Center for International and Regional Studies

Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh Al Thani on Qatarization and Gender Quotas
2012-12-04 08:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Moscow)
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​

Luciano Zaccara on the Iranian Elections
2013-09-30 08:00 - 18:00
Luciano Zaccara, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University SFS-Qatar, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on the topic, “Do Elections Matter? Reflections on the 2013 Iranian Presidential Polls” on September 30, 2013. Answering this question in the affirmative at the start of the lecture, he went on to explain why elections are so important to the Iranian political system. Having conducted extensive fieldwork in Iran, Zaccara observed in-situ the last six electoral processes in Iran, including the Presidential Elections of 2005, 2009 and 2013; the Legislatives Elections of 2008 and 2012; and the Municipals and Assembly of Experts elections of 2006. He explained that “electoral life in Iran is very active; in the last 34 years of the Republic’s history there were 32 electoral processes in Iran,” which reveals how significant elections are for the regime to legitimize its political processes and institutions.

Giving some historical background, Zaccara noted that there have been a total of eleven presidential elections since the creation of the Islamic Republic. He added that only two presidents did not complete their terms; one was President Bani-Sadr who was impeached in 1980, and the other was President Rajai who was assassinated in 1981. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth presidents, Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Ahmadinejad, were elected for two terms, which is the maximum allowable time in office. Of these, Rafsanjani and Khamenei obtained the highest proportion of votes with 95 percent each. Although Ahmadinejad officially attracted more participation in the electoral process, with figures reaching up to 83 percent, he was the most contested candidate in the history of Iranian elections.

Elections in Iran are vital for the survival of the political system despite the various governmental constraints. He explained that “electoral processes have very important functions in Iran, even within the authoritarian limits set by the constitutional and electoral frameworks, which are very particular in the Iranian case.” Despite the uproar regarding the 2009 results, electoral processes in Iran have important functions. “First, they draw much light over the intra-elite dispute. Second, they serve the government to check periodically on the people’s orientation. Third, but no less important, they bring candidates into office, sometimes with unexpected results. And fourth, they determine the government’s composition,” Zaccara argued.

Describing the electoral process itself, Zaccara said that the voting system implemented in Iran in unique: there is no official registration of number of voters; the percentage of voters is calculated on a population census; and citizens can cast their vote in any polling station in the country. All these factors make it difficult for researchers and officials who study voting patterns to determine the exact proportion and geographic location of voters. Because of these unusual factors, many international observers believed that the results of the 2009 elections were fabricated. However, he said, keeping in mind the way in which the electoral framework is implemented in Iran, the history of result publication proves that these kinds of numbers are indeed possible. Zaccara added that a further difficulty for researchers is to compare election results over the years as the official information provided is not always consistent.

During the 2013 elections, 675 candidates were officially registered, but only eight made it through the strict criteria to enter the final stages of the elections. Of these, Rohani won the most votes and inaugurated his term as president on August 3, 2013. The week before the elections, Rohani had less than 10 percent of voting intention. However, the day after a key debate where he emphasized the importance of foreign policy, his popularity increased sharply indicating public interest in moving away from the isolationist policies of his predecessor. As a further indicator of the public’s desire for a new type of leadership, he received only 39 percent of votes obtained in Qom, which is considered the center of Shi’a religious clergy, while in peripheral provinces such as Sistan-Baluchistan Rohani obtained more than 73 percent of the vote. In Tehran, the most important and populated district he obtained 48 percent.

In conclusion, Zaccara argued that, on the domestic side, the most recent elections in Iran provided a re-legitimation of the political system and a recuperation of the population’s trust after the events of 2009. “My hypothesis around the results is that the popular support towards a particular candidate is not ideological, but highly circumstantial,” he said. On the international front, the elections have helped in the slow recovery of trust and opening up dialogue between Iran and the rest of the world.

Luciano Zaccara is the director of the OPEMAM-Observatory on Politics and Elections in the Muslim and Arab World, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. His previous positions include a postdoctoral fellowship at Institute of International Studies, Autónoma University of Barcelona, and several research fellowships at the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies, Autónoma University of Madrid. He holds a Ph.D. in Arab and Islamic Studies from Autónoma University of Madrid and a BA in Political Science from the National University of Rosario in Argentina. His publications include the monograph El Enigma de Irán (2006), and the co-edited book Elecciones sin Elección. Procesos Electorales en Medio Oriente y Magreb (2009), as well as many articles on Middle East domestic and international politics, and mainly on Iranian politics and elections.

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

The Evolution of Gulf Global Cities Working Group I
2013-10-05 08:00 - 2013-10-06 18:00
On October 5–6, 2013, CIRS held a two-day working group under the research initiative “The Evolution of Gulf Global Cities.” Scholars from various multi-disciplinary backgrounds as well as urban practitioners and architects examined historical, social, economic and political aspects of urban transformations in the Persian Gulf.

During the working group, group discussion bridged past and present conditions of Gulf societies in order to understand the evolution of urban centers across the region. Before the advent of the oil economy, Gulf port cities were considered “cosmopolitan,” with fluid borders and territories that deemed them as centers of cultural and economic exchange. While these cities are contemporarily integrated into global networks and continue to host large populations of foreign migrants from around the world, the diversity and hybridity of the city has eroded into what participants characterized as “hyper-segregated and divided” spaces.

Aspects of these modern urban developments and features may be understood in relation to historical modes of globalization. Oil has served as a vital globalizing factor, as its discovery brought an influx of international oil companies to the Gulf and led to the localization of global forces of international capitalism. This was clearly manifested in the development of company towns across the region, which also provided new modes of institution building and urban planning. Many of these company towns—such as Kuwait Oil Company’s Ahmadi town in Kuwait—enforced socio-spatial segregation amongst its residents based on ethnicity, occupational standing and socio-economic status. Dubbed by some participants as “neo-colonial capital enterprises implanted in space”, these company towns resemble the segregated urban fabric of many Gulf cities today—underscoring the need to understand how the Gulf region has been and continues to be shaped by imperial and colonial legacies.

The contrast between the rigidity present in today’s cities compared with the mobility that Gulf port cities historically exemplified may be paralleled to ramifications of planned cities versus naturally created urban spaces. With the advent of state centralization, master urban plans were introduced, and increasingly the state managed the inflow of migrants through socio-spatial engineering. Of growing interest and importance is assessing the political economy of governance and its impact on the urban fabric. Various stakeholders, including the ruling regimes, governmental and political institutions, the business community, foreign consultants and local urban practitioners collectively affect the urban landscape. National strategies, such as Qatar’s 2030, envision a transition from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy, and have resulted in the development of large scale projects that aim to increasingly incorporate the city into global knowledge-economy networks. These state-driven transitions manifest in uneven spatial and social development at the city level, where different spaces exhibit varying levels of global integration and where gentrification benefits an increasingly mobile capitalist class.

Diversification from the oil-based economy has also led many GCC states to focus on developing the tourism sector. Cities such as Dubai and Doha have exhibited rapid commodification of their space, heritage industry, and environment in order to build venues tailored for tourism consumption. Particularly problematic is the limited version of regional and local history and identity presented by the emerging heritage industry, as epitomized by the narrow representations of indigenous religious and ethnic minorities within national museums of contemporary Gulf cities.

