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Explaining Sectarian Dynamics in the Syrian Governorate of Deir Ezzor Through the Lens of Instrumentalism and Historical Sociology Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2024-01-26 Haian Dukhan, Mohammed Hassan
This paper traces the rise of sectarianism in the Syrian governorate of Deir Ezzor from the 1970s up to the current civil war. To this end, this research will focus on answering two main questions: “what factors made sectarianism prevalent in Deir Ezzor after 2003?” and “how did attempts by the Syrian regime, Iran, and Islamists to use sectarianism to mobilize people, lead to the catastrophe in Deir
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Female Leadership Roles: Subjectivity and Self-Representation Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2024-01-26 Ola Abdelaal
This article delves into the impact of digital activism on the leadership style of female-led non-governmental organisations operating under restricted access to opportunities. The focus is on Muslim sisterhood activism, examining the shift from offline to online activism led by the younger generation. The article analyses the barriers that have historically prevented Muslim sisterhood activists from
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From Inclusion-Radicalization to Moderation Under Institutional Constraints: A Synchronic and Diachronic Approach of Algerian Islamist Parties (1989–2019) Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Myriam Aït-Aoudia, Belkacem Benzenine
This article focuses on the transformations of Algerian Islamist parties, placing them in a dynamic context. Having undergone both phases since the fall of the ruling party in 1989, Algeria furnishes a case study for analyzing the conditions and challenges of the inclusion and exclusion of Islamist parties. The synchronic and diachronic construction of the Algerian case, combined with a comprehensive
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Introduction to the issue: “On Islamist Parties and the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis: Lessons from the Past Decade” Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-12-05 Clément Steuer
At the beginning of the 2010s, several Arab countries seemed about to follow the model of Turkey, with an electoral victory of Islamist parties in a context of democratization. A decade later, Turkish akp has turned authoritarian, and the Moroccan and Tunisian Islamist parties have lost both access to governmental office and a large part of their electoral appeal. In this context, lessons can be learned
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Rethinking Political Inclusion Beyond Moderation: Strategic Relational Pluralization in Tunisian Islamist Politics Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-12-05 Alia Gana, Ester Sigillò, Théo Blanc
This article explores the complex dynamics shaping the integration of the Tunisian Islamist party Ennahdha into the instituted political game. Drawing on a strategic relational approach, the analysis highlights the simultaneous, mutually reactive, and often conflicting relationships of Ennahdha party with three types of actors: political secular forces (allied or antagonist), political and religious
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Revisiting the Concept of Moderation in the Age of Populism: the akp case of Turkey Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-12-05 Pelin Ayan Musil
This article presents the case of Turkey within the framework of this special issue entitled “On Islamist Parties and the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis”. I argue that rather than a distinction between the concepts of “tactical” and “ideological” moderation that the literature talks about, a distinction between the concepts of an “inclusionary-populist” and “moderate Islamist” party could provide
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Framing Moroccan Judiciary on tv Dramas: a Public Asset under Constraints Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Abderrahim Chalfaouat
An efficient, impartial, and independent judiciary is a major demand for Moroccan citizens. In online advocacy, citizens denounce the flawed judiciary, sometimes virally circulating content on its corruption and susceptibility to interference. On tv, non-fiction programs respond to frequent requests for legal advice from audiences. Meanwhile, dramas employ frames that reflect codes on how society should
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Wasta and Democratic Attitudes in the Middle East Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Hannah M. Ridge
The Middle East faces ongoing challenges in democratization and in corruption. This article examines the influence of wasta – a Middle Eastern form of clientelism – on citizens’ political attitudes. Although wasta is situated between citizen services and corruption, many citizens view wasta as corrupt. Using Arab Barometer survey data, this article shows that the widespread use of wasta in the Middle
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Featuring Fiqh: the Representation of Islamic Law in Egyptian Historical Dramas Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen
Although they may have learned the norms and practices of fiqh at home and in school, most Muslims have scant knowledge of the ways in which their religious laws and mores were practiced in pre-modern times. Indeed, when it comes to imagining and understanding the role of fiqh in earlier Muslim societies, many contemporary Muslims get their information through fictional treatments, particularly from
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Adversarial Power-Sharing and “Forced Marriages”: Governing Coalitions in Lebanon and Yemen Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Vincent Durac, Tamirace Fakhoury
How do power-sharing governing coalitions work in the context of politicized identities and external pressures? And how do they emerge, develop, and disintegrate when governing parties share power in the context of colliding agendas? Working on the premise that coalition governments may be messy constellations of power, rather than rational avenues for deliberation, this article explores the politics
