students were able to practice new skills and receive feedback on their work from CIRS Staff and Paschalia. All in all, this workshop aimed at improving the overall research process of Georgetown University in Qatar’s undergraduate students.

Article by Khushboo Shah, CURA Administrative Fellow

Qatari Cases before International Dispute Settlement Fora
2020-01-27 18:00 - 19:30
On January 27, 2020, Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, Dean of the College of Law at Qatar University, presented a talk at CIRS, Qatari Cases before International Dispute Settlement Fora, concerning legal actions following the blockade against Qatar that began on June 5, 2017. On that date, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Egypt severed diplomatic relations and cut off direct communications with Qatar. Al-Khulaifi outlined the ways in which the four countries have taken coercive measures against Qatar and Qataris that are in contravention of their obligations under international treaties to which they are parties.

Al-Khulaifi said the State of Qatar has sought legal remedies and instituted proceedings against the four states using various international dispute settlement mechanisms. Three of the major cases currently pending are at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and are based on: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Convention on International Civil Aviation, and International Air Services Transit Agreement. In addition, there are two inter-state complaints before the CERD Committee. Additionally, there are two cases concerning trade that are currently pending before the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The first case that Al-Khulaifi discussed was filed by Qatar against the UAE under the CERD Convention, which deals with matters of human rights. Qatar brought the case against only the UAE because of the four blockading states, only the UAE recognizes the jurisdiction of the ICJ under this Convention. In this case, Qatar alleges that the UAE’s actions—for example, expelling Qatari citizens from the UAE—were based on national origin and therefore the UAE violated its obligations under the CERD. The Convention protects a number of rights including: prohibition on collective expulsion, the obligation to condemn racial hatred and incitement, the right to equal treatment before tribunals, the right to marriage and choice of spouse, and the right to own private property. These rights are outlined in Article 5 of the Convention, and Al-Khulaifi said, “We believe strongly that the UAE has clearly violated those rights.”

“Never has a country decided to submit a complaint in front of a United Nations human-rights treaty body against another state,” he said. “And I am glad that the case Qatar v. KSA is number one in history; and number two is Qatar v. UAE.”

Additionally, Qatar requested provisional measures before the ICJ on June 5, 2018, to receive an urgent order from the court “to preserve the rights of its nationals or the rights of the country itself.” The legal team successfully received the court’s approval for the provisional measures that ensured that families separated by the UAE’s measures were reunited; gave Qatari students the option of completing their education in the UAE, or at least access their necessary records; and allowed Qataris to access UAE courts and tribunals. A fourth measure required “both parties must refrain from any action that may aggravate the dispute during the proceedings of the case.” That the court found in favor of Qatar on these measures was a “clear rebuke of the unlawful discriminatory measures adopted by the UAE,” Al-Khulaifi said.

In March 2019, the UAE submitted its own request for provisional measures, which was an unconventional step and served to delay the process. However, the UAE’s request was rejected by the court in June 2019, Al-Khulaifi said.

The cases that are before the CERD Committee are conciliation procedures and concern racial discrimination. Qatar has filed two communications against the UAE and KSA. It is worth noting that the case against KSA could not be sent to the ICJ, Al-Khulaifi said, “Because Saudi Arabia decided, purposefully, to make a reservation to Article 22 of the CERD, so we could not follow that path.” He noted that this is the first filing of its kind in history. “Never has a country decided to submit a complaint in front of a United Nations human-rights treaty body against another state,” he said. “And I am glad that the case Qatar v. KSA is number one in history; and number two is Qatar v. UAE.” In August 2019, the CERD Committee decided to accept the jurisdiction and look at the two communications submitted by the State of Qatar; the cases is still pending.

Concerning the matter of civil aviation, the four blockading states have prevented Qatari airlines from flying over their territories, and also landing and taking off from their airports. “Those are clear violations of the Convention on International Civil Aviation,” he said. After receiving decisions from the ICAO Council confirming that it has jurisdiction to examine the merits of the cases, the four blockading states decided to appeal those decisions before the ICJ, “which will soon decide on these matters, and hopefully, will send the cases back to the ICAO Council. Then, the ICAO Council will examine the merits of our complaints,” he said.

In conclusion, Al-Khulaifi addressed the trade violations within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO). “Part of those coercive measures adopted by the four states—but more specifically the three neighboring states—is to simply prevent import, export, sale, purchase, license, transfer, and all types of commercial deals with the State of Qatar,” he said. Qatar filed complaints against Bahrain, KSA, and UAE arguing violations related to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). An additional separate case was filed against the KSA over intellectual property rights violations concerning copyright infringement, and more specifically, piracy of the content of beIN Sport.

As far as the case against the UAE before the ICJ is concerned, hearings on preliminary objections will take place soon. Al-Khulaifi said the hearings would be broadcast on the UNTV website. “We expect that a few months after the hearings, the Court will make its final decision on the jurisdiction of the case.

Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi is Dean of the College of Law and Associate Professor of commercial law at Qatar University. He is a member of several academic and professional committees in Qatar, including the Permanent Legislative Committee of the Council of Ministers. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, The Emir of Qatar, Ph.D. Award (Education Excellence Award, 2012). In parallel with his academic activities, Al-Khulaifi is a lawyer at Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi law firm and serves as an independent adjudicator at the Qatar Financial Center, in Regulatory Authority. He acts as legal counsel to HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar, and he was appointed as the Agent of the State of Qatar before the International Court of Justice. His research and practice focus on commercial law, and he has authored numerous articles and books on bankruptcy, mergers and acquisitions, commercial law, banking transactions, and arbitration.

Article by Chaïmaa Benkermi (Class of 2021), CURA Publications Fellow

Economic Migration to the United States Roundtable
2020-02-15 09:00 - 2020-02-16 15:00
On February 15-16, 2020, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a Research Roundtable on the topic of Economic Migration to the United States with the purpose to deepen our understanding of the challenges and opportunities of skilled immigration flows to the U.S. OECD countries, and, until fairly recently, the U.S. have developed their migration policies and systems to attract skilled and highly-skilled migrants. With the last major immigration legislation being enacted 30 years ago, it is a worthwhile endeavor to analyze the current policy environment and lived experiences of skilled migrants in the U.S. Over the course of two days, participating scholars and experts engaged in a dynamic conversation that explored several important areas, including: transnational migration patterns to the U.S., categories of mobility, migration policy and reform, national security and migration, international student dynamics, and integration and political mobilization of specific migrant populations.