Unplanned spaces were also discussed by the participants. In Iran’s bustling port of Bandar Abbas, informal settlements have spread on the city’s periphery. While Bandar Abbas appears to be an affluent port due to trade and revenues generated from illicit trading activities, inequality and poverty are manifested in its urban slums and informal settlements. Periodical city plans however, seek to upgrade and formalize these informal settlements by incorporating them within the city’s boundaries. This formalization process however, does not provide avenues for community participation as urban planning continues to be developed by the central state. As agreed by the participants, community participation in urban planning is vital for the social sustainability of the built environment. In contrast to today’s Gulf cities, the built environment of traditional Middle Eastern cities was shaped by the end user and proved to be more “organic.” With the zonal segregation of today’s planned cities however, residents have gradually lost the ability to have regular encounters and confrontations with each other—namely, they’ve lost the urban sense of the city. As such, only a social force as opposed to a top-down agenda can create social sustainability in these already planned cities. Around the Gulf, civic groups have started to emerge that are attempting to restore urban fluidity and their right to the city. These grassroots attempts, along with recent protests around the region, depict a politicization of urban space where the city has become both a site and stake of political contestation.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Ala Al-Hamarneh, University of Mainz
Nadia Al-Khater, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Farah Al-Nakib, American University of Kuwait
Pooya Alaedini, University of Tehran
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Samer Bagaeen, University of Brighton
John T. Crist, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nelida Fuccaro, University of London
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ahmed Kanna, University of the Pacific
Arang Keshavarzian, New York University
Catherine Lechicki, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Stephen J. Ramos, University of Georgia
Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, Philipps-University of Marburg
Ashraf M. Salama, Qatar University
Marcus Stephenson, Middlesex University Dubai
Florian Wiedmann, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Abdullah Al-Arian Lectures on the Muslim Brotherhood
2013-10-07 08:00 - 18:00
Abdullah Al-Arian, Assistant Professor of History at the Georgetown University School of ‎Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture titled “From Revolution to ‎Coup: Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood” on October 7, 2013. ‎

Testament to Egypt’s importance in the Arab World, he argued that “whatever happens in Egypt ‎has a tremendous impact on the outcomes of movements across the entire region. We are already ‎seeing the consequence of that in places like Tunisia, Syria, Palestine, and elsewhere.” To this ‎effect, Al-Arian addressed three areas: first, he traced the trajectory of the Muslim Brotherhood ‎over the last four decades of its history. Second, he evaluated how that history shaped the ‎decisions and performance of the Muslim Brotherhood over the course of the last few years in ‎Egypt. Finally, he ventured some possible scenarios for the future of the Brotherhood, and its ‎place in Egyptian politics and society. ‎

Giving some background to the institution of the group, Al-Arian noted that despite having been ‎formed eighty-five years ago by Hassan Al-Banna, it experienced very few ideological or ‎organizational shifts over the years. During the presidency of Anwar Sadat in the 1970s, Egypt ‎began a new era in which formative economic and political liberalizations were taking place, ‎shifting power away from the military and towards a new urban middle-class. The Brotherhood’s ‎traditional support-base existed in rural Egypt, but “during the course of its reconstitution, the ‎organization’s veteran leadership tapped into this emerging social group that was increasingly ‎urbanized, middle-class, professional, and, to a certain extent, more religiously devout due in ‎large part to disenchantment or disillusionment with the failures of the Nasser period,” he argued. ‎The group entered into a modern phase of its history where Islamic activism was coupled with ‎practical concerns, and economic prowess. At this time, the Brotherhood worked on streamlining ‎its message in order to overcome an increasingly fragmented sense of Islamic identity, and to ‎challenge the rise of competing movements that attempted to fill the void of post-colonial power ‎struggles. During this phase of its history, “the Muslim Brotherhood is slowly beginning to ‎engage more directly with society and, to a certain extent as well, with the state,” he explained.‎

Seeking to protect their vested interest, and not wanting to jeopardize the tacit agreements ‎forged with the Mubarak regime over the years, the Brotherhood acted cautiously when it came ‎to overt political engagement, and remained on the margins of the 2011 uprisings. Al-Arian ‎suggested that “It’s not a revolutionary movement, it’s a reform movement,” which is ‎exemplified by the group’s reticence to join the civil society uprisings in Egypt at the early stages ‎of unrest. “It was only three days later, when the momentum was clearly picking up that finally ‎the leadership reverses its decision and decides to flood Tahrir Square with its supporters who, of ‎course, played a very critical role in the biggest clashes between them and Mubarak’s security ‎agents,” he said. After the fall of the Mubarak regime, “the Muslim Brotherhood along with ‎millions of other Egyptians faced a very critical choice: do they support the transition to a new ‎government that was basically being put in place by the military, or do they demand true ‎revolutionary change by opposing all attempts by the military to try to impose its roadmap for the ‎ensuing transition?” When Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi took office, despite a ‎few token gestures to appease the public, he made no major changes to the existing mode of ‎governance. In fact, “the most critical institutions—the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the police, the ‎intelligence services, and most major ministries—would essentially continue to function with a ‎‎‘business-as-usual’ attitude, with only cosmetic changes being made,” Al-Arian noted.‎

Although the Brotherhood had a successful history of organizing grassroots civil institutions at ‎the community level, the group lacked any form of expertise when it came to large-scale ‎economic and political proficiency necessary for the functioning of an entire nation. Thus, during ‎their time in office, the Brotherhood submitted to the entrenched authoritarian hold of the army ‎ensuring that it remain beyond recrimination despite the abuses committed during the uprisings, ‎and that it would not be held accountable despite its undemocratic and opaque modes of ‎operation. Ultimately, allowing the military to continue its control would be the group’s undoing ‎as “the Muslim Brotherhood was actually helping to create the climate in which a freely elected ‎president could be overthrown by the defense minister and head of the military,” he contended.‎

In conclusion, Al-Arian argued that, after a brief moment in charge, the Muslim Brotherhood has ‎once again become an ostracized entity whose leaders have been imprisoned, their institutions ‎destroyed, their assets seized, and their media shut down. As a final thought, however, he ‎posited that “an unintended consequence of the state’s desire to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood ‎will actually enable the development of alternative modes of organization and mobilization by ‎the remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood, with a particular emphasis on the youth generation.”‎

Abdullah Al-Arian holds a doctorate in history from Georgetown University, where he wrote his dissertation on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the decade of the 1970s. He received his Masters degree from the London School of Economics and his BA from Duke University. A frequent contributor to the Al-Jazeera English network and website, Al-Arian is the author of the upcoming book Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Egypt, 1968-1981, to be published by Oxford University Press early next spring.Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications.

