Category: Middle East/North Africa

Islam and democracy after the Arab Spring

     

                       The authoritarian backlash in the Middle East, with the Arab Winter following the Arab Spring, is part of the… Read more »

Hacking Team penalized for Regeni murder

     

  The Italian government has stripped controversial cyber security company Hacking Team of its licence to export outside the EU amid growing scrutiny of its sales of surveillance software to… Read more »

Egypt’s hollowed-out civil society

     

Authoritarian regimes are, in general, averse to a strong civil society. Egypt is no exception, notes Gamal Eid (left), an Egyptian lawyer and the director of the Arabic Network for… Read more »

Recognizing and countering authoritarian resurgence

     

A new book is warning of an authoritarian surge around the world led by China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, who are using sophisticated methods to silence dissent and… Read more »

How to halt Tunisia’s descent

     

  Although the revolution upgraded Tunisia’s regime hardware from an authoritarian to a democratic government, its operating system — its state institutions, laws, bureaucracies, courts and police — remained largely… Read more »

Dictators don’t stabilize the Middle East

     

A number of American politicians have suggested that the Arab Spring was a disaster and that the region needs strongmen to stabilize it, but while working on Middle East policy at the… Read more »

What’s next for Iraq?

     

  Iraq is facing a looming economic crisis, with a displaced population of 3.3m people, according to the UN, and renewed sectarian bloodshed which could fuel the very resentments that helped… Read more »