BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Center for International and Regional Studies - ECPv6.16.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Center for International and Regional Studies
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Center for International and Regional Studies
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/Moscow
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0300
TZOFFSETTO:+0300
TZNAME:MSK
DTSTART:20180101T000000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20190918T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20190918T200000
DTSTAMP:20260611T191537
CREATED:20190909T123307Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T072814Z
UID:10001414-1568829600-1568836800@cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu
SUMMARY:Karine Walther on "American Missionaries\, ARAMCO\, and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship\, 1889-1955"
DESCRIPTION:Karine Walther is Associate Professor of History at GU-Q\, and a 2019–2020 CIRS Faculty Fellow. During her fellowship at CIRS\, Walther is completing research on American missions in Saudi Arabia at the end of the nineteenth century and the ways in which the groundwork they laid over subsequent decades paved the way for American oil interests in the area. She presented her talk\, “Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries\, ARAMCO\, and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship\, 1889–1955\,” also the title of her forthcoming book\, at a CIRS Dialogue lecture on September 18\, 2019. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\nWalther outlined the historical and ideological ties linking American religious\, commercial\, and political interests in the Middle East\, beginning in 1889\, when medical missionaries under the Reformed Church of America (RCA) arrived in the Arabian Peninsula as the “Arabian Mission.” Western medicine was the primary tool used in the missionaries’ efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity\, and\, within a couple decades\, several mission stations and hospitals were opened in Basra (Iraq)\, Bahrain\, Kuwait\, and Oman. By the end of World War I\, the Mission had become the most important source of western medicine in the Arabian Gulf. \n\nUsing the Mission’s foundational documents\, Walther demonstrated how the missionaries’ religious beliefs overlapped with secular understandings of the world at the time. Arabian societies had been placed on a ladder of historical development\, in which “the United States was understood as occupying the most advanced rung\, with a religious and moral duty to bring about the advancement of non-Christian societies\,” she said. In addition to medical work\, the missionaries opened schools at their mission stations to teach children the English language and industrial skills along with Christian biblical lessons. \n\nOver time\, the RCA missionaries forged close relationships with Gulf rulers\, including the founder of Saudi Arabia\, Ibn Saud\, whom they met in 1914. Over the next three decades\, the missionaries provided medical treatment to Ibn Saud\, his family\, and his soldiers. Walther reported that British political agents in the Gulf were\, at the time\, concerned about increased American political influence brought by the missionaries\, given that establishing hospitals and public health programs was a tactic also employed by the British Empire to solidify its political control in the region. \n\nAccording to Walther\, “American oil developers benefited directly from the missionaries’ network of contacts\, and later relied on their cooperation in advancing their strategic interests in the area.” The connection between American missionary work and the granting of oil concessions was made explicit in 1933\, she said\, when Ibn Saud signed a concession with Standard Oil—later ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company). Walther quoted the ruler’s own words: “The British want our oil … but wherever they go they take over. Our experience with Americans has been nothing but good. They’ve helped us. They’ve come here and served us. So I’ve given my concession to the Americans.”   \n\nWalther found substantial claims of America’s many contributions to Saudi Arabia’s development in a public relations book commissioned by ARAMCO in 1955—a time when the company was being accused of economic imperialism. Yet\, Wallace Stegner’s Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil\, contained no acknowledgment of the missionaries’ role in the country’s development. “ARAMCO had coopted missionary rhetoric about progress and development and adopted the public health and education programs they had put in place in the five decades preceding the arrival of American oilmen in Arabia\,” she said. Furthermore\, while celebrating ARAMCO’s “benevolent presence” in Saudi Arabia\, the book also ignored the company’s well known exploitative and racialized labor practices\, she said. \n\nAccording to Walther\, Discovery! maintained that ARAMCO’s development work served as a “private Four Point program” in Saudi Arabia. This was in reference to US President Truman’s 1949 Point Four program calling for aid to help the Global South become “modern.” Under this Cold War policy\, technical assistance was provided to developing countries in an array of fields such as science\, agriculture\, education\, and economics. Walther said\, “Modernity in this case was largely defined by the United States’ own strategic interests\, the most important of these being the adoption of free market capitalism.” The primary goal of the Point Four program was to ensure developing countries aligned with the US in its ideological battle against Soviet Communism\, she said. \n\nRCA missionaries reflected wider trends in the mission field\, Walther said\, which maintained that missionaries should learn local languages and customs and study the religious faiths