Silvia Pedraza, Professor of Sociology and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, started the conversation by presenting the economic, political, and social aspects of transnationalism, as practiced by immigrants in their home and host countries. Instant communication has made an enormous impact on the lives of immigrants, helping them to remain connected to their families and community in their home countries. A particularly interesting phenomenon for the Cuban community is the emerging economic markets that have sprung up with the lifting of U.S. embargo against Cuba. Dr. Pedraza questions how increasing transnationalism and easier communication with the home country has affected the assimilation of Cuban immigrants, and whether it comes at a social or cultural cost to society.

There are many complex categories of immigration visas to the U.S. Payal Banerjee, Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology at Smith College, challenged the participants to consider that the status of highly-skilled migrants is just as precarious as that of low-skilled migrants. Though the common assumption is that low-skilled migrants are more vulnerable than highly-skilled migrants, the dependence on an employer, university, or family member for their legal status produces an unstable situation for highly-skilled migrants. Their status is conditional and terminable at any point, which could be to the benefit of the employer to keep wages low and the workforce flexible. The divide between documented and undocumented, skilled and unskilled, can be challenged when considering that all migrants exist in a state of precarity. Dr. Banerjee argued that immigration and migration policies will need to adapt to the labor ecology of the future, given the trends pointing towards AI, automation, and the use of algorithms in the sectors that are heavily reliant on skilled labor.

Continuing on the theme of immigration policy reform, Katharine Donato, the Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration and Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, led the group through a discussion on the paradoxical way U.S. government administrations have approached reform. Immigration law has not changed since 1990, but rather, adjustments have been made on an ad-hoc basis through presidential orders and executive actions. On one hand, management of immigration policy by executive order is destabilizing for labor migrants, but it also allows for flexibility for this area where it is difficult to get calibrate the policy in a way that works for all stakeholders. This instability also impacts employers, who find it difficult to match their need with the supply of visas for highly-skilled migrants.

Work towards matching labor flow with employers needs was also a topic under the discussion led by Lindsay Lowell, Adjunct Research Professor in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Senior Affiliate at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM), in the context of workplace mobility for highly-skilled migrants in the U.S. The STEM field is uniquely interesting in this regard and more research is needed to understand how the immigration system could be better organized to meet the need for STEM workers. Dr. Lowell also put forward for discussion the interplay between higher education and immigration. Many universities develop specific programs designed to attract international students, who are a large funding source for universities. Students may come to study in the U.S. expecting that after graduation they will be able to easily transfer to a H-1B visa and find employment. But in reality, this is often not the case.

Elizabeth Ferris, Research Professor at Georgetown University in the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM), led a discussion on the concept of national security in the U.S. as it relates to migration. The relationship between the two, she argued, largely depends on how national security is defined. According to Dr. Ferris, for those traditionalists who view national security as primarily protecting borders, immigration — both legal and unauthorized — tends to be viewed as a potential threat to U.S. national interests. Others take a broader view of national security to include concepts important to human security. Those who take this view tend to see immigration to the U.S. in terms of long-term economic interests and the soft power of the U.S. Though there is a lot of research on immigration in the context of national security, more work needs to be done bridging the gap between these two parallel views of the topic.

The U.S. has historically been one of the key focal points attracting international students. Terry Wotherspoon, Professor of Sociology at the University of Saskatchewan, led a discussion on the intentions and ability of international students to stay in the U.S. once their education is completed. General trends suggest that a majority of international students have a strong preference to stay in the country of study. Yet fewer than half of those actually end up staying. There can be many reasons behind why students leave despite their wanting to stay, but there is not much evidence to draw strong conclusions. Dr. Wotherspoon argued that as source countries like India and China are going through important labor market, demographic, and technological changes, it is important to understand the implication for international student mobility and settlement in the U.S. and the long-term political economy of the higher education field.

On the second day of the Research Roundtable, the discussion shifted towards looking at economic migration of specific ethnic groups to the U.S. Michael Ewers, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, opened the day by leading a conversation on skilled migration to the U.S. from the Middle East. For this population, it is interesting to consider migration in the context of securitization, economic benefits, and perceptions of the security threat of migrants. Though the economic and financial impact of immigration in the U.S. is not well-known and widely debated, what is certain is that large Middle Eastern immigrant populations are settling in large cities in the U.S. that are trending towards population loss, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. What this could mean for these cities’ economic markets is an interesting area of research.

Migration flows to the U.S. from Latin America in the past have been largely low-skilled, but since 2007, the education levels and English language skills of migrants have increased. René Zenteno, Professor of Demography at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), led the participants in a discussion on the experiences of undocumented highly-skilled migrants from Latin America. There are more highly-skilled migrants in the flow of undocumented migrants than before, and whether or not they have legal status may impact the ability of the migrant to integrate into the labor market. Highly-skilled Hispanic migrants also experience of workplace discrimination to a greater extent than non-Hispanic highly-skilled migrants, which may also be related to their legal status. The transference of foreign credentials to the U.S. often creates a skill-job mismatch for Latin American migrants who may be highly qualified in their home country, but must take positions in the U.S. that require less qualification due to the non-recognition of their foreign credentials.

The final two sessions of the Research Roundtable discussed the experiences of Asian migrants to the U.S. Sangay Mishra, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Drew University, opened a discussion on the political mobilization of South Asian immigrants, by Indian communities in particular. A unique characteristic of the Indian immigrant population is that the vast majority are foreign-born, not second generation. Indian immigrants are the third-largest immigrant group in the U.S., yet at least 50 percent of Indian immigrants are not U.S. citizens and are on other visa types than just the H-1B visa category. For this community, the parameters of the H4 dependent visa has been an important area of political mobilization. In particular, lobbying groups have taken up the issue of the right of H4 dependent migrants to work, and push for immigration reform in this area. The overwhelming percentage of highly educated women who are in this category forms a unique sub-group of the Indian immigrant population that deserves further examination.