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Democracy Under Occupation: Coalition Government Formation and Survival in Iraq and Palestine Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Stephanie Stapleton, Taib Biygautane, Tavishi Bhasin, Maia Carter Hallward
While existing research on coalition government formation and durability has significantly enhanced our understanding of coalition processes, it remains heavily focused on (1) the experiences of established democracies in Europe and on (2) the various roles of domestic institutions and actors. In this article, we examine the interplay of external interference and domestic actors to explain the success
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Multiparty Coalition Governments, Portfolio Allocation and Ministerial Turnover in Morocco and Algeria Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Valeria Resta, Mohamed Daadaoui
The article analyzes multiparty coalition governments under authoritarian tutelage in Morocco and Algeria. While in Morocco multiparty coalition governments are just a means for the King to dress their windows, in Algeria they represent a new arena of power bargaining. In both cases, portfolio allocation follows the Gamson’s law but cases of advantage for the formateur are also given. Nonetheless,
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Multiparty Cabinets and Coalition Governance in the Arab Middle East and North Africa Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Hendrik Kraetzschmar, Francesco Cavatorta
This article investigates a specific type of cabinet government in the Arab Middle East and North Africa (mena): the multiparty coalition. Although mostly associated with parliamentary democratic systems, coalition governments are not uncommon in the region, comprising in fact since 1990 a sizeable proportion of the cabinets formed post-election. Drawing on novel data collated by the authors, this
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Coalition Maintenance during Democratization: Comparative Insights from Tunisia and Yemen Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-09-09 Jens Heibach, Tereza Jermanová
In light of the oft-cited benefits of power sharing, this paper compares two cases of coalition governments that emerged from domestically initiated transition processes in the Arab world: the Tunisian Troika (2011–2014) and the Yemeni Coalition Government (1993–1994). While the former facilitated Tunisia’s democratization, the latter’s disintegration contributed to the 1994 war and Yemen’s authoritarian
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Reflections on Teaching Quantitative Methods in Arabic to Graduate Students from the mena Region Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-06-02 Ammar Shamaileh, Abdelkarim Amengay
Despite a growing reliance on quantitative methods in the study of mena politics globally, political scientists from the region have broadly resisted such trends. While mena scholars should not be beholden to methodological trends in other regions, there is a need to provide students with an interest in quantitative methods opportunities to receive such training in Arabic. The Summer School for Quantitative
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Multiparty Coalition Governments in the Arab World: An Introduction Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-04-07 Francesco Cavatorta, Hendrik Kraetzschmar
This article puts forth the justification for examining multiparty coalitions governments in the Arab world. Although mostly associated with governance in fully-fledged democracies, the Arab world is no stranger to multiparty coalitions and coalition governance. In its modern history, the region can boast, in fact, a surprisingly large and diverse number of such coalitions. Analysing them in detail
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New Legislative Improvements in Reducing Statelessness of Children Born of Iranian Women’s Transnational Marriages: Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-03-23 Saeed Haghani
Iran has hosted a large number of immigrants from its neighbouring countries, especially Afghanistan and Iraq, due to its geopolitical climate in recent decades. Unsurprisingly, a growing number of marriages occurred between Iranian women and these immigrants. Security authorities resisted the naturalisation of children born in such transnational families. All these socio-political phenomena led to
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Post-Election Elite Bargaining and Coalition Formation in the MENA: Lessons from Iraq and Morocco Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-03-23 Lise Storm, Dylan O’Driscoll
This article analyses the dynamics of post-election elite bargaining and coalition formation in the cases of Iraq and Morocco, demonstrating that, despite widely differing contexts, the outcome is often far removed from the election results. Recent works on political parties in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have alluded to this state of affairs, but, so far, the scholarship is missing in-depth
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Introduction: On the Relevance of Arab Parliaments Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-01-19 Paul Maurice Esber, Jan Claudius Völkel
This introduction leads into the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” Parliaments in the Arab world have hardly been considered to be relevant institutions during the decades of authoritarianism in the post-independence era. If at all, they were of importance as a strategic element in the power-saving strategies of regimes. The “Arab Spring” ten
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Lebanon’s Parliament System as a Form of Institutionalized Hybridity Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2023-01-19 James Paterson, Ben MacQueen