of the people they were trying to convert. As such\, “in the first decade of the twentieth century\, this type of missionary education would become more organized\, more institutionalized\, and more global\,” she said. Thus\, specialized schools were opened for the purpose of training missionaries in theological seminaries throughout the US\, including at Harvard\, Yale\, and Princeton. At the same time\, the British opened schools such as the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for the purposes of training future imperial officers. “This tells us quite a bit about the difference between British and American interests in the Middle East during this time period\,” Walther said. \n\nKnowledge about the Middle East was becoming increasingly important to Americans\, and\, after WWII\, ARAMCO also saw the advantage of its executives understanding the languages\, history\, religious beliefs\, and cultures of Arabia\, Walther reported. By the late 1940s\, the US Department of State began calling for the creation of Middle Eastern Studies departments in American universities\, “again driven by the goal of advancing American strategic interests in the Middle East\,” she said. ARAMCO strongly backed these efforts and contributed substantial funding for these academic programs\, Walther noted. Universities\, in turn\, relied on existing experts in the field\, which included ARAMCO executives\, US Department of State officials\, British orientalists\, and former missionaries. \n\nIn the late 1940s and 1950s\, ARAMCO dramatically expanded its industrial education programs in Saudi Arabia to train young Arabs to work for ARAMCO. It also enlarged its medical facilities and set up malaria eradication programs—initiatives similar to those established by the Mission in previous decades. By the mid-1950s\, the missionaries’ cooperation with ARAMCO brought unintended consequences that would make their own work obsolete in Arabia. Medical missionaries began competing with new facilities and hospitals provided by oil companies and governments. In the 1960s and 1970s\, the Arabian Mission closed most of its hospitals and missionary stations due in part to this redundancy. \n\nIn conclusion\, and “unsurprisingly\, the missionaries’ goals of using technology to convert and ‘occupy’ Arabia were never realized\,” Walther said. Even though Americans working for ARAMCO had more success in achieving their goals\, they too would be forced to leave eventually. “The United States may have succeeded in spreading a certain faith to the Saudi State\, but it was a faith in capitalism\, not Christianity\, that eventually won out\,” she said. \n\nKarine Walther is Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University in Qatar. She is the author of Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World\, 1821–1921 (UNC Press\, 2015). Her second book\, Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries\, ARAMCO and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship\, 1889-1955\, will be published in 2020 by University of North Carolina Press. Walther is a CIRS Faculty Fellow for the 2019/2020 academic year. \n\nSummary by Jackie Starbird\, CIRS Publications and Projects Assistant
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/karine-walther-american-missionaries-aramco-and-birth-us-saudi-special/
CATEGORIES:American Studies,CIRS Faculty Lectures,Dialogue Series,Race & Society,Regional Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/09/events_128765_49898_1570714084-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20190926T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20190926T150000
DTSTAMP:20260611T191537
CREATED:20191014T112656Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T072853Z
UID:10001416-1569499200-1569510000@cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu
SUMMARY:CURA Seminar: Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East
DESCRIPTION:On September 26\, 2019\, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a CURA Seminar under its CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement initiative. During the seminar\, CURA Fellows came together for an active discussion of research papers that were submitted to CIRS research initiative on “Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East.” The papers were critiqued\, and the collective feedback was gathered\, which was later shared with the research working group. CURA was introduced to support the research needs of undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Qatar\, and to provide them with opportunities to enhance their research skills by discussing and analyzing papers from CIRS research initiatives. \n \n \nIrene Ann Promodh (Class of 2021) opened the CURA seminar by presenting Esfandyar Batmanghelidj’s paper titled “The Ins and Outs of Iranian Industrial Resiliency under Sanctions.” The paper explores Iran’s economic situation and ability to sustain its industrial input under sanctions by analyzing the trade patterns between Iran\, China\, and Europe through graphical and statistical data. The author discusses the concept of re-export\, which focuses on the trade patterns between Iran\, Turkey\, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through which Iran has been able to maintain its supply of European Industrial inputs. The main critique of the paper by the discussants is the structure and lack of explanation of graphs and observed data that describes the trade patterns between Iran and other countries. \n \n \nShaza Afifi (Class of 2022) presented Ashraf Mishrif’s paper titled “GCC’s Unsettled Policy for Economic Integration.” Mishrif examines factors explaining the retreat of economic integration in the GCC through the analysis of global and regional challenges. The paper evaluates the strength and capacity of the GCC as a union and explores how the setbacks of the European Union with Brexit\, and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) affected