Micha Kurz on “Mobilizing Communities in Occupied Jerusalem”
2013-11-12 08:00 - 18:00
Micha Kurz, a co-founder of “Grassroots Jerusalem,” delivered a CIRSMonthly Dialogue lecture ‎on “Mobilizing Communities in Occupied Jerusalem” on November 12, 2013. Kurz works to ‎support a Palestinian platform for community-based advocacy in Jerusalem, putting Jerusalem ‎back on the international map as a Palestinian capital. His lecture focused on the high degree of ‎misinformation regarding the political realities experienced by the increasingly segregated ‎Palestinian communities on the ground. Issues of escalating Palestinian impoverishment are often ‎marginalized, and the daily suffering sanitized, under the Israeli political narrative of “security ‎and peace.” Even though Israelis and Palestinians share some of the same physical spaces in the ‎city, their experiences could not be more dissimilar causing ongoing conflict and tension.

In order to understand the history of Jerusalem, Kurz said, it is important to understand the ‎bifurcated histories of conflict. For Israelis, the modern historical understanding of the tensions ‎starts in 1967 and the discussions of a “two-state solution,” but for Palestinians this begins much ‎earlier in 1948 with the Naqba, or catastrophe. In Israeli schools, teaching a history of the Naqba ‎is practically an illegal topic, Kurz argued. Thus, many Israelis as well as communities in the West ‎do not have, nor often care to have, a full picture of what is happening on the ground. ‎

If one goes back further in time, before there were divisions between Israelis and Palestinians, ‎there was a Jerusalem that was populated by Jews, Muslims, and Christians, Kurz said. ‎‎Jerusalem was a central city in the region connecting the cities of Bethlehem, Hebron, and ‎Be’ar Saba’a in the South, to Nablus, Nazareth, and Tiberius in the North. The city also ‎connected Jericho from the East, through the oldest trade route in the world, to the port of Jaffa ‎and the Mediterranean sea in the West. The city wasn’t just a spiritual or religious capital; it was ‎also an economic capital in the region. But Israel has detached the city from its suburbs and the ‎West Bank, isolating Jerusalem, and treating it as if it were a city in Europe, not a capital in the ‎Middle East. ‎

In an attempt to control demographics, for the last four decades, Israeli government policy has ‎been to keep Palestinian parts of the city underdeveloped, while expanding mass Israeli ‎settlement housing projects—illegally according to international law. While Israeli settlement ‎grew on stolen Palestinian farmlands during the 1970s and 80s, without the freedom to develop ‎their own neighborhoods, young Palestinian families had no choice but to move out of town, and ‎to live in the suburbs. Later, in the 1990s during what was described as “a step toward Peace,” ‎checkpoints were constructed limiting Palestinian access to the Central Business District and ‎with it access to the main market, employment, healthcare, and education. Palestinians who were ‎caught at checkpoints or Israeli military house-raids and designated as not living within the ‎Israeli-defined borders of the city have had their “residency” status revoked. These no longer ‎have the right to visit their hometown without an Israeli issued permit. Israel finally severed ‎Jerusalem from its age-old suburbs with the construction of the “separation wall.” The “wall” was ‎built during the period known as “the Bush War on Terror,” and its presence has often been justified under ‎the rubric of “security.” However, it has been widely proven by many Israeli sources that this is ‎not the case, and the “wall” has benefited the Israeli economy by segregating Palestinian cities ‎from one another. ‎

Today, the Israeli government does not allow the Palestinian Authority jurisdiction in Jerusalem. ‎Without the right to vote in proper government elections, Palestinian Residents of Jerusalem have ‎not been politically represented for the last four decades. Kurz discussed the divisions and ‎segregations that have occurred; Palestinians living in the suburbs of the city are physically ‎isolated and segregated from their communities and from basic amenities. As a result, over 5,000 ‎businesses have shut down over the past decade, bringing unemployment, poverty, and rising ‎tensions to peak levels. The age-old character has been cleansed from Jerusalem together with its ‎Palestinian residents.‎

Kurz lamented how “Israel has over time gained control of the land between the Jordan River ‎and the Mediterranean sea, including the economy, resources, and the peoples living in it.” He ‎added later, “I find it difficult to describe Israel either as a democracy or a Jewish state.” In ‎conclusion, Kurz questioned how “Many people around the world still discuss a Two-State ‎Solution, expecting ‘Peace, Dialogue, and Coexistence,’ where I feel we ought to be discussing ‎human rights, justice, and leading practical conversations about freedom of movement and ‎development in an important regional capital.” ‎

Micha Kurz was born and raised in Jerusalem. During the second Intifada he learned about the ‎Israeli Occupation of Palestinian land and people first hand as an Israeli soldier. In 2004, he was ‎a co-founder of “Breaking the Silence” and has since focused his work in Al Quds-Jerusalem, “a ‎forgotten epicenter of the occupation. “Grassroots Jerusalem” has recently opened the doors to ‎Al Marsa (the Harbor), a Political Community Center and Legal Clinic built to counter the threat ‎on freedom of speech and assembly in Jerusalem today.‎

CIRS Research Roundtable
2013-11-17 08:00 - 18:00
In order to enhance local research productivity, and build upon its established collegial ‎relationships with other research entities in Qatar, CIRS hosted a “Research Roundtable” on November 17, 2013. During this one-day event, academics, policy analysts, and representatives of research institutions and think tanks discussed their respective research initiatives and activities in an attempt to identify research synergies across institutions. Participants additionally discussed the extent to which their research endeavors align with Qatar’s National Research Strategy, and the linkages between their research output and policy making in the country.

The research landscape and various challenges faced by research organizations in Qatar were central discussions of the Roundtable. As with most early stage research economies around the globe, capacity building of research institutions, coordination between research organizations, and establishing partnerships between research and policy-making bodies are core areas in need of development. In the past decade, research organizations have mushroomed throughout Qatar and collectively cover a wide array of subject areas. At this stage in its development, participants discussed Qatar’s need to build the capacity of organizations to conduct and disseminate research. More importantly, the complex research landscape in Qatar requires a coordinating body that could generate awareness on the type of research carried out by various institutions. This would enable organizations to effectively articulate research synergies with other institutions, avoid duplication of efforts, and identify areas where research is needed. Communicating research activities and transferring knowledge output to policy making entities is also of importance. Informed decision making and evidence-based policy are contingent upon access to and knowledge of the relevant research. This Research Roundtable provided a platform for various members of the research community to highlight their research areas and share insights on the state of research in the country.

Participants:

Ibrahim Sharqieh, Deputy Director & Foreign Policy Fellow, Brookings Doha Center
Nader Kabbani, Director of Research and Policy, Silatech
Florian Wiedmann, Urban Planning and Development Authority
Professor Tim Cable, Director of Sports Science, Aspire Academy
Hanan Abdul Rahim, Associate Director SESRI, Qatar University
Tatjana Martinoska, Independent Researcher
Noor Al Malki Al Jehani, Executive Director, Doha International Family Institute (DIFI)
Sanaa Alharahsheh, Associate Researcher, Doha International Family Institute (DIFI)
Simon Hall, Project Manager Qatar National Food Security Programme
John Crist, Director of Research, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mehran Kamrava, Director, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zahra Babar, Assistant Director of Research, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor of CIRS Publications, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Elizabeth Wanucha, Project Manager, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, Financial and Budget Analyst, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Barb Gillis, CIRS Coordinator, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

The State and Innovation in the Gulf Working Group I
2013-12-08 18:00 - 2013-12-09 18:00
On December 8–9, 2013, CIRS held a working group to launch the State and Innovation in the Gulf Research Initiative. Regional and international scholars and experts from various multi-disciplinary backgrounds convened to discuss issues related to the pursuit of a knowledge-based economy (KBE) throughout various states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Within the last decade, members of the GCC have individually drafted, formulated and launched development plans and strategies that convey the common drive among these states to create a knowledge based-economy. Although they have experienced large-scale rapid development due to abundant hydrocarbon rents, rulers and public officials of these states have increasingly stated that economic diversification is necessary for the sustainability of economic growth. Diversification has been used almost interchangeably with the concept of developing a “knowledge-based economy,” underscoring the ultimate goal of these states to reform education, R&D, ICT, and other sectors that enhance productivity and scientific progress.