Min Zhou, Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies, Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US-China Relations and Communications, and Director of the Asia Pacific Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, continued the discussion in a comparison of the Indian and Chinese highly-skilled migrants in Los Angeles, California. In terms of visa categories, Indian immigrants mostly migrate to the U.S. on the H-1B visa. For Chinese immigrants, the majority of migrants come on a student visa and then adjust to the H-1B category. Yet, Chinese are the overwhelming majority of the recipients of EB-5 investment visas. The integration patterns of these communities are diverse based on education and profession. Those Chinese migrants who have higher socioeconomic characteristics on arrival seem to integrate much more quickly than others. As the non-Hispanic White population in the U.S. continues to lose the numerical majority, Dr. Zhou suggests that perhaps the power dynamics between races and migrants/non-migrants could shift.

There are several overall themes coming out of the two days of discussion, including: the precarity of immigrants in the U.S., across the skill spectrum; the increasing difficulty with which rigid visa categories can accurately match skilled labor with market needs, especially in the STEM fields; and the long-term career trajectories, workplace mobility, and settlement opportunities for highly-skilled migrants and international students, especially at the intersection of higher education and immigration policies. Immigrant experiences across all nationalities are influenced by gender and generational aspects, especially when it comes to immigrant families and the ability to integrate into the local labor market. More highly-skilled migrants are undocumented than before, and their experiences of labor market and social integration and discrimination are important areas for future study.

CIRS plans to follow on from this roundtable with a more in-depth research project on the topic of economic migration to the U.S. in order to better understand these questions.

For the roundtable agenda, click here.
For the participants’ biographies, click here.

For the research initiative, click here.
Participants and Discussants:
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Payal Banerjee, Smith College Katharine M. Donato, Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) – Georgetown University Michael Ewers, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Elizabeth Ferris, Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) – Georgetown University Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar B. Lindsay Lowell, Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) – Georgetown University Sangay Mishra, Drew University Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar Terry Wotherspoon, University of Saskatchewan René Zenteno, The University of Texas at San Antonio Min Zhou, University of California, Los Angeles
Article by Elizabeth Wanucha, Operations Manager at CIRS

Fascism 2.0: Lessons from Democracy in India
2020-02-25 12:45 - 13:45
Uday Chandra, Assistant Professor of Government at GU-Q, presented on “Fascism 2.0: Lessons from Democracy in India” at a CIRS event on February 25, 2020. The talk drew on his book in progress, Fascism 2.0, which traces how and why India’s heterogeneous, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society has been recast under modern democratic conditions as a homogeneous, mono-cultural, mono-religious polity. Since the 1980s, the rights and freedoms of religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims, have eroded steadily with the rise of Hindu nationalism, a movement among the growing middle classes who see Indian society in majoritarian terms as essentially Hindu.

Chandra’s forthcoming book is concerned with what others today call populism. He points to the global rise of fascism, which, he argued, parallels the inter-war period in Europe. Chandra suggested revisiting the “triad of global ideologies—liberalism, socialism, fascism,” which goes back to the contradictory French revolutionary slogan of “liberty, equality, fraternity,” in order to understand the interactions between these ideologies over the past century. By historicizing the politics of the present and using the case of India, he teases out a set of broad comparative generalizations.

The book’s title, Fascism 2.0, reveals both continuities and changes within fascism, particularly its adaptation to our age of “digital capitalism.” One of Chandra’s objectives is to identify the relationship between fascism and democracy. Non-democracies such as China or Saudi Arabia are unlikely to evolve into fascist regimes, he suggests, because popular sovereignty or the rule of the people is not vital to the functioning of these polities. By comparison, it is possible to identify conditions that favor the collapse of the liberal order at home and abroad and triggers the turn towards fascism.

“Fascism seemed more promising to ruling elites because it combined socialism’s antipathy to the old ruling classes with a nationalist vision that promised real change for all.”

The liberal international order, established after World War II, was organized around free markets, multilateral institutions, and liberal democracy. While this project brought economic prosperity and political freedoms to some, especially in the West, it also led to inequalities within these societies and worldwide. Today, we face new political realities with the rise of “a new breed of illiberal politicians” such as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán, who claim to represent ordinary voters better than career politicians. Chandra argued that there are lessons to be learned from India’s democratic experience under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was first elected in 2014. “These lessons concern how democracy sans liberalism—the new global norm—can be hijacked by ‘fascism 2.0,’ even as we must not lose sight of the ways in which democracy can be restored to a healthy, competitive state.”

Chandra observed that, a century ago, fascism emerged in Europe in response to the failures of Western liberal elites to spread the vast economic benefits of imperialism throughout their societies. Socialism, by contrast, pitted social classes against each other. Fascism seemed more promising to ruling elites because “it combined socialism’s antipathy to the old ruling classes with a nationalist vision that promised real change for all.” Fascism thus combined socialism and ethno-nationalism to offer a modern agenda of mass education, public works, and national rejuvenation. “It is easy to forget today that fascism was astonishingly successful in its own terms,” Chandra said.

In postcolonial India, Chandra explained, democracy began as “a gift of well-meaning upper-caste Hindus to the masses.” The Congress party, which led the anticolonial struggle under Gandhi and Nehru, dominated national politics in India in the 1950s and 1960s. The party reflected the country’s highly diverse polity and emphasized “unity in diversity” within a federal framework. In the mid-1970s, however, “democracy was suspended” by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after global oil shocks and a rising tide of youthful and left-wing protests. Political opponents were imprisoned, elections suspended, and civil liberties curtailed. Although this authoritarian turn lasted just a year and a half, Chandra suggested that the embryo of fascism emerged in Indian politics: personalized rule, militarism, the primacy of the state over the economy, and empty promises of national renewal.