regional economic integration globally. He argues that economic integration\, in GCC\, is undermined by the slow pace of political integration\, lack of a monetary union\, and the blockade imposed on Qatar in 2017. The main critique of the paper by the discussants is the lack of in-depth exploration and analysis of the GCC region that affected economic integration. \n \n \nFollowing the presentation of each paper\, the CURA fellows engaged in an insightful discussion on the structure and organization of the paper\, the employed theoretical and conceptual frameworks\, and the clarity of the argument. After the discussions\, two CURA fellows\, AbdulRehmaan Qayyum  (Class of 2021) and Khushboo Shah (Class of 2022)\, served as ambassadors to the “Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East” working group and shared the comments and critique brought up at the CURA seminar.  \n \n \n\nFor the participants’ biographies\, please click here\n\n \nArticle by Salma Hassabou\, CIRS Administrative Fellow
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/cura-seminar-political-economy-contemporary-middle-east/
CATEGORIES:American Studies,Regional Studies,Student Engagement
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/10/events_128788_49917_1571052416-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20190929T093000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20190929T163000
DTSTAMP:20260611T191537
CREATED:20191008T123522Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210829T134855Z
UID:10001415-1569749400-1569774600@cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu
SUMMARY:Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East Working Group II
DESCRIPTION:On September 29\, 2019\, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the second working group under its research initiative on “Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East.” During the meeting\, the convened scholars presented and received feedback on their papers that tackled a wide array of issues\, including: economic integration in the Levant and GCC\, the Iranian economy under sanctions\, fiscal decentralization in the Islamic Republic of Iran and anti-extractivist social movements and re-envisioning the political economy in North Africa. \n\nAshraf Mishrif commenced the working group discussion with his paper on\, “The GCC’s Unsettled Policy for Economic Integration.” The paper presents a broad picture of the political-economic (dis)integration of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since its inception in 1981. The study suggests that the GCC’s ineffective institutional structure and the lack of political will among its member states to implement and reinforce coordinated policies are the main factors that have led to a lack of meaningful integration. Mishrif suggests that currently\, at a global level\, there is a retreat from regionalism\, as can be seen in some of the leading organizations such as the EU and NAFTA. While to retain relevance for its regional integration mission\, the GCC must strengthen its institutional structure. Currently\, the domestic political environment of its member states makes it unlikely that this can occur. GCC member states lack fundamental institutional components\, such as elected parliaments and legislative bodies\, which are needed to institute supranational policy-making. Mishrif also states that ideological differences\, the rise of ambitious young leaders in Gulf ruling families\, and differing foreign policy interests demonstrated by GCC member states have shown that politics and national interest trump economic logic when it comes to the GCC. The paper concludes that there is a low interregional trade between the member states (sixten percent in total) and that there is a need to reexamine and reevaluate the process of integration.   \n\nAngela Joya shifted the discussion to North Africa\, with her paper\, “Alter-globalization in the Middle East and North Africa: The Case of Anti-Extractivism in Algeria\, Tunisia\, and Morocco.” Joya argues that the rise of new grass root rural movements in North Africa indicates that marginalized communities in the Middle East are beginning to press against processes of globalization and neoliberal economic logic. Joya’s paper presents a series of case-studies of different rurally-based social movements in Morocco\, Tunisia\, and Algeria\, as examples of how people are rejecting neoliberal authoritarianism. The case studies suggest that local communities are mobilizing around environmental concerns and resource-extraction projects\, and are demanding an alternative development model that better serves public needs. Mobilization against phosphate mining in the Gafsa basin in Tunisia\, silver mining in Imider\, Morocco and the fracking of shale gas in Ain Salah in Algeria\, demonstrates that anti-extractivism lies at the core of these social movements. People are protesting against government policies that have not brought enough economic development at the local level\, not significantly enhanced the quality of life for the people living in these regions where natural resources are being extracted. Conversely\, some of these resource-extraction projects have led to deepening inequality among the local population\, have had adverse environmental consequences\, depleted local natural resources such as water\, and negatively affected health conditions as a result of pollution. Joya argues that these people’s movements in North Africa show that the public is questioning the effectiveness of the growth-based economy model\, which\, while meant to counter unemployment and bring in investment to the country\, has been capital intensive and has had negative consequences for rural communities. Joya states that these movements are broadening the demands for economic\, social\, and political justice and inclusion of local preferences and knowledge