Center for International and Regional Studies

Food Security And Food Sovereignty In The Middle East Working Group II
2012-04-22 08:00 - 2012-04-23 18:00 (Europe/Moscow)
On April 22–23, 2012, CIRS concluded its “Food Security and Food Sovereignty in the Middle East” research initiative with a two-day working group meeting. Sixteen scholars and experts participating in the initiative were invited back to Doha for a second time to share their findings with working group members and to critique each other’s paper submissions. Among the participants were nine of the CIRS Research Grant recipients who gave updates on the progress of their research projects. The first working group meeting took place in November 2011.

The strength of this CIRS research initiative is in its multi-disciplinary approach to the questions of food security and food sovereignty in the Middle East. The participants include economists, anthropologists, historians, and experts in agriculture and nutrition. The diverse range of expertise enables the project to bridge the epistemological divide between the qualitative and quantitative methodologies of social science. Current food security issues and corresponding world events are shifting from a largely economics-dominated model where the debate centered on macro-level issues of international development to one where sociopolitical factors are becoming increasingly active in how food is conceived, valued, and distributed as a human right rather than a market force. The individual papers cover a large portion of the Middle East, with case studies into the characteristics of food security projects of Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Yemen, Egypt, and Iran, as well as studies into GCC foreign land investments in Cambodia and Ethiopia.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines food security as a condition of people having daily, unrestricted access to sufficient and nutritious food that enables them to live healthy lives. The global food crisis of 2008, therefore, was a defining moment for issues of food and the lack of access to it and steered countries’ attention towards aiming for “food security” and “food sovereignty” in the face of future crises. Importantly, the recent Arab Spring protests and political unrest across the Middle East region were partly triggered by rising food prices. Critics point out that such crises are as a direct result of global liberalization policies that allowed for multinational corporations to dominate food production and distribution value chains, making food a commercial commodity and making resistance to such international regimes much more difficult. As a result of current market dominated food systems, a central dilemma is whether it is more important to have a renewed promotion of a domestic production food security strategy, or to promote non-agricultural exports and use the resulting foreign exchange to import food stuffs.

In order to understand all the complex dynamics at work in the global shift in how food is perceived, valued, and commoditized, the CIRS research initiative offers insight into many of these issues. The participants engaged in a historical analysis of food regimes and the major systems that have allocated food resources through different economic, political, and market models. Different means of production since the nineteenth century, including increased industrialization and mechanization of farming and transportation in the early half of the twentieth century had varying effects on Middle Eastern countries’ relationship with food. Food production and distribution took on an international aspect where products gown in one place were exported to another as part of a globalized network of worldwide colonial projects.

Over the decades, countries began growing cash crops that had a comparative market advantage and so food took on a different meaning as something subject to market pressure rather than a means of human sustenance. Increased incomes and rapid population growth led to changing patterns of food consumption and demand for ever diverse types of food, which in turn placed further ecological constraints on land and water. A concomitant lifestyle shift from “traditional” diets based on the consumption of local market produce to “modern” diets based on meat, sugar, and processed foods purchased in supermarkets has had adverse effects on health with increased levels of malnutrition in the Middle East. Further to its market value, food was used as a political weapon of coercion and a tool of foreign policy, where dominant countries would either encourage or discourage the distribution of surplus food as reward or punishment.

Because Middle East countries import a large percentage of their food requirements, recent volatile hikes in global food prices have had severe adverse effects. At the macroeconomic level, this has contributed to inflation and trade deficits, and at the microeconomic household level, increased prices have contributed to increased poverty and food insecurity. Many countries have responded to the global food crisis of 2008 with decisions to increase domestic production of food. Other solutions include investment in highly controversial “foreign land acquisitions,” to grow food abroad. This may be at the expense of local populations in the host country who may become displaced and further impoverished by often unregulated and unscrupulous land deals.

In conclusion, the participants argued that the recent uprisings in the Middle East and the role of popular resistance to oppressive political and economic regimes may become an important factor of food security scholarship. It is not just the state that is characterizing policy in the Middle East, but on the level of the individual and the household, people are actively becoming involved in the issues that affect them. The scholars agreed that for the past few decades, research into the question of food security had been the domain of international economic and trade bodies that took a narrow and market-driven approach to analyzing food in relation to human existence. The CIRS project is an attempt to engage with a new paradigmatic shift in the field by suggesting that research into food security should incorporate the individual level of analysis as well as macroeconomic and political factors. This cross-disciplinary CIRS-sponsored book adds value to the literature on food security in its response to this changing orthodoxy. After final revisions based on peer comments and suggestions, CIRS gathered the complete chapter submissions into an edited volume that has been published by a university press.

Click here for the working group’s agendaRead more about the research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Amin Al-Hakimi, Yemeni Association for Sustainable Agriculture; University of Sana’aZahra Babar, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarRaymond Bush, University of LeedsJohn T. Crist, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarTahra Elobeid, Qatar UniversityMehran Kamrava, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMari Luomi, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMartha Mundy, London School of EconomicsHabibollah Salami, University of TehranNadia Talpur, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFlora Whitney, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarEckart Woertz, Princeton University

CIRS Grant Recipients:

Elisa Cavatorta, University of LondonJad Chaaban, American University of BeirutHala Ghattas, American University of BeirutShadi Hamadeh, American University of BeirutJane Harrigan, SOAS, University of LondonKarin Seyfert, American University of Beirut/SOAS, University of LondonBen Shepherd, University of SydneySalwa Tohmé Tawk, American University of BeirutMary Ann Tétreault, Trinity UniversityDeborah L. Wheeler, United States Naval Academy

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Michael Driessen on the Role of Religion in Modern Democracies
2012-04-24 08:00 - 18:00
Michael Driessen, a 2011-2012 Postdoctoral Fellow at CIRS and Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at John Cabot University, gave a CIRS Monthly Dialogue Lecture on “Religion-State Institutions and Patterns of Democracy: Religious Revivals and Secular Politics in Catholic and Muslim Societies” on April 24, 2012. The lecture was geared towards analyzing the relationship between religion and state politics in modern contemporary democracies and explored the question: “What does religiously friendly democratization look like?” in both Muslim and Catholic societies. Driessen explored the idea of religiously-friendly democracies and religiously-friendly democratization processes that occur in different political, social, and cultural contexts.

Driessen began the lecture by recalling the beginnings of the 2011 Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa and the prospects of increasing democracy in the region promised by these popular uprisings. This situation, however, was complicated by the election of Islamist-oriented political parties across the region. Driessen argued that “some of the dynamics that are seen to unfold in places like Egypt and Tunisia today are not so unique to Islam or so unique to Muslim-majority countries.”

Historically, opposition to democratic ideas and institutions by Catholic and Muslim political movements shared similar intuitions about the ideal role of religious authority in society. In contemporary scholarship on religion and politics, Driessen said, it is important to ask: “What kind of religion-state arrangements are actually possible in democracies?” One form of governance that does not adhere to strict religious or secular ideals and that does not treat these two seemingly opposing ideologies as mutually exclusive is the middle-ground of a religiously-friendly democracy. This combination of religion and democratic politics is capable of transforming the parameters of the struggle between religious and secular worldviews by relaxing the boundaries between religion and state. Religiously-friendly democracies define a situation where “neither religious actors nor the state can have power to coerce individual religious beliefs or individual religious identities in a democracy,” and where “unelected religious authorities cannot overturn or veto decisions made by elected political representatives,” he said.

Religiously-friendly democratization can be characterized by two interacting dynamics: increased political secularization in overtly religious societies on the one hand and religious-revival in overtly secular societies on the other. In some situations, “religious parties will often reach out to less religious and non-religious parties to reach out to a wider electorate in order to establish alliances with non-religious parties and, in doing so, they de-emphasize some of the most exclusive religious aspects of their ideology,” Driessen argued. This does not necessarily mean that the importance of religion fades, but that there is a platform of negotiation between the role of religion and other everyday concerns regarding economic goods and political beliefs. In this sense, “democracy empowers individuals; it allows for religious competition to take place and makes non-religious choices available and possible for individuals.” On the other hand, democracies can also promote and symbolically identify with religious symbols, values, and ideas by synchronizing national and holidays to national holidays and providing religious education in schools. Through these measures, “states socialize citizens into a national religious identity and in doing so push forward and help regenerate the connection between religion and the state,” he said.

Concluding the lecture, Driessen argued that religiously-friendly democracy helps to break the vicious cycle of religion and politics and “creates a different set of patterns for religious identities and the future of religious politics in dare I say, post-secular societies.”

Michael Driessen holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame. He is finishing a book manuscript on “Religiously Friendly Democratization Processes” in the Mediterranean region that analyzes how religion-state arrangements help frame questions of religious and political identity in Muslim and Catholic societies.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Sectarian Politics in the Gulf - Working Group II
2012-05-15 08:00 - 2012-05-16 18:00
On May 15–16, 2012, CIRS held a second working group meeting to conclude its research initiative on “Sectarian Politics in the Gulf.” Scholars and experts on the topic were invited to return to Doha for a second time to share their chapter submissions and to solicit feedback from members of the working group. CIRS will gather the complete chapters into a monograph under the title, Sectarian Politics in the Gulf. The first working group meeting took place on October 9–10, 2011.

The working group members began the meeting by discussing their different disciplinary definitions of what the terms “sectarian” and “sectarianism” might mean. In the literature on the topic, it has been notoriously difficult to come to agreement on a single workable definition of the terms involved. The CIRS project does not aim to reduce the term “sectarian” to a single definition, but to reveal the diversity at the heart of the subject and to open the debate up to its complexities. Although the term “sectarian” has strong—often negative—religious connotations, it is not based simply on religious difference, but implies a multifaceted mix of communal identifiers ranging from ethnic and tribal distinctions to political and philosophical beliefs and orientations. Regardless of the many theoretical and epistemological assumptions making up the discourse, the participants agreed that the heterogeneity of the subject was one that merited further nuanced study, especially in the context of the Arab uprisings. The participants emphasized the conditional nature of sectarian issues and examined why ethnic and religious differences come to the fore in some Gulf societies and not in others.

Topics discussed during the meeting include explorations of Baluch communities in the various Gulf states; Sunni-Shi’a communities in Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iran; identity and politics as they relate to language, religion, ethnicity, national-minority status, and tribal affiliation; the historically cosmopolitan mix of ethnicities in Oman; among other studies into the history of sectarian communities in the Gulf states.

Most countries in the Middle East are heterogeneous societies that were created as a result of the design of colonial empires and their subsequent dissolution. Littoral settlements on the Gulf were born of maritime cultures based on pearling, fishing, and trade, allowing tribes to travel freely across waterways, intermingle with other cultures, and defy the limited and arbitrary borders of modern nation-states. As a result of independence, newly formed Gulf nations had to contend with the breakdown of the political order of the past, and many different ethnic, tribal, and religious groups clamored for political control, thereby unleashing sectarian struggles that may have been dormant, suppressed, or non-existent in the past. The dominant group that rose to power had to engage in the formation of a new identity for the nation—often one that was based on glorifying the regime’s own particular sectarian or tribal history at the expense of others. These new articulations of a largely unrecorded past had to be cultivated in these new Middle Eastern states in order to create a new sense of nationalism as well as to bolster political legitimacy for the ruling elite. Ruling groups created an official narrative of the state’s formation, which did not always reflect the reality of diversity and heterogeneity on the ground.

The participants agreed that the historical reference to cultural and tribal purity is a symptom of modernity, as nations attempt to rebuild cultural identities after years of colonial struggle. In these states, newly formed citizens were the first generation to grow up with a national, rather than a regional identity—a process that was not without friction to notions of identity. In this sense, many national heritage and renovation projects are state-sponsored and are in service to the idea of the patriotic, rather than loyalty to a certain communal sect. Today, the media plays simultaneous key roles in both upholding national unity and enhancing sectarian divisions. The Al Jazeera network in particular has given voice to the fragmented regional discourse with many taboo topics on sectarian issues being openly discussed.

The more contentious issues surrounding sectarian politics in the Gulf states, the participants agreed, are primarily shaped by shares in the rentier economy and the resulting political status of privileged groups over others. Mass protests in Bahrain, for example, were largely a product of socio-economic frustrations that ran along sectarian lines. The participants argued that it was important to examine how ruling regimes choose to either engage these sectarian elements or subdue them depending on how much extra wealth and benefits that the state is willing to share.

In the new political order of Iraq, the ascendance of Iraq’s Shi‘i has worried many Sunni governments who question the loyalty of the Shi’a communities in their states. This has been especially prominent in Bahrain, with Saudi Arabia having to intervene in order to militarily control the uprisings. The participants argued that these recent events have shown how sectarian struggles in one Gulf state has direct implications in another. A sectarian issue, therefore, cannot be thought of as indigenous to any one Gulf state, but as something that affects all of these countries and their identity formations.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, analyzing the varied sectarian communities in the Gulf is especially relevant to understand long silent and marginalized groups who have found a space to voice their discontents as a result of successful public uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. The CIRS initiative is designed to not only study the different social groups who feel marginalized, but to also highlight those that have existed peacefully and who perceive themselves to be an inherent part of the social fabric of Gulf states.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarLois Beck, Washington University in St. LouisKristin Smith Diwan, American UniversityMichael Driessen, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarRenaud Fabbri, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMark Farha, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJustin Gengler, Qatar UniversityFanar Haddad, University of LondonMehran Kamrava, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJackie Kerr, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarSuzi Mirgani, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMari Luomi, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJohn Peterson, University of ArizonaLawrence Potter, Columbia UniversityNadia Talpur, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMarc Valeri, University of Exeter

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Lawrence Potter on the Rise and Fall of Port Cities in the Gulf
2012-05-16 08:00 - 18:00
Lawrence G. Potter, a 2011-2012 CIRS Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Associate Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on “The Rise and Fall of Port Cities in the Gulf” on May 16, 2012. Potter’s lecture was designed to explain the economic, political, and ecological reasons why port cities in the Gulf came to prominence or declined over the centuries. As a conceptual introduction to the lecture, he argued that a distinction should be made between a port and a harbor. “A harbor,” Potter said, “is a physical concept, a shelter for ships;” whereas “a port is an economic concept, a center of exchange.”

Littoral settlements on the Gulf were born of maritime cultures based on pearling, fishing, and trade, allowing tribes to travel freely across waterways in search of ideal locations to pursue their livelihoods. The strength of these commercial and familial connections along the coast meant that “some tribes had settlements on both sides of the Gulf, most famously the Qawasim based in Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah who temporarily governed Bandar Langeh,” Potter said.

The migratory and transitory nature of sea-faring cultures meant that “the Gulf was oriented outward, toward the Indian Ocean, rather than inward toward the Middle East, and was part of a cosmopolitan world of mixed race, religion, and ethnicity,” as well as language, Potter said. Because of these maritime ties, port cities have always maintained a degree of economic and cultural independence from their inland counterparts. Importantly, these cultures defied the limited borders of nation-states where “settlements along the Persian coast often had closer relations with those on the Arab side than those in the interior, due to ease of communication,” he explained. Multicultural connections, whether based on family ties or trading relationships, often shielded port communities from the sectarian strife that afflicted many other parts of the Middle East. This cosmopolitan history of Gulf ports is starkly different from that of the more settled inland cities of Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, and Herat on the Iranian plateau. Historically, these were populated urban areas that had an established culture and that cultivated centuries of art and literature particular to a single geographical area.

“One striking fact about port cities in the Gulf is that many have had only a temporary period of fluorescence,” Potter said. In medieval times, the most important ports were to be found on the northern Persian shore of the Gulf, but in the 19th and 20th centuries, the ports on the southern Arab shore rose to prominence. Since ports are principally economic areas, their primary purpose is to facilitate regional and economic trade. If an environmental or political factor was to obstruct these trade routes in any way, “theKhalijis could easily move if dissatisfied. In a region where boats and not land constituted capital, it was easy to sail away and reestablish themselves elsewhere,” he argued.

The often harsh environment in the Gulf and lack of water and wood played key roles in the migration of populations from one port to establish another. Other reasons for abandoning a port include its physical destruction due to the harbor silting up. “In medieval times this happened to old Hormuz. In the 20th century, this happened to Sharjah, severely damaging its trade and giving the advantage to Dubai.” In order to overcome these environmental challenges and the lack of water and wood, some settlements imported fresh water and wood from nearby areas. Even though littoral settlements were maritime societies, the wood to build ships and dhows had to be imported from India and East Africa. Potter explained how such ecological challenges can have profound effects on the forming of a nation’s security apparatus by arguing that “the lack of wood was undoubtedly one reason why Iran did not have a navy until the twentieth century.”