This article presents the Lebanese parliament as a form of institutionalized hybridity that offers a modicum of popular participation through highly regulated and moderated channels. It argues that the procedural nature of Lebanon’s electoral system is one that is largely, if not entirely, underscored by a closed elite bargaining process and is driven by elite preferences. This dynamic is a by-product
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Promoting Inclusivity in Anti-Sectarian Protests: Understanding the Dilemmas of Organizers in Lebanon’s 2019 October Uprising Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-11-24 Anne Kirstine Rønn
This article contributes to explaining limitations to the inclusivity of protest movements against sectarianism through a case study of the 2019 Lebanese October Uprising. The study scrutinizes the challenges key organizers in Beirut faced when seeking to address issues of inclusivity concerning residents from two Shiʿite majority communities in and around the city. Engaging social movement theories
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After the Uprising: the Intifada-Oslo Generation and Attitudes Toward the Palestinian Police Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Diana B. Greenwald, Mark Tessler
Does experiencing a mass uprising during one’s formative years shape attitudes toward post-uprising institutions? Existing research on cohorts has not examined settings of ongoing statelessness. We focus on Palestinians who witnessed the First Intifada and subsequent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during their youth-to-adulthood transition. Analyzing a pooled sample of surveys conducted between 1996
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Measuring the (In)security of Palestinian Civil Society Websites Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Alexei Abrahams, Etienne Maynier
Civil society organizations (cso s) are reemerging as the central reference of the Palestinian struggle at a time when cyber threats to civil society are on the rise worldwide. We developed a web scanning tool to gather security data on websites and web servers, finding Palestinian cso s neglect even basic precautions like encrypting web traffic or keeping software updated. Why? Evidence suggests this
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Palestinian Dependence on External Health Services: De-development as a Tool of Dispossession Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Yara M. Asi
Through multiple mechanisms, armed conflict degrades and destroys health systems, leaving significant gaps in care delivery that lead to worse health outcomes. Civilian populations are often left at the mercy of multiple stakeholders to attain health care. Often, they are unable to meet their needs within their own territory. This has been documented as the case throughout the occupied Palestinian
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Putting Palestinian Agency First Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Wendy Pearlman
While some political science scholarship and commentary on Palestinian politics engages Palestinian society as a topic of empirical scrutiny and theoretical significance, much of it either ignores society-level actors and dynamics or regards them as superfluous. Accordingly, society factors into the political story to the degree that it absorbs Israeli policies, is manipulated by self-interested factions
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Support for Violent Versus Non-Violent Strategies in the Palestinian Territories Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Dana El Kurd
What determines support for violent versus nonviolent strategies? I argue that strategy preference is motivated by an individuals’ assessment of their society’s cohesion. Perception of strong social cohesion, as existing literature argues, should increase individual support for nonviolence, as it gives people confidence that their society will be able to carry out that strategy effectively. I build
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Capitalism in Academia and the Theory of Academic Capitalism: Political Economy of Higher Education in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Taavi Sundell
The theory of academic capitalism (ac) is a prominent attempt to grasp the multifaceted organizational and functional transformations of universities and higher education (he) in contemporary times. However, this has rarely provided an in-depth examination of the meaning of capitalism in the context of he and has largely ignored the Global South. Focusing on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, this paper
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Social Accountability in Challenging Environments: Case Studies from Egypt Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Yasmin Khodary
Through deploying the 2015 World Bank framework of contextual drivers for social accountability, this article seeks to examine three recent social accountability initiatives (sais) in the agriculture, health, and local development sectors in Egypt to identify the contextual drivers and success factors of sais operating in challenging environments. The article aims to answer the following questions:
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Curating Sovereignty in Palestine: Voluntary Grassroots Organizations and Civil Society in the West Bank and East Jerusalem Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-07-07 Catherine E. Herrold
This article extends the literature on “ngo-ization” in the Middle East and Global South to examine “voluntary grassroots organizations” (vgo s): groups that operate on a voluntary basis and position themselves outside of the formal ngo sector and foreign aid system. Based on nine months of ethnographic research in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the article examines how vgo s use heritage practices
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Not Anymore in Politics: Theorising the Young Egyptian Muslim Brothers’ Political Disengagement in the aftermath of the 2013 Military Coup Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-06-23 Doha Samir Abdelgawad, Shaimaa Magued