Investment in higher-education has been one of the most prominent manifestations of this drive towards developing KBEs. As a result of the lack of capacity and expertise of national public universities across the region to produce the necessary skillsets in their graduates fit for a KBE, governments have increasingly invested in international branch campuses (IBCs). While IBCs are not a novel phenomenon across the globe, organizations such as Qatar Foundation in Qatar have adopted unique organizational practices and arrangements of IBCs that are cluster-based. Graduates of these hosted top-tier US and European universities’ IBCs gain degrees that are identical to those obtained by graduates from the main campuses. While this model of imported universities is meant to transfer knowledge from one campus to another, certain types of “knowledge” have more complex forms of adoption. Participants discussed the relative seamless transfer of the sciences, while humanities programs that are embedded in social and cultural values may need to be adapted to fit the specific locale.

The investment in IBCs and research institutions indicates that the infrastructure to build a R&D culture and economy is present; however, retaining the human capital to carry out research has proved to be a much more difficult feat. Small national populations throughout the GCC have resulted in the large import of human capital to satisfy labor market needs. However, the resulting demographic imbalance between nationals and non-nationals has shaped the stringent residency rules in these countries, which offer no formal pathways to citizenship. Although recruitment of labor has not proven to be much of a concern, retaining a work-force that has a sense of long-term commitment and ownership over their work is something that organizations have to contend with. Thus, while GCC states have attempted to create an environment of innovation and knowledge production through financial and infrastructural investment, the ability to seed and harvest innovation with a largely transient population in place remains a question. Achieving sustainability in innovation requires a comprehensive approach that looks at the social dimensions of this transition to knowledge-producing economies.

While higher education has been the focus of investment for these aspiring KBEs, there has been a relative neglect of primary education systems in the GCC. Participants argued that in order to effectively enable systems for knowledge production and knowledge sustainability, states should aim to produce knowledge “societies” rather than “economies” per se. Rote learning and functionalist approaches to education are prevalent from the primary years of education and act as hindrances to harvesting innovation. With critical thinking undermined and the value of knowledge beyond the labor market requirements rarely articulated, fostering knowledge production and a risk-taking culture may be a distant achievement for the GCC states despite the presence of top-tier research universities.

Labor market employment of nationals continues to be a main priority for GCC states. The nationalization of the education and tourism sectors reflect the government’s attempts to diversify their economies, while minimizing national unemployment. Within the GCC, there is also a big push for entrepreneurship and SME development, which act as modes of employment that concomitantly spur innovation. Participants noted, though, that a multitude of systemic and ideational challenges face the state in encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation. Among other factors, the systemic hurdles include institutional competition, overly bureaucratic procedures, as well as endemic inconsistencies between policies and monopolized market conditions. The ideational challenge on the other hand, poses a hindrance that hits at the root of entrepreneurship development—the limited motivation for entrepreneurial innovation amongst citizens of the Gulf. Participants noted that the rentier path dependencies and the dual-wage structure between the public and private sector across the GCC obstruct incentives for innovation and entrepreneurism amongst nationals. In fact, state attempts to invigorate the private sector through SME development, has further embedded the public sector within the economy and entrepreneurship has become a new mode of state patronage and means of accessing rent.

As GCC states strive to develop “innovation cities”, policy adoption and diffusion from well-established global KBEs is at play. What may be much more complex, however, is tackling the social dimension that is required to transition to a KBE, and tailoring these policies to fit the local conditions. Fostering innovation may lead these states to revisit their rentier dependency policies aimed at nationals, and to develop motivational mechanisms that incentivize the citizens to play a key role in the development of a knowledge-based economy.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, United Arab Emirates University
Osama Abi-Mershed, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Matt Buehler, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Nerida Child Dimasi, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
John Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Crystal A. Ennis, Balsillie School of International Affairs
Barb Gillis, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Martin Hvidt, Zayed University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Tanya Kane, Texas A&M University at Qatar
Hiba Khodr, American University of Beirut
Daniel Kirk, Emirates College for Advanced Education
Jim Krane, Rice University
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Rabi Mohtar, Qatar Foundation
Anne Nebel, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Firat Oruc, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Andy Spiess, GCC Network for Drylands Research and Development
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Kenneth Wilson, Zayed University

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Zahra Babar on Arab Migrants in Qatar
2013-12-11 08:00 - 18:00
Zahra Babar, Associate Director for Research at CIRS, delivered a CIRSMonthly Dialogue ‎lecture titled “Working for the Neighbors: Arab Migrants in Qatar” on December 11, 2013. Babar ‎proposed to examine some of the trends in Qatar’s dramatic population increase over the past ‎few decades, paying particular attention to the demographic patterns of non-GCC Arab migrant ‎populations. “The migrant population in the Gulf in general, and in Qatar in particular, has ‎increased significantly over the past few decades,” she said. In the 1990s, the total population of ‎Qatar was about 500,000 people, and has increased threefold to almost 2 million in 2013. ‎Giving some background to her research, Babar explained that “although we all are aware of this ‎large demographic presence of foreigners in Qatar, surprisingly enough, we actually do not know ‎very much about them.” Reliable data on who these people are, where they come from, how they ‎are integrated in the labor market, and how they experience life in Qatar is scant. “Obtaining data ‎in Qatar on national and ethnic compositions of the migrant population is a huge challenge. Any ‎researcher trying to work on some aspect of labor migration in Qatar finds that the data ‎availability, data accessibility, and data reliability is very scarce,” she noted. With Qatar’s hosting ‎of the 2022 FIFA World Cup approaching, critical attention has focused on Qatar’s labor ‎practices with several high-profile and defamatory exposés in the international media. Babar ‎warned, however, that people should be wary of those who claim to have solid facts and figures ‎regarding migration and labor conditions in Qatar. “I hope you would remain skeptical when any ‎one of these articles proceeds to give you particular figures,” she said. ‎

Guiding her research, Babar explained, was the question: “why is it important to talk about ‎nationality?” Nationality, she said, has a direct impact on one’s life in Qatar as a migrant, ‎including how it determines salary structures, benefits and prospects, and how one experiences ‎life and work in the country. Thus, “nationality has a strong correlation with how one is ‎integrated into Qatar’s labor market,” she surmised. ‎