After the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Chandra explained, the Indian state underwent a crisis of legitimacy, which has been steadily resolved via the rise of Hindu nationalism championed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, literally “Indian People’s Party”). This nationalist ideology, borrowed from Germany and Italy, was explicitly rejected by India’s founding fathers because it was exclusivist, chauvinistic, and socially divisive. The Congress leadership saw India as a mosaic of faiths and cultures, held together by their shared struggle against British imperialism. But, according to Chandra, the BJP has sought to remake India as a Hindu nation out of a vast ensemble of inherited theistic and nontheistic practices and their accompanying philosophies. For the Hindu nationalist elite, he said, these diverse Indic traditions must be replaced by a modern nationalist ideology built around an imaginary majority and pitted against minorities.

“In a digital age, social democracy means fusing together the myriad voices and social fractals that do not share much in common beyond a common antipathy to fascism.”

Under Modi, the BJP has sought to make this ideological fantasy into social reality, online and offline. A new political morality now justifies violence against ideological enemies in pursuit of a national communitas. Social media platforms empower ordinary users to generate words, images, and videos that further the Hindu nationalist project at the expense of minorities and those accused of sympathizing with them.

In a democracy without liberalism, Chandra identified “social democracy” as the main alternative to Hindutva (Hinduness) today. The roots of this challenge lie in caste-based, regionally specific movements for social justice that emerged during the 1980s at the same time as Hindutva. While these regional and caste-based parties allied previously with the Congress party to form national coalition governments, they now offer a distinctive vision of a federal polity committed to the multitude of small voices that make up contemporary India. In state elections over the past two years, this coalition of Opposition parties have, alongside the Congress, outsmarted and defeated the BJP.

Chandra concluded his talk by arguing that India is an ideal case study to understand contemporary fascism. India shows us how fascism, which must be distinguished from the political movements led by the likes of Corbyn and Sanders, has arisen paradoxically out of a long process of democratization. Additionally, it has come at the expense of a small globally oriented and liberal-minded elite at odds with the majority of citizens. Lastly, the antidote to fascism, whether today or in the interwar years, comes less from a return to liberalism than from the tantalizing possibility of social democracy. “In a digital age, social democracy means fusing together the myriad voices and social fractals that do not share much in common beyond a common antipathy to fascism,” he said. Over time, Chandra suggested, we may be cautiously hopeful that social democratic coalitions will succeed at the expense of fascism.

Uday Chandra is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar. He is interested in state-society relations, power and resistance, political violence, agrarian change, and the philosophy of the social sciences. His work has been published in the Law & Society Review, Critical Sociology, Social Movement Studies, New Political Science, The Journal of Contemporary Asia, Contemporary South Asia, and The Indian Economic & Social History Review. Chandra has co-edited volumes and journal special issues on caste hierarchies, the ethics of self-making, the politics of the poor, and social movements in India. His first book, Resistance as Negotiation: Making States and Tribes in Modern India, is forthcoming with Stanford University Press. For the academic year 2019/2020, he is a CIRS Faculty Fellow.

Article by Chaïmaa Benkermi (Class of 2021), Publications Fellow

Football in the Middle East Working Group II
2020-04-06 14:00 - 2020-04-13 15:00
Between April 6 and 13 2020, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the second working group for its research initiative on “Football in the Middle East.” In light of the rapidly changing restrictions imposed on international travel as well as to maintain social distancing measures, this working group was held “virtually”. Paper contributors made use of available technological options to meet, present and comment on each of the paper submissions. The Working Group welcome and wrap up brought the scholars together for live interaction via Zoom conferencing, and these group sessions were complemented by asynchronous interaction through prerecorded video discussions using Blackboard. This dual approach enabled CIRS to adapt to the current global situation and ensure the continuation of its research activities and engagement with the academic community.

The presentations and papers discussed are as follow,

Playing in the triple periphery: Exclusionary policies towards Palestinian football in Lebanon- Danyel Reiche

GCC Football Fans and Their Engagement: Establishing a Research Agenda – Simon Chadwick

Education in sports administration from scratch: the case of Qatar – John McManus

Who Kisses the Badge? The Player’s Perspective in the Performance of National Identity in the Qatar National Team – Thomas Ross Griffin

Refugees and Football in the Global and Middle East Context – Ramón Spaaij

Beyond Soft Power: Football as a Form of Regime Legitimation – Abdullah Al-Arian

The National Game: A Political Prehistory of the Egyptian League – Ibrahim Elhoudaiby

Women’s football in Turkey: Trivial, threatening and ultimately unequal – Yagmur Nuhrat

A Study of Football Art as Political Expression in the Algerian Hirak – Maher Mezahi

This CIRS project is an attempt to engage and produce new literature on an understudied area in the Middle East by engaging scholars and experts from multiple disciplines, including political science, anthropology, business, and journalism among others. After final revisions based on peer comments and suggestions, CIRS will gather the final chapter submissions into an edited volume on Football in the Middle East to be published by a university press.

Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Shaza Afifi, Georgetown University in QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSimon Chadwick, emlyon Business School, FranceIbrahim Elhoudaiby, Columbia UniversityThomas Griffin, Qatar UniversitySalma Hassabou, Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJohn McManus, Qatar UniversityMaher Mezahi, Independent Football Journalist, Algeria Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarYagmur Nuhrat, Istanbul Bilgi University, TurkeyDanyel Reiche, American University of BeirutRamon Spaaji, Victoria University, Australia Jackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

Sonic Connections and Diasporic Belonging: Malayalam Radio in Qatar
2020-04-14 12:45 - 13:45 | Education City, Al Luqta St, Ar-Rayyan, Doha, Qatar
Irene Promodh, a Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) junior majoring in International Politics and a CURA Research Fellow, presented her research titled, “FM Radio and the Malayali Diaspora in Qatar: At Home Overseas” in a virtual CURA Focused Discussion on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. Promodh undertook this research project as part of the Certificate in Media and Politics (CMAP) program, which is offered jointly by GU-Q and Northwestern University in Qatar. She used a mixed-methods approach in conducting her research, deploying both semi-structured interviews with radio producers and listeners and media content analyses of the radio content broadcast itself. As such, “Malayalis” or speakers of the Malayalam language (the official language of Kerala, a state in South India) form the demographic focus of her research along the axes of gender, class, occupation, and family status.