This study relies on the life story narratives of 48 young members of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers in identifying the different reasons behind their political disengagement in the aftermath of the 2013 military coup. Unlike the smt scholarly writings addressing Islamists’ political disengagement within a limited scope of analysis that focuses on members leaving their groups rather than politics, this
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Governing Migration and Asylum Amid Covid-19 and Legal Precarity in Turkey Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Derya Ozkul
Legal status and associated rights to access state services become even more important at times of crises like the Covid-19 pandemic. By reviewing legal amendments, central government and municipalities’ policies and policymakers’ statements, this article examines the example of Turkey, which is home to around 4 million undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The Turkish state-provided
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Old Civil Society Networks and their Role for the Tunisian Political Landscape Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-05-04 Jan-Erik Refle
Civil society is generally seen as the safeguard of Tunisian democratization, but how do networks in Tunisian civil society manifest? Which are the important actors and how do they interact? The paper takes a network perspective as used in social movement studies to analyze the networks and their influence on the Tunisian political landscape by comparing four ‘old’ civil society organizations. In taking
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The Party for Justice and Development’s “Specialization” in Politics: Metamorphosis and Contradictions Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-05-04 Anca Munteanu, Haoues Seniguer
Based on empirical research, this article analyzes “the specialization” of the Moroccan Party for Justice and Development and the internal tensions between its political and religious vocations. The latter is one of the Islamist parties with the longest political experience in the Maghreb area which started its “professionalization” in politics at an early stage, at least since 1997–1998. However,
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Walking a Thin Line of Representation: Analyzing the Behavior of Egyptian MPs Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-05-04 Mazen Hassan, Ahmed Abdrabou, Hala Abdelgawad
This article is part of the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” While legislators in democratic settings have the electorate as their main principal, mps in semi- and nondemocratic settings need to serve two principals to remain in office: the regime and the active segment of the electorate. This dichotymy sometimes requires particular skills in
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Organizational Rifts within Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the Question of Violence Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Mohammad Yaghi, Annette Ranko
This article traces the rift within Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood since the July 2013 military coup. It argues that the tensions within the Brotherhood that became public in early 2015 have led to the formation of two organizations within the movement, each with its own leadership, structure, and media outlets. The article contends that the split within the Brotherhood between the two camps—the pacifists
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Introduction to covid-19 melg Special Issue Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-03-30 Bassel F. Salloukh
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Dyadic Analysis of Fragile Middle Eastern States and Humanitarian Implications of Restrictive covid-19 Policies Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-03-30 Daniel Habib, Naela Elmore, Seth Gulas, Nathan Ruhde, Daniel Mathew, Nicholas Parente
The covid-19 pandemic has pressured governments to respond with restrictive and health resource-oriented policies to contain the spread of the virus. The aim of this paper is to assess differential policy implementation due to state fragility with a spatial scope of the Middle Eastern region. The policies implemented by the four strongest and six most fragile Middle Eastern countries were extracted
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Governing Migration and Asylum Amid Covid-19 and Legal Precarity in Turkey Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-03-03 Derya Ozkul
Legal status and associated rights to access state services become even more important at times of crises like the Covid-19 pandemic. By reviewing legal amendments, central government and municipalities’ policies and policymakers’ statements, this article examines the example of Turkey, which is home to around 4 million undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The Turkish state-provided
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Constitutional Breakdowns in Revolutionary Outbreaks: A Legal Analysis and Political Reinterpretation of Mubarak’s Fall Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Alexis Blouët
It is not self-evident to associate revolution with law. The disruption of political order that usually underlies revolutionary outbreaks is thought to affect legal rules so that they are no longer orienting actors. However, if law might be a source of constraints, ontologically it is more surely a discursive register tied to a state’s legitimacy. When the state’s control is at stake, as in a revolutionary
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Constitutional Courts in the Arab World and Freedom of Expression: A Defender or Suppressor Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Fahad AlZumai
