scholarly journals Featured Commentary: Special Issue on the Middle East North Africa Region

AIB Insights ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melodena Stephens Balakrishnan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Special Issue

Mediterranean geographies of protest

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Fregonese
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
State Security ◽  
European Cities ◽  
The Mediterranean

This special issue of Euro-commentaries tackles the question of what links unprecedented anti-regime uprisings in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, with the largest protests in decades in several European cities. Beyond the specificities of individual cases, uprisings on both sides of the Mediterranean have highlighted strong and often violent collisions between resistance movements and state security. How are these collisions reshaping urban and political geographies in the Mediterranean? The papers presented here explore different aspects of the 2011 protests, and share the view that these are shaped by concerns for social justice, human rights and democracy, which are not a prerogative of the Arab world, but indicate instead more complex geographies.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Clancy-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Industrial Production ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Muslim Spain

This special issue originated in a series of conversations two years ago with IJMES editor Beth Baron regarding the Maghrib's positioning in historical scholarship on the Middle East generally and in our field's flagship journal more specifically. While IJMES has published a number of solo articles devoted to North Africa from a range of disciplines, we concluded that the journal's readers would welcome a corpus of recent work in the historical sciences for the modern period from roughly the late 18th century on. Emphasis upon the modern does not imply that other eras in North Africa's long history have languished for lack of renewed scholarly interest—far from it. The Punic and Roman empires are currently subject to vigorous reinterpretation in order to dismantle dominant colonial and Orientalist interpretations. Moreover, the literature on Muslim Spain and on medieval and early modern North Africa and Iberia, particularly the hotly contested idea of convivencia, has gone from artisanal to industrial production in terms of output. The regionalist frame for the special issue admittedly acknowledges a form of geographically informed “otherness,” but it does so in order to question that distinction. And although the call for papers had invited research whose primary (but by no means sole) focus was the peoples, societies, and states in what we now know as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, regrettably no submissions on Tripolitania/Libya were received.

Power and the Security Sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Blanca Camps-Febrer ◽  
Guillem Farrés-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Security Sector Reform ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
First And Second Generation

Following the long trail of critique that emerged from first- and second-generation security sector reform (SSR) programs, this paper introduces a new theoretical framework for the socio-political analysis of the security sector that will enhance the potential for reform and transformation. This introduction to the special issue gathers shared considerations among authors researching the security sector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and promotes a dialogue for the improvement of the analysis of the sector within its socio-political context. Drawing from Sociology of Power, we aim to provide analytical and theoretical tools in order to develop a new conception of the “security sector,” which differs from what mainstream academia, think tanks, and public policies have traditionally dealt with.

Introduction to the Special Issue on the Economics of the Middle East and North Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-148
Author(s):  
Philippe Aghion ◽  
Ralph de Haas ◽  
Guido Friebel ◽  
Sergei Guriev ◽  
Jan Luksic
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Special Issue

Introduction to the Special Issue Pluralism in Emergenc(i)es in the Middle East and North Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-173
Author(s):  
Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi ◽  
A. George Bajalia ◽  
Sami Al-Daghistani
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
International Development ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Capital Mobility ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

AbstractThe issue “Pluralisms in Emergenc(i)es” is a result of a two-conference series that took place in Amman and Tunis, in December 2017 and October 2018, respectively. Taking these two locations as historical epicenters of human, commodity, and capital mobility, in two connected regions, these conferences set out to interrogate the historical, social, and religious underpinnings of the migrant and refugee crisis in order to position this moment as a state of emergence, rather than a state of emergency. The focus of the essays included here explores pluralism as it has emerged in response to contemporary global crises, and asks a number of questions: What are the variations in how “pluralism” is understood, and how does it function in a time of crisis? What are the material and immaterial modes through which pluralism takes shape? Moreover, how does it change through the circulation of people - as migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers – and capital – whether under the auspices of international development funds, religious aid, or new labor markets? By crossing disciplinary boundaries, this special issue enters into a fundamental discussion about how “pluralism” is conceived across sites and offers new vistas for its conceptualization in North Africa and the Middle East.

Citizen Wayn? The Struggle of Parliament in Contemporary Jordan

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Paul Maurice Esber
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Tax Law ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Government ◽  
Parliamentary Politics ◽  
Citizenship Regime ◽  
Localized Levels

Abstract 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 through two cases. The first being decentralization, understood as a relocating of tasks, decision-making and mandates from a centralized location to different, more localized levels. The second study focuses on the uprisings occurring from May 30, 2018 against the draft domestic tax law introduced to parliament by the government of then-Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki. Both cases are implicated in the Kingdom’s parliamentary politics, and their selection is a conscious move away from election analysis. Taken together they elucidate how citizenship is a key battleground on which any future emancipation/development of parliament will be fought.

scholarly journals Concord, Conflict and Co-Existence: religion and society in the Middle East and North Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ari Kerkkänen ◽  
Ruth Illman
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Special Issue

This is the editorial for the special issue 'Concord, Conflict and Co-existence: Religion and Society in the Middle East and North Africa'.

Unevenness, (Under)development, and Resistance in the Middle East and North Africa: An Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gönenç Uysal
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
The World

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been one of the most significant peripheries of the world capitalist system studied for its social, economic, and political underdevelopment, crises, and conflicts, not only in comparison to Western countries but also in relation to the discrepancies within the region itself. Yet, the protests and uprisings against imperialism, colonialism, and authoritarianism have underlined the burning necessity for critical/radical approaches to examine the political economy of the MENA and state-society relations in the region. This special issue draws upon critical/radical approaches and explores unevenness, (under)development, and resistance that have characterised the economic relations, social structures, and state apparatuses in the MENA. 

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