In conclusion, Potter highlighted the continued trajectory regarding the importance of port cities in the Gulf. “Today, the Khalijis have overcome the challenges of climate and lack of water, and continue to excel as the businessmen that they always were. The port cities are multinational, as they always were. The modern shopping malls of Doha and Dubai are just a modern version of what the great emporiums of Hormuz and Muscat must have looked like,” he said.

Lawrence G. Potter has taught at Columbia University since 1996. A graduate of Tufts College, he received an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a Ph.D. in History from Columbia. He taught in Iran for four years before the revolution. From 1984 to 1992 he was Senior Editor at the Foreign Policy Association. He specializes in the history of Iran and the Gulf and U.S. policy toward the Middle East.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

The Evolving Ruling Bargain In The Middle East Working Group II
2012-09-15 11:00 - 2012-09-16 21:00
On September 15–16, 2012, the Center for International and Regional Studies kicked off the 2012–2013 academic year with a two-day working group meeting to discuss “The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East.” The members of the working group were invited to Doha for a second time to conclude the research initiative and to discuss their individual paper submissions on the topic. The first working group meeting took place on February 19–20, 2012.

The working group members, comprised of international and regional scholars of the Middle East, discussed the current period of “transition” in various Arab countries. Although social and economic grievances have been simmering in countries of the Middle East for decades, mass protests, rapidly sparked by individual acts of protest in Tunisia and Egypt, took place at moments where the old ruling bargain was suddenly viewed as unacceptable to a newly emboldened public. Thousands took to the streets in defiance of authorities to demand a new bargain with the state or to do away with that government altogether. The participants discussed histories of political regimes and other forms of social engineering to see how one state differs from another and how these changes may affect the future of these countries.

Before delving into the individual areas of inquiry, the participants questioned the terminology used to address issues related to the Arab uprisings. They analyzed the language employed in the discourse and marked the parameters of the debate on how to conceptualize the recent events in the Middle East. They discussed whether the events could be considered as “revolutions” leading to radical transformations of society, community, and political structure, or whether these upheavals would more properly be called “uprisings” or “rebellions” that have ousted an old regime by replacing it with a new one. Further, they questioned whether the social, economic, and political arrangements that existed in these countries can be termed “social contracts,” as this term implies involving at least two parties that negotiate to achieve mutually acceptable or agreed-upon arrangements.

Often, ruling bargains are based on formally codified laws, while others are unspoken assumptions that have evolved over time. In many cases, formal opposition and political parties in the Middle East represent the semblance of democratic processes without gaining any actual power. The participants argued that these parties do not challenge regime stability, but, in fact, strengthen the regime’s position at a symbolic level. The state presents itself as the provider of the national interests in return for political acquiescence. Yet, the participants said, despite this arrangement loaded in favor of the state, the government and opposition parties are in a constant state of negotiation – a push and pull attempt to redefine the boundaries of power, albeit in a controlled and limited way.

The scholars noted that the demands for a new ruling bargain were caused by a number of factors. The general public in many Middle East countries suffered similar economic and social grievances in relation to unemployment, corruption, inequality, and crony-capitalism. Additionally, there is a unique youth factor, where a growing population bulge exists for many Middle East and GCC countries. Within this segment of society are many young, educated, unemployed, and increasingly frustrated people whose aspirations, economic opportunities, and political liberties have been curtailed. Many of these young people have access to communication technologies in order to voice their frustrations on both national and international levels. Despite regime restrictions placed on the internet at the height of social unrest in Egypt, for example, social media played a pivotal role in circumventing state control and leading to unauthorized mobilization of the masses.

Other topics discussed include the rise of Islamic parties, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, and the polarization of societies along Islamist-secular lines; the emerging forms of relationship between state institutions like the military and police with different forms of civil society; the new forms of codifying the ruling bargain through recently formed laws, constitutions, and judiciary processes; as well as individual case studies related to the similarities and differences between Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain, among others.

Finally, the participants argued that it was too early to draw conclusions regarding the outcome of any of these uprisings and how recent upheavals will shape future social or political relations in the Middle East. With the fall of old regimes, many past restrictions have been lifted and new forms of electoral processes and vehicles of political expression will need to be placed effectively within existing state structures. At the conclusion of the CIRS initiative, the chapters will be collected into an edited volume to be published in the coming year.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Ziad Abu-Rish, University of California-Los AngelesAbdullah Al-Arian, Wayne State UniversitySaïd Amir Arjomand, Stony Brook Institute for Global StudiesZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJason Brownlee, University of Texas-AustinJohn T. Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMarie Duboc, American University in CairoMark Farha, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJohn Foran, University of California, Santa BarbaraBassam Haddad, George Mason UniversityShadi Hamid, Brookings Doha CenterManata Hashemi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarNader Hashemi, University of DenverThomas Juneau, Department of National Defence, Government of CanadaMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarBahgat Korany, American University in CairoRussell E. Lucas, Michigan State UniversityQuinn Mecham, Middlebury CollegeSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarGerd Nonneman, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarDwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarNadia Talpur, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarNadine Sika, American University in CairoDirk Vandewalle, Dartmouth CollegeFred Wehrey, Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceFlora Whitney, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMohamed Zayani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Frederic Wehrey on Libya's Aftermath and Syria's Future
2012-09-23 18:00
Frederic Wehrey, senior associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, gave the first CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture of the 2012-2013 academic year on September 17, 2012. The talk titled, “Analogies at War: Libya’s Aftermath and Syria’s Future,” examined the different approaches that the international community has taken towards the Libyan and Syrian conflicts through the language used to frame the debate. The lessons learned from Libya are often given as examples of how to deal with Syria, regardless of the key differences that exist between the two countries.

Before the actualization of any type of mediation effort, Wehrey explained, analogies and linguistic interpretations of a conflict are employed by administrations and governments to either support or reject intervention. Following the theories of analogy presented by author Yuen Foong Khong in his seminal book Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton University Press, 1992), Wehrey argued that “not only are analogies used to justify policies, but they actually form part of the psychological and cognitive process that policymakers go through when they embark on decisions.” As such, analogies and the lessons of history figure prominently in foreign policymaking. The US decision to intervene in Libya was itself based on the lessons learned from past conflicts: “the analogy was that Benghazi was not going to be another Srebrenica,” Wehrey argued. Many decision-makers at the White House would have had direct experience of the failures of the international community to prevent the atrocities that took place in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s. This would have prompted current policymakers to use past analogies to justify and build international support for an air campaign over Libya.

Assessing the overall impact of the NATO intervention in Libya, Wehrey recounted that it was a decisive turning point. The international community took multilateral action through consensus and so the intervention in Libya is being held up as a new model for foreign engagement, even being called “the Obama Doctrine,” he said. Moreover, in an era of increasing austerity in the US defense budget following the costly Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “certainly in the US, there is a mystique of airpower because it doesn’t put people at risk and it is relatively low-cost,” when used with precision. “This intervention, which did not cost a single US life, which was successful in toppling a dictator, and which used airpower and very minimal use of ground advisors, is very attractive,” Wehrey said.

This “Libya model” is now being used as an analogy in discussions on how the international community and the United States should approach the conflict situation in Syria. It is important to point out, Wehrey said, that there are a number of limitations in applying this model to the situation in Syria. Unlike the international community’s consensus towards the use of NATO airpower in Libya, there is no such agreement for a coalition operation in Syria. Further, in geographic terms, Syria has no extended coastline from which to guide operations and has high density urban areas making airstrikes a hazard to civilian populations. “The lack of a contiguous rebel-held zone in Syria is impeding our ability to deliver aid, and the lack of an extended coastline that permitted NATO intervention and permitted the rebel logistics to move weapons around and the role of strategic geography is different,” he argued. As such, the Libyan model is not generalizable and cannot be applied to Syria. “We have to take all of these differences into account and be very wary of the misuse of analogies, however appealing they are,” Wehrey explained.

Despite the recent attacks on the US ambassador in Benghazi, Wehrey said that he remains guardedly optimistic about Libya. The country still faces endemic instability as “the people are still digging out of the legacy of forty-two years of brutal Orwellian tyranny that pitted different elements of the society against one another,” he explained. What we are seeing now are “the micro convulsions of a revolution. These are conflicts that are playing out between tribes and between towns, and they are really a testament of how Qaddafi ruled. Despite patronage towards certain tribes, he marginalized others.” Libya has no institutions and, in many ways, this is a blessing as it allows the public to have some say in how these institutions get built from the very beginning. “It is important to remember that the legacy of Libya is still being written,” Wehrey concluded.

Frederic Wehrey’s research focuses on political reform and security issues in the Gulf states, Libya, and U.S. policy in the Middle East more broadly. Prior to joining Carnegie, he was a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation where in 2008, he led a RAND strategic advisory team to Baghdad, Iraq, focusing on post-surge challenges in support of Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I). A graduate of Occidental College, he received an M.A. in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in International Relations from St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Sir Tim Lankester on Britain's Foreign Aid
2012-10-08 08:00 - 18:00
Sir Tim Lankester, Chairman of the Council of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical ‎Medicine and Advisor on South East Asia to the consulting firm Oxford Analytica, delivered a ‎CIRS Focused Discussion on “The Politics and Economics of Britain’s Foreign Aid” on October ‎‎8, 2012. The talk was based on his recent book,The Politics and Economics of Britain’s Foreign ‎Aid: The Pergau Dam Affair (Routledge, 2012), which he described as “a case study of what can ‎go wrong when you do development assistance badly.”‎

Giving a background of the history of British foreign aid, Lankester said that the program was ‎initiated in the 1960s and was driven by the British government’s belief that it had a moral ‎obligation to its former colonies as well as practical political interests in those countries. In the ‎‎1980s, Lankester was the Permanent Secretary of the Overseas Development Administration – ‎the ministry responsible for development aid. During his time in the ministry, “one of the most ‎controversial projects ever funded by British aid” was taking place. This was the establishment of ‎the Pergau Dam and power-generating project on the Malay-Thai border, which “was the largest ‎funding in the history of British aid,” Lankester recalled.‎

The controversial Pergau Dam project was the result of a private agreement between some key ‎members of the Malay and British governments and was based on Britain providing Malaysia ‎with 200 million pounds worth of civil aid in return for sales of 1 billion pounds of defense ‎equipment. Lankester recalled that an agreement based on the offer of British aid in return for ‎arms sales was both unprecedented and against British policy and was thus divisive from the ‎start. To make matters worse, once the agreement was signed between the two governments, the ‎powerful contractors and companies assigned to building the project increased their estimates ‎and the total cost for the project almost doubled. ‎

Despite the increasing costs, and against the advice of British government officials and ‎economists, the project went ahead with the support of Mrs. Thatcher and a host of others with ‎special interests. Since both the prime ministers of Malaysia and Britain had backed the project, ‎the other government departments buckled under the pressure and did not offer sufficient ‎opposition to their leaders. Lankester described the situation as being one that suffered from ‎conflicting policy agendas and the “excessive mixing of politics, business, and conflicts of ‎interest.” ‎

In his capacity as Permanent Secretary, Lankester was tasked with evaluating whether or not the ‎money for the project was being properly and lawfully spent. Although the legal assessment at ‎the time showed that the project was lawful, the spend for the project was based on taxpayers ‎money and was so inefficient and uneconomic that Lankester felt obliged to formally ‎disassociate himself and the civil service from it. “This,” he said “is a story of politics and special ‎interests trumping sound development and sound economics.” Had there been more ‎transparency, it may have been possible for parliament, the media, and other interest groups to ‎formally oppose the project that ultimately damaged British-Malay relations at the time. ‎

In conclusion, Lankester said that he was curious to know whether the very same project would ‎have been viable today. His ex-post assessment, in light of increased gas prices over the years, ‎was that the project would still be an uneconomic one by today’s calculations. As a final thought, ‎he advised that the Pergau Dam case study provides valuable lessons for governments, and his ‎advice was that “it is better to be transparent than obscure,” “don’t say one thing and do ‎another,” “when things go wrong, don’t cover up,” and, lastly, “if you make one mistake, don’t ‎compound it by making another.”‎

Sir Tim Lankester is a member of the joint advisory board of the Georgetown University School ‎of Foreign in Qatar. He was UK Executive Director on the boards of the IMF and World Bank, ‎and later Permanent Secretary of the Overseas Development Administration. He was Director of ‎the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, and from 2001 to 2009 ‎President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He has published articles and book reviews on aid ‎and development. ‎

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Editor and Manager for CIRS Publications

Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran Working Group I
2012-10-20 08:00 - 2012-10-21 18:00
On October 20–21, 2012, The Center for International and Regional Studies launched one of its new research initiatives for the 2012–2013 academic year, “Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran,” through a two day working group held in Doha. Over the course of the two day meeting, international and regional scholars addressed political, economic, and social aspects of ongoing domestic transformations within the Islamic Republic. Via a multidisciplinary approach, the working group offered in-depth analysis of the evolution of Iranian society in the post-Khomeini era, highlighting contemporary social and cultural trends.

Working group participants debated sources of the Iranian regime’s legitimacy, its survival strategies, and how successfully it has penetrated society over the past twenty-three years. The group discussed the role and functions of prominent state institutions, such as the Velayet e Faqih and bonyads, along with economic and political elites in contemporary Iran. The Velayet e Faqih has been seen as gaining increasing political power rather than religious influence during the post-Khomeini years. While many grand ayatollahs in Qom have rejected the authority of the Velayet e Faqih, its institutional strength and capacity extend throughout the Islamic Republic. Acting as parallel institutions to the state, the bonyads have also flourished and serve as both economic and political sources of state power. By addressing the needs of disadvantaged economic stakeholders, the bonyads serve to build a core of populist support for the regime. While the bonyads are commonly viewed as inefficient and corrupt, their distribution of state largesse aids the regime in developing a social base and in spreading its power to marginalized, rural parts of the country.

Some participants posited that both the political and religious legitimacy of the regime are in fact quite narrow within Iran, with the silent majority of the population rejecting the logic and essence of the system. Participants argued that there has been a social evolution in Iran that belies the ideological discourse often associated with the Islamic Republic. Through clientelism and institutional penetration, the regime in Iran has developed its capacity; however, most scholars agreed that Iranian society presents a dichotomy between how people live their lives and what the state wants to impose on its citizens. Some scholars attributed the gradual rise of liberalism within Iranian thought and society in the post-Khatami era to the deficiency of the Iranian state in garnering ideological support. This has also given rise to positive individualism within society, where religion as a political reference point is on the decline, and tolerance for the differences of others is a growing trend amongst the youth. Modernizing family dynamics, gauged through the lower birth rate, the rising age of marriage, and decrease in gender inequality perceptions indicate that Iranian society has transformed dramatically in the post-revolutionary years.

The participants also discussed the religious and secular intellectual trends from the pre-revolutionary era to contemporary times, in terms of religious orthodoxy and heterodoxy, religious reform and innovation, and secular critique. Within religious orthodoxy and heterodoxy the trends were marked by transformation from quietist traditional Islam in the pre-revolution era, to empowered and state-sponsored, ultra-orthodoxy in present times. Within religious reform and innovation, the liberal reading of Islam transformed into a radical reform movement as seen with disenchanted reformists in the Green Movement of recent years. Secular critique is viewed to have transmuted from liberal nationalism to liberal secularism.

During the past twenty years, Iran has experienced shifts and transformations in its growing economy. The gradual transition from a government-run, closed economy to a relatively diverse and open economy has led to an economic mindset guided by a nationalism based on technology. The participants discussed the securitization of commercial decisions coupled with techno-based nationalism and how this has had a relatively positive impact on enterprise development in Iran. The business community in Iran is increasingly focused on efficiency, profitability, and innovation. Contrary to common negative perceptions of the impact of international sanctions within the country, the scholars also deliberated the multi-faceted impact of sanctions on business development. Although average Iranians certainly suffer from sanctions, being cut off from regular import tracks has spurred entrepreneurs to diversify their activities, and has also led to a greater regionalization of Iranian businesses.