This paper examines the role of constitutional courts in the Arab world in relation to freedom of expression. The role of constitutional courts as gatekeepers of constitutional rights in the Arab world has neither been fully assessed nor analyzed. This paper will analyze and review the decisions issued by constitutional courts in the Arab world with an emphasis on constitutional courts in Egypt, Kuwait
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‘We are in a Battle with the Virus’: Hamas, Hezbollah, and covid-19 Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-12-13 Abdalhadi Alijla
This article examines the response of two non-state actors, Hezbollah and Hamas, to the coronavirus pandemic in Lebanon and Palestine. It studies the patterns of governance, practicalities, leadership, and legitimacy both parties deployed during the Covid-19 crisis. It argues that non-state actors usually imitate states by trying to acquire legitimacy in such cases. The coronavirus was sectarianised
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Governing the covid-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa: Containment Measures as a Public Good Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-12-10 Kevin Koehler, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global covid-19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with decisive action and the potential costs of uncontrolled spread that are likely to accrue over the long term
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“Instrumentalize” the Assistance: The Changing Legitimacy of ingo s in Democratizing Tunisia Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-12-06 Pietro Marzo, Kerry-Ann Cornwall
This study provides two theoretical insights that contribute to the debate on the legitimacy of ingo s that promote democracy to intervene in the third countries’ political affairs. First, it argues that the level of legitimacy that political parties endow to ingo s depends on the “instrumental role” that ingo s play in bolstering the achievements of national partners’ goals and is not based on the
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Testing Saudi State Capacity: A Study to Investigate How the Government Responded to the covid-19 Pandemic Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-12-06 Mamdouh A. Shouman, Abdulaziz S. Alkabaa
This study aimed at testing Saudi state capacity in its response to the covid-19 pandemic. The model investigated the significant impact of different curfew levels (a measure of state capacity) on covid-19 cases across five main cities. We used a Negative Binomial regression model to study the association between the covid-19 cases and other independent variables that include curfew levels. Our regression
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Mapping Covid-19 Governance in Lebanon: Territories of Sectarianism and Solidarity Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Mona Harb, Ahmad Gharbieh, Mona Fawaz, Luna Dayekh
Many states, including Lebanon, have used the Covid-19 pandemic as an occasion to reassert their power and to consolidate their policing and repressive apparatuses. We are far from a seamless scenario, however. Rather than a mere reproduction of the sectarian political system, we argue in this paper that the governance of the pandemic in Lebanon reveals tensions between powerful political parties,
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The Power of Bipartisan Mobilization: The Success of Tunisia’s Feminist Movement During the Coronavirus Pandemic Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Maro Youssef, Sarah Yerkes
The Tunisian government, which is deeply divided, especially along ideological lines, responded to growing concerns over increased violence against women during the Coronavirus pandemic by establishing a new domestic violence shelter and 24/7 hotline. This article asks: Why did the state respond to gender-based violence(gbv) concerns during the Coronavirus pandemic in Tunisia, despite ideological and
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From Democratic Exception to State of Exception: Covid-19 in the Context of Tunisia’s State of Law Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Meriem Guetat, Meriem Agrebi
Through an analysis of the early legal and institutional response to Covid-19 in Tunisia, this article demonstrates that the narrative of Tunisia’s democratic exceptionalism following the 2011 revolution is not translated into a liberal legal practice but is instead upheld by an authoritarian rationale that serves the role of a formal channel that legitimizes power discourse. Specifically, this article
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Defining the “Tribal Advantage” in Kuwaiti Politics Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-10-12 Courtney Freer, Andrew Leber
Contemporary electoral discourses in Kuwait stress a “tribal advantage” that boosts the representation of tribe-affiliated Kuwaitis in the National Assembly and undermines the character of Kuwaiti democracy. We draw on survey data, elite interviews, and election returns to assess the validity of these claims. Kuwaiti responses in a survey of political attitudes cast doubt on the hypothesis that members
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Trade Relations between the European Union and Palestine: Assessment and Potential Improvements Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Amir Khalil, Gaël Le Roux
This article examines the bilateral relationship between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority. The EU’s policy towards Palestine, as with other neighboring countries, has always closely linked the economic and political elements of the relationship. Besides financial aid to support Palestine’s socio-economic development and state-building, trade between the EU and Palestine has had an increasingly
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Becoming an Ex: Dynamics of Disengagement from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after 2011 Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-14 Mustafa Menshawy, Khalil Al-Anani