with environmental protection to bring about a change in the current development model. \n\nKian Tajbakhsh discussed his paper on “The Political Economy of Fiscal Decentralization under the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The article looks at the fiscal decentralization of local government in over 90 cities and municipalities in Iran. Using descriptive data and empirical analysis\, the paper provides a detailed study of Iranian municipal finances and examines the extent to which fiscal decentralization has led to strengthening local government. In particular\, Tajbakhsh questions whether the decentralization policy has created structures of local governance that are more responsive and accountable to voters’ preferences. In 1999\, a new reform of establishing elected local government was implemented and backed by four political actors; the ruling Islamists\, the Islamic reformists\, the developmental Islamists\, and the apolitical technocrats. Each had their motivation for supporting decentralization\, which led to three distinct projects. The study conducted reveals that the elected municipalities have a narrow set of responsibilities and limited legal autonomy from the central government. Many of the municipalities collect revenues from local sources; however\, this revenue decentralization is not accompanied by expenditure decentralization\, which has led to a system of “perverse economy.” The author argues that the evolution of the local government in Iran\, over the past two decades\, can be explained by the theory of local electoral authoritarianism\, in which the central government aims to install local electoral institutions to enhance its influence rather than allow dispersal of autonomy.  \n\nEsfandyar Batmanghelidj’s paper\, “The Ins and Outs of Iranian Industrial Resiliency under Sanctions\,” looks at the Iranian economy and industrial resiliency under sanctions and examines the relationship between the availability of industrial inputs and total industrial output and growth of the non-oil exports in Iran. Batmanghelidj argues that the sanctions imposed on Iran have been effective in cutting back Iran’s energy exports. However\, for the past fifteen years\, Iran has steadily increased its non-oil exports\, through which the country is earning its foreign exchange. The increase in non-oil exports also has paved the way for Iran to trade with regional countries\, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper looks at how Iran’s imports are being sustained to maintain industrial output. The author identifies a process of “import reflection” through which Iran is able to maintain the availability of industrial input (intermediary and capital inputs) and steadily increase its industrial output. The study examines the trade data of Iran’s main partners\, EU\, China\, UAE\, and Turkey and Total Productivity Index of Central Bank of Iran\, and demonstrations that the sanctions on Iran temporarily affected the relationship between European industrial exports to Iran and Iranian industrial productivity. However\, Iran was able to substitute European industrial inputs with Chinese inputs and re-export required European goods via UAE and Turkey further\, which enabled it to stabilize industrial productivity and bypass sanction pressures.  \n\nMisba Bhatti presented Imad El-Anis’s article on “Transport Infrastructure and Regional Integration in the Levant.” This chapter contributes to the study of regionalism by investigating the relationship between hard infrastructure and economic integration in the Levant. The author argues that regionalism and economic integration relies on the development of domestic and cross border transport infrastructure. The author assumes that a higher level of trade leads to economic integration\, which leads to interdependency and political cooperation and stability. Despite the presence of commercial institutes\, tariffs\, and international institutions\, such as Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA)\, any previous initiatives to deliver regional public goods and enhance domestic economic progress have been unsuccessful in the Levant. The chapter investigates the physical transportation infrastructure in the Levant and its impact on regionalism by addressing two main questions: 1) What is the condition of domestic and cross-border transport infrastructure in the Levant?; and\, 2) What is the relationship between domestic and cross-border transport infrastructure? As a result of the study conducted\, the chapter concludes that domestic and cross-border transport infrastructure performance is weak in several of the countries studied and that this weakness hinders regional economic integration.  \n\nTo view the working group agenda\, click hereTo read the participants’ biographies\, click hereRead more about this research initiative\n\nParticipants and Discussants:  \n\nAdel Abdel Ghafar\, Brookings Doha Center\, QatarZahra Babar\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarEsfandyar Batmanghelidj\, Bourse & Bazaar\, IranMisba Bhatti\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAngela Joya\, University of Oregon\, USMehran Kamrava\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarSuzi Mirgani\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarAshraf Mishrif\, Sultan Qaboos University\, OmanAbdul Rehmaan Qayyum\, Georgetown University in QatarKhushboo Shah\, Georgetown University in QatarJackie Starbird\, CIRS – Georgetown University in QatarKian Tajbakhsh\, Columbia University\, USElizabeth Wanucha\, CIRS – Georgetown University in Qatar\n\nArticle by Misba Bhatti\, Research Analyst at CIRS
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/political-economy-contemporary-middle-east-working-group-ii/
CATEGORIES:Focused Discussions,Regional Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/10/events_128773_49912_1570538122-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR