Political Change in the Middle East

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Helen Mary Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Change

The politics of non-iconic space: Sushi, shisha, and a civic promise in the 2011 summer protests in Israel

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yair Wallach
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
Tahrir Square

City streets and squares have become centre stage for political change, in the wave of protests in Europe and the Middle East. Most protest locations are iconic sites of national resonance. Yet this was not the case in the summer 2011 wave of social protests in Israel. Rothschild Boulevard, which was the heart of the protest movement, is a non-iconic street usually associated with the good life of sushi and espresso bars and constant cycle traffic. This unusual choice contrasted sharply with Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and protest sites in Jerusalem – all associated with the politics of the nation. Yet it is exactly the lack of symbolic national resonance, and its down-to-earth association with urban joie de vivre, that enabled the Boulevard to assemble a broad and diverse coalition of protestors, and to transcend the exclusive language of politics in Israel. In a country where the national is identified with the ethnic (Jewish), the pedestrian symbolism of Rothschild allowed protestors to forge a civic language that appealed to Israel’s citizenry and residents, Jews and Arabs, local and migrants.

Trusteeship Council

2008 ◽  
pp. 148-159
Author(s):  
Ralph Wilde
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
The Caribbean

This article examines the Trusteeship Council, a principal organ whose work was essential to the settlement arising from World War II. It involved establishing procedures for the independence of the defeated powers' colonies. This article details the pioneering efforts of the UN at facilitating the decolonization of trust territories. This is part of the world organization's contribution to the processes of self-determination for peoples in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. It also reveals that the work of the Trusteeship Council was linked to what may have been the most important political change of the twentieth century.

Remembering Our Roots

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 388-388
Author(s):  
Nathan J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Regional Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Science Disciplines

Scholars of the Middle East based in social science disciplines—especially my own, political science—are likely to feel a bit more welcome by their colleagues as a result of recent events in the Middle East. Not only will we be informative conversationalists in the hallways for a while because of our regional expertise, but also, far more profoundly, the sorts of things that political scientists study, from voting patterns to regime change, are suddenly interesting subjects in the region. This is not to say that Middle East elections were not studied in the past or that research on political change was not undertaken—far from it. But the questions posed, the terms used, and tools employed were often different from those more prevalent in the discipline. Political scientists focusing on the Middle East are therefore likely to find this a gratifying time, ripe with opportunities for comparative and cross-regional analysis. And those nonregional specialists whose interests lie in a wide variety of topics from voting behavior to revolutions may work harder to incorporate Middle Eastern cases into their own work.

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