This article explores the disengagement of members from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Following both the 2011 uprising and the 2013 coup, increasing disenchantment with the group’s ideology and political project have led many members to reconsider their commitment to, and membership in, the Brotherhood. While scholarship examining the Brotherhood’s processes of recruitment and forming of collective identity
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From Competition to Cooperation: The Radicalization Effect of Salafists on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in the Aftermath of the 2011 Uprising Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-14 Mohammad Yaghi
Using the case studies of the 2012 Constitution, the call of al-Jabha al-Salafiyya for the Revolution of the Muslim’s Youth (rmy) and the Salafi’s statement of Nida Ard al-Kinana, this article provides empirical evidence that the Salafists have a radicalization effect on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood when they compete or cooperate with each other. By “radicalization effect,” the article means pushing
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The Making of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Faith Brand Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-14 Noha Mellor
This article sheds light on the use of narrative within the realm of political Islam, taking the Muslim Brotherhood as a topical case study. The argument is that the Brotherhood media served as a faith brand that was based on a narrative aimed at mobilizing voters and supporters, both within Egypt and regionally. The article questions whether the Brotherhood media represent a coherent voice of the
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Re-thinking the Tanẓīm: Tensions between Individual Identities and Organizational Structures in the Muslim Brotherhood after 2013 Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-14 Lucia Ardovini
This article traces the struggle between individual agency and organizational structures characterizing the Muslim Brotherhood in the aftermath of the 2013 coup, identifying these tensions as a main point of contention driving its restructuring and fragmentation. Since Mohammed Morsi’s violent toppling, the Brotherhood experienced a process of gradual fragmentation, with tensions developing between
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Women and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood post-2013: Calls for Gender Reforms and Pluralism Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-14 Erika Biagini
The Muslim Brotherhood’s brief period of governance in Egypt, followed by its 2013 ousting from, power heightened the movement’s pre-existing internal divisions, causing members to question the tenets upon which the organization was established and ran. Since then, a growing body of literature has investigated the Brotherhood members’ call for internal reforms, but this rests largely on the views of
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Introduction to the Special Issue: “Assessing the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood after the 2013 Coup: Tracing Trajectories of Continuity and Change” Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-14 Lucia Ardovini,Erika Biagini
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Citizen Wayn? The Struggle of Parliament in Contemporary Jordan Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-09 Paul Maurice Esber
This article is part of the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” Because the politics of citizenship is felt at all stages of the parliamentary process, the very question of parliamentary relevance itself cannot be answered without reference to the citizenry. That Jordan’s citizenship regime influences and impedes parliamentary politics is explored
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European Support for Arab Parliaments: A Successful Way to Democracy? Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-09 Jan Claudius Völkel
This article contributes to the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” In the Euro-Mediterranean region, several international parliamentary initiatives are engaged in parliamentary diplomacy and cooperation. Aside from the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (pa-UfM) and the Parliamentary Assembly of
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Jordan’s Election Law: Reinforcing Barriers to Democracy Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-09 E.J. Karmel, David Linfield
Since the 2016 introduction of a proportional open-list voting system to Jordan’s parliamentary elections, the Jordanian government has faced ongoing demands for reform. In response, the government has continually pointed to the many liberal democracies in Europe that use similar electoral systems. However, the issue is not that an undemocratic system is in place but rather that the system is unconducive
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Parliaments in the MENA Region: Between Timid Reform and Regression. A Comparative Survey Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-09 Rainer Grote
Part of a special issue devoted to the role of parliaments in contemporary Arab politics, this article gives an oversight of the evolution of the constitutional rules governing the status and powers of Arab parliamentary assemblies following the “Arab spring” and during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Parliaments have traditionally played a marginal role in Arab constitutional theory and
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A Struggle for Institutionalization: the Tunisian Assemblée des Répresentants du Peuple and the Dominance of Consensus-Oriented Politics Middle East Law and Governance Pub Date : 2021-06-09 Chahd Bahri, Jan Claudius Völkel
This article is part of the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” Tunisia’s parliament has undergone a remarkable internal transformation process since 2011, from a formerly mostly irrelevant institution to an influential locus of policy-making. This successful progress notwithstanding, the parliament’s transformation to a democratic assembly has