The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya: Qadhafi and Rousseau

1980 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami G. Hajjar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The World ◽  
Taking Charge ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Middle East Studies

Only a few social scientists outside the field of Middle East studies are aware that in the sovereign state of Libya today there is no government. Indeed, it is not likely to have one so long as the country's strongman, Colonel Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi,1 continues to be the leader of the Libyan revolution. This has been the case ever since 2 March 1977, when the institution of government in its traditional legal-bureaucratic sense was dismantled, and the people's authority, exercised through people's congresses and committees, was proclaimed. By this action, Libya initiated in practice the so-called era of jamahiriya—the era of the masses and the practice of direct democracy – and has taken a number of steps in that direction. A recent example was the renaming of some of its embassies overseas as ‘people's bureaux’, with Libyan students and citizens taking charge of their functions and management.2 This action, instigated personally by Qadhafi, was intended to illustrate to the world that since Libya has no government, ordinary Libyan citizens overseas represent themselves directly to foreign peoples.

scholarly journals Endogenous Direct Democracy: The Case of Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-218
Author(s):  
Juve J. Cortés
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Government Structure ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The World ◽  
New Policies ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Do So

Direct democracy (DD) – including initiatives and referendums – is increasingly used by citizens and governments to establish new policies around the world. Although framed as a tool that benefits citizens, it is also common for government actors, including parties, to utilise DD in initiating and pushing through new policies. To explain this puzzling development, existing research examines the regulative design of DD. Going a step further, this article explains how the design of DD originates. Using process tracing methodology, I examine the case of Mexico – the most recent adopter of DD in 2014 – and illustrate how, when, and how DD can be used and modified. I argue that DD is endogenous: we cannot conceive of it independently of the political forces that generated it. Other prominent cases, such as Uruguay, suggest that DD was adopted to pursue party goals or to shape a particular government structure. Legislatures certainly provide the masses the option of engaging in DD but they do so on their own terms.

scholarly journals Family History in the Middle East

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Ikran Eum
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family And Household ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Middle East Studies

The study of families and their histories opens up a cross-disciplinary dialogueamong anthropologists, historians, and other social scientists, includingarea specialists. The content of Doumani’s edited book, Family Historyin the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender, falls convincinglyinto such disciplines as history, anthropology, Middle East studies,women’s/gender studies, and Islamic studies, since the collection of articlesprovides various indepth case studies drawn both from Islam and frompolitical, economic, legal, and social perspectives.The anthology’s main theme suggests that the family is an entity that,along with the progression of history, evolves continuously. By reconstructingthe family histories of elites and ordinary people in the Middle East fromthe seventeenth to the early twentieth century, the book challenges prevailingassumptions about the monolithic “traditional” Middle Eastern familytype. Instead, it argues cogently that the structure and boundaries of thesefamilies have always been flexible and dynamic.The book is divided into four sections that explore issues concerningthe family from the perspective of politics, economics, and law. In the firstsection, “Family and Household,” Philippe Fargues, Tomoki Okawara, andMary Ann Fay analyze the structure of the nineteenth-century family andhousehold and illustrate how its formation was influenced by changes in the ...

Glasnost, the Coup, and Soviet Arabist Historians

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-577
Author(s):  
Garay Menicucci
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Oriental Studies ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Coup Attempt

The 19 August 1991 coup attempt in Moscow and the subsequent collapse of the economy of the former Soviet Union has had its effects on Middle East studies. The seizure of Communist party property and bank accounts and the dispute between the Russian federal government and what remained of the centralized Soviet state structure still headed by President Gorbachev placed such distinguished centers for Middle East research as the Institutes for Oriental Studies in Moscow and St. Petersburg in serious financial jeopardy. Even before the coup attempt and the dissolution of the Communist party, continued full state funding was uncertain and the institutes were scrambling to establish joint publishing agreements with Western academic presses to ensure some infusion of hard currency against the plunging value of the ruble. Individual researchers began looking for translation work or other lucrative forms of moonlighting to supplement their insufficient salaries. And, of course, the content of Middle East studies has undergone a radical transformation. For the social scientists, such notions as “imperialism,” “socialist orientation,” and “international solidarity” have been swiftly abandoned and replaced with what experts now call “the new pragmatism,” which seeks to steer foreign policy away from engaged ideological alliances in the Middle East and towards bettering those state-to-state relations in the region that serve Russian national and economic interests.

On Race, Sports, and Identity: Picking Up the Ball in Middle East Studies

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun T. Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
International Competition ◽  
The World ◽  
Middle East Studies

In their love for sports, Egyptians are no different from people in other parts of the world. They follow closely their favorite local teams in national-cup competitions, the careers of those stars who have taken their games to professional clubs in Europe, and, of course, the fortunes of their national teams in international competition. Success, such as Egypt's victory in the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations can draw millions into the streets of Cairo and Alexandria in celebration. Losses can result in full-scale political investigations launched by President Hosni Mubarak.