Tracing nationality trajectories in Qatar over the past few decades, she argued that ethnic and ‎national compositions of the expatriate presence have gone through a complete transformation. ‎Focusing on changes to the non-GCC Arab migrant populations in Qatar, Babar highlighted the ‎significant decrease in numbers from 70 percent in the 1970s and 1980s to less than 20 percent ‎currently. Babar reported recent figures obtained from the Qatari Ministry of Labor, which ‎placed non-GCC Arab expatriates in Qatar at 146, 000, or 13 percent of the total workforce. Of ‎these, Egyptians comprise the largest percentage in terms of national composition, closely ‎followed by Sudanese and Syrians. Together, these three nationalities comprise 65 percent of the ‎total non-GCC Arab expatriate population in Qatar and 72 percent of the non-GCC Arab ‎workforce.‎

Situating these demographic changes historically, Babar argued that the GCC states, with their ‎burgeoning hydrocarbon industries and small populations, were obliged to employ foreign ‎workers. Initially, in the early days of the industry, the logical choice was to employ workers ‎from neighboring Arab countries, given the geographic, linguistic, religious, and cultural ‎affinities, and the ease of Arab integration into existing Gulf societies. However, as these ‎massive hydrocarbon industries grew and globalized and as political economic imperatives ‎surpassed these initial sociocultural considerations, there were dramatic shifts in the policies, ‎practices, and patterns of the Qatari labor market. ‎

Effectively, non-GCC Arab migrants in Qatar have, since the 1970s, integrated into society by ‎maintaining their traditional family structures. Of the total non-GCC Arab residents in Qatar, ‎only 52 percent are active in the labor force and contribute to the economy, while 48 percent are ‎dependents—children and housewives. If this is compared to corresponding data from other ‎nationalities, there is a significant and noticeable difference. There are only 17 percent non-‎working dependents in the Indian community and only 1 percent in the Nepalese community. ‎Further, the discrepancy in these figures also reveals that non-GCC Arab migrants presumably ‎earn higher salaries to be able to maintain a dependent household in Qatar. Thus, Babar argued, it ‎is easy to see why Qatari policymakers would be more inclined to import cheaper and more ‎manageable labor from Asia. ‎

In sum, Babar concluded that, “in Qatar, the state and society are extremely concerned about the ‎demographic imbalance and the increasing presence of foreigners outnumbering them, and so ‎really what they are looking for is to have their labor market needs met without any incremental ‎increase to the population.” ‎

Zahra Babar is Associate Director for Research at the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University-Qatar. Previously, she worked in the international aid, community development, and poverty alleviation sector. Babar has served with the International Labour Organisation and the United Nations Development Programme. She also spent several years working in Pakistan with the Sarhad Rural Support Programme, one of Pakistan’s large multisectoral rural development organizations. She has edited, with Mehran Kamrava, Migrant Labor in the Persian Gulf, and with Suzi Mirgani, Food Security in the Middle East. Babar received her BA in Government from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and her MA from the School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications.

Social Currents in the Maghreb Working Group I
2014-01-07 08:00 - 2014-01-08 18:00
On January 7-8, 2014, CIRS held its inaugural Social Currents in the Maghreb Working Group in Washington D.C. While much of the mainstream media and recent scholarship on the Maghreb has focused on the political and security dimensions of the region, participants gathered over two days to discuss the social changes and fluxes in contemporary Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Mauritania. The Working Group provided an avenue of deliberation on social issues that precede the recent political transformations of the region, and sought to examine the complex trajectory of its existing societal conditions.

As highlighted above, much of the recent debates on the Maghreb have revolved around political transformations, and more specifically on their relation to Islamic movements in the context of the Arab Spring. While the historical trajectory of Islamic movements and parties has generally been accounted for, the internal dynamics of political parties have largely been neglected in the scholarship. Working Group participants highlighted the dynamics between Islamists and leaders of various political parties as well as generational dynamics within the parties. Political parties and movements as a unit of analysis need to incorporate internal notions of ideological hybridity that not only challenge the status-quo of the country’s political landscape, but also of the movements’ longstanding policies and strategies. These internal subtleties allude to the ideological innovation of Islamic movements that move beyond the traditional prism of analysis of “moderation through inclusion” or “radicalization through repression”.

In addition to political parties and political Islam, participants discussed religious practice and the anthropology of Salafism and Sufism. In the context of the latter, Sufi observances and religious pilgrimages by the Tijaniyyah who migrate from West Africa to the Maghreb, have created economic and social networks that permeate the two regions. While the Tijaniyyah movement has largely expanded to West Africa, these Sufi networks have also traditionally served as vital linkages of knowledge production.

Another thread connecting the Maghreb to West Africa and the Sahel is the transnational element of Amazigh movements. While most scholars have focused on political and social struggles of the Amazighs in Algeria and Morocco in isolation, their movements have become increasingly transnational in nature as they incorporate other Amazighs or social groups such as the Tuareg, in their politics. With these attempts to create transnational connections comes a sense of national ambivalence as questions of identity are pushed to the forefront with regards to “Africanity” and “Amazigh-ness”. These questions do not allude to deep ethnic tensions between a certain social group and their respective national counterparts, but rather serve to highlight contemporary politics and how it emerges in a changing political system with relative political openings or closings.

Hybrid identities were also discussed in the context of the Haratine in Mauritania. The Haratine, or people of slave descent, currently experience different levels of political and social subservience. The Haratine are also not a homogenous group and identify themselves as Arabs, Berbers, African, and Mauritanian. Identity, which may also be used as a political tool, directly affects the strategic alliances that the Haratine movement builds in order to further its political cause in Mauritania. While much of the movement’s emphasis has been on political and social subordination, economic emancipation has not been effectively addressed by the movement nor experienced by the Haratine today.

Other movements such as the Polisario in Western Sahara have not gained much footing in their political trajectory but have secured greater access to economic funds. Contrary to conventional wisdom about the armed movement, the Polisario has increasingly diversified its portfolio of economic and developmental funding to include non-state sources beyond Algeria. Resources from civil society organizations and family members abroad broaden the Polisario movement’s economic base of support and simultaneously affect the activities and investments of the movement.

In addition to identity politics, the politics of language and its historical, economic and social salience were discussed. The language of instruction in Moroccan schools for instance, has largely been caught between the dual and seemingly contradictory goals of cultural and linguistic preservation (e.g. Arabic or Berber) and the necessity of equipping graduates with languages that meet global market needs (e.g. French or English). The language of instruction in the Moroccan education system is fragmented where Arabic is utilized in public primary schools and French in higher education. This tends to exacerbate the hurdles that socio-economically disadvantaged populations face in attaining social mobility as they move from one educational level to another. This linguistic fragmentation in the education system can be contrasted to the linguistic hybridity that is increasingly incorporated into the artistic expression of the youth. The incorporation of the Darija (colloquial Arabic) into cultural forms produced by youth serves as a means to deconstruct issues of identity and provides an underlying commentary on the language of politics as being distant from the everyday life; this artistic utilization of linguistic hybridity by youth was identified as an element of youth’s cultural and social entrepreneurship in the contemporary Maghreb.

Parallel to the politics of linguistic preservation, participants discussed movements of cultural preservation, specifically as it relates to Jews of North Africa. Jewish presence in Morocco and Tunisia has significantly diluted since the pre-independence era, and concomitantly, efforts to conserve and renovate Jewish heritage sites have been on the rise. While these preservation projects serve to keep the memory of the Jewish community in North Africa alive, the politics of preservation also indicate that these movements seek to reify Jews to a past rather than an ongoing present.

Sports in relation to migration, identity and political transitions in the Maghreb were also topics tackled by the participants. While Europe has been the main destination for athletes, the GCC has more recently become a new lucrative destination for youth from the Maghreb. Issues related to reverse migration of athletes, their sense of belonging, and identity construction around religion and language are of interest in comparing the Gulf and Europe as prime sport destinations. Moreover, with the political transitions in the region, regimes have utilized sports for various strategic interests such as the promotion of reconciliation in Algeria or the rebuilding of the national sport system in Libya after decades of neglect by Qaddafi.

These societal threads, from social movements by marginalized groups to the language employed by youth in artistic expression, collectively shed light on the social underpinnings of the contemporary Maghreb.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Osama Abi-Mershed, CCAS – Georgetown University
Lahouari Addi, Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle (CRASC)
Mahfoud Amara, Loughborough University
Néjib Ayachi, Maghreb Center
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Aomar Boum, University of Arizona
Charis Boutieri, King’s College London
Alice Bullard, IRA-USA
Francesco Cavatorta, Université Laval
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Ricardo René Larémont, Binghamton University
William Lawrence, George Washington University
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem, University of Nouakchott
Paul Silverstein, Reed College
Loubna Skalli-Hanna, American University
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Alice Wilson, University of Cambridge

Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS​

Sustainable Development for ‎Economies and Corporations
2014-01-20 08:00 - 18:00
R. Seetharaman, Group Chief Executive Officer of Doha Bank‎, delivered the first ‎CIRS ‎Monthly ‎Dialogue of 2014 with a lecture on “Sustainable Development for ‎Economies ‎and ‎Corporations”‎ ‎on January 20, 2014‎. Drawing on his experience as the head of a major ‎financial institution, he explained how, as a result of the global financial crisis, ‎economic ‎systems ‎all over the world ‏have been shaken to their core and forced to undergo massive ‎transformations ‎at a fundamental ‎level. These global financial institutions have had to align ‎themselves according to a new world ‎order of financial market re-regulation in the interest of ‎creating ‎more ‎conservative, cautious, and sustainable global economies. ‎

Seetharaman adumbrated the unprecedented circumstances that affected global financial systems ‎over the past few years, including the liquidity crisis that turned into a funding and solvency ‎crisis where entire nations such as Greece and Iceland experienced far-reaching economic ‎collapse. In these cases, he argued, politics and economics did not speak to each other on the ‎level of convergence that they should have. The liquidity crisis was addressed by unstable and ‎short-term solutions, such as printing more money to improve the cash flow and to stabilize stock ‎markets, but this was ultimately unsustainable. The problem was patched up on a superficial level, ‎but the fundamental roots of the economic crisis remained. Because “we live in an ‎interconnected, interdependent world,” currency markets and commodity markets are ‎intertwined, and what affects one affects the other. ‎

Reeling from years of global economic stagnation and recession, governments, corporations, ‎and ‎financial institutions have realized that massive overhauls in the system are necessary, ‎Seetharaman ‎explained. “This crisis is an opportunity for the new world order,” he advised. The ‎type of rapacious corporate capitalism and market speculation that defined the last few ‎decades ‎of deregulated market economies have altered in form and substance. Similarly, countries that ‎adhered to a socialist structure of economic governance have also ‎found it necessary to change ‎their financial structures, and have been making concerted efforts to end their isolation and ‎connect with the global ‎economy. In fact, Seetharaman said, these two formerly oppositional ‎economic ‎philosophies are increasingly becoming intertwined for a more effective and sustainable ‎economic ‎reality. “Mixed economies are the game changers. We have seen the emerging markets ‎incrementally producing ‎over 60% of gross domestic product in terms of global growth, and ‎these economies have to be an integral part of the order of inclusive growth. This is why the G7 ‎has become the G8, and G8 has become G20,” he said. ‎

Because financial institutions operate as much on public money as they do on private shareholder ‎assets, the public-private partnership model is the most sustainable way of moving forward, ‎Seetharaman advised. Taking the example of Doha Bank, Seetharaman argued that private ‎shareholder money accounts for approximately 11 billion, and yet customer deposits account for ‎an enormous 35 billion. It thus becomes obvious that even if a financial institution is private, it is ‎often, in reality, public. The global financial crisis revealed that the public is in fact an important ‎stakeholder whose investments must be protected and not gambled with. “Whether you run a ‎socially responsible mission as a corporate head or a country head, you have to practice social ‎responsibility. That way, you will take care of all the stakeholders,” he explained.‎

In conclusion, Seetharaman argued that because of the increase in patterns of globalized ‎connectivity on all levels, ‎whether in terms of financial markets or broader issues of climate ‎change, governance systems all over the ‎world must attempt to adhere to the same ethical, ‎socially-responsible, and sustainable standards. At the universal level, we need to “set new ‎initiatives that are responsive to see the ‎United ‎Nation‏‎’s ‎mission ‎for eradication of extreme ‎poverty,‎‏ ‏gender ‎equality, ‎‏economic ‎sustainability,‎‏ ‏primary ‎healthcare,‎‏ ‏education‏,‏‎ global ‎collaborations‏‎,” he concluded.‎

Dr. R. Seetharaman (www.seetharaman.org), Group Chief Executive Officer of Doha Bank, is ‎a ‎recipient of ‎multiple doctorates from leading universities of the world, including a PhD in ‎Global ‎Governance by European ‎University and Doctorate of Laws by Washington College. He ‎is a ‎Chartered Accountant and holds certificates ‎in IT Systems and Corporate Management. He ‎has ‎been named “Best CEO in Middle East” and “World Leader ‎Business Person” and is a ‎recipient ‎of “The Gullands Excellence Award as a Phenomenal Banker.” A regular ‎commentator ‎on ‎international finance in global media outfits such as BBC, CNN, FOX, CNBC, Sky ‎News, ‎ABC, ‎and Bloomberg, he has transformed Doha Bank as one of the best performing ‎Banks in the ‎Middle East region.‎Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

The Paradox of Renewable Energy in Qatar
2014-02-12 11:00 - 21:00
Omran Al-Kuwari, co-founder and CEO of GreenGulf, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion lecture on “The Paradox of Renewable Energy in Qatar” on February 12, 2014. The talk was centered on the drivers of investing in renewable energy in the context of Qatar, and how these have been radically transformed over recent years. The Gulf is seen as a single market, Al-Kuwari said, but it is important to point out the differences between the various regional states. “Qatar is a very unique country in the Gulf,” as “it is the only country in the world that you can safely say has enough gas and enough power to supply itself and to export for the foreseeable future.” Qatar is in a favorable position because of its large natural gas reserves, which has provided an increasingly advantageous energy option for a new generation of people.

Al-Kuwari gave a brief historical overview of the Gulf region’s hydrocarbon exploitation efforts. The largest gas reserves in the world were discovered in the North Field between Qatar and Iran about thirty years ago. At the time, this discovery was greeted with disappointment as natural gas commanded little value, and was seen as inferior to oil and other hydrocarbons, which were driving the global economy. However, over the years, as technology advanced, and as environmental issues became more pertinent, “gas became the fuel of choice for power production,” he said.