Promodh traces the ways in which diasporic vernacular radio mediates the everyday lives of Malayali migrants in Qatar across both home and workspaces, particularly for single, lower-income, male, and female migrants. In Qatar, she deploys Radio Yatra FM [pseudonym used] as a case study in her project to examine the role of migrant radio along both radio production and listenership lines and its salience in the everyday work lives of Malayalis in Qatar. Promodh finds that Malayali radio audiences negotiate their “Malayali-ness,” or the ways of being Malayali, along gendered and socioeconomic lines through their engagement with diasporic vernacular radio. Paying attention to sonic waves and networks that bind together radio stations and audiences in Qatar across work and home spaces, she argues that diasporic vernacular radio both reinforces and challenges notions of “Malayali-ness” both within the Gulf Malayali community (bandham) and in non-Malayali urban workspaces in Qatar. Highly affordable and accessible, Promodh argues that radio uses migrant sabdam or “sound” to create and recreate spaces of sonic belonging, territorializing Malayalis’ workspaces along ethnolinguistic and exclusionary lines. She premises her findings, such as the one above, on her interview data with individuals ranging from Malayali beauticians at small salons and limousine drivers to library staff and, of course, radio station staff themselves.

Engaging with the scholarly works of Laith Ulaby, Neha Vora, and Fahad Bishara, among others, Promodh explores the cultural production histories of the western Indian Ocean and the formation of the Arabi-Malayalam language. She examines through ethnographic methods how the current socio-political realities that Malayalis in Qatar face transfigure Malayalam as a “migrant language” and its usage, which is regulated in the public sphere. Promodh observes the musical traditions associated with pearl-diving and shipbuilding, as well as other cross-cultural exchanges between India’s southwestern coast and the Persian Gulf, to explore the long-standing relationships between the two regions. While language in the past represented interconnectedness Promodh argues that today, “language is an exclusionary medium in the creation of non-physical space or, in effect, “soundscapes,” even along citizen-migrant lines, situating just the native speaker within.”

“Radio is central to diasporic Malayalis in Qatar as it creates a space of sonic belonging for them within the community.”

Promodh explores the interaction between the Malayali diasporic community and Radio Yatra, a prominent radio station in Qatar. She details how the 2017 Qatar Blockade transformed the diasporic radio scene in Qatar, bringing Radio Yatra to the forefront of the radio scene. Through her case study of this radio station, Promodh dictates the cross-sections between politics and media narratives which exist in trying to cater to the Malayali audience in Qatar. She argues that Radio Yatra is “central to diasporic Malayali life [because it creates a] sonic belonging . . . within the Malayali community.” She quotes Neha Vora, an anthropologist, to suggest that the Malayalis in Qatar experience a “state of permanent temporariness.”[1] The final segment of her presentation reiterates the gendered dynamics at play between radio jockeys and their audiences, as well as between the female jockeys themselves and their male managers. Through her interviews, she examines the professional realities of female radio jockeys, their workplace hierarchies, and their relationship with their male superiors. Promodh also explores the politics of the “ideal” Malayali family construct and how female Malayali radio jockeys construct and redefine their perceptions of womanhood and diasporic belonging according to norms associated with Malayali femininity and family life in the Kerala context.

In all, Promodh’s research deconstructs and demonstrates the symbolism of diasporic vernacular radio in the lives of Malayalis living in Qatar. Promodh concludes that Malayalis in Qatar experience “home away from the Kerala homeland via diasporic vernacular radio.” The radio, which may be perceived as an ordinary infotainment medium, accentuates the blurred nature of “work-leisure” boundaries and its profound role in the lives of the Malayali diaspora in Qatar. Through her empirical observations and findings, Promodh steers towards a refreshing narrative of migrant life in the Gulf beyond parochialisms of migrants as purely “labor.”

[1] Vora, Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora, 3.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Irene Promodh is a junior at GU-Q majoring in International Politics and is originally from South India. She works as a CURA Research Fellow and assists CIRS Director, Professor Mehran Kamrava, and Associate Director for Research Zahra Babar with their research centered on the region, while also working to advance the newly established CURA program. Her personal interests are rooted strongly in researching the dynamics of the media in influencing labor migration trends from South Asia to the Gulf, and she hopes to pursue further research in this field.

Article by Khushboo Shah, CURA Administrative Fellow

CURA Spotlight on Undergraduate Publishing
2020-04-23 12:45 - 13:45
On April 23, 2020, CIRS hosted an online CURA workshop titled, “CURA Spotlight on Undergraduate Publishing,” featuring presentations by Suzi Mirgani, Assistant Director for CIRS Publications, Jackie Starbird, CIRS Publications and Projects Assistant, and Chaïmaa Benkermi, CIRS Publications Fellow. The workshop was centered around supporting undergraduate research and publishing, with a focus on the path towards academic publishing, its benefits, as well as its difficulties. Overall, the workshop aimed at offering interested students useful resources and information to promote more undergraduate research and publication.

Suzi Mirgani led the workshop by sharing her professional experience and advice on research and publishing. Additionally, the workshop actively engaged participants to share their ideas, questions, and concerns. She recommended various venues in which to publish, including peer-reviewed academic journals, and advised against engaging with vanity presses or those that demand a fee to publish. She encouraged students to practice their academic writing skills by regularly writing and submitting book reviews to academic journals, which are relatively short in length and can be smartly integrated into a student’s regular university reading and writing workload. Mirgani shared her experience, both as an author and as an editor, regarding the peer-review process, which she acknowledged to be an exhausting, but worthy process that becomes easier with practice. Over time, students learn scholarly writing requirements and the best ways to execute them. Mirgani emphasized the importance of keeping an open mind when it comes to reviewer criticism as well as patience regarding the often-lengthy process. She also stressed the importance of understanding the power relation between author and publisher when entering the publication field. Moreover, Mirgani engaged students by questioning their research interests and current projects and received questions on how to transform a class paper to a ready-to-be-published submission and how to avoid biased writing.

