BY MARK N. KATZ Largely quiescent for decades, the Arab world has experienced a surprising—and surprisingly powerful—wave of revolutionary activity beginning in January 2011 and continuing ever since then. So far, the “Arab Spring,” as it is popularly known, has resulted in the downfall of Tunisia’s Zene el-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Although [...]
BY AZIZ ABU SARAH The series of Arab protests that started in Tunisia caught governments around the world by surprise. Western powers were confident that Arab leaders would quickly restore calm, and Arab leaders trusted they would be able to crush the protests. Western leaders in particular were so sure of the status quo that [...]
BY BASSAM HADDAD I would like to start by positing two remarks about the recent events in the region. I use the word events deliberately to underscore the multitude of problematic and misleading ways in which the protests have been characterized, interpreted, connected, and written off by observers. Are these revolutions, or as Asef Bayat [...]
BY MARY E. BREEDING The recruitment of workers in India for the purpose of fulfilling construction and other low-skilled occupations in the Persian Gulf region has gained substantial attention in recent years. Thousands of Indians emigrate to Gulf countries annually as contracted workers. In 2007 the number low-skilled Indian migrants acquiring emigration clearance to work [...]
BY DORTHE POSSING A report, “Being a Muslim woman in Denmark,” published in March 2009 and commissioned by the former Danish Minister for Gender Equality, Karen Jespersen, concluded that the circulation of “Islamist” discourses on the Internet and Arabic satellite-TV put young Danish Muslim women’s notions of equality and citizenship at risk. The logic was [...]
BY SOLON SIMMONS There is no part of the world more crucial to the strategic interests of the United States as is the Middle East. While the traditional problems of the regulation of international affairs are at play there, Arab language satellite channels have created a new force in the region, and Al Jazeera is [...]
BY BASSAM HADDAD The state’s relationship with business communities can provide both detrimental and beneficial economic outcomes. One factor that impinges on successful development can be the state-business nexus. Is such underdevelopment a function of certain cultures? A study of how state and business actors come together in informal economic networks and shape patterns of [...]
BY RANDA KAYYALI Supply and demand has fuelled the circuits of production at the global level for many years now. Like other products, the offerings from higher education institutions have changed over the years. From the 1960s on, student exchanges were the dominant form of international education, but there are newer forms of global outreach [...]
BY JAMES P. PFIFFNER President George W. Bush proclaimed the official position of the United States on torture on June 26, 2003, the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. “Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right,” he said. “The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture, and [...]
BY CHRIS COYNE Among many other problems, the current U.S. occupation of Iraq suffers from a problem of incentive misalignment. From the beginning of the occupation, the United States made very clear its firm commitment to stay the course. This provided a disincentive to members of the Iraqi populace as well as to Iraq’s neighbors [...]