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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20170402T090000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20170402T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T234928
CREATED:20170424T105036Z
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SUMMARY:The "Resource Curse" in the Gulf Working Group II
DESCRIPTION:On April 2\, 2017\, CIRS held the second working group under its research initiative on “The ‘Resource Curse’ in the Gulf.” During the working group\, the participants presented their original contributions to the literature on rentier state theory\, and covered a variety of related subtopics\, including: rents\, neopatrimonialism\, and entrepreneurial state capitalism in the Gulf; co-optation mechanisms in rentier state theory; imperial origins of the oil curse; the resource curse\, gender\, and labor nationalization policies in the GCC; and military spending and corruption in rentier states. \n\nMathew Gray began the discussion with his paper on “Rentierism’s Siblings: On the Linkages between Rents\, Neopatrimonialism\, and Entrepreneurial State Capitalism in the Persian Gulf Monarchies.” In his article\, Gray asserts that the politics of the Gulf have been changing rapidly for the past two decades or more\, and continues to do so. The patterns of state and regime control are becoming more complex and sophisticated\, and the simple rentier explanation\, if it was ever suitable\, is long out of date. Thus\, Gray highlights the necessity of combining theories of late-stage rentierism with two other concepts\, namely neopatrimonialism and entrepreneurial state capitalism\, to better explain the political dynamics and arrangements in the GCC. Gray argues that rent is not only a tool of justification and co-optation used by states\, but also links closely to neopatrimonialism and entrepreneurial state capitalism. Neopatrimonialism is essential to how state capitalism operates\, and to ensuring that the political benefits derived from state capitalism reach the state and the ruling elite. State capitalism also provides a commercial realm within which the regime can create and manage elites\, and develop the patron-client relationships that are a salient feature of Gulf politics. \n\nJessie Moritz led the discussion on her paper that questions the resilience of rentier theory’s hypothesis that the state effectively co-opts the public via rent disbursement\, and thus avoids having to either reform or face opposition and dissent. In her paper on “Reformers and the Rentier State: Re-evaluating the Co-optation Mechanism in Rentier State Theory\,” Moritz suggests that the argument that the oil and gas-rich GCC have\, through their rent-based wealth distributions\, effectively bought off society needs some pressing against. In her examination of informal and formal opposition in Qatar\, Bahrain\, and Oman since 2011\, Moritz provides a nuanced analysis of the effectiveness of the rentier “co-optation mechanism” at the sub-national level. Drawing on a series of over 130 semi-structured interviews conducted with Gulf nationals\, Moritz uncovers evidence of both rent-seeking behavior as well as open political dissent to state authority among nationals. Even Gulf citizens who contend with heavy material disincentives to challenge state authority do so if there are political motivations for it. Mortiz’s research highlights three underlying forces that can overpower rent-based incentives for political quiescence in the GCC states and propel the public to openly challenge the state: ideology\, repression\, and inequality. \n\nDesha Girod presented her paper co-authored with Meir Walters on the “Imperial Origins of the Oil Curse.” Girod and Walters’ purpose in writing this paper is to explore why some leaders of oil-rich states invest their rentier earning in socio-economic development while other leaders largely spend this wealth on themselves and their networks of support. The rentier literature suggests that oil is a curse when it is discovered or exploited in countries that have weak institutions at the time of oil discovery or exploitation. However\, this causal explanation needs to be tested further\, as not all states with weak or nascent institutions at the time of oil discovery distribute hydrocarbon-derived wealth in the same way\, as can be seen by the behavior of the GCC states. Other factors may exist at the time of oil discovery which incentivize leaders of states to spend on broad-based development and their populations despite the lack of existence of strong national institutions. In order to understand these dynamic in more detail\, Girod and Walters trace the evolution of rent distribution in two oil-rich states in the Arabian Peninsula (Kuwait and Oman) that experienced remarkable development yet\, like paradigmatic cases of the oil “curse\,” contained weak national institutions at the time of oil discovery. However\, unlike the classic cases\, the nascent leaders and regimes in Kuwait and Oman lacked a dominant political class with access to coercive institutions