Jackie Starbird expanded the discussion and included examples of publishing sites, offering platforms such as the CURA Paper Series to gain valuable experience in the review and publishing processes. She also gave examples of undergraduate research journals and explained the selection criteria for submissions and requirements for publishing such as word count, formatting, and recommendation letters. Starbird concluded with helpful tips on writing and publishing, including using resources offered by CIRS’s CURA program and GU-Q, such as seeking out professors for advice and mentorship and setting goals like presenting a paper at a conference.

Chaïmaa Benkermi, Annual Undergraduate Research Conference (AURC) President, followed with an introduction of AURC as a way to voice, present, and publish original research for undergraduate students. This year’s conference theme was “The Road to Peace: Challenges and Opportunities for Peacebuilding.” She explained the process of application and review but also encouraged students to be part of the AURC team.

The workshop concluded with helpful tips on writing and publishing including using resources offered by CIRS and GU-Q, such as seeking out professors for advice and mentorship and setting goals like presenting a paper at a conference. Overall, this workshop aimed at offering interested students useful resources and information to promote more undergraduate research and publication.

Article by Salma Hassabou, CURA Administration Fellow

Tunisia in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings Working Group II
2020-06-22 16:00 - 2020-06-29 17:00
Between June 22 and 29 2020, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the second working group for its faculty research initiative on “Tunisia in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings.” This CIRS project is a faculty-led initiative, under the intellectual guidance of Professor Mohamed Zayani. Adopting a hybrid model the group met and discussed the submitted chapters virtually. The group met for two short sessions of live group interaction using Zoom conferencing and discussed and provided feedback on the submitted chapters via asynchronous interaction through prerecorded videos hosted on the Blackboard platform. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the meeting offered an in-depth discourse on the post-revolutionary Tunisian state.

The paper presented and discussed are as follows:

Tunisian Youth: Catalyst for Socio-Political Change and Emergence of Identity Politics in post-Arab Spring Tunisia – Zouhir Gabsi

Tunisia’s Reinvigorated Civil Society – Zuzana Hudáková

Transitional Bodies, Modern Politics and Anti-Democratic Potential: The Case of HAICA – Enrique Klaus

Women’s Rights in Tunisia from 1900 to 2020: From Taboo to Totem – Lilia Labidi

Tunisian Transition in the Context of Middle East Persistent Authoritarianism- Marina Ottaway

From Political Protest to Contention against Austerity: Mobilization in Tunisia Post-2011 – Irene Weipert-Fenner

Ennahda and Post-Islamism Politics in Tunisia – Fabio Merone

What can Tunisia’s Past Tell us about its Future? – Alexandra Blackman

Under the intellectual lead of Professor Zayani, this CIRS project seeks not only to identify and better understand trends that characterize the country’s uneasy transition 10 years after the revolution but also to examine what some of these intricate and intertwined changes of transition mean for the future of the Tunisian state. The contributions to this research project are embedded in imperially grounded research from the perspective of various disciplinary specialty and research focus. CIRS plans to publish the outcome of this timely project in an edited volume in the near future.

Read more about this research initiative.

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAlexandra Blackman, New York University Abu Dhabi, UAEAhmad Dallal, Georgetown University in QatarZouhir Gabsi, Deakin University, AustraliaZuzana Hudáková, Sciences Po, ParisMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarEnrique Klaus, Galatasaray University, TurkeyLilia Labidi, Association of Tunisian Women for Research and Development (AFTURD), TunisiaFabio Merone, University of Ghent, BelgiumAlyssa Miller, University of Pennsylvania, USSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMarina Ottaway, Woodrow Wilson Center, USJackie Starbird, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarIrene Weipert-Fenner, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, GermanyMohamed Zayani, Georgetown University in Qatar

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar in Historical Perspective
2020-10-06 18:00 - 20:00
The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ breaks new ground—the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, the first in a Muslim majority society, and the first to be held in November. David Goldblatt, a sociologist, journalist, and bestselling author examined the economics, politics, and urban development that have accompanied the upcoming event and compared these to past World Cups.

Goldblatt explained, “The 2006 World Cup in Germany was the first one to have a proper dimension for the environmental aspects of the major sporting event. The 2014 and 2018 World Cup editions had full-scale carbon analysis. 2022 is genuinely different. The commitment of the Qatari government towards the environment is really noteworthy for a carbon-zero event. The seriousness towards this commitment is seen in the construction as well as in the public transport arrangements for the World Cup.”

Speaker: David Goldblatt, is an honorary fellow at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K., teaches for the Geneva based Football Business Academy, and is a visiting Professor at Pitzer College, Los Angeles.

Moderator: Danyel Reiche, Visiting Associate Professor at GUQ.

Economic Migration to the United States Virtual Working Group
2020-10-19 17:00 - 2020-10-20 19:30
On October 19-20, 2020, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the second working group for its research initiative on Economic Migration to the US. The virtual meeting brought together scholars who presented draft papers on important themes related to immigration reform, transnationalism, education, and labor market participation and employment. In addition, several papers provided focused case studies of economic migrants from particular regions such as South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America.

The working group commenced with Payal Banerjee’s paper on “Economic Migration to the US: An Exchange with Data-Capitalism, Surveillance and Other Considerations in Immigrant Incorporation.” In this paper Banerjee critiques a terminology that frames and conceptualizes international migrants to the US within a bounded idea of “economic.” What constitutes economic migration is informed by broader social and political mechanisms and dynamics. This paper seeks to expand the economic lens and press against it so that it captures the social and historical making of immigrants and their labor contributions in the US. The Banrjee paper suggests that it is essential to address issues of inherent inequality between labor and capital through a structured discussion of capitalism and its new forms. A particular scrutiny of the impact that automation, digitization, and surveillance technologies are having on migrants is needed at the current juncture. Banerjee states that new forms of automation, as well as data capitalism and the algorithms it produces are reshuffling the circulation of capital and influencing immigration management in the country.

Terry Wotherspoon presented his paper on “International Student Mobility and Settlement,” stating that until fairly recently there was limited scholarship and policy attention focused on international students as potential future immigrants. In his paper, Wotherspoon focuses on the relationship between national immigration policies and the aspirations or desires of the students themselves, and studies the factors that either facilitate or inhibit students’ permanent settlement. While for the most part international students are still seen by the state primarily as temporary visitors, policy developments reflect the fact that internationals students have also been considered as a useful means by which to address short-term labor market needs. There is a significant gap between the number of students who express a desire to remain in the host country and those who find employment and actually stay on after completing their studies. The paper looks at various pathways available for international students to facilitate their stay in the US and how this is informed by global trends.

In his presentation on “South Asian Migrant Communities and US Politics,” Sangay Mishra questions the political deficit that temporary migrant workers faces as a result of limitations to political and civic participation that the visa regime imposes on them. The H-1B is essentially a guest worker visa that is designed around the concept of temporariness. This visa regime produces a democratic and civic deficit in the United States, as those living and working in the country under this visa category are relegated to non-participation. In the US inclusion and participation are assumed to be privileges available to those who “earn it,” usually through contributing to the economy and abiding by the system and their legal status for a certain duration of time. However, for those who remain on the H-1B there is no guarantee of acquiring permanent status or becoming eligible for citizenship, despite years of staying on US soil. In the empirical section of the article, Sangay looks at a particular situation that is created for Indian H-1B visa holders when they apply for a green card and the waiting time.

Silvia Pedraza’s paper on “Transnationalism Among Immigrants: Economic, Political, Social,” outlines the various immigrant experiences such as assimilation, incorporation and transnationalism. Pedraza argues that while immigrants to United States have always demonstrated forms of transnationalism, current advances of in communication technology have changed the nature and scope of their transnational behaviors. The present day American immigrant lives across two or more nations as well as different time spans, tied to the past and the present, in both host and sending country. Pedraza’s paper breaks down the different types of transnationalism that demonstrate distinctly economic, social, and political elements.

Min Zhou shared her research on “Contemporary Immigration to the US from East Asia.” Professor Zhou’s paper focuses on the migration of three major ethnonational groups, Japanese, Chinese and the Koreans, and their distinct histories of migration to the United States. Zhou states that while these three groups have their own distinct migration stories, they are often racialized and treated as single consolidated group in the US. This paper provides an analytical overview of the immigration trends of the three Asian migrant communities, and how their diasporas have evolved. The paper provides a structured discussion of contemporary trends of cross-border mobility, socioeconomic characteristics of migration and patterns of social mobility for each of the Asian communities. Zhou suggests that old and new stereotypes have continued to influence the lives and identity formation of East Asian Americans.

In her presentation of a paper jointly authored with Catelina Amnuedo Dorantes on “The US Visa System without Legislative Change: Growing Complexity and Difference,” Professor Katherine Donato addressed the issue of variations in the US visa systems across presidential administrations. She maintained that the legal visa systems that were created by the Immigration Act of 1990 remain unchanged and still define the way legal immigrants enter the US. She provided an overview of the visa admission system, defining its goals, composition and reforms that have occurred under successive administrations. Using immigrant entry data, covering the 2002 through 2017 as well as trends in nonimmigrant visa issuances she maintained that visas differ in important ways across various US administrations. The variations have intended and unintended consequences, which are important for any policy proposals drafted in the future to improve the legal immigration system in the US.

Lindsey Lowell continued the discussion on the visa systems by focusing on H-1B visa category. In his paper titled, “Preferential Hiring and the US Earnings of Skilled Foreign Temporary Workers,” he maintained that the theory of preferential hiring drives our understanding about sector-specific earnings of H-1B workers. Employers often prefer to hire foreign workers and temporary visa systems such as H-1B offer advantages in hiring and control over employment. In this paper Lindsey proposes that the when it comes to the earnings of H-1B the correct comparison should be to all domestic workers i.e. natives and foreign born. Combing data on H-1B with a large sample of US workers, full time domestic worker, Lindsay’s research concluded that while H-1B earn more than native born workers, their earnings are less than that of domestic workers.

Misba Bhatti addressed the question of degree devaluation with her paper titled, “Devalued Credentials: Pakistani Female Highly Skilled Migrants in the United States.” This work examines and nuances the experiences of highly skilled women from Pakistan and details the issues they face in the United States in regard to the devaluation of their foreign earned degrees. There is a gender skew with women often being placed at a greater academic or occupational disadvantage than their male counterparts. This is more visible in sectors that hire certain sets of skilled migrants and are usually tipped in favor of male skilled migrants. Likewise, the foreign credentials of female migrants from South Asia are treated differently, as that of having lower standards, than that of women skilled migrants from developed economies. As a result highly skilled female migrants from developing economies face systematic dual dichotomy when it comes to their foreign earned credential recognition in the U.S.

The last discussion of the working group was led by Rene Zenteno, who presented a paper on “Latin American Skilled Workers’ Socio-Economic Integration.” Using data from 1990 to 2018 the paper constructs an updated demographic and provides an understanding of the recent transformations of the Latino immigration to the U.S. The data collected yields a picture of significant changes in the characteristics and qualities of Latino Immigrants as this wave of migration from Latin America declines quickly. The paper states that this decrease in the flow of Latin immigration has effected student migration largely, as well as the supplies of high-skilled Latino immigrants. Professor Zenteno also argues that despite changes in cohort quality, the successful integration of Latino immigrants into the U.S. society is still hindered by the large presence of un-skilled workers, the lack of a path to legalization, the low rates of naturalization, and the ethno-racial profiling of U.S. immigration enforcement.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Maram Al-Qershi, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarPayal Banerjee, Smith CollegeMisba Bhatti, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAhmad Dallal, Georgetown University in QatarKatharine M. Donato, Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) – Georgetown UniversityCatalina Amuedo-Dorantes, University of California, MercedAnatol Lieven, Georgetown University in QatarB. Lindsay Lowell, Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) – Georgetown UniversitySuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSangay Mishra, Drew UniversitySilvia Pedraza, University of Michigan, Ann ArborElizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarTerry Wotherspoon, University of SaskatchewanRené Zenteno, The University of Texas at San AntonioMin Zhou, University of California, Los Angeles

Article by Misba Bhatti, Research Analyst at CIRS

Qatar's Football Journey: From First Games on Sand to Hosting the World as Asian Champions
2020-11-16 18:00 - 19:30
Qatar has no football history, or so the critics say. In this moderated lecture, Doha-born journalist and author Matthias Krug debunks that myth by telling the inside story of the country’s most cherished football and sporting moments and players over the past six decades.

Krug expressed, “Qatar has become a capital of world sports which will host global football fans in 2022. So in order to gain a full understanding of this development it is important to look at the history and where this rapid development and incredible sports vision has come from.”

Speaker: Matthias Krug is an author and journalist who was born and raised in Qatar, where he lives with his family. Matthias has written extensively about football, society, politics and culture for over 18 years for some of the biggest publications around the world, including for the BBC, CNN, ESPN, The Huffington Post, The Irish Examiner, Al Jazeera English, 442, El Pais, Arts Monthly Australia, and many others. His most recent book is titled Journeys on a Football Carpet, published by HBKU Press in Qatar, won awards at the International Book Awards and Living Now Awards. His creative short stories have been published in literary magazines across numerous countries.

Moderator: Danyel Reiche, Visiting Associate Professor at GUQ.

A New Political Strategy to Limit Climate Change
2021-01-18 16:00 - 18:00
Watch the Video

In this moderated discussion based on his latest book, Climate Change and the Nation State: The Realist Case, Anatol Lieven sets out a new political strategy to mobilize support for the effort to limit climate change. He argues that while international agreements and movements are valuable, in the end, their purpose is to get states to act, because (as the pandemic response demonstrated) only states can take the measures and mobilize the resources required. For this to happen, states and their populations have to be convinced that climate change is not just a threat to humanity in general, but a danger to the vital interests and the long term survival of their own nations.

By refocusing the debate about climate change on the national rather than the global level, Anatol Lieven concentrates on the states and institutions that can take effective action, and on how mass support for such action can be motivated. This involves a recognition of climate change as an existential threat to existing nation-states and an appeal to progressive nationalism in response. He provides a Realist frame for the threat of climate change and the necessary response to this threat. This response will require radical changes to our economies and societies, but he reminds us that in the past we have faced and overcome such immense challenges: the total wars of the 20th Century, and the creation of social programs to civilize industrial society and save capitalism from itself.

Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation-state. The drastic action required to change our societies may be inspired in part by internationalist idealism but can only be carried out by the institutions of effective nation-states, backed by public legitimacy. This requires different national versions of what has been called the “Green New Deal”: to rebuild social solidarity, not only in order to justify the sacrifices that will be necessary in the fight to limit climate change but in order to strengthen our societies so as to withstand some damaging effects of climate change that are already inevitable. This will also require new policies to limit migration and deal with the impact of artificial intelligence.

Speaker: Anatol Lieven is a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and a Fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He was previously a professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College, London. He worked for twelve years as a British foreign correspondent, reporting from South Asia, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe for The Times and other publications. His other books include Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (1998); Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World (2006); America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (2011) and Pakistan: A Hard Country (2012).

Moderator: Ahmad Dallal, Dean, Georgetown University in Qatar.

The Away Game: The Epic Search for Football’s Next Superstars
2021-02-14 18:00 - 20:00
Reporter Sebastian Abbot discussed his critically acclaimed book, The Away Game, which tells the gripping story of a group of boys discovered in what may be the largest talent search in sports history. Over the course of a decade, an audacious program called Football Dreams held tryouts for millions of 13-year-old boys across Africa looking for football’s next superstars. Led by the Spanish scout who helped launch Lionel Messi’s career at Barcelona and funded by the State of Qatar, the program chose a handful of boys each year to train to become professionals—a process over a thousand times more selective than getting into Harvard. In The Away Game, Abbot follows a small group of boys as they are discovered on dirt fields across Africa and join the glittering academy in Doha where they train and compete for the chance to gain fame and fortune at Europe’s top clubs.

Speaker: Sebastian Abbot is the author of The Away Game: The Epic Search for Football’s Next Superstars, which tells the story of the largest talent search in football history. The book was a finalist for The Telegraph Football Book of the Year and the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Prior to publishing the book, Mr. Abbot spent over a half dozen years working as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press in the Middle East and Asia. He has also worked for over a decade in investment banking and private equity for firms like J.P. Morgan and Affiliated Managers Group. Mr. Abbot has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Moderator: Danyel Reiche, Visiting Associate Professor at GUQ.

The FIFA World Cup: Football, Citizenship, and National Identity 1930-2022
2021-03-21 18:00 - 19:30
Gijsbert Oonk, Director of the Sport and Nation research program at Erasmus University Rotterdam, discussed his study exploring the relationship between national belonging, acquiring citizenship, and migration. Taking high profile examples from international sports events, he sought to unveil the complexities behind the question: who may represent the nation? The historical models of jus sanguine (blood ties) and jus soli (territorial birthright) are well-known markers and symbols of citizenship and nationality. Oonk proposed an ideal-type model of thick, thin, and in-between forms of citizenship.

Speaker: Gijsbert Oonk holds the endowed Jean Monnet chair on Europe in Globalizing World: Migration, Citizenship and Identity. This chair promotes education and research in the field of Global history, European studies, and national identity. The Jean Monnet chairs are an initiative of the European Commission to promote education, research, and reflection in the field of European integration studies at higher education institutions. The Sport and Nation research program at Erasmus University Rotterdam focuses on talented athletes with a migrant background within football and the Olympic Games in the context of changing citizenship, multiple citizenship, and elite migration.

Moderator: Danyel Reiche, Visiting Associate Professor at GUQ.