The Quality of Theory and the Comparative Disadvantage of Area Studies

2000 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian S. Lustick
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Policy Relevance ◽  
Cultural Comparisons ◽  
Middle East Studies

The 1990s were not kind to area studies. They were particularly cruel to Middle East specialists, and even more particularly, perhaps, to social scientists. The job market has slumped as relevant departments have lost positions. Departures and retirements were only irregularly replaced. Foundation officers and other officials in other grant-making agencies who promote guidelines and programs stressed thematics, policy-relevance, and cross-cultural comparisons. Publishers came to avoid monographic studies and seemed increasingly allergic to single-country studies (of most countries). Rashid Khalidi’s Presidential Address to the 1994 MESA conference is only the best known of a host of warnings, jeremiads, and even eulogies offered with respect to current prospects for Middle East studies.

Middle East Studies On-Line

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-169
Author(s):  
Jon W. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Middle East ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Change World ◽  
Mailing Lists ◽  
The World ◽  
On Line ◽  
A Site ◽  
Middle East Studies

Materials of Middle East studies and not just for Middle East studies are increasingly appearing on-line. The ‘Net (Internet) that brought file archives, newsgroups and mailing lists devoted to regional issues and material has become a publishing medium in the Web (World Wide Web) with more and more of the output of Middle East studies themselves. The Bulletin now has a site, or “homepage,” on the World Wide Web at http://www.cua.edu/www/mesabul with select articles from recent issues and connections to material on the MESA Bulletin Gopher.The World Wide Web has been the breakthrough technology for making the Internet user-friendly and mainstream. WWW hides the “computery” aspects of the Internet behind snappy graphics and an easy-to-use interface that together have fostered much recent press and commercial enthusiasm over “the Net,” such as: It’s similar to what the library was 100 years ago, or the telegraph. It will be bigger and better than television. We’re not talking about a 500-channel medium. We’re talking about 250,000 channels that speak across all borders It represents who we are, how we act, transact business and engage in relationships. The Internet is about information empowerment. I think it will change world culture. (Michael Wolff in Investor’s Business Daily 21 Sep 95, p. A8)This summer, the number of commercial Internet sites passed those of educational institutions. The Internet, in a sense, has graduated.

Middle East Studies for the New Millennium: Infrastructures of Knowledge

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Mechanical Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Global World ◽  
Middle East Studies

This chapter deplores the state of Middle East social sciences, which is described as demoralized, lacking academic freedom and reliable research data, and functioning in a general climate of repression, neglect, and isolation. Such conditions call into question the extent to which future social scientists will be able to build supportive scholarly communities or develop critical perspectives so key to social science research and the investigation of questions of public import. Echoing discussions in this volume on methodological shifts in the social science disciplines, it argues that the quantitative turn has produced a narrow, mechanical field unable to move forward in ways that attend to the diversity of the social and political world. As the field has emphasized technical skills over moral imperatives, and as the institutional contexts of US universities has changed, the result has been a simultaneous narrowing of the field and a projection of greater universalization for a global world.

Power and Knowledge Revisited in Middle East Studies

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervat Hatem
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North American ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Professional Association ◽  
Thirtieth Anniversary ◽  
The World ◽  
Territorial Boundaries ◽  
Middle East Studies

In thinking about a focus for the 2008 Presidential Address, I could not help but be influenced by the fact that this year marked the thirtieth anniversary of Edward Said’s seminal book on Orientalism. I chose to examine the connection between power and knowledge, central to his work, and how this has influenced not only the study of the Middle East, but how it has influenced the members and activities of the Middle East Studies Association, the largest North American professional association devoted to the study of the region, an organization whose influence sometimes extends beyond its territorial boundaries to other parts of the world.

Presidential Address 1984 Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association

1985 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Ira M. Lapidus
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Board Of Directors ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Special Privilege ◽  
The World ◽  
The Board Of Directors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Early Islamic

Since this is my last gesture as President of the Association I should like to thank you all warmly for the honor you have done me in electing me as President and for the opportunity of working with the Board of Directors and with the Secretary, Michael Bonine, on your behalf. It also happens that I am just about to finish a book on the history of Islamic societies. In a very different way this project has also been a special privilege. I have been able to branch out from my basic and abiding interest in the Arab Middle East and from my studies in early Islamic history to learn something about Muslim peoples all over the world. To learn so much and to work out a way of presenting such a large subject in a coherent way has made this a wonderfully rewarding project. Like a great puzzle, it has occupied my mind for seven years. I hope that the book I am writing will return the rewards of this learning to the reader.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Tamara Sonn
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Middle East ◽  
American Academy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
American Council ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
Middle East Studies

If Edward Said is known for identifying the political implications of negative stereotypes of Islam, John L. Esposito is known for correcting them. This chapter summarizes the significance of Esposito’s contributions to the study of Islam and his leadership in inspiring other scholars around the world. The best-known scholar of Islam in North America, Esposito has published more than seventy books, as well as handbooks, encyclopedias, and other sources that have become standard academic references. He has served as president of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, the Middle East Studies Association, and the American Academy of Religion. This chapter also introduces the chapters contained in this volume, which extend his work in four areas: the secular bias of Orientalism, its failure to recognize both the enormous diversity within Islam and profound similarities between Islam and other religions, and the current iteration of Orientalism: Islamophobia.

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