capable of marginalizing their rivals. Imperial powers active in the region did not build coercive colonial institutions for extractive purposes because they had historically viewed the region as poor in natural resources. Unlike their behavior in other parts of the Middle East\, imperial powers did not need to develop coercive extractive institutions nor an established hegemonic class of local clients to carry out the colonial project. As a result\, at the time of independence the GCC rulers had to spend their oil revenues on development as a survival strategy and in order to placate any potential rivals. This paper thus suggests that the oil curse on development is modified by a pre-existing curse of natural resources and colonial extractive intent. \n\nGail Buttorff shifted the discussions with her paper (co-authored with Nawra al-Lawati and Bozena Welborne): “Cursed No More?: The Resource Curse\, Gender\, and Labor Nationalization Policies in the GCC.” The authors argue that recent scholarship posits that the resource curse has gendered as well as economic effects on oil-rich economies\, entrenching paternalistic relationships that disadvantage women’s entry into the labor force in states such as those of the Middle East. Upon closer examination\, however\, it appears that oil may not be the most compelling argument to explain Arab women’s low presence in the workforce—especially since we see relatively high levels of women in the labor force within the Gulf Cooperation Council member states. The authors’ analysis suggests that oil-driven development might even boost female labor force participation as a by-product of labor nationalization policies. \n\nMohammad Reza Farzanegan concluded the working group discussions with his paper on “The Impact of Oil Rents on Military Spending: Does Corruption Matter?” Farzanegan’s study shows that the level of corruption matters in how oil rents affect the military spending of different countries. Using panel data covering the 1984–2014 period of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries (including Gulf Cooperation Council countries)\, the author argues that the effect of oil rents on military budget depends on the extent of political corruption. Oil wealth boosts military spending when corruption (measured by the re-scaled ICRG index) exceeds a critical score of five (out of six) in the MENA region. The intermediary role of corruption in the military–oil nexus is robust\, controlling country and year fixed effects\, and a set of control variables that may affect military spending. \n\nThese original\, empirically grounded contributions have been published as an edited volume and in a CIRS special issue of the Journal of Arabian Studies.  \n\nClick here for the working group’s agendaClick here for the participants biographiesRead more about this research initiative\n\nParticipants and Discussants: \n\nZahra Babar\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarGail Buttorff\, University of Kansas\, USMohammad Reza Farzanegan\, Philipps-Universität MarburgDesha Girod\, Georgetown UniversityMatthew Gray\, Waseda University\, JapanIslam Hassan\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarMehran Kamrava\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAnatol Lieven\, Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarJessie Moritz\, Australian National UniversityGerd Nonneman\, Georgetown University in QatarJackie Starbird\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarElizabeth Wanucha\, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar\n\nArticle by Islam Hassan\, Research Analyst at CIRS
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/resource-curse-gulf-working-group-ii/
CATEGORIES:Environmental Studies,Focused Discussions,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20170405T123000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20170405T133000
DTSTAMP:20260405T234928
CREATED:20170418T123223Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T093643Z
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SUMMARY:Target Markets: International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall
DESCRIPTION:On September 21\, 2013\, four members of the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabaab attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi\, Kenya. The attack turned into a 4-day siege\, as Kenyan police and military were ill-equipped to manage the chaotic and dangerous situation. In the end\, at least 71 people were killed—including civilians\, soldiers\, police officers\, and the four terrorists—and many more were wounded. \n \n \nVictims and media analysts interviewed after the attack expressed their disbelief at violence entering into such a normal\, everyday space. While violence and shopping may seem incongruous\, Suzi Mirgani\, author of the book Target Markets: International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall (Transcript Press\, 2017)\, argues that violence is actually embedded in the history of the shopping mall\, and is an integral feature of contemporary neoliberal practice. \n \n \nMirgani is Managing Editor for Publications at the Center for International and Regional Studies. She outlined the thesis of her book at an April 5\, 2017 CIRS talk in which she highlighted the underlying history of militarism that permeates the concept and architecture of shopping malls as a contemporary commercial bunker. She explained the original shopping mall design from the 1950s was actually modeled on full-service army barracks\, where everything could be found under one roof\, including products\, services\, and entertainment. “In this sense\, shopping malls represent an extension of the military-industrial complex\,” Mirgani said. \n \n \nThe notion of shopping has become highly politicized and is increasingly framed as a patriotic duty\, especially after the September 11\, 2001 attacks\, in an attempt to set clear boundaries between the value systems of “us and them.” However\, Mirgani noted\, in an era defined by the infiltration of neoliberal practice in all forms of everyday life\, capitalism\, globalization\, and terrorism are interconnected. \n \n \nThe shopping mall is a site for the production of desire and consumption\, and also for the production of contestation\, Mirgani argued. It is a local space filled with global flows and tensions—including the circulation of international neoliberal policies as well as international threats and security efforts. “Westgate becomes a prism that reflects the fraught relationship between a voracious global capitalism and a destructive international terrorism\,” she said. \n \n \n“If we look beyond the jihadist angle of the story\, and examine the nexus of security\, marketing\, and violence\, a much more complex picture of the Westgate attacks arises\,” Mirgani said. The Westgate Mall is situated in the Westlands district of Nairobi\, adjacent to a slum. When it was built\, the mall destroyed the informal markets in the area\, so it was already a site of contestation. Mirgani said there is a division between urban spaces for those who can afford to partake\, and an alien and discordant one for those who cannot. \n \n \nNeoliberal capitalist practices\, and by implication shopping malls\, assist in the propagation of unequal power relations. In developing countries\, shopping malls are imported wholesale with little regard for their existing surroundings. With its ubiquitous products offered by global distribution networks\, “it is in the shopping mall that Nairobi most resembles New York. An attack on one can be symbolically read as an attack on the other\,” Mirgani argued. \n \n \nCities are imbued with visible hallmarks of war: surveillance technology\, barricades\, weapons\, patrols\, and armed and masked personnel on both sides of the ideological divide\, Mirgani said. Veterans returning to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan are top candidates for security jobs in shopping malls. In addition\, there is an infiltration of surveillance into everyday spaces. The ubiquity of surveillance and CCTV footage means terror attacks are increasingly being recorded\, disseminated\, and consumed\, she said. \n \n \nExplaining the media’s role in the Westgate attack\, Mirgani presented the event as a case study to examine how media networks and extremists each played a role in creating a “spectacle of terror.” She argued: “The Westgate Mall siege was a made-for-television event from the beginning.” Since witness testimonies of the attacks varied wildly\, with many disagreeing on what they saw\, the only real evidence was gathered from recordings from CCTV cameras and victims’ mobile phones. There was an extraordinary array of visual material produced over the four-day siege\, serving to fuel 24-hour news network competition\, feeding them with a steady stream of images\, audiences\, and advertising revenue. Mirgani explained how news networks and entertainment networks are vertically aligned\, often owned by the same parent corporation\, making their content similar in style and substance. \n \n \nThe violence of the attack was appropriated by both al-Shabaab and the media\, making the relationship between them a kind of “symbiosis\,” Mirgani said. In the past\, extremists had to rely on the news media for the dissemination of their message\, but through social media and other channels\, they no longer are dependent on editors and network owners. Now there is a reversal of the traditional roles of audiences and news media in which social media users not only report breaking news\, but are the source of breaking news. “Terrorists and their critics compete with one another through commodification of violence\,” she said. \n \n \nMirgani said when she saw pictures of the Westgate Mall disaster\, she was reminded of another atrocity from a few months before\, the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh\, in which over 1\,000 people died. This was an eight-story commercial building\, housing garment factories producing clothing for global brands. Questions emerged for Mirgani about the relationship between international terrorism and global capitalist practice. “Rana Plaza