Reform, security and public order in the Middle East
The security situation facing the Middle East is grave and appears to be trending toward greater violence and instability, says a new report. The states of the region have tended… Read more »
Category: Arab Spring
Algeria: ‘birth of a new democracy’?
International media outlets substantially covered news on the recently-endorsed constitutional amendments in Algeria, according to Sasha Toperich and Samy Boukaila of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins School of… Read more »
Why Libya’s transition failed
The ultimate blame for Libya’s failed transition must lay with Muammar Gaddafi, who bequeathed Libyans a country without a state, notes a leading analyst. Leaders of the new Libya found it… Read more »
Muted Modernists? Saudi Islamists ‘campaign for democracy’
The Saudi regime watched the 2011 Arab Spring unfold across the Middle East with deep unease. As the year progressed, the regime responded by rounding up moderate Islamists because of… Read more »
Arab voices address challenges of New Middle East
Five years after the Arab Spring, the crisis of legitimacy that helped precipitate it has lost neither its resonance nor its urgency, according to a qualitative survey of Arab experts… Read more »
Thousands demand inquiry into Cairo death of labor researcher Regeni
More than 4,600 academics from across the globe have signed an open letter protesting against the death of Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge PhD student from Italy whose body was found… Read more »
Turkey’s Erdogan getting off democracy train?
Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) presented itself as a Western, reformist, neo-liberal and secular party, and, as late as 2012, 16 EU… Read more »
Political turbulence: 21st century parties and social media
Social media do shape collective action through, for example, “micro-donations” which make it easy to join a cause, says Professor Helen Margetts, co-author of a new book, “Political Turbulence”:… Read more »
Egyptian writer caught in government crackdown
The only reason Khadeega Gaafar knows that authorities extended her husband’s stay in prison is because he hasn’t come back home, The Washington Post’s Erin Cunningham writes: Gaafar’s husband, Egyptian… Read more »
Dawning of a new era? Geopolitical and vox populi risks converge
Once largely confined to less-transparent emerging market economies, the post-global financial crisis saw the return of political risks to the advanced democracies as well, while challengers to Western liberalism continue… Read more »