Iran exhibits a mixed socio-economic picture; it maintains the 10th highest ranking in the Human Development Index of the Middle East, as well as a middle-income status among developing countries. The lack of deep pockets of poverty and the fact that the state has ensured access to basic needs of food, electricity, and water, have meant that holistic understanding of the conditions of the poor in Iran have been overlooked. Additionally, the current framing of marginalized youth in the broader region depicts them as disenchanted with social and political life, drawn to more radical forms of political Islam. These speculative conclusions that the poor are more likely to be radicalized are not backed by empirical evidence. Broader scholarly efforts are needed to examine how urban poor in Iran have responded to poverty and marginalization. In terms of education, Iran is performing relatively well with declining levels of gender and geographic inequality. However, the current youth bulge in Iran is similar to that in countries around the region, where the inability of the labor market to absorb the youth bulge creates visible employment problems for young people exiting the educational system.

The participants also discussed the transformation in terms of demographics, and how this impacts Iranian society. Lower birth rates and the low male-to-female ratio, in combination with rising standards of education for women, have all led to delayed marriages. In the context of women’s status and marriage, the scholars delved into discussions on legal development in terms of the Islamic Republic’s reinstitution of family law and family courts and their consequential impact on the status of women within society. Some of the family laws, with particular reference to the divorce laws, were viewed by the working group members as having the unintended consequence of leading to the individuated subjectivity of women due to their increased litigating role. The continuous modification of marriage laws in Iran was regarded by the discussants as coming from different levels within society.

As a highly literate society, Iranians have appreciated poetry, prose, and non-fiction across the generations, and have continuously produced literary works against a political backdrop. Regarded as political and social commentary, the participants discussed post-revolutionary literature, with particular attention to women writers and the role of gender. In the post-Khomeini era, Iranian women writers have been on the rise and have been representative of a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Women writers abroad have also been active actors in Iranian social and political commentary. The diaspora community as a whole, which is in constant transnational flows between the host and homeland, has contributed greatly to both the local and international discourse on life in the Islamic Republic.

Read more about this research initiative

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

William Beeman Lectures on Iranian-Arabian Biculturalism
2012-10-22 08:00 - 18:00
William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the ‎University ‎of ‎Minnesota and President of the Middle East Section of the ‎American ‎Anthropological ‎Association, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on “The ‎Khalijis: ‎Iranian-Arabian ‎Biculturalism in the Gulf Region”‎ on October 22, 2012. As an ‎introduction‎, ‎Beeman ‎‏gave the audience some background to what he described as “one of the ‎longest running toponymic ‎battles.” There has been disagreement in the recent historical period ‎over whether the body of water between ‎Iran and the Arabian Peninsula should be ‎called ‎‏‎“the ‎‏Arabian Gulf‎” ‎or the ‎‏‎“‎Persian Gulf‎.”‎ ‎

In order to resolve this historical contention, Beeman said that he uses the term ‎‎“‎Khalij” to ‎describe the body of water, and “Khaliji” to describe the residents of the region. These are terms ‎commonly used in the discourse of the region and are ‎understood in Arabic, in Persian, and in ‎some South Asian languages as well. “I want to call into question the nature of the identity of the ‎people who live in this region, and ‎rather than identifying them either as Persian or Arab, or ‎calling this body of water the Persian ‎Gulf or the Arabian Gulf, I want to make a case for these ‎individuals as residents of this region, ‎whether they are on the Iranian side or on the Arab side ‎independent of an exclusive Arab or ‎Persian identity,” he said.‎

Such communities are formed as a result of historical factors, including migration, trade, ‎shifting ‎colonial boundaries, or as the results of intermarriage or cultural borrowings that occur as ‎a matter of course ‎when populations come into contact. “The Khalij is a rich mélange of cultural ‎differences made up ‎of Arabic, Persian, South Asian, East African, Portuguese, French, and ‎English,” among others, Beeman noted. ‎

Linguistically, the people who live in this region have been comfortable communicating in a ‎number of languages, and even forming new ones that are a mix of Arabic, Persian, and Indian ‎languages. A similar example is Swahili – meaning “coastal” in Arabic – and the mutual influence ‎of Arabic ‎and East African languages on each other as a result of contact and ‎trade across the ‎Gulf of Aden. ‎‎“Many people living on either side of the Khalij are fully ‎bilingual, and frequently ‎tri- and quad-lingual,” Beeman said. ‎

The “geographical impenetrability” that separates the Khalij from the inland regions meant ‎that ‎people on both sides of the water had a closer cultural identity than what they shared with ‎their ‎own inland Arab or Persian communities in terms of cuisine, dress patterns, marriage ‎patterns, religious rituals, and ‎discourse structures.‎‎‏ ‏Often, because of the strong marriage and ‎trade ties, families would be ‎dispersed on both sides of the Khalij and, to this day, have strong ‎cross cultural and cross border ties. Before modern air travel, ‎the ease of maritime travel across ‎the Gulf and the difficulty of inland travel across deserts and ‎mountains meant that “people ‎living on the coast of the Khalij found that it was much easier to ‎communicate with each other ‎than it was to communicate with people who lived inland,” Beeman said. Boats ‎could carry much ‎heavier loads much more easily than any form of overland transport, ‎and so the Khalij was an ‎area that thrived both culturally and economically. ‎

In conclusion, Beeman said that, as a result of state and historical processes, there were several ‎events that had a profound effect on changing the unified nature of Khaliji culture, including ‎colonial territorial demarcations and competition. He argued that “the early impositions of state ‎structures in the region, which had been blissfully absent for ‎centuries, caused an overlay of state ‎identity, which has served to obscure the basic ‎commonalities between the members of the ‎population of this region.” Other events also contributed to the separation of the Khaliji ‎communities, including the consolidation of Iran under Reza Shah; the consolidation of Saudi ‎Arabia under Ibn Saud; the departure of the British from the Khalij that left a vacuum to be ‎filled by local ruling families who demarcated their territories accordingly; and, finally, the ‎Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 that changed the shape of the Iranian political and cultural ‎landscapes, and caused a break in the historical alliance between the cross-Gulf communities. ‎

Finally, the gradual encroachment of modern state structures into the region required a newly ‎‎“imagined” idea of identity that necessarily distinguishes one group or ‎nationality from another. ‎Beeman concluded that the shared culture of “Khaliji” identity belies this imagined separation ‎of ‎nationalities and promotes the idea of a diverse community that is ‎inherently multicultural. ‎‎“This,” he said, “is an ‘unimagined’ community; a community in fact, but not in name, ‎and not in ‎its social identification.” ‎

William O. Beeman was formerly Professor of Anthropology and Director of ‎Middle ‎East ‎Studies at Brown University. Best known as a Middle East specialist for more than ‎‎30 ‎years, he ‎has also worked in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Japan, China and South Asia. He ‎has ‎served as ‎consultant to the United States State Department, the Department of Defense, ‎the ‎United ‎Nations and the United States Congress. ‎

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani on the Digital Generation
2012-11-07 08:00 - 18:00
H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman of the Board of Directors ‎for Qatar Telecom (Qtel), delivered a CIRS Distinguished Lecture on “Technology and the ‎Digital Generation” on November 7, 2012. ‎

Al Thani began the lecture by giving an overview of Qtel and the changes it has undergone since ‎being restructured in the year 2000. As the national telecommunications carrier, the long-term ‎plans of Qtel were aligned with the vision that Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani set for ‎Qatar. “Our success starts from strong leadership and clear vision,” he said. The newly ‎restructured organization became a competitive international player, and its scope was broadened ‎to include data, media, and technology. Qtel was no longer a domestic telecommunications ‎organization, but, rather, one that had an international agenda. The new Qtel strategy focused on ‎wireless, broadband, and services in three regions across the Middle East, North Africa, the ‎Indian Subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. The organization went from having 500,000 customers ‎in one market to gaining 89 million customers across seventeen markets. ‎

Current trends and rapid transformations in the global telecommunications field include slow ‎growth, falling prices, and a multitude of new innovations, Al Thani said. Other threats come in ‎the form of fierce competition from non-traditional competitors such as media players, retailers, ‎service providers, and handset manufacturers who are all claiming their stake in the new media ‎field. However, Al Thani saw these challenges as a way to form new opportunities. He argued ‎that “by the year 2014, the number of mobile ‎connections will surpass the global population. Four out of five connections are made in the ‎developing world.” Al Thani argued that Qtel can thus be in the forefront of helping to provide ‎enhanced education, healthcare, and economic services to these growing technology users.

Moving from global challenges to regional concerns, Al Thani outlined how new media and ‎technology have impacted the Arab world. He argued that social media access was one of the ‎key driving forces behind the events of the Arab uprisings in 2011. “From January to March ‎‎2011, the usage of Facebook increased by more than 30% across the whole of the Middle East,” ‎Al Thani said. The internet and mobile technology was so critical to the fuelling of these social ‎movements that the governments of Egypt, Libya, and Syria attempted to block all forms of ‎access to internet technologies. “Digital technology is increasing the expectation of transparency ‎and accountability from government bodies and officials,” he said.‎

Al Thani identified this new technologically-literate demographic as the “Arab Digital ‎Generation,” or ADG, who have grown to represent 4% of the digitally active globally. He ‎described this contingent as being politically active, educated, independent, and business-‎minded. These youth, he said, will have a significant impact on the future of the Arab World. He ‎cautioned, however, that “while the ADG will fundamentally change Arab society, it will do so ‎keeping our rich traditions and values intact.” ‎

Because “social media has become a powerful tool for social change in the Arab states,” a serious ‎challenge that Al Thani identified as affecting global and regional societies is the issue of the ‎gender gap in relation to the use of, and access to, new technologies. “There are 46 million Arab ‎users on Facebook. Of this group, 70% are between 15-29 years old, and the majority is male.” ‎He identified the reasons for this gender gap as “social and cultural constraints on women, ‎privacy and security concerns, access to technology, and education and ICT literacy.” Through ‎its global operations, Qtel has backed new media as the primary tool of social empowerment and ‎is attempting to narrow the gender gap by providing special services that help women to gain ‎better access to education, small business management, healthcare, and childcare services. Al ‎Thani said that “providing women with access to ICT tools such as mobile phones can lead to a ‎better quality of life and wider economic growth. Empowering more women with more phones ‎can accelerate social and economic development.”‎

In conclusion, Al Thani argued that despite the new challenges presented by the changing ‎telecommunications space, “as business leaders, citizens, students, governments, and institutions, ‎we all need to rise to the occasion and use our influence to inspire, engage, and create ‎opportunities for the next generation. Overall, leaders in the Arab world should view these ‎changes as positive.” As a final thought, he said that the Arab Digital generation should become ‎empowered through communication and technology to help shape the future of industry and ‎society in order to ensure the stability of the Arab world.‎

H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammad Bin Saud Al Thani has been the Chairman of the Board ‎of Directors for Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and Qtel Group since 2000. In his capacity as Chairman, ‎His Excellency enjoys State Minister status. He has presided over Qtel’s expansion into 17 ‎countries and has enhanced Qtel’s revenue streams and its corporate governance in line with ‎international practices. ‎

Sheikh Abdullah previously held several high profile positions in Qatar, including Chief of the Royal Court (Amiri Diwan) from 2000 to 2005. He also served as a Member of the Qatari Planning Council. A certified pilot instructor from the British Royal Air Force, Sheikh Abdullah has an extensive background in both the military and in aviation. A flight school graduate from the British Army Air Corps, he completed his studies at the Senior Army War College, Carlisle Barracks in the United States of America.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Causes and Consequences of Food Insecurity in the Middle East
2012-11-14 18:00 - 2012-11-15 18:00
In collaboration with partner organizations, Qatar’s National Food Security Program hosted the ‎‎“International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands” in Doha on November 14th and 15th, ‎‎2012. National, regional, and international institutions participated in the conference and ‎addressed challenges facing dry lands in their pursuit of food security. The conference focused ‎on the three thematic areas of: (i) food security; (ii) water demand, resources, and management; ‎and (iii) responsible investment. As part of the focus on food security, the Center for ‎International and Regional Studies led a panel discussion titled “Causes and Consequences of ‎Food Insecurity in the Middle East” moderated by Zahra Babar, Assistant Director of research at ‎CIRS and co-editor of the forthcoming CIRS book Food Security and Food Sovereignty in the ‎Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2014). The panel consisted of three panelists who presented three country case studies ‎that addressed economic, social, and political causes of food insecurity in Egypt, Yemen, and ‎Lebanon. ‎

Raymond Bush, a professor of African Studies and Development Politics at the University of ‎Leeds, presented on food security in Egypt. Although Egypt boasts vast areas of arable land, ‎as well as a high level of agricultural skill and know-how, it faces the problem of insufficient ‎food production. By exploring the Egyptian agricultural strategy since the onset of economic ‎liberalization in the 1980s, Bush highlighted that Egypt’s inability to defend its food security is ‎due to the exclusion of farmers and food producers from the political debates that set agricultural ‎strategies. Reflective of the governing regime, agricultural modernization strategies in Egypt have ‎been authoritarian in nature with limited outreach and sustainability. In the context of the Arab Spring, the increased Egyptian enthusiasm for political pluralism and rural empowerment may ‎lead to the co-operative inclusion of farmers in the agricultural policy debate and the eventual ‎improvement of Egypt’s food security situation. ‎

The second panelist, Martha Mundy, talked about the impact of food and agriculture policies on ‎property relations and the ecological base of food production in Yemen. A reader in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and a specialist in the ‎anthropology of the Arab World, Mundy argued that these policies were largely influenced by oil ‎rent and oil-derived political rent while significantly disregarding the Yemeni biosphere. As the ‎international community plays an increasingly more active role in guiding Yemen towards a food-‎secure future, Mundy emphasized the need to have a holistic approach that prioritizes farming ‎skills conducive to environmental conservation. The case of Yemen depicts that policies ‎surrounding food aid need to move beyond the sanctification of the “rules of the market,” which ‎have led to environmental degradation, farmers’ loss of capacity to produce food, and exclusion ‎of farmers from the agro-based revenue accumulated by the oligarchical state. ‎

Presenting the case of food security in Lebanon was Jad Chaaban, assistant professor of ‎Economics at the American University of Beirut. As a small-import dependent country, Lebanon ‎faces high risks of price volatility that negatively affect its ability to meet its food and beverage ‎consumption needs. The accessibility and profitability of agricultural produce is further hindered ‎by the oligopolistic concentration of supply chain inputs and food trade monopolies. In order to ‎overcome these food security challenges, Chaaban recommended the need for a national ‎integrated cross-sectoral food policy that takes into consideration the presence of long-term ‎residences such as refugees, recognizes farmers as legal units, enhances competition amongst ‎farmers, and supports local food production.‎

In addition to their respective case studies, the panelists discussed additional causes of food ‎insecurity such as food-waste and post-harvest handing as well as irresponsible agricultural ‎investment. The panelists emphasized that agricultural investments need to be socially conscious ‎and not just based on profit. These investments have repercussions beyond the land rented and ‎crop produced. The fact that those who produce food are generally the most food insecure ‎indicates that equity driven agricultural production has dire consequences on farmer families and ‎environmental preservation.‎

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

CIRS and the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs Discuss Climate Change in the Arab World
2012-12-03 08:00 - 18:00
The Center for International and Regional Studies and the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy ‎and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, held a Panel discussion on “Who or What ‎Drives Climate Change Policy in the Arab World?” on December 3, 2012. The panel featured ‎Karim Makdisi from the American University of Beirut; Roula Majdalani from the United ‎Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; Lama El Hatow from IndyACT-‎The League of Independent Activists; and Rabi Mohtar from the Qatar Energy and Environment ‎Research Institute (QEERI).‎

The panel moderator, Karim Makdisi, posed the question “who or what drives climate change ‎policy in the Arab World?” to the speakers and the audience. He argued that there needs to be an ‎examination of the drivers behind a reinvigorated interest in climate change among Arab ‎governments. In answer to this question, the first speaker, Roula Majdalani, advocated for the ‎state as the most important player in any climate change related issue. However, Majdalani said ‎that it was necessary to unpack the idea of the state and question who or what it represents. This, ‎she said, is especially relevant in the context of the Arab uprisings and “the dismantling of the ‎security apparatus.” The dissolution of various regional regimes does not necessarily mean that ‎the state per se has disappeared, but that there are new dynamics taking shape at the level of ‎governance, and this reformation is something that is new to many Arab countries.‎

The state, Majdalani said, plays a strategic role in climate change issues in its “ability for working ‎through complex governance structures, working at an inter-ministerial level, working with a long ‎range perspective, and working on issues that are transboundary, and in that sense the state really ‎is a key interlocutor in this process of negotiation.” It is also the main player in mobilizing ‎financing and ensuring the transfer of technology at the domestic and international levels.‎

The state has the main responsibility of addressing issues related to extreme climactic conditions ‎such as droughts and floods. It is, therefore, in the state’s interest to take a leading role in driving ‎climate change policy, especially in the countries of the Arab World where issues of water and ‎energy are paramount. The state is also responsible for safeguarding, preserving, and exploiting ‎natural resources without adversely affecting neighboring countries. Carbon emissions are ‎necessarily transboundary, and so the state must negotiate with its neighbors and, indeed, with ‎the international community for international climate related agreements.‎

In conclusion, Majdalani argued that the increasing interest in issues of climate change among ‎Arab nations provides a unique opportunity to reinvent the idea of the state as an entity that is ‎accountable, transparent, and responsible. ‎Traditionally, some Arab states have been strong in terms of forcefulness and authoritarianism, ‎but are weak when it comes to the will and capacity to tackle such irreversible environmental issues. ‎

Rabi Mohtar was the second speaker on the panel and he highlighted the crucial role of science, ‎research, and development in addressing climate change concerns. He argued that climate change ‎discourse is dominated by the key words of “adaptation” and “mitigation,” but that there needs ‎to be more critical investigation into exactly what it is that should be adapted or mitigated. ‎Current climate change data states that, on a global level, “the extremes in terms of climate are ‎getting hotter, but that doesn’t tell us where and how.” Further complicating the discourse, the ‎scientific knowledge on climate change is still in a nascent phase and much of the data is ‎contradictory and inaccurate. Mohtar argued that there is urgent need to invest in research and ‎development. QEERI, he said, is taking the lead on many such research initiatives in the region ‎and “embarking on an initial study that looks into the effects of climate change on dust and dust ‎storms.”‎

It is befitting that Qatar hosted the COP 18 conference, Mohtar said, since it is the Middle East ‎and the Arab World that are most affected by issues of increased population growth and the ‎concomitant stresses on food, water, and energy. The Middle East “is where the highest per ‎capita consumption of water and energy are taking place” and where food security is becoming ‎an increasing concern. “There is no single country in the whole region that is self-sufficient,” in ‎terms of food, and so “the food-water nexus is an extreme driver for climate change research that ‎we should be focusing on.” This includes investigating efforts to reintroduce dry land agriculture ‎that had been traditionally used in the countries of the Middle East since ancient times. Mohtar ‎conclude by saying that there is a significant need for a climate change model that is locally ‎developed for the region – one that is specifically designed for arid and semi-arid regions. ‎

The final speaker on the panel was Lama El Hatow who rallied for the importance of civil society ‎in climate change issues. She argued for “the role that civil society can also play by affecting and ‎influencing climate change policy in this part of the world.” El Hatow explained that civil society ‎in many countries of Arab World has been either dormant or non-existent. This was largely due ‎to “the oppressive nature of many Arab governments and the way that many social structures ‎function” in some Arab states. Since the regional uprisings, however, this scene has changed ‎dramatically and a space has been opened for civil society organizations to operate openly and ‎effectively. These new formations are increasingly made up of youth groups who are advocating ‎for a variety of issues and, more importantly, people are speaking out on all issues related to ‎human rights.‎

Since climate change issues are transboundary and of global concern, Arab civil society ‎organizations are teaming up with their international counterparts and pressing their governments ‎on unified issues. Although many of these groups have limited capacity, their passion for the ‎issues has made a significant difference. As a final thought, El Hatow said that although many ‎regional and international governments have made great strides in addressing issues of climate ‎change, civil society organizations are still needed as they act as a monitoring force and a constant ‎voice that prompts governments into further action. ‎

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Speaker Biographies:‎

Karim Makdisi is an Associate Professor of International Politics and International ‎Environmental Policy in the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the ‎American University of Beirut (AUB). He is also the Associate Director of AUB’s Issam Fares ‎Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, and coordinates the Environmental Policy ‎component of AUB’s Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Science Program.‎

Roula Majdalani holds a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Syracuse ‎University. She worked with Dar Al-Handasah Consultants (London), from 1985 to 1988 as an ‎Urban Planner preparing surveys, sectoral studies and research activities for urban development ‎projects in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco.‎

Rabi Mohtar founded the Global Engineering Program at Purdue University where he was a ‎Professor of Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering since 1996. His professional ‎activities addressed the important issues of Water – Energy Food nexus and its inter-linkages; ‎more specifically in developing and maintaining the environmental aspects of sustainable ‎development.‎

Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh Al Thani on Qatarization and Gender Quotas
2012-12-04 08:00 - 18:00
Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh Al-Thani delivered a Monthly Dialogue lecture on the subject of ‎‎“Women in Qatar: Quotas, Qualifications, and Qatarization” on December 4, 2012. Sheikha Al ‎Thani is the chairperson and founder of Al Faleh Group, an organization that provides ‎educational products and services, and she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Supreme ‎Education Council, Reach Out to Asia, and Zaytuna Institute and College. ‎

Sheikha Al Thani began the lecture by noting that “despite great strides in education and ‎employment, a large gender gap remains in position of status in Qatar for women.” There is still ‎much work that needs to be done to close the gender gap in the labor market, especially in ‎relation to the integration of Qatari women on a level playing field in the workforce in Qatar, the ‎Sheikha argued.‎

Education is one of the key pillars of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’sVision ‎‎2030 for Qatar, and one of the greatest agents of change for the role of women. “Qatar has ‎become a regional leader in education,” and has invested heavily in reforming the K-12 ‎educational system led by the Supreme Education Council. In addition, some of the world’s ‎leading universities and educational institutions have been invited to impart quality education ‎and transfer knowledge and skills. Through these institutions and through the emphasis on ‎reforming educational policies, Qatari women are emerging as professionals who contribute ‎equally to the country’s sustainable growth in a knowledge-based economy. “There is a strong ‎positive correlation between employability and the quality of education a woman receives,” and ‎so women in Qatar have been increasingly and actively participating in the economy, the labor ‎market, and society. Thus, Qatari women are shattering old paradigms, the Sheikha said. ‎

In comparison to the neighboring Gulf Cooperation Coucil (GCC) states, Qatar has the highest ‎percentage of local women employed in the national labor market. Despite this positive statistic, ‎Qatar has the region’s lowest percentage of women in senior leadership roles, and trails far ‎behind the European average. “United Nations data showed that only 7% of people in senior and ‎managerial positions were women, which was the lowest in the region.” This means that “women ‎are still underrepresented in decision-making positions in many fields,” but, Al Thani argued, this ‎is gradually changing in Qatar as more educated women are continually changing the face of the ‎labor market.‎

Although education is one of the most powerful tools for the empowerment of women in society, ‎it is only one area of social, economic, and political participation. Qatar has positively introduced ‎gender quotas in national employment, but, the Sheikha argued, there is a risk that these are not ‎properly introduced. There still needs to be more done to tackle the careful implementation of ‎‎“Qatarization” and gender quota policies for the inclusion of women in the labor market. ‎‎“Because this lack of participation is holding the region back from further economic growth, ‎some governments have stiffened their resolve to ensure that unrealistic quotas are met,” she ‎argued. “Not surprisingly, many public and private sector managers are reluctant to hire and ‎retain nationals, especially women, whom they feel lack the skills needed for the job.” ‎

Thus, Qatarization and gender quota policies must be introduced in a careful and constructive ‎manner so that all stakeholders gain from women’s participation in the labor market. The Sheikha ‎gave the example of Qatar Petroleum (QP) as a company that has addressed Qatarization in a ‎strategic and systematic manner. “It has adopted a process for attracting qualified talent from all ‎available sources. This includes hiring entry level candidates directly from the ranks of recent ‎graduates from women’s colleges and vocational institutes,” she said. ‎

Such job placement programs and public-private partnerships providing a direct link between ‎educational institutions and the labor market is a must for future of Qatar. The connection ‎between education and the labor market cannot be stressed enough, the Sheikha said, as one ‎necessarily eases the burden on the other. Highly educated graduates will need less training from ‎their employers and this will lead to a smooth and symbiotic relationship between the two ‎spheres. ‎

In conclusion, the Sheikha offered some recommendations for the effective application of ‎Qatarization policies to address the gender imbalance in the Qatari labor market. “Introducing a ‎quota system for women will not be easy, and there is a risk of moving too fast, even for those ‎companies that are most aggressively tackling Qatarization.” Further, Qatar should implement an ‎education policy that takes into account practical skills such as professional development ‎programs and entrepreneurship programs to help women become innovators and entrepreneurs. ‎The transfer of knowledge and acquiring job skills are long and arduous processes that need time ‎to take shape. Educational reform has occurred relatively recently and so not enough time has ‎passed to be able to assess the success of these campaigns. “For reforms to be effective, ‎evaluation of policies must become an essential component of the process of monitoring so that ‎initiates can be revised and improved based on measured outcomes,” she explained. ‎

Although women in Qatar play a huge role in community and social development, raising ‎awareness about the possibilities of contributing to the country’s economy is important. Sheikha ‎Moza bin Nasser and her daughter Sheikha Al Mayassa are great role models for Qatar, the ‎region, and the world. ‎

Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh Al-Thani is the chairperson and founder of Al Faleh Group, a land mark ‎in Qatar providing educational products and services of the highest quality. Three schools, ‎including Doha Academy, fall under the group’s umbrella. After graduating from Qatar ‎University with a Bachelor’s in Education and a Bachelor’s in English Literature, Sheikha Aisha ‎went on to get a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Hull in the United ‎Kingdom, followed by a Ph.D. in corporate governance from Cass Business School, at City ‎University, London. ‎

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Weak States in the Greater Middle East Working Group I
2012-12-08 11:00 - 2012-12-09 21:00
On December 8–9, 2012, CIRS convened its first Working Group meeting under the research initiative “Weak States in the Greater Middle East.” Participants employed a multi-disciplinary approach to critically analyze the terminology of weak and failing states, and the political implications associated with states being characterized as such. In addition to exploring cross-cutting themes on the global weak states discourse, individual case studies of Middle Eastern countries were discussed to highlight the range of domestic, regional, and global causes and consequences of state fragility.

The Working Group began with a discussion on the notions and terminology of state failure and weakness. Through the lens of standardized classifications of states and their capacity, weak states are defined as those that are considered to lack certain distinct qualities and the ability to provide adequate social, economic, and political goods to their citizenry. Indexes crafted by different organizations label strong, weak, and failed states based on indicators that measure state institutional capacity, political goods provided by the state, and security and stability within the state. These rankings are utilized by policy makers to assess the status of a state and to accordingly develop policies that promote economic development, provide humanitarian assistance, and support political stability. During the working group, the various methodologies used to construct indexes, and the ability to meaningfully interpret the rankings were questioned. The aggregation of a diverse set of states, based on indicators that highlight certain symptoms without taking into account the causes and dynamisms of certain conditions on the ground, offers a monolithic conception of states’ success and failure.

This classification of states has directed the focus of donor countries and multilateral organizations to those states that are ranked at the bottom end of the state strength continuum. When assessing the effectiveness of aid allocation in weak states, the participants debated the various routes of aid delivery, the strategic interests of donor states, and the different types of aid provided. In some cases aid allocation fulfills the mere purpose of paying off elites for the strategic interest of the donor countries, while in other cases development institutions are created outside of the recipient state in order to achieve short term results, consequently undermining the state and exacerbating the original problem of capacity weakness.

The politicization of aid converges with the securitization of the weak state discourse. It is assumed that state weakness creates a permissive environment for non-state actors to thrive, thereby posing a non-traditional threat to global security. Policymakers believe that there is a positive quadratic relationship between non-traditional threat production and state failure or collapse. However, more recent scholarly work suggests that a collapsed state does not have adequate financial and logistical resources that criminal or terrorist networks need to function, while weak states do. It was suggested by some Working Group participants that the monolithic designation of weak states does not enable policy makers to understand the particular threat posed or to tailor an effective solution.

The Arab Spring has unmasked the fragility of states ruled by strongmen. The Working Group provided illumination on several states in the Middle East post Arab Spring, both in terms of their domestic functioning and their regional interaction. Libya’s Qaddafi was characterized by his personalistic and idiosyncratic rule of a state that lacked institutions. In the aftermath of Qaddafi’s fall, some have argued that this lack of institutions is a blessing in disguise, since the Libyan state is not weighed down by the previous regime’s judiciary and military-industry complex. Participants also discussed the security status of the post-revolutionary Libyan state with regards to militias, and the consequent spillover effect of arms going into neighboring countries. In the context of external intervention and its impact on state weakness, the case of Iraq was examined. Urban politics and post-war reconstruction in Iraq demonstrated that cities function as both the main loci of armed conflict and the main sites of state-building.

Indexes that quantify the state’s policies and institutional performance and grade them against weakness and strength, do not offer us a tool to understand the nuances of regime adaptability in the state. A monolithic conception of states, fails to understand countries such as Sudan where there are dynamic actors who bargain in a political marketplace. Over the last decade Sudanese political life has degenerated from one with an institutionalized core, to a regionalized political market place driven by an auction of allegiance. Characterized as an oligarchy, the ruling elite have been able to contend with competing local and regional centers of patronage in order to maintain central power and keep the periphery of the state from seriously threatening the regime. An increased focus on specific relationships, namely the disconnect between state and society is necessary in examining the question of center and margin in weak states.

Working Group participants debated whether states that are in the process of formation rather than political consolidation should be considered weak states. The Yemeni state, which is consistently labeled as weak or collapsing, is still in a state-building process where political negotiation continues to unfold. Characterized as a state with diffuse systems of localized authority, legal pluralism, and rife with weaponry, the Yemeni state falls short of the Weberian ideal of statehood. On the issue of weaponry, it was discussed that in Yemen, violence is a symbolic resource and not one that is utilized in ruthless fashion. Moreover, some argue that it is an innate cultural preference of Yemenis to refuse central authority, thereby negotiating a different model of statehood that does not necessarily converge with the Western model. Yemen’s constant state of semi-instability was attributed to the significant role of external actors. The neighboring Saudi Arabia for instance, is keen on preventing Yemen from having a strong centralized stable state. In order to prevent the state from imploding and for the sake of regional stability however, it is also keen on having the Yemeni state maintain certain institutional functions. By funding both the state and actors that challenge the central state, Saudi Arabia is able to maintain the constant semi-stability of its neighbor.

The participants also discussed the particular dynamics that shape institution building in Palestine. Palestine as a rentier and extractive state has built its institutions in the context of colonial domination where major institutions are developed to serve both the interests of the Palestinian state and the Israeli state. Moreover, Palestine is dictated by the “politics of antithesis” where outside leadership focuses on consolidating its own power by opposing the politics of the intifada elite at the expense of institution building.

Throughout the discussion on the weak states in the greater Middle East, the participants probed into the political economy that underlies the state classification system. More recently there have been country-led initiatives that monitor and report on issues facing troubled states, as seen by the G7+ initiative which creates a paradigm for countries to do their own fragility assessment. As new conceptions of statehood arise, the articulation of the development and security interests of global hierarchies of power may alter.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia M. Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarBridget L. Coggins, Dartmouth CollegeJohn T. Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAlex de Waal, Tufts UniversityDaniel Esser, American UniversityManata Hashemi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMark McGillivray, Deakin UniversitySuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarDwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarSarah Phillips, University of SydneyGlenn E. Robinson, Naval Postgraduate SchoolRobert I. Rotberg, Carleton UniversityCharles Schmitz, Towson UniversityNadia Talpur, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFrederic Wehrey, Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceMahjoob Zweiri, Qatar University

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Politics and the Media in the Post-Arab Spring Middle East Working Group I
2013-01-05 18:00 - 2013-01-06 18:00
On January 5–6, 2013, CIRS held a working group meeting under the research initiative “Politics and the Media in the Post-Arab Spring Middle East.” Given the profound socio-political transitions within Arab states in the wake of the Arab Spring, participants used a multidisciplinary approach to analyze shifts in the role of the media and how it is articulated in everyday spaces of cultural production within the region.

With the rise of new media and its increasing integration within traditional media, participants discussed how media is positioned in the new political scene. Evolving ruling bargains in the region have been translated into evolving information bargains where distinctions between processes of information production and reception have become increasingly blurred. The notion of the public becoming an active participant in media processes, translates into a society that has increasingly become in a state of self-information. This is evident in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where people have bypassed state operations and sidelined leaders by taking media tools such as Twitter into their own hands in what is indicative of a move from centralization to decentralization of information.

The media landscape in countries that successfully toppled their dictators exhibits elements of both continuity and change, as countries such as Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen are in the process of re-articulating the position of the state in relation to society. Remnants of authoritarianism continue to impact Egypt where state media institutions are perceived as being “ikhwanized,” while signs of political liberalization are emerging in neighboring Libya, where media practitioners are allowed to more freely criticize political leadership.

In addition to understanding the changing political dynamics of the region, the media landscape gives insight on the current socio-political forces at play. With the rise of Islamist parties in the wake of the Arab uprisings, the secular-Islamist divide has dominated much of the discourse around the region. However, closer analysis of Islamic television in the region provides a more nuanced understanding of the different Islamic movements gaining ascendency. Participants discussed the Da’wa movement (the Islamic outreach movement) as a field of cultural battle that is internally divided and diverse. Islamic channels are not the normative alternative to secular channels as commonly misconceived, rather Islamic television as a social practice addresses moral notions of citizenship by providing competing forms on what it means to be Muslim.

As with most long-scale and prolonged political upheavals, Arab transitional media is offering mobilizing information and is increasingly being used as a platform for voicing opinions. Historically, Arab journalists have viewed themselves as agents of social change; much more than just purveyors of information, they are interpreters of public life.

While discussing whether there is an Arab journalism culture that can be attributed to the region as a whole, the participants advocated for a de-westernization of media studies that assesses the intricate micro-processes evident in Arab journalism, and studies how people negotiate their subjectivity within their broader socio-political constraints.

Participants also discussed the “multi-vocality” present in the media in terms of language, cultural spaces of production, and social actors. Arab graffiti, regarded as a visible form of politics, has exploded in the region, yet remains greatly understudied. Going beyond the content of “visible politics” and understanding the style and aesthetics of graffiti gives greater understanding of the language utilized to resonate with people’s interests, grievances, and needs. Other forms of production, such as musalsalat (serialized television shows), were discussed by working group members as avenues for understanding socio-political phenomena of the revolutions.

Various social movements have also used the media as an instrument of activism. These social movements have a myriad of players that utilize numerous media tools and adapt them to their respective needs. Social media has enabled diasporic communities to organize, mobilize, and contribute decisively to issues playing out in their homelands. Wary of the misconception that social media is all inclusive, participants pointed to the class-based accessibility of the internet and social media sites. Notions of inclusion and exclusion led participants to question what media spaces marginalized communities use to speak and who their audience is.

In the wake of the Arab revolts, Hezbollah has become an increasingly controversial player in the region. Although the popular uprisings did not occur in Lebanon as they did in other Arab countries, the political mosaic of Lebanon reflects the politics of the region, and understanding the media strategies of Hezbollah gives insight into how people interact with the media as sectarian sensibilities in the region are heightened. While Hezbollah is a Shia organization, its affiliated television station, Al-Manar, avoids sectarian rhetoric, portraying itself as pan-Islamist and pan-Arabist and boasts of a wide variety of audiences coming from different sectarian affiliations.

In tackling the political economy of media in the Middle East, working group participants questioned whether state policies are directly reflected in the strategies and content of state-owned or state-sponsored media outlets. The range of actors involved in media production, from directors and producers to journalists in the newsroom, merits a distinction between funders and creators of various media forms. Media cities were also discussed as useful sites of cultural production where structures of power and forms of resistance can be understood. An example of such is the strict control of the Egyptian Media Production City by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, where a supposed beacon of media freedom is dominated by the ruling political party.

Over the last decade, there has been growing localization of news providers in the Arab world as people become increasingly concerned with issues pertaining to their daily lives. In what is dubbed as the “post Al-Jazeera era,” participants discussed what this means for US public diplomacy in the region. The failure of Al-Hurra to operate as an effective foreign policy tool for the US government, begs the question “what media tools and mechanisms will the US government utilize in the face of increasing competition from localized news providers?” As media becomes increasingly dispersed, social actors and governments alike will alter their communication strategies to accommodate the shifting Arab media landscape.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Marwa Abdel Samei, Cairo UniversityWalter Armbrust, University of OxfordZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFatima El Issawi, London School of EconomicsNaila Hamdy, American University in CairoManata Hashemi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJoe Khalil, Northwestern University in QatarSahar Khamis, University of MarylandMarwan Kraidy, University of PennsylvaniaZahera Harb, City University LondonDina Matar, SOAS, University of LondonNourredine Miladi, Qatar UniversitySuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarYasmin Moll, New York UniversityDwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarLarbi Sadiki, University of Exeter; Qatar UniversityPhilip Seib, University of Southern CaliforniaNadia Talpur, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMohamed Zayani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

H.E. Kasit Piromya on Southeast Asia's Role in Global Food Security
2013-01-22 08:00 - 18:00
Former Foreign Minister of Thailand and career diplomat Kasit Piromya was the featured speaker ‎for a CIRS Monthly Dialoguelecture on January 22, 2013. His Excellency Piromya’s talk, titled ‎‎“Southeast Asia’s Role in Global Food Security,” focused on the role of Southeast Asian ‎countries as major exporters of food and as the “food cradle” or “food kitchen” of the world. ‎

According to Piromya, when combined, Southeast Asian countries rank in the top ten global ‎food producers and exporters. “There is no food shortage and there is no famine in Southeast ‎Asia so we feel confident that we can be the supplier of food for the decades to come,” he said.‎

Addressing the important connections between Southeast Asian countries and the Gulf ‎Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Piromya pointed to the great potential for long-lasting ‎cooperative agreements between the two sides. He noted that Gulf states are secure in oil, gas, ‎and energy, whilst Southeast Asian countries enjoy food security. This presents optimum grounds ‎for partnerships and working together to achieve common goals and mutually beneficial ‎arrangements where one part of the world has particular resources that can be of benefit to other ‎areas of the globe. “The first thing that comes to mind,” Piromya claimed, “is the ‎complementarity of Southeast Asia and the Gulf states.” ‎

Despite this natural partnership between Southeast Asian countries and the Gulf states, major ‎questions remain regarding how this complementarity between food security cooperation and ‎energy security cooperation can be achieved. Piromya offered several possible scenarios for cross-‎regional cooperation. ‎

The first, he said, is for the trading partners to establish and agree upon long-term contracts to ‎trade food and energy resources. Another option is for Gulf states to enter into joint venture ‎agreements with existing Southeast Asian organizations to actively invest in farms and related ‎activities in Southeast Asian countries. This scenario will allow Gulf investors to work directly ‎with food production experts in order to increase productivity and returns on investment. A final ‎suggestion is to create stockpiles of food that can be kept in storage and utilized as and when ‎needed. He explained that “Thailand, as a major food exporting country, pledged 50,000 tons of ‎rice into the stockpile for emergency situations.” These stockpiles can be stored on land or in the ‎form of “floating stockpiles” on ships that are directed towards areas of need anywhere in the ‎world. This option requires that countries maintain emergency stockpiles ready to deploy in ‎disaster situations and that countries work in conjunction with international organizations like the ‎World Food Programme to deliver food aid to countries in need. For example, “when there was ‎an earthquake in Haiti a few years back, Thailand was the biggest contributor in terms of ‎humanitarian assistance; we provided the largest amount of rice,” he said.‎

Countries in Southeast Asia and the Gulf could work together to tackle some of the more ‎prescient global food security issues. In his former capacity as Foreign Minister, Piromya was ‎directly involved in negotiations with the World Food Programme to provide food aid, especially ‎rice, in times of crisis in the Asia Pacific region and on the east coast of Africa. Similarly, “the ‎Gulf states, with so much financial endowments, could also play a very important role in terms of ‎humanitarian assistance,” he said. To this end, it is imperative that ASEAN countries and GCC ‎state leaders establish a more consistent political dialogue between the two regions. ‎

Taking this regional cooperation a step further, Piromya argued for the necessity to go beyond ‎food aid and to think of partnerships that can be maintained at the level of research and ‎development. He concluded by saying that there is great interest in researching and investing in ‎alternative and renewable energy sources in many Southeast Asian and Gulf states. Currently, in ‎Thailand, alternative energy is being produced from food sources such as tapioca, palm oil, and ‎molasses. This is a mutually beneficial area for both regions to work closely together. ‎

Earlier in the day, H. E. Piromya met with Georgetown University SFS-Qatar students to share ‎his experiences as a career diplomat and relay various anecdotes about his forty years in the Thai ‎Foreign Service. Later in the day, he spoke to various ambassadors and embassy staff stationed ‎in Qatar at a luncheon talk organized by CIRS. During the meeting, he discussed his optimism ‎for Qatar’s future in light of the Arab Spring, globalization, and increased liberalization. With the ‎inevitable depletion of natural resources, he argued that Qatar has invested wisely in its future ‎knowledge-based economy. “Qatar will take the future in its own hands, manage the wealth all ‎over the world, and manage itself also as an open society.” As a final thought, Piromya said that ‎Qatar has taken and will continue to take a leading role in many global issues ranging from sports ‎to climate change.‎

His Excellency Kasit Piromya is a career Thai diplomat, politician, and academic. He previously served as Thailand’s ambassador to Russia, Indonesia, Germany, Japan, and the United States. From 2008 to 2011, he was Thailand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Currently, H. E. Piromya is a member of the Thai Parliament representing the Democrat Party.

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

Richard Schofield on Britain Territorializing when Decolonizing the Gulf
2013-02-05 08:00 - 18:00
Richard Schofield, an expert on the study of historical territorial disputes, delivered a CIRS ‎Monthly Dialogue lecture on “Territorializing when Decolonizing: Britain Tries to Square its ‎Circles in the Gulf, 1968-1971” on February 5, 2013. Schofield, who is Convenor of the Master’s ‎programme in Geopolitics, Territory, and Security at King’s College in London, examined the ‎period of the late 1960s and early 1970s when Britain announced its plans to leave the Gulf and ‎end the regional Pax Britannica. During this time, there were several territorial issues and ongoing ‎disputes that Britain needed to confront before its departure. “In the late 1960s, Britain was ‎faced with a whole set of territorial issues between protected states, and between protected ‎states and their neighbors,” Schofield said.‎

By examining recently released British foreign office documents, Schofield highlighted a set of ‎disputes that were ongoing in the 1960s, including northern Gulf worries that continued on from ‎the 1930s posed by Kuwait and its boundary dispute with Iraq, and, in particular, the intersection ‎of boundaries and territorial claims between Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in relation to ‎the access corridor of Khor Al-Udaid.‎

Before its departure, Britain actively encouraged Gulf states into increased cooperation with each ‎other and attempted to contribute towards a future grouping of Arab states on the western side ‎of the Gulf in what was termed “Gulfery.” In order to achieve some movement on these ‎territorial issues, the United States proposed solving several disputes simultaneously as a package ‎of disputes. This included proposing to the Shah that Iran drop its claim to Bahrain, that Britain ‎help Iran gain ownership of islands in the lower Gulf, and that a maritime boundary agreement be ‎signed between Saudi Arabia and Iran allowing oil companies in to develop the area. “One of the ‎things that was really troubling the States around this time was the failure of Saudi Arabia and ‎Iran to finalize a boundary agreement so that they could open up the hydrocarbon reserves of the ‎northern Gulf,” Schofield explained. Towards the end of the 1960s, however, these deals rapidly ‎unraveled and became unfeasible.‎

One particular case-study that Schofield examined was the “bizarre” boundary agreement signed ‎between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in 1974. The only way to make sense of this agreement, ‎according to Schofield, is to delve into the complex history of the dispute. “The agreement of ’74 ‎was bizarre […] for the way in which it dealt with both offshore and onshore boundary ‎definitions” because even though most of the territory lay within the Abu Dhabi boundary, the ‎agreement read that all hydrocarbons in the area would be considered as belonging to Saudi ‎Arabia. Similarly, the offshore agreement read that Saudi Arabia could mount military ‎installations on some of the islands said to belong to Abu Dhabi. ‎

Adding to the complexity of the agreement, the onshore boundaries and the offshore boundaries ‎were negotiated at different times and with different results. Schofield said that “it was an ‎unusual and messy situation – you don’t see it replicated anywhere else.” In a time when Britain ‎was taking less responsibility for protected states’ foreign relations, many of these territorial ‎agreements were being signed without the consent of Britain. “We move to a rather nonsensical ‎position where the southern Qatari land boundary was seen as a Saudi concern, yet its ‎southeastern maritime limits a British one,” Schofield said. ‎

In conclusion, Schofield argued that territorial boundaries in the Gulf were traditionally drawn ‎up according to “cultural and historical” agreements. Historically, Gulf states exercised control ‎over non-linear nodes of land as opposed to large swathes of continuous areas. Thus, Gulf states ‎do not always respect modern boundaries and may view them as political, divisive, and an ‎ongoing source of contestation. Modern political economic concerns and requirements for the ‎legal division of hydrocarbons according to clearly demarcated borders are thus incommensurable ‎with traditional Gulf claims to land and resources.‎

Richard Schofield is widely recognized as a leading academic authority on the international ‎boundaries of Arabia and its surrounding region. He has written extensively on territorial aspects ‎of Arabia and the Persian Gulf region, and has acted as adviser on territorial disputes to the ‎governments of Barbados, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, as well as to the Negotiations Support Unit ‎of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Ramallah. ‎

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

Ambassador Munir Ghannam Lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
2013-02-13 08:00 - 18:00
H.E. Munir Ghannam, Ambassador of Palestine in Qatar, delivered a Focused Discussion lecture ‎on February 13, 2013, on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Ambassador introduced ‎the lecture by noting that “the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is part of the Arab-Israeli ‎conflict,” has a long and turbulent history that has been ongoing for over a century. Giving some ‎historical background to the conflict, the Ambassador recounted that “the whole story started at ‎the beginning of twentieth century when Palestine was put under the British mandate in 1922, ‎which then started a process of allowing hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants to ‎immigrate from several countries all over the world, but mainly from Europe,” because of the ‎atrocities that the Jews had been subjected to in general, and during the world wars in particular.‎

Over the course of the twentieth century, what was once known as Palestine was completely ‎altered. Through a series of concerted Israeli political and military efforts, Palestine was annexed, ‎occupied, and transformed into an illegitimate entity. Much of the land was renamed as Israel. ‎‎“At the beginning of the twentieth century,” Ambassador Ghannam explained, “the population ‎of Palestine was 89 percent Arabs – I mean, Arabs who are Muslims and Christians – and 11 ‎percent were Jews also living in Palestine and considered Palestinian.” By 1947, the ratios were ‎radically changed causing much friction and a series of conflicts, which spilled into neighboring ‎countries, and ignited an ongoing armed Palestinian resistance campaign. Currently, the Israelis ‎have introduced such dramatic shifts in the demography and geography of the area that they ‎have in effect changed the reality on the ground. ‎

After several rounds of failed negotiations over the years, the Palestinians found that there was ‎no way to reach an agreement with the Israelis to establish a viable contiguous Palestinian state in ‎the West Bank because of Israel’s constant absorption, confiscation, and annexation of land in ‎the West Bank and Gaza. “Whenever we reach an agreement, we find new realities on the ‎ground that don’t allow us to establish a state, and that is why a couple of years ago, we stopped ‎negotiations with the Israelis and we started trying to seek a solution at the United Nations and ‎the Security Council when we managed to have the status of an observer state,” he said. ‎

In conclusion, Ambassador Ghannam said that this new situation gives hope to the Palestinians ‎that a fresh round of negotiations can now take place with the support of the international ‎community to give the “two-state solution” international legitimacy and to eventually lead to a ‎sovereign and unoccupied Palestinian state. ‎

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

Maha Al-Hendawi Lectures on Inclusive Education in the Gulf
2013-02-19 08:00 - 18:00
Maha Al-Hendawi, the inaugural CIRS Qatar University Fellow for 2012-2013 and Assistant ‎Professor of Special Education in the College of Education at Qatar ‎University, delivered a ‎CIRSFocused Discussion on “Policy Borrowing in Education: the Example of Inclusive ‎Education in the Gulf” on February 19, 2013. Al-Hendawi began the lecture by noting that her ‎interest in the topic came from her own experience as a graduate from a US university who ‎returned to Qatar thinking that she would implement some of the policies and procedures she had ‎learnt and experience whilst studying abroad. ‎

Al-Hendawi explained that she was initially enthusiastic about introducing certain US-based ‎policies upon her return to Qatar. However, the reality on the ground proved otherwise, and she ‎began experiencing a fundamental problem with “policy borrowing.” Al-Hendawi’s direct ‎involvement with local schools, as well as with the Supreme Education Council, gave her greater ‎insight into the specific challenges of the local educational environment that policy borrowing ‎might not be able to solve, and that may even lead to a whole set of new and unforeseen ‎challenges. Al-Hendawi noticed that certain policies were not as successful in Qatar as they were ‎in the United States. She is currently working on investigating why these challenges exist and ‎what she could do to help formulate future policy directions. Al-Hendawi said, “I basically chose ‎one of the most important policies in Special Education, if not the most important policy in ‎Special Education, that is, ‘inclusive education,” as a case study, which followed the research ‎path set by renowned scholars in the field. ‎

The general definition of “inclusive education” is when students with disabilities are included ‎within the general education system and given access to a general education curriculum. There ‎are many different approaches to inclusive education worldwide, where some models advise that ‎students with only mild disabilities can be included. UNESCO, however, advocates for “full ‎inclusion” and an open school system where any student with disabilities, no matter the degree, is ‎able to access the general school system. This lack of consensus on what constitutes “inclusive ‎education” presents a number of challenges. For example, the Qatari school system adopted both ‎modified inclusion and full inclusion at different times and with different results. ‎

‎“The main reasons for borrowing policy, or borrowing the policy of inclusive education, are ‎globalization and international pressure,” Al-Hendawi said. It is important to put policy ‎borrowing in its proper context. “Here in the Gulf, when the policy of inclusive education came, ‎it came with education reform,” and a reorganization of the entire school system and curriculum. ‎Al-Hendawi argued that “timing is really important because it actually came post-9/11,” when the ‎West began questioning the Arab educational system in general and became directly involved in ‎its overhaul. This was a highly contentious issue that was debated in local media outlets all over ‎the Gulf.‎

‎“When the policy of inclusion started in the West, it came out of the human rights movements, ‎and it came out of the ideology of social justice, equity, equality, so it was actually a bottom-top ‎type of decision” that grew organically out of public demands. In the Gulf states, however, these ‎policy decisions are being imposed from the top-down. In this regard, even though the policies are ‎commendable and show results in their countries of origin, they have not had enough time to ‎filter through the social structures of Gulf countries.‎

In conclusion, Al-Hendawi warned that policy borrowing is a problem when it is implemented as ‎a “quick fix” to address an immediate issue. This is further exacerbated when policies do not take ‎into account the specific social, cultural, and political environments that may not always be ‎compatible with the implementation and aims of the policy. In short, careful and constructive ‎policy borrowing must be implemented in a way that takes into account local contexts in order ‎for it to become internalized by the adoptive country. ‎

Maha Al-Hendawi received her Ph.D. in Special Education and Disability Leadership from ‎Virginia ‎Commonwealth University. Her research interests include educational policies and ‎reform initiatives in ‎the region; academic interventions for children and youth with special needs ‎and those who are at-risk; and quality ‎preparation and training programs for educators. She has ‎published in the area of special education and has been a guest speaker in various events ‎and ‎activities.‎

In order to enhance local research productivity and build upon its established ‎collegial ‎relationship with Qatar University, CIRS launched an annual fellowship to be ‎awarded ‎to a member of Qatar University’s faculty. Maha Al-Hendawi was selected as the 2012-2013 ‎CIRS QU fellow. The fellowship will support Al-Hendawi in pursuing original research projects, ‎with the aim of publishing ‎research outcomes. ‎

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zlatko Lagumdzija, on the Syrian conflict
2013-03-10 08:00 - 18:00
CIRS hosted a Focused Discussion featuring the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Zlatko Lagumdžija. The event included an in-depth discussion of the Syrian conflict with senior diplomats and ambassadors, academics, and foreign policy analysts. Some of the topics of discussion included the course and direction of the Syrian conflict, the regional and international responses it has elicited, the pros and cons of outside military intervention in the conflict, and the rise in the scale of the refugees and the humanitarian disaster to which the conflict has given rise.

War by Other Means? Iran under Sanctions
2013-03-12 08:00 - 18:00
On March 12, 2013, CIRS organized a panel discussion on the topic of “War by Other Means?Iran under Sanctions,” featuring Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS; Mansoor Moaddel, CIRS Visiting Scholar; and Manata Hashemi, CIRS Postdoctoral Fellow. The objective of the panel was to have a discussion on the nature of the sanctions and their consequences for both the Iranian individual and the state. Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS, began the panel discussion with a summary of the history of the sanctions imposed on Iran, as well as their effects on the lives of ordinary Iranians. He recounted that the sanctions were imposed on Iran by the United States and other Western governments in reaction to the US embassy hostage incident in 1979, and as a means of isolating the Islamic Republic in the subsequent years. It was only twenty years later, however, that the Clinton Administration passed the “Iran Sanctions Act,” which made the sanctions regime an integral part of US foreign policy. The sanctions “were not really codified until the 1990s when the United States became far more concerned about Iran’s nuclear program,” Kamrava explained. Thus, the strict sanctions were used as a means to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program did not progress due to import and export embargoes. “The assumption was that once Iran stops enriching its nuclear capabilities, then the sanctions would be lifted,” he maintained.

In later years, while the Bush Administration threatened Iran with the possibility of war, the Obama Administration reacted to the Islamic Republic by increasing sanctions that constricted Iran even further. “It is the Obama Administration that has been far more aggressive in terms of the sanctions regime,” Kamrava argued, because President Obama has been trying to keep the Republicans at bay by adhering to institutional and congressional means of engagement instead of attacking or invading Iran.

The problem with comprehensive and encompassing sanctions is that they do not always differentiate between civilian and military needs, Kamrava explained. The sanctions imposed on Iran rarely target only the state as these restrictive measures have devastating effects on the civilian population as well. What is termed “dual-use technology” includes a whole spectrum of technological goods that are integral to the enhancement of military capabilities and, yet, are also essential for basic civilian industries. Civilian air travel is one such example where lack of essential materials means that passenger carriers have steadily deteriorated over the decades and cannot be refurbished. Further, humanitarian items, such as medicines, are exempt from the sanctions regime, and, yet, because of the strict sanctions on the banking system, it is difficult to conduct any kind of financial transaction to attain them.

Quoting from a recent Gallop Poll that asked ordinary Iranians how the sanctions affect their daily lives, Kamrava reported that most answered that they were personally affected. Interestingly, however, although most agreed that the nuclear program was the main reason for the imposition of sanctions, they blamed the United States for their personal suffering. Thus, “the sanctions are actually having the opposite effect, as compared to what the United States intended,” he explained.

Kamrava ended by drawing four broad conclusions, including: “sanctions have become the favored US instrument of pressure;” “there is a self-perception of suffering among the Iranian people;” “there is a high level of support for the nuclear program;” and, finally, “the US is getting largely the blame for the Iranian predicament on the part of the Iranian people.”

Manata Hashemi gave the second presentation in which she analyzed how Iran’s social and economic landscapes have been severely affected by US and EU sanctions, leading to a decline in the value of the rial and a sharp increase in the price of daily goods. “It is not just imported goods that have seen a price increase, the price of goods that are produced locally have also increased as some merchants use the slide in the rial as an excuse to raise prices,” she explained. Further, output across the country has seen a decline because of the restrictive measures, which has, in turn, led to a slash in jobs and an increase in unemployment.

However, contrary to international media discourses reporting on the extreme suffering of ordinary Iranians in their daily lives, Hashemi explained how people – especially those in the lower echelons of society – are coping with, and navigating around, these restrictions. “We know that the sanctions have certainly bitten; they brought inflation and a collapse in the currency; they have harmed many economic prospects for ordinary people, and, not surprisingly, they solidified general sentiment against the West,” she argued. However, government organizations have developed a series of campaigns in which handouts and utilities have been distributed to those most in need. In conjunction with these official measures, “non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also contributed to mitigating the effects of sanctions by distributing non-cash material goods like clothes, school supplies, and other essentials to the poorest,” Hashemi contended.

People in the lower and middle echelons of society, do not simply wait for handouts, but get actively involved in bettering their own lives through a series of creative measures in order to soften the impact of the sanctions. Iranians have become more conscious of their spending habits and have transformed their shopping practices by purchasing locally produced goods that have been traditionally shunned as a sign of inferior quality and low social status. Other measures include taking on extra jobs – often in the informal market – or taking part in reciprocal exchange networks with family and friends. Hashemi said that “by allowing youths access to material possessions, not only do these types of clothing exchange networks help them keep personal expenses to a minimum, but, more importantly, they serve as a way for them to save face and to keep up their reputation among their peers.”

Hashemi ended by saying that people in Iran are not just finding ways to survive in a country so chocked by sanctions, but that they are striving for “the good life” and for a dignified life that is full of hope and aspirations. “Despite the hardships that the sanctions have posed, Iranians inside the county are finding ways to navigate around them to resist some of the more debilitating effects, and even to accrue small social and economic gains in spite of them,” she concluded.

Mansoor Moaddel was the final speaker and he ended the panel discussion by highlighting two major challenges to the Islamic Republic that “are capable of transforming the Islamic regime and contributing to the rise of moderate and democratic politics in Iran.” The first is the international community’s steadfast posture against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear policy and the second is a growing opposition movement within the country that is calling for liberal values and democratic governance. However, these two forces are not coordinated as the sanctions regime has overshadowed any other form of engagement with Iran. The irony, Moaddel said, is that the comprehensive sanctions have had more of a detrimental effect on democratic forces than it has on undermining the regime and its capabilities. Effectively, the “sanctions have undermined the private sector and the middle class, while enhancing the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards,” he explained.

Citing results of two polls conducted in Iran in 2000 and 2005, Moaddel said that there has been a major shift in the sentiments of ordinary Iranians towards liberal and nationalist values that stand in stark opposition to that of the ruling Islamic regime. Currently, a large percentage of Iranians value nationalism above religion as the basis for their identity. Moaddel argued that the international community’s lack of support for these new liberal attitudes is a missed opportunity.

There are a variety of alternative “smart” sanction models that could be pursued and others willing to support a change in strategy. Moaddel said that it was important to point out that not all interest groups in the US are in agreement that imposing sanctions on Iran is the best way of achieving objectives. While the Israeli lobby is keen on imposing ever more crippling sanctions, many US corporations are against them and more in favor of continuing trade relations with Iran. Moaddel argued that “effective sanctions, in my view, are ‘smart sanctions’ – those that effectively undermine the repressive capability of the regime, including the revolutionary guards, while enhancing the power of the democratic opposition.”

Western governments cannot see beyond their fears of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, when instead they should be encouraging the flourishing of civil society and the mobilization of the Iranian population towards calls for democratization. Moaddel concluded by saying that “the current crippling sanctions may in fact undermine the regime. They may at the same time destroy the organizations of the civil society and undermine the morale of the oppositions. Smart sanctions are good. Current crippling sanctions that are comprehensive and universal, which adversely affect the lives of all Iranians, are simply war by other means.”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor of CIRS Publications

Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran Working Group II
2013-03-16 08:00 - 2013-03-17 18:00
On March 16–17, 2013, CIRS held a second working group to conclude its research initiative on “Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran.” Experts and scholars from various multidisciplinary backgrounds reconvened in Doha to discuss their research findings and garner feedback on their individual paper submissions based on original areas of research that were discussed in the first working group meeting.

Scholars began the discussion by problematizing conventional theories of territorial nationalism and assessing the evolving dynamisms of nationalism within the Islamic Republic. The infusion of national identity and religion in weaving national consciousness has been used by various leaders in the post-Khomeini era to develop particular ideologies amongst their constituents and mobilize support for their respective policies. However, elements of national identity and religiosity in conceiving nationalism do not manifest themselves uniformly across Iran and may differ according to overlapping identity formations such as socio-economic status and ethnicity.

While discussing the theory and practice of human rights in the Iran, participants addressed the increasing politicization of rights terminology. In the wake of the 2009 Green Movement, protesters were indicted on the basis of using the human rights discourse to further their cause. More recently, political leaders have bestowed a veneer of legitimacy to the term “basic rights” to counteract the seemingly westernized “human rights” discourse. The extent to which the Iranian concept of “basic rights” encompasses elements of the universally defined normative notions of human rights was a contested issue during the meeting. Scholars further addressed the degree to which individual actors, domestic forces and systematic geo-political relations serve to undermine or further the trajectory of human rights development in Iranian private and public life. Within this dialogue, participants paid particular attention to the rights of women in Iran. The depiction of women as agents of social rehabilitation by religious leaders in the Islamic Republic has manifested itself in the disproportionate penalties for women in criminal law. Changes to the laws of hudud and qisas, which incorporate elements of gender disparity, reveal the state’s efforts to morally sanction women in Iran. While these laws may be reflective of the state’s central policy, Iran’s hybrid legal system and clerical judicial structure complicates the matter of localized implementation. Current public debates on the disproportionate diya and the ensuing advocacy by some legal scholars and leading Ulama alike for the equal compensation of women reflects a broader change within Iranian society where a woman’s contribution and worth to a family is considered to be equivalent to that of men.

The change of women’s status in society is central to the transformation of the Iranian family in the post-Khomeini era. The demographic transition of Iran indicates that declining fertility rates are associated with increased investment in children’s education. As such, a rise in schooling has narrowed the gender education gap and transformed the average Iranian family into a less constrained, pro-growth family, where the improved bargaining position of women within the household is accompanied with augmented investment in human capital. While on average women in urban Iran tend to be more educated than their male counterparts, the most dramatic family transformations have taken place in rural Iran.

As gender relations are being negotiated in the household, women writers have also progressively revisited the Iranian family structure in their literary works. Notions of women’s single commitment to motherhood are questioned, and issues such as adoption are being addressed in Iranian literary works for the first time. A central theme in women’s literature is the issue of space and mobility, where women perceive themselves as prisoners of sex-segregated spaces. The range of issues that both explicitly and subtly question the state’s uni-dimensional vision of women as vanguards of the moral public order are not only pursued by elite Iranian women as was the case pre-revolution, but have increasingly been produced and consumed by women of various ideological and socio-economic backgrounds in the contemporary period.

Transformations in other forms of cultural production such as indigenous pop-music and Iranian films were also discussed by the contributors. While the post-revolutionary government regarded music as one of the most contested art-forms, pop-music faced heightened constraints in making it to the Iranian public scene due to the pre-revolutionary, Westernized connotations associated with the genre. In contemporary Iran there has been a gradual revival and state-sanctioning of pop-music. This shift has also been accompanied by an evolution in the form and content of music, which progressively no longer needs to be heavily defined along Islamic themes.

Post-modern cinema, as exemplified in Iranian art-house cinema, has also gained both local and global recognition. While a state ban on cinema does not exist in contemporary Iran, distribution and screening of films is usually done in private spaces, abroad or on the internet. In the midst of a highly securitized international mainstream media debate on the Islamic Republic, the simple and humanist content of Iranian films has enabled art-house cinema to provide social and cultural insight on contemporary Iran.

The ramifications of political relations between the U.S. and Iran on the experiences of Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were also tackled. Due to the hostile political environment that followed the Iran hostage crisis, first generation Iranian immigrants in the U.S. faced difficulty in assimilating and participating in American politics. Second generation Iranians, however, have woven themselves a new identity that binds their Iranian heritage and roots with an American civic identity. Increasingly, the Iranian diaspora and American-Iranians in particular are serving as cultural conduits between Iran and the U.S., affecting developments both in the home and host states.

The transition of the Iranian family into a modern pro-growth family mirrors the transformation of Iran’s economic landscape from a government-run war economy to a diverse growth economy. Within this larger phenomenon, scholars discussed the role of corporate Iran. Key factors such as privatization, subsidy reform and the imposition of external sanctions have shaped the corporate sector. While the privatization process has meant that the government no longer plays the dominating role in corporate Iran, the beneficiaries of these processes have mainly been semi-state institutions and individuals with access to government networks and assets. Within Iran, the genuine and independent private sector has become more commercially oriented, is providing the majority of employment opportunities in the job market, and is exhibiting increased professionalism. However, the presence of parastatal institutions limits Iran’s competitive environment. In the first decade of the revolution, quasi-governmental organizations such as the bonyads were political entities responsible for charitable dispensation to lower class constituencies which could accordingly allow them to mobilize support for the regime. The post-Khomeini era, however, has brought about the evolution of the bonyads into robust political and economic entities that act as parallel institutions to the state. Their transition into profitable enterprises that account for a third of Iran’s economy, has stifled competition and has increasingly crowded out the independent private sector.