Currently, “Qatar is the only country in the GCC that could supply all its power—100%—from gas,” meaning that it can exploit its oil reserves purely for export and revenue generation. Other countries in the region like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman rely on oil to generate power supplies to drive their own national economies as well as international ones, and so must divide oil reserves between national needs and international requirements. Such a model, Al-Kuwari argued, is ultimately unsustainable as these countries are burning their own oil, which leads to loss of export revenue, the rapid depletion of the resource, as well as increased pollution. Thus, “renewable energy has become a necessity,” he said. In the Gulf, this is a necessity that stems purely from an economic perspective, regardless of the positive ideological and environmental advantages renewable energy offers. Oil and gas reserves will gradually become depleted, and nuclear energy will take a long time to establish, if at all. Renewable energy is actually the only viable alternative for many of the regional states, as well as international ones.

“Solar energy,” Al-Kuwari said “is low-hanging fruit in the region” because of the large amount of predictable sunlight – on average, the region receives ten hours a day in comparison to only five hours in other parts of the world. Al-Kuwari explained that “solar energy actually fits with our needs…it’s a good match for our region, and it’s a good match for Qatar, and it is easy to implement” because it is a resource that can be used to generate immediate power and does not even necessarily need to be stored. The paradox, Al-Kuwari argued, is why countries in the region have not taken full advantage of this abundant, natural resource and why there is so much sunlight, and yet so little infrastructure geared towards harnessing solar power. This paradox exists for two reasons, he explained. The first is related to the question of cost and the second is related to lack of demand. While these prohibitive reasons were valid in the past, the circumstances have now changed. Due to technological advancements in the area of renewable energies, the costs have now been considerably reduced. Demand has simultaneously been increased because of an increase in population in all the countries of the region as well as an increase in industry and output.

Because Qatar is in a unique position in terms of having excess energy, the decision-makers have the luxury of creating these projects from their foundation in a deliberate and efficient way that makes sense for the future. Importantly, Al-Kuwari noted, “because of Qatar’s long-term interest in becoming more of a diversified economy,” these initiatives are being built from the ground up, and are being established all across the country in a simultaneous and synergistic manner that makes cohesive and efficient sense. Currently, GreenGulf is involved in multiple projects and encouraging the use of solar energy as a highly efficient and clean energy source that will ultimately lead to more awareness and education regarding the benefits of clean technologies.

Omran Al-Kuwari is the co-founder and CEO of GreenGulf, a clean technology and renewable energy advisory business focused on the development and management of renewable energy in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. He is an energy professional with over 10 year experience in the Energy Industry. After joining Qatargas in 1999, Al-Kuwari worked for several joint ventures, Qatar Petroleum affiliates and ExxonMobil in Doha and the United Kingdom. He was General Manager and Director of South hook Gas Company in London until August 2009, Qatar Petroleum’s first major LNG trading venture abroad and the UK’s largest LNG importer. Al-Kuwari holds a BA in Business Administration from the George Washington University, and an MBA from City University London. His research has focused on “Renewable Energy in Qatar” in 2010.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications

Transitional Justice in the Middle East - Working Group I
2014-02-15 08:00 - 2014-02-16 18:00
On February 15-16, 2014, Regional and international experts gathered for the inaugural meeting of the CIRS “Transitional Justice in the Middle East” research initiative. While much of the scholarship on transitional justice has been conducted in other regions of the globe, recent political transitions in the region have invigorated studies on the manifestation and application of transitional justice mechanisms in the Middle East. Various topics ranging from the theoretical underpinnings and scope of transitional justice to specific case-studies of Middle Eastern experiences related to reconciliation, and restorative and retributive justice were discussed by the multi-disciplinary working group participants.

In beginning the discussion on transitional justice in the Middle East, participants drew on past and current experiences of countries from around the globe in order to identify the most salient markers studied in the field. Studying transitional justice in a comparative perspective however, has revealed that assessing its impact is not a seamless activity as the process itself continues to have shifting goals. Within transitional justice, there is a myriad of objectives related to retributive justice, deterrence, vindication of victims, and reconciliation that both practitioners and academics discuss and refer to. However, each of these benchmarks remains elusive with regards to whom they address, what form or shape they take, and the mechanisms and institutions that are used to address them. For instance with regards to the vindication of victims, the diversity in types of victims and the fact that the requirements of victims change over time, further complicate the objectives.

Moreover, it is not clear how practitioners and scholars define victim-centered justice. At times, and particularly in Islamic law and teachings, there exists a structural tension between forgiveness and societal reconciliation and the private rights of retribution for the individual victim. A victim-centric approach would more actively advocate for the individual’s right to justice. In addition, the scope of transitional justice is also a contested issue. While in the past it has primarily been about accountability for gross violations to human rights—particularly in relation to bodily harm—it has expanded its remit and is increasingly connected to development policy, and economic, social and cultural rights. This is particularly salient in the context of the recent uprisings in the Middle East, where criminal liability for monetary and political corruption has been put on the transitional justice agenda.

Part of the difficulty in defining goals and assessing impact lies in the issue of local versus international ownership over transitional justice processes. Since the 1990s, mechanisms and processes of transitional justice have been heavily internationally driven and funded. Thus, assessing where the demand for various goals stems from and the level of local ownership are vital when discussing case-studies of transitional justice and their respective impact. Concomitantly, the local power dynamics that are at play in articulating demands also provide insight into why particular actors advocate for certain temporal boundaries of transitional justice as well as various mechanisms and institutional designs to deal with past injustices. Political parties and actors in Tunisia that have borne the brunt of state repression since the state’s independence, particularly Ennahda, have advocated for longer temporal boundaries of transitional justice that predate Ben Ali’s regime and extend back to the founding of the Tunisian state in 1956. In opting for a longer temporal boundary of transitional justice, it is evident that Ennahda seeks to “deconstruct modernist narratives” of both Ben Ali and Bourguiba and to delegitimize the older political order. Other groups, such as women that have been victims of state repression, have sought to correct historical narratives of Tunisia’s state feminism and perceptions of women’s rights in Tunisia as being the most advanced in the Arab world. Ennahda women and women affiliated with Ennahda supporters are actively seeking in this transitory phase to provide accurate narratives about what the status was for all women in Ben Ali’s Tunisia by speaking out about gender injustices.

Memories and narratives about the past are an integral part of a society’s transition post-conflict. There are more formal processes of truth telling and dealing with the past such as truth and reconciliation commissions and trials and tribunals; many of these visible processes however, have been adopted by the state. Other informal processes involve civil society, cultural production, and non-recorded narratives. In dealing with the past, participants specifically discussed martyrdom in North Africa and its role in transitional periods. Martyrs are employed into state-building efforts and the political agendas of political actors, exemplifying how the past serves an agenda for the future; the FLN in Algeria, for instance, based a lot of its political strategies on mujahedeen or martyrs. Martyrs have also been deployed by citizens of the state, as is the case in Tunisia, who have advocated for communal reparations for those that have died during the protests and have simultaneously promoted a distributary vision of the state as seen in the slogan Haq Al-Thawra or “right of the revolution.”