was not made into a global media spectacle as it did not fit within the lucrative ‘fear economy\,’ and the prevailing discourse of terror\,” she said. “We tend to separate violences: the violence in the capitalist mode of production is ‘normal\,’ and to some extent even tolerable\, but terrorist violence is alien and unacceptable.” \n \n \nAtrocities of the neoliberal model are viewed as the unfortunate byproduct of conducting business in the Third World—using subcontractors and outsourced organizations—and not considered to be a problem with the model itself. Violence is a feature of global neoliberal practice as well as a feature of international terrorist practice\, Mirgani said. “Even though terrorism and consumerism are conceived as antithetical practices\, Westgate Mall provided a ground zero for these supposedly oppositional ends of the spectrum to meet on common ground.” The Westgate shopping mall case study is a space where daily consumption is increasingly militarized and where terrorism and security are increasingly commercialized\, she said. \n \n \nSuzi Mirgani is Managing Editor for Publications at CIRS. She is author of Target Markets: International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall (Transcript Press\, 2017); and is co-editor of Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings (with Mohamed Zayani\, Oxford University Press/Hurst\, 2016); and Food Security in the Middle East (with Zahra Babar\, Oxford University Press/Hurst\, 2014). She is an independent filmmaker working on highlighting stories from Qatar and the Gulf. \n \n \n  \n \n \nArticle by Jackie Starbird\, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS. \n \n \n 
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/target-markets-international-terrorism-meets-global-capitalism-mall/
CATEGORIES:American Studies,Dialogue Series,Race & Society,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20170418T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20170418T190000
DTSTAMP:20260405T234929
CREATED:20170413T133716Z
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SUMMARY:Brothers Behind Borders: Islamism and Nationalism in the Middle East
DESCRIPTION:Abdullah Al-Arian asked his audience to reflect back six years\, to the hopefulness that emerged in spring 2011\, when decades-old authoritarian regimes were on the brink of collapse. Leaders of Tunisia and Egypt had been overthrown by mass uprisings in their respective countries; the regimes in Yemen and Libya were on the verge of collapse; Bashar Al-Assad was facing the largest threat to his rule in the form of a largely peaceful protest movement in Syria; and the monarchical rulers of Jordan\, Morocco\, and Bahrain had similarly witnessed popular mobilizations in the form of citizens demanding the recognition of their collective rights.  \n\nPeople across the world were witnessing what many believed to be the dawn of a new era in the Middle East\, Al-Arian said\, “one signified by an end of dictatorship and the rise of representative governments\, equal citizenship\, and respect for the rule of law.” But no sooner had the discussions about the post-authoritarian transition to democracy emerged\, he said\, than the conversation shifted to the question of what role Islamist movements would play in nation–states freed from the top-down imposition of secularism.  \n\n\n\n \n\nAl-Arian\, professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar\, presented his talk\, “Brothers Behind Borders: Islamism and Nationalism in the Middle East\,” at CIRS on April 18\, 2017. The topic is from Al-Arian’s research for a book in progress\, where he is exploring the role of Islamist movements in large parts of the Arab region currently undergoing great societal change.  \n\nDuring the 2011 uprisings\, he said\, “some critics warned that the vacuum left by secular authoritarian rulers would simply be filled by a new tyranny in the form of political Islam.” As political parties representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s school of thought emerged across the region and proved to be the social movement most capable of exploiting the nascent political openings\, Al-Arian said\, “it was speculated that the Arab Spring would give way to an Islamist Winter\, where the parties would undermine notions of national citizenship and erode state borders\, culminating in the unification of Muslim Brotherhood movements from Morocco to Yemen\, and perhaps even bringing about the restoration of the caliphate.”  \n\n“Of course\, anyone who closely followed the post-uprising developments in places like Tunisia\, Libya\, Egypt\, and Yemen knew this to be a complete fallacy\,” he said. These political parties were far more focused on their respective domestic affairs than on fulfilling the goals of some abstract transnational ideological and political project\, he said. “In fact\, the posture of these parties over the course of the past several years has only confirmed what has been plain to see for some time: traditional Islamist groups that emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhood school of thought have adapted their missions to their local political and socio-economic contexts.” \n\nAl-Arian suggested revisiting our understanding of Islamism with an eye toward its nationalist inclinations\, which is the core of his research. “If we look back at the history of a transnational movement on the order of the Muslim Brotherhood\, recognized by most as the prototypical representative of the phenomenon of political Islam\, what would its relationship be to its respective national contexts in every place that it appeared?” he asked. “Is there one version of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin\, or are there many? If there are indeed many ikhwanisms\, as it were\, how does the national context determine what shape they have taken through the years?”  \n\nAl-Arian said there are several reasons why it is critical to reassess our understanding of Islamist movements. First\, he said\, by looking at the past through a fresh lens\, we come away with a different image of the historical legacy of political Islam; one that would draw a vastly different conclusion about the ability or even desire of Islamist movements to form transnational bonds in a post-authoritarian order. And\, in the face of a growing regional and global insurgency by groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State\, Al-Arian said\, it is perhaps more important now than ever before to distinguish between different strands of political Islam: those that have largely remained within the modernist Islamic tradition with its acceptance of nation–states\, and those that have categorically rejected the designation of states in favor of a radically different political order.   \n\nLastly\, he said\, it worth reexamining the role of Islamist movements now because of the continuing possibilities they hold for the future of a region that is in one of its most turbulent eras in modern history. A starkly different picture emerges\, depending on whether we examine the role of these movements in contexts like Morocco\, Jordan\, Kuwait\, and Tunisia\, or their more highly contentious role in countries like Libya\, Syria\, Egypt\, and Yemen\, he said. “This is particularly crucial in light of the blanket designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization by several regional powers; a position that has been openly lauded by the current US administration.” \n\nIn light of the chronic lack of contextualization that dominates much of the policy debate around the question of Islamism\, Al-Arian said\, “I would argue that the Muslim Brotherhood\, as a specific brand of Islamism with roots in the early twentieth-century Islamic modernist tradition\, should be viewed as a nationalist force whose mobilization campaigns cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader developments within the state-building projects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Middle East. What I’m suggesting\, essentially\, is to write Islamists back into the nationalist histories of Arab states.” \n\nThere are several reasons why expressions of political Islam have been largely excluded from nationalist narratives\, Al-Arian said. For one\, scholars defining nationalism have tended to exclude any movements or ideologies that placed religious identity at the core of their program. Also\, the historiography of Arab societies has privileged state-centered narratives. And\, he said\, “one can look at the posture of the movements themselves\, which have historically disavowed any relationship to the nationalist movement and developed an ideological program that was committed to countering the dominant nationalist paradigms in their respective contexts.”  \n\nThe debate around Islam and politics has come full circle\, Al-Arian said. Over the course of the past decade\, Islamist groups have abandoned “Islam is the solution” as a simplistic catchphrase in favor of an emphasis on particular values that their evolving interpretation of Islam promotes. “Indeed\, the challenges that the latest iteration of Islamist activism faces are the same ones that confront political parties of all ideological stripes\, namely\, how to ensure that governments represent the interests of the majority of their citizens at a time when more people face the dangers of vast economic inequality and lack basic rights of freedom and security than at any other time in the recent past\,” said Al-Arian. \n\n  \n\nAbdullah Al-Arian is Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He is co-editor of the Critical Currents in Islam page on the Jadaliyya e-zine. He is also a frequent contributor to the Al-Jazeera English network and website. His first book\, Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt\, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.  \n\n  \n\nArticle by Jackie Starbird\, Publications and Projects Assistant at CIRS. \n\n 
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/brothers-behind-borders-islamism-and-nationalism-middle-east/
CATEGORIES:Dialogue Series,Race & Society,Regional Studies
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