At the culmination of this research initiative, the various topics and chapters submitted by the contributors will be compiled into a comprehensive edited volume on contemporary Iranian society.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarNerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarManochehr Dorraj, Texas Christian UniversityBarbara Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarManata Hashemi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarBijan Khajehpour, Atieh InternationalMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFarzaneh Milani, University of VirginiaSuzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMansoor Moaddel, Eastern Michigan UniversityMohsen M. Mobasher, University of Houston-DowntownMahmood Monshipouri, San Francisco State UniversityRogaia Mustafa Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarHamid Naficy, Northwestern UniversityArzoo Osanloo, University of WashingtonDwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarDjavad Salehi-Isfahani, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityNahid Siamdoust, University of OxfordNadia Talpur, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarLuciano Zaccara, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMehdi Zakerian, Islamic Azad University

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

H.E. Al Dafa on Current Trends in Qatari Diplomacy
2013-04-01 18:00
On Monday, April 1, 2013, CIRS hosted a talk by H. E. Bader Omar Al Dafa from ‎the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Al Dafa is a career diplomat, and served as ‎Qatar’s Ambassador to Egypt, the United States, France, and Russia. He was also the ‎Undersecretary General to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for ‎Western Asia (ESCWA). H. E. Al Dafa is currently Ambassador-at-Large and also ‎the Executive Director of the Global Dry Land Alliance. During his visit, Ambassador ‎Al Dafa shared his experiences as a diplomat and commented on current trends in ‎Qatari diplomacy related to regional developments.

Daniel Lucey on Global Viral Outbreaks
2013-04-22 08:00 - 18:00
On April 22, 2013, Daniel Lucey, Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at ‎Georgetown University Medical Center and an expert on global virus outbreaks, delivered the ‎final CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the 2012-2013 academic year. Titled “Global Travel and ‎Virus Outbreaks 2003-2013,” the talk focused on past global outbreaks of respiratory diseases ‎like SARS and H1N1, and a possible future one that has recently been discovered in the Middle ‎East. ‎

Giving some background into coronavirus epidemics, Lucey explained that the severe acute ‎respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus first appeared in 2002 in Southeast China. He recalled ‎that “by the first half of 2003, the SARS coronavirus had spread to twenty-nine nations on five ‎continents,” largely through air travel. The virus initially spread through hospitals as infected ‎patients transmitted the disease to medical staff who in turn infected family members. The ‎contagion had a 10 percent fatality rate; out of the approximately 8,000 people who were ‎diagnosed, 800 people died. Due to the large percentage of fatalities, the Chinese government ‎received heavy criticism for their handling of the situation, but, according to Lucey, because this ‎was such a novel disease that spread at such a rapid pace, it could not have been predicted, nor ‎easily halted.

The World Health Organization (WHO) coined the term “super spreading event” to describe the ‎rapidity with which the virus was transmitted to multiple people in a short amount of time. A ‎decade after the outbreak of SARS, it is still unclear why one person, known as a “super ‎spreader,” can transmit the virus to more than ten people, while most others who are infected do ‎not transmit it to anyone else. “Of the 238 people with SARS in Singapore, basically, it could all ‎be traced back to five people – five so-called ‘super spreaders,’” Lucey maintained, citing a ‎publication from the WHO.‎

The SARS coronavirus was initially found to have infected bats, but was then transmitted to ‎intermediate hosts, such as the civet cat, which is known to be a culinary delicacy in some parts ‎of China, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Through this close contact with animals, the virus infected ‎people, and then became contagious between humans. It is estimated that “two-thirds of all new ‎infectious diseases among humans over the last few decades have originated in animals,” he ‎argued. Once the virus mutated and could be transmitted through the air, it triggered an ‎international outbreak. ‎

In the Middle East, a novel coronavirus appeared in Jordan in 2012 and spread to medical staff ‎at a hospital and some of their family members in much the same pattern as the SARS and H1N1 ‎viruses were transmitted. It was first identified, however, in a patient in Saudi Arabia. The virus ‎was then also reported to have infected patients in Qatar and the UAE. Lucey maintained that ‎‎“by genetic sequencing, it is very similar to the coronaviruses that are known to exist in bats,” but ‎this connection remains unconfirmed. Lucey posed the question: “is the Middle East coronavirus ‎now, in 2013, like the SARS coronavirus in 2002 in terms of only causing sporadic infections and ‎only rarely causing person-to-person transmission?” ‎

In conclusion, Lucey argued that because “there is no antiviral drug treatment either then or ‎today, neither for the SARS coronavirus, nor the new virus discovered in the Middle East last ‎year,” it is important to be vigilant about preventing the spread of the disease. There are two main ‎lessons that can be learned from the 2002-2003 SARS coronavirus epidemic that can be adapted ‎to mitigate the 2012-2013 new coronavirus in the Middle East. The first is that “hospital ‎outbreaks are early warnings” that indicate the rise of a contagious virus, especially if medical ‎workers infect family members outside of the medical facility. The second is the international ‎spread of a virus due to air travel and contact of an infected person with others in different ‎countries. Lucey argued that “as new virus epidemics occur, they have to start somewhere, and ‎the sooner we can recognize them at the start, the more likely we can stop them, or at least ‎mitigate their serious effects – serious in terms of public health, and serious in terms of economic ‎impact.”‎

Daniel Lucey, MD, MPH, is a physician who completed his training in infectious diseases and ‎public health at Harvard University hospitals and School of Public Health. He worked at the ‎National Institutes of Health in the US Public Health Service as a Consultant Physician. During ‎the Severe Acute Respiratory (SARS) coronavirus outbreaks in 2003, he traveled to Asia and ‎worked in a “SARS hospital” in Canada to gain first-hand experience with this new viral disease. ‎Similarly, from 2004-2012 he traveled to Asia and Egypt to better understand bird flu viruses. ‎

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

Rogaia Abusharaf on 'Debating Darfur'
2013-04-24 18:00
Rogaia Abusharaf, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Georgetown University School of ‎Foreign Service in Qatar and CIRS Faculty Fellow 2012-2013, led a Focused Discussion on ‎‎“Debating Darfur in the World” on April 24, 2013. The lecture focused on the narratives that ‎have been used by the Sudanese government, Western media, and diaspora communities to make ‎sense of the Darfur crisis. Reporting on the extent of violence, Abusharaf recounted that “during ‎the seven years of strife in Darfur, more than 2.7 million persons have been forcibly displaced. ‎Human rights organizations estimate the death toll at 400,000,” although, she said, this figure is ‎significantly higher if we take into account those who died as a result of displacement and other ‎circumstances related to the conflict.‎

The Darfur crisis has become a linchpin for various interest groups, including Western public ‎figures and media outlets, as a cause célèbre often to further ulterior political and ideological ‎goals. In this context, the narrative used to describe the crisis often echoes that of the WWII ‎Holocaust as it is rooted in notions of ethnicity and ethnic cleansing. “Yet,” Abusharaf argued, ‎‎“the deployment of the Arab versus African formulation as the sole explanatory model divorced ‎from other sociopolitical forces shaping society in Darfur is a serious distortion,” as these are ‎unstable ethnic categories that do not neatly subscribe to Darfurian power and identity structures. ‎Darfur has a long history of intermarriage and reciprocity between the hybrid ethnic groups, and ‎so this strict categorization of Arab versus African cannot be sustained except through the ‎epistemic violence of reductionist and ideologically-loaded political narratives. She continued by ‎noting that “ethnicity, when politically mobilized and manipulated, camouflages other ‎fundamental dimensions of the conflict, such as banditry, land-tenure systems, environmental ‎degradation, arms proliferation and militarization, border politics, and systemic marginality.” In ‎the past, “alterity did not prompt massacres;” in the current climate, however, it is used as ‎justification for violence, either deliberately or inadvertently by irresponsible actors.‎

As judgment for the atrocities taking place in Darfur, President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir was ‎issued with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. The warrant elicited both pro ‎and anti Al-Bashir sentiments, locally and within the Sudanese diaspora abroad. The responses of ‎these groups differ markedly from each other as the groups align themselves with different ‎strategic interests. Citing her ethnographic research conducted at Darfur-related conferences, ‎rallies, and meetings, Abusharaf explained how political and cultural identities produce radically ‎different discourses on Darfur. In the United States, for example, questions of race and gender ‎are at the forefront of framing the Darfur crisis, whereas the diasporic discourses annunciated in ‎Doha are more aligned with narratives of reconciliation and social cohesion. ‎

Darfur has thus become the site upon which notions of anti-imperialism and victimization are ‎simultaneously enacted by pro and anti Al-Bashir camps, respectively. These narratives have been ‎broadcast in the international media as public theatrical performances where Darfur is ‎simultaneously portrayed as resistance to neocolonial international forces as well as to domestic ‎ethnic marginalization.‎

As a final thought, Abusharaf commented that there are current concerted efforts taking place in ‎Doha to address the Darfur crisis. This is a loose organization of interested people that do not ‎classify themselves according to strict ethnic divisions, but along the lines of an active civil ‎society. “In the midst of passions, pity, propaganda, and polarization, debating Darfur requires a ‎special objectivity and distance from approaches that enlarge rifts and fragmentation that keep ‎the tragedy going,” she concluded.‎

Rogaia M. Abusharaf is the CIRS SFS-Q Faculty Fellow, and an Associate Professor of ‎Anthropology at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. She is the author ‎of Transforming Displaced Women in Sudan: Politics and the Body in a Squatter Settlement ‎‎(University of Chicago Press 2009); Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives(Ed.). ‎‎(University of Pennsylvania Press 2006) and Wanderings (Cornell University Press 2002). She is ‎the editor of a 2010 special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly (Duke University Press). She was a ‎recipient of Postdoctoral and Senior fellowships at Durham University in the U.K. and at Brown ‎and Harvard Universities. Her work was supported by Guggenheim Foundation, the Royal ‎Anthropological Institute, the Sir William Luce Memorial Fellowship, Andrew Mellon and MIT ‎Center for International Studies and Rockefeller Bellagio Study Center, Qatar University ‎College of Arts and Sciences.‎

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

Weak States in the Greater Middle East Working Group II
2013-05-18 18:00 - 2013-05-19 18:00
On May 18–19 2013, CIRS held a second working group to conclude its research initiative on “Weak States in the Greater Middle East.” Participants met in Washington D.C. to discuss individual paper submissions that collectively scrutinize the prevailing weak states discourse in the region. Through thematic topics and specific case studies, scholars employed a multi-disciplinary approach to assess historical, political, economic, and social causes and consequences of state “fragility” within the broader Middle East.

The participants began by discussing the typology and characterization of governance indexes that construct a continuum of state strength based on a state’s ability to deliver baskets of political goods to its citizenry. These indicators seek to diagnose governance outcomes that are theoretically based on the Westphalian concept of the nation-state. However, while examining the dynamic domestic and regional conditions of the Middle East, participants questioned the normative premise of indices that disregard statehood and state-building as ongoing processes. During the discussion on defining “hollow-strong” states, the limitations of monolithic conceptions of governance as compared to the significance of power struggles that lead to weak governance structures was highlighted.

While indicators of grievances are undoubtedly evident in certain countries in the Middle East, infusing these signs of governance weakness with a sense of history gives a much more nuanced understanding of current political predicaments facing the state. The categorization of states by donor agencies and foreign policy makers often elides the historical rootedness of contemporary governance structures.

Understanding how leaders in the region maintained power for decades in the post-independence period provides greater insight to conceptualizing the relationship between regime type and governance outcomes. For instance, while the Sudanese nation-state has increasingly disintegrated in the recent decades, President Bashir and members of the local and regional ruling elite have maintained cohesion and allegiance via a modernized patronage system within the political market place. However, this political oligarchy is constantly evolving and may become increasingly unstable as the ruling elite’s “political budget” dwindles in the face of a failed Islamist national project and diminishing financial revenues. Libya’s Qaddafi was also plagued by divisive patronage politics that inadvertently marginalized certain tribes, ethnicities, and geographical areas. In the post-Qaddafi period, Libyans are grappling with issues of exclusion and reconciliation of groups that were affiliated with the regime as they move through a transitional period that seeks to create a new political order. Following the uprisings and fall of dictators, the transitional period and ensuing instability in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia also highlights how the democratization process may endanger effective governance outcomes.

While historical context and colonial legacy provide a more nuanced understanding of how certain regimes have attained and sustained power, it also highlights how these power struggles have accordingly created weak governance structures. Institution building in the case of Palestine has largely been dictated by a constellation of factors: building institutions that serve Israel’s colonial interests as well as Palestinian interests; being a rentier-type state; and the consolidation of personalistic politics of the ruling elite at the expense of institution building in Palestine.

Much like Sudan, Libya, and Palestine’s historically rooted political trajectory, participants highlighted the significance of understanding the political foundations of Yemen’s institutions. The Yemeni civil war (1962–1970) and the fall of the Imamate granted Yemen’s tribal sheikhdoms unprecedented power. While the political field was also dominated by the military and merchants connected to the military and the state, the prominence of the tribal sheikhs has remained a persistent factor in determining the stability of the Yemeni state. Additionally, Yemen’s domestic political landscape has been intruded upon by Saudi Arabia in order to secure its own strategic interests. The recent GCC agreement pushed forth by regional and international powers such as Saudi Arabia and the U.S. in the aftermath of the uprisings in Yemen, has reinforced Yemen’s prevailing governance style, and has therefore undermined state building efforts. Thus, external actors are also directly implicated in structuring the governance of the Yemeni state, where their level of support for state-building efforts is determined by their own geopolitical interests.

The role of external elements in determining domestic stability is not unique to the case of Yemen. In the Levant, the Syrian crisis has illuminated Lebanon’s vulnerabilities to geopolitical currents. Sectarian elites and parties, and specifically Hezbollah, have emerged as strong political actors within Lebanon that have formulated their own foreign policy strategies. This has essentially opened up Lebanon as a political battlefield of geopolitical agendas.

In addition regional political dynamics, interactions and contributions of diasporas to their home states also have implications on state building or rebuilding. While it is not possible to generalize how diasporas may impact developments back home, scholars discussed the role of remittances and voting from abroad and how these relate to the security, capacity, and legitimacy of the home state in specific cases.

The significant role of donor agencies in development further highlights that state-formation is impacted by global agendas. The absorptive capacity and relationship between quantity of aid and aid effectiveness in states with weak institutions was also addressed by working group members. Gaps in state capacity and state willingness to provide for marginalized areas or groups have created pockets of NGO intervention in states within the broader Middle East. The marginalization and social exclusion of women in Sudan and Pakistan have led both local and international NGOs alike to deliver development projects, such as micro-finance initiatives, towards the economic empowerment of women. While these interventions specifically target the economic sphere, their implementation may hinder or propel women’s political and social inclusion depending on the local context.

Beyond absolute development needs, it is evident that geopolitical dynamics determine both the quantity and quality of aid a country receives. For instance, the presence of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula within Yemen’s borders and the consequent perpetual politicization of Yemen’s classification as a weak or failing state, has dictated USAID’s strategy towards Yemen. USAID’s state-centric development approach for resolving conflict, elides local nuances and perceptions of the Yemeni central government, existing traditional legal norms, and embedded blockages to reform within the government. These faulty stabilization intervention efforts may result in un-intended consequences—including increasing anti-western sentiments within Yemen.

Parallel to Yemen, interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have sought to narrow the subnational space of governance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cities of the global South have increasingly been framed in a securitized manner, as loci for political violence and contestation. Thus, at the expense of fomenting democratic pluralism at the subnational level, intervening powers have prioritized elections at the national level in an attempt to attain and maintain political stability that is conducive to their military intervention interests.

These individual chapters that seek to challenge and critically analyze the causes and consequences of state “fragility” will be compiled into an edited volume on Weak States in the Greater Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2016).