In various post-atrocity transitions around the world, constitutional development has been intertwined with the process of transitional justice. In dealing with past grievances and planning for the future, constitutions provide a method of creating, shaping and allocating power. Working group participants discussed the successful example of constitutional development in post-apartheid South Africa and the particular sequencing of the process. Dealing with injustices of the past presumes that the transitional justice process is a selective process that emphasizes certain problems and actors to the exclusion of others. While advantaging groups who were previously repressed, transitional justice can also create obstacles to visiting certain issues by marginalizing them during the initial process. They can also be damaging by reifying particular solutions which become problematic for society in the long-run. Participants further questioned whether there is a trade-off between the timing and depth of transitional justice. In the South African example, a consociational government drafted the interim constitution. Contrasted to the current situation in Libya, where the presence of militias has created a “shallow” form of justice and where political isolation of previous regime members has taken worse form than de-Baathification in Iraq. Participants further discussed how structural constraints related to the ancien regime can also pose challenges to institutional development and the promotion of human rights—two areas that are closely linked with transitional justice processes. Where the security sector has been implicated in human rights violations and lacks accountability, security sector reform is a focal point of institutional development. In Egypt, the continued dominant role of the army has hindered efforts of security sector reform—reform that is particularly concerned with citizen and human security rather than that of the ruling powers. Although transitional justice promotes the development of constitutions and institutional reform, whether it creates systems that align with values that are beneficial to societies in the long-run, depends on a multitude of vital factors.

While discussing constitutional development and transition, participants noted the faulty assumption that transitional justice is linked to democratization and that the endpoint to the transition is in the form of a liberal democratic system. In fact, in some cases such as the monarchies of Bahrain and Morocco, transitional justice mechanisms have been implemented without the preface of political transition. Evidently, in these cases, democratization is not the end goal, but rather, the implementation of these mechanisms may enable monarchs to gain political capital both locally and internationally. In the absence of political transition the efficacy of truth commissions and the commissions of inquiry in Morocco and Bahrain, respectively, were discussed. In addition to the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms in countries without political change, participants also discussed plans for transitional justice in cases of ongoing conflict—specifically, in Syria where members of the opposition have already drafted detailed plans for transitional justice.

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

Participants and Discussants:

Rogaia Abusharaf, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mohamed Arafa, Alexandria University
Omar Ashour, University of Exeter
Zahra Babar, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mietek Boduszynski, Pomona College
Matt Buehler, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Thomas DeGeorges, American University of Sharjah
Mohammad Fadel, University of Toronto
Elham Fakhro, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Doris H. Gray, Al Akhawayn University
Sune Haugbølle, Roskilde University
Mehran Kamrava, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Christopher Lamont, University of Groningen
Clark Lombardi, University of Washington
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Dwaa Osman, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Chandra Lekha Sriram, University of East London
Ibrahim Sharqieh, Brookings Doha Center
Susan E. Waltz, University of Michigan
Elizabeth Wanucha, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

​Article by Dwaa Osman, Research Analyst at CIRS

Why did the Arab Spring miss the Maghreb?
2014-02-17 11:00 - 21:00
Matt Buehler, the 2013-2014 Postdoctoral Fellow at CIRS, delivered aMonthly Dialogue lecture on“Why did the Arab Spring miss the Maghreb? Continuity through Co-optation in Morocco and Mauritania,” on February 17, 2014. The talk summarized the results of in-depth fieldwork undertaken in Morocco and Mauritania, where Buehler conducted over 100 interviews with politicians and policymakers. The central question guiding Buehler’s research was, “Under what conditions did an Arab regime survive the Arab Spring?” Some popular theories currently on offer by scholars propose that monarchical states that have a wealth of natural resources, a long history of military loyalty, and a strategy of appeasing indigenous ethnic groups are more resilient and better equipped to overcome civil unrest than nations that do not enjoy similar privileges. In order to put these theories to the test, Buehler argued that it was first necessary to outline the key infrastructural and political differences exhibited by his case study countries of Morocco and Mauritania.

Giving some background to Morocco and Mauritania’s political structures, Buehler challenged the prevalent thesis of the “monarchical exception,” which states “that monarchies seemed to persist longer than non-monarchies.” He explained that, for these two countries, the regime’s mode of governance mattered little for authoritarian persistence, as both states were able to weather the storm of protests that shook their governments in 2011 and 2012, despite the fact that Morocco is a monarchy and Mauritania is not.”

Another theory Buehler examined suggests that countries with a wealth of natural resources, such as the Arab countries of the Gulf, will necessarily overcome civic discord by dint of their ability to placate any opposition by offering a series of concessions. However, although Morocco has substantial natural resources, Mauritania is poor in terms of natural endowments. Yet, they both were able to stave off any serious opposition. This theory too, Buehler argued, was unsustainable.

Observers argue that military loyalty is another crucial characteristic of regime survival, and that the perseverance of Arab regimes depended on the degree of support given by the powerful underlying military state apparatus. The collapse of governments in Egypt and Tunisia are given as key examples. Yet, Buehler argued, whereas Morocco has a history of military loyalty, “in Mauritania, by contrast, there is a very long history of military coups—every single Mauritanian president has been ousted by a coup.”

Further theories logically state that successful integration and assimilation of diverse ethnic minorities is necessarily a means of avoiding internal friction. “In some Arab countries, maybe in Bahrain, maybe in Syria, you might think marginalized ethnic minorities seized the opportunity of the Arab Spring to assert their demands,” Buehler said. However, he pointed out that Morocco has done much to integrate its once marginalized ethnic groups, but Mauritania made no such progress. Thus, once again, “we can’t say that ethnic integration was a very important factor in driving this process,” he said.

After having outlined the key dissimilarities between the two states, the key question remains “what is the commonality in Moroccan and Mauritanian strategies of survival?” He answered this by saying that “these two regimes employed a very crafty, robust strategy of co-optation, which they used to build certain political parties—pro-regime political parties.” In order to study the much abused and complex phenomenon of “co-optation” more closely, Buehler conducted a series of statistical tests throughout Morocco and Mauritania to gauge the extent of regime infiltration into rural politics. Buehler’s research findings conclude that Morocco and Mauritania’s strength “was their ability to monopolize the rural structures of power in order to buttress their rule during the Arab Spring.”

In sum, Buehler warned against the simplistic categorization of Arab states, and argued that there was no definitive answer as to why some regimes fell, whilst others overcame popular unrest in the long run. As his research in Morocco and Mauritania attests, both governments exhibited resilience in the face of the uprisings, despite their fundamental differences in terms of political structure, resource wealth, military loyalty, and ethnic integration.

Dr. Matt Buehler holds a PhD degree in government from the University of Texas at ‎Austin and he will begin ‎a tenure-track position at the University of Tennessee’s Department of Political ‎Science in fall 2014. Dr. Buehler has done extensive fieldwork in Tunisia, ‎Morocco, and Mauritania, and is currently working on a book tentatively entitled The Social Base of Divide-and-Rule: Left-‎Islamist Opposition Alliances in North Africa’s Arab Spring.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications