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

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia M. Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarZahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarLaurie Brand, University of Southern CaliforniaMatt Buehler, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAlex de Waal, Tufts UniversityDaniel Esser, American UniversityMehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMark McGillivray, Deakin UniversityShoghig Mikaelian, Concordia UniversityDwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarSarah Phillips, University of SydneyGlenn E. Robinson, Naval Postgraduate SchoolRobert I. Rotberg, University of WaterlooBassel Salloukh, Lebanese American UniversityCharles Schmitz, Towson UniversityNadia Talpur, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFrederic Wehrey, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Read about the first working group

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Women's Studies Circle Discuss Convention to Eliminate Discrimination against Women
2013-06-05 08:00 - 18:00
The Women’s Studies Circle made up of members from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and Qatar University, led a Focused Discussion supported by CIRS on June 5, 2013. The discussion was moderated by Hatoon Al-Fassi, a women’s rights activist and historian teaching at Qatar University. During the discussion, a group of women from various academic and professional backgrounds discussed Qatar’s ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The group focused specifically on Qatar’s reservations to CEDAW and its implications on gender equality.

Arab Migrant Communities in the GCC Working Group I
2013-09-07 08:00 - 2013-09-08 18:00
On September 7–8, 2013, CIRS held a two-day working group to discuss, amongst other things, the economic and political push and pull factors of Arab migration to the region, the historical migration trajectory, the current conditions and varied experiences of Arab expatriates residing and working in the Gulf, as well as future trends in regional migration. Along with the five teams of research grant awardees, who updated the group on their ongoing research and preliminary findings, the working group participants consisted of a cohort of experts and scholars. In contrast to the burgeoning literature on Asian immigrants in the Gulf, Arab migration to the region has been a neglected area of study. In order to fill this gap, in early 2013 CIRS launched a grant-based research initiative on “Arab Migrant Communities in the GCC.” Five grant proposals were awarded to scholars to conduct fieldwork and original research on various topics related to Arab migration in the region.

The advent of the Gulf oil economy in the 1950s brought with it an influx of migrants, initially predominantly from the Arab world. As the literature documents, the stocks and flows of regional migration have altered throughout the years, with the first Gulf War demonstrating a break in the inflow of Arabs and a dramatic increase in the import of an Asian work force. Viewed as more politicized in comparison to their Asian and Western counterparts, Arab migrants in the GCC have historically been impacted by the geo-political atmosphere. In light of the recent uprisings throughout the region, and more specifically in recognition of the political consciousness of Arab youth, the participants discussed the significance of assessing perceptions of the Arab Uprisings amongst non-local students in the GCC. The attitudes of foreign students towards political and social change taking place in the region has significant implications for future policies related to labor and migration. While perceptions embedded in historical events or narratives impact the governance of migration, they too influence the relations between the locals and the expatriate Arab. Mapping the historical-political consequences of the first Gulf War and more recently the Arab Uprisings provides a lens to assess how certain Gulf States have negotiated their tenuous relationship with their migrant Arab communities. Based on the historical context, different generations of Palestinians in the UAE for example, have exhibited varying experiences of cross-nationality interaction, different degrees of willingness to engage on political issues, and most substantially, diverse levels of success in their ability to obtain Gulf citizenship.

Underlying the politics of migration, the notion of impermanence and temporariness in relation to the “transient foreigner” was repeatedly discussed throughout the two-day working group. As participants pointed out, the “temporariness of migration” in the Gulf states, particularly as it relates to Arab migrants, is an indication more so of their political and social status rather than the duration of their stay in the region. Several nationalities of Arab origin have resided within the GCC for decades, resulting in a significant proportion of second and third generation GCC-born Arab expatriates. While limited pathways to citizenship have policy makers categorizing migrants as “temporary,” numerous long-standing migrant communities of various Arab origins have carved out a more permanent presence within the GCC.

As the dominant Arab nationality throughout the GCC, Egyptians have permeated a range of economic sectors and are generally considered to be the most diverse Arab expatriate community within the Gulf states. The diversity of the Egyptian community in certain states such as Kuwait is manifested in the demographically based socio-spatial and geographic distribution of Egyptians throughout the city. The diverse experiences and socio-economic statuses of Egyptians provide a valuable foundation for the analysis of “bonding capital” within the Egyptian community as well as “bridging capital” with the host community. Moreover, as Egyptians in Kuwait constitute the second largest source of remittances to Egypt, their impact on homeland development is substantial. While most studies focus on the micro-level impact of remittances at the household level, experts discussed the need to assess its impact on macro-level development and particularly how it affects the home country’s investment climate.

While most Arab migrants have traditionally migrated to North America and Europe, they are increasingly choosing the GCC as a destination despite limited pathways to integration and citizenship. For instance, the number of high-skilled Lebanese immigrants in Kuwait has exponentially increased in recent years. While assessing the push factors of Lebanese emigration to Kuwait, participants identified the limited size and prospects of the Lebanese labor market, along with issues of clientalism and corruption as major drivers of emigration. In addition to economic and political push factors of Arab migration, a deteriorating “quality of life” in some home countries have led migrants to seek employment in Gulf cities, which are characterized by high growth, sound infrastructure, and the accessibility of public goods. An increase in Jordanian female immigration to the Gulf suggests that the rising age of marriage, the geographic proximity of the GCC, the availability of job opportunities, and the “comfortable lifestyle” offered have made this region the ideal destination for Arab female migrants. Moreover, within certain sectors of the GCC labor market, there appears to be a level of dependency on Arab workers, most notably due to the shared Arabic language with the host country. Arab teachers, for instance, are a unique part of the labor force in the Gulf, in that they cannot easily be replaced by Asians or Westerners. While the pull-factors to the GCC may outweigh the status of impermanence its migrants face, Arab workers nonetheless accommodate their temporariness into their risk and decision-making process. Impermanent contracts affect the behavior of workers as manifested in their tendency to invest in the present rather any future-related endeavors.

Investigating intergroup-relations and particularly the relationship between Arab workers and GCC employers within the workplace was also discussed as a point of interest. In certain sectors, there is a “privileging” of Arab workers and assessing opportunities or barriers to promotion and professional development in the Gulf is of importance. In addition to standard workplace relations, the relationship between Hadrami migrants and their Kuwaiti employers is unique in comparison to other Arab expatriate experiences. Since the start of their migration to Kuwait in the early 1950s, Hadramis were quickly absorbed into the domestic services sector. Throughout the decades, a culture of dependency developed between Hadramis and their mo’azib (Kuwaiti sponsor and employer) where immigrants and their sons work for the same household for decades. What is exemplary in this relationship in comparison to other workplace relations is the inherent hierarchy and enduring commitment to the mo’azib that eliminates any possibility of competition with the locals. In comparison with other Arab immigrants that characteristically tend to be economically valued, Hadramis are symbolically valued in the Kuwaiti community. These differences in the experiences of Arab migrants based on historical context and nationality offer a nuanced understanding on the evolving conditions of expatriates and the dynamics of migration in the Gulf.

For the working group agenda, click here
For the participants’ biographies, click here
Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Abdullah M. Alajmi, Arab Open University
Mohammed Al-Waqfi, United Arab Emirates University
Heba Arafa, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Françoise De Bel-Air, Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO)
Ismail H. Genc, American University of Sharjah
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Manal A. Jamal, James Madison University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Sulayman Khalaf, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority
Garret Maher, Gulf University for Science and Technology
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Heba Nassar, American University in Cairo
George Naufal, American University of Sharjah
Michael Newson, International Organization for Migration
Gwenn Okruhlik, Middle East Institute – National University of Singapore
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Natasha Ridge, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research
Ganesh Seshan, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nasra Shah, Kuwait University
Nada Soudy, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar
Paul Tacon, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
Abbie Taylor, ISIM – Georgetown University
Luciano Zaccara, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

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Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

George Naufal on the Economics of GCC Migration
2013-09-09 08:00 - 18:00
George Naufal, Assistant Professor of Economics at the American University of Sharjah and a ‎research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), delivered a CIRS Monthly ‎Dialogue lecture titled, “The Economics of Migration in the Gulf Cooperation Council ‎Countries” on September 9, 2013. The lecture mapped the history of non-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Arab workers ‎migrating to GCC states, and explained how and why there were ‎such dramatic changes to these migration patterns since the 1970s.

Naufal elaborated upon the history of labor migration to the GCC states in order to explain why ‎these countries became a uniquely attractive destination for large numbers of foreign laborers. The ‎chief factor turning the region into a hub of temporary economic migration was the discovery of ‎large oil and natural gas reserves in the early twentieth century. Decades after the discovery of ‎hydrocarbon reserves, during the time of the oil embargo of the 1970s, Naufal explained that ‎‎“the GCC countries—Saudi Arabia first—received the largest transfer of wealth in human ‎history.” Because the local populations were small in number and inexperienced, there was a dire ‎need to import foreign labor in order to fully exploit the nascent industry. Naufal recounted that ‎‎“in 1981, when the GCC was formed, the population was around 15 million” people living on a ‎relatively vast amount of land. As the growth of the hydrocarbon industry accelerated, this in ‎turn led to increased economic growth and related development projects, which required even ‎more labor power. “The ultimate goal was to develop and develop fast, and the best way to do so ‎is to bring labor,” he added. ‎

Owing to geographical proximity as well as shared language, culture, and religion, “it was the ‎non-GCC Arabs who came first in the ‘70s and the ‘80s” as migrant workers to the GCC states. ‎However, this influx was gradually capped in the mid-1980s when GCC governments realized that ‎the Arab migrant workers posed a disruptive threat by introducing their own domestic religious ‎and political ideologies, which were not always welcome in the region. Naufal cited the first Gulf war as ‎‎“a structural break in the nationality, or the source of workers,” to the GCC. During this time, ‎citizens of Middle East countries that supported Iraq were deported en mass from GCC states. ‎

The large numbers of non-GCC Arab migrant laborers were replaced with Asian and South Asian ‎workers. Naufal argued that “the estimates put the non-GCC Arabs in the ‘70s to be around 70 ‎percent of the labor force and the Asians less than 20 percent.” These figures were almost exactly ‎reversed in 2005. GCC policymakers found that the Asian workers were economically beneficial ‎as they would work more for less pay, and there was also less chance that they would be ‎politically, religiously, or ideologically influential. ‎

The determinants of migration to the Gulf are the results of push and pull factors that are ‎international and domestic according to the needs of both the sending and receiving countries. ‎On their part, South Asian and South East Asian laborers traveled to the GCC to escape ‎unemployment and poor standards of living in their home countries. “In comparison, in 2010, the ‎standard of living in Qatar, measured by income per capita, was 23 times that of Sri Lanka, 35 ‎times that of Yemen, 50 times that of Sudan, and 70 times that of Bangladesh.” Naufal noted ‎that these macro-economic measurements translate on a micro personal level: “if you were an ‎Egyptian farmer in the ‘70s, and you came to Saudi Arabia, you made 30 times your salary. In ‎the 80s, if you were a school teacher in Egypt, you made 20 times your salary. In the 90s, if you ‎were a Jordanian engineer, you tripled your income by moving to Kuwait.” ‎

Naufal also explored the remittances phenomenon from the Gulf, which “are much less volatile ‎and much more stable than foreign direct investment and foreign aid.” During the global ‎economic crisis, remittances from the GCC remained strong, “basically, one fourth or one fifth of ‎remittances in the world comes from the GCC,” he added. Pointing out the direct correlation ‎between GCC labor policies and the growth and development of labor sending countries that ‎receive direct remitted capital, Naufal commented that Middle East countries have thus missed ‎out on potential investments and wealth that has been redirected to Asian countries. ‎

Similarly, he noted the direct correlation between geopolitical events and GCC labor policies. ‎Because of the volatility of many Middle East countries, the GCC states are especially attractive ‎as a migration destination to the populations of neighboring Arab countries. Naufal argued that ‎‎“since World War II, before the Arab Spring, up until 2010, the Middle East has had 28 serious ‎conflicts.” Conflicts result in high unemployment rates and a lack of job opportunities, which for ‎a large youthful population spell serious future challenges. To this end, he proposed that GCC ‎labor policies could have partially alleviated some of the employment stresses that resulted in the ‎Arab uprisings. ‎

In conclusion, Naufal noted the future challenges to the GCC labor market. “The GCC countries ‎were able to create, in the last ten years, 7 million jobs—that’s almost one million jobs a year,” he ‎said. However, job creation matters less than ensuring that the local population enters fully into ‎the labor market. Currently, unemployment rates are extremely high for local GCC populations ‎who either refuse unattractive jobs, or cannot compete with more experienced foreign workers. ‎‎“Countries in the Gulf have to think about what will happen to the price of oil and if at some ‎point they will be able to balance their budget,” Naufal commented. In order to offset these ‎worries, some GCC governments have begun diversifying their economies and investing heavily ‎in education to give the local populations a competitive advantage in any future labor market. ‎

George Naufal has a Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University. His primary research ‎includes migration and its consequences, mainly the impact of remittances on the remitting ‎countries. Naufal’s research has focused mostly on the Middle East and North Africa region with ‎an emphasis on the Gulf countries. He is the co-author of Expats and the Labor Force: The Story ‎of the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). His work has been cited ‎by regional and international media outlets including The National, Gulf News, and the New York ‎Times. Professor Naufal has served as a consultant on issues related to the Middle East.

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

AUB-CIRS Host Panel on Knowledge Translation
2013-09-13 08:00 - 18:00
The Consortium of Arab Policy Research Institutes (CAPRI) at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) and the Center on Knowledge-to-Policy for Health at AUB collaborated with CIRS to host a workshop on September 12, 2013, entitled “Knowledge Translation: Bridging the Gap between Research and Policy II”. This one-day event brought together academics, representatives from research institutes, policy analysts, and advocates from around the region to understand the linkage between knowledge production and policy making in the Arab world.

Multiple research centers and particularly policy research institutes (PRIs) have emerged throughout the Middle East in the recent years. In addition to independent institutions, several universities have become more research oriented in acknowledgement of the value of knowledge production and its vital contribution to innovation and evidence-based advocacy. Moreover, experts at the Center on Knowledge-to-Policy for Health at AUB noted that the incentive system of research in the region is evolving, so that research centers and universities are increasingly engaging in areas of inquiry that are policy relevant. Since the majority of policy research institutes in the region are still in their nascent stages, they face some significant challenges. For one, the receptivity of policy makers to researchers remains limited as they rarely create spaces for utilizing research evidence in their policy making process. Secondly, local research in Arab countries is perceived to have limited credibility, and regional government officials continue to heavily rely on international consultants. Recommendations to alleviate those challenges were provided by experts at IFI, suggesting that first, research centers should develop credibility in a certain area over a number of years, and second, researchers should interact with state officials and policymakers in order to better understand their needs and keep them informed on their own research output.

With the presence of over 240 PRIs in the region, institutes such as CAPRI are identifying ways of strengthening the outreach and communication strategies of research centers in order to enhance their efficacy in impacting policy. Workshop participants presented both their experiences in linking research with advocacy to influence policy change. In the case of theTobacco Free Initiative in Lebanon, for example, civil society organizations worked with researchers at AUB to achieve two goals. First, they mobilized the public by transmitting information on the dangers of public smoking and second they augmented their advocacy to policy makers by informing them of the level of support within their voting constituency for policy change. During this process, it was highlighted that research needs to be repackaged and transformed into something that is easily communicated in order to increase its receptivity. The media was identified as a vital intermediary between activists and their target audience, both in mobilizing support from citizens and in influencing policy makers to achieve change.

Although the Tobacco Free Initiative in Lebanon presents a success story, it was recognized by the workshop participants that in other political settings different tactics need to be utilized. In more autocratic Arab countries where votes cannot be used as leverage, policy advocates face the challenge of identifying means by which they can influence policy makers. Moreover, while the media is a vital force in fostering change in some societies, its utilization by activists in other countries may backfire. It was noted that in some states, policymakers and members of the ruling regime may view this public form of policy advocacy negatively, and take it as an attempt to destabilize the state. Thus, in more autocratic settings, policy makers fear setting the precedent whereby the media can drive policy, and have accordingly resisted publicly communicated policy changes. Another point of departure from the Lebanese case study is the limited presence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or civil society organizations (CSOs) in other countries around the Middle East. As discussed during the workshop, this has two major implications on linking knowledge production to policymaking. First, policy advocacy transforms into a top-down process, whereby activists introduce the initiatives to those in power rather than attempting to mobilize people behind their cause. Secondly, with the limited presence of CSOs, researchers are left with the task of producing research, disseminating knowledge, formulating evidence-based policy, and engaging in policy advocacy. The latter directly falls in line with the new evolving role of researchers and universities that are increasingly reaching out to decision makers and affecting policy. Participants in the workshop concluded that while building the capacity of researchers to repackage knowledge for the policy world is a technical process, developing a culture that is conducive to research-based policy requires social and political buy-in.

See the workshop schedule
Read participant biographies

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS​
