Middle East Research and Information Project: Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971
Almost a decade after the 2011 uprisings, we now have an excellent synthetic text by Habib Ayeb and Ray Bush, long-time activists and researchers of (North) African agrarian questions as they relate to food sovereignty, social equality, and the ecology.
Religious Zionism provides ideological leadership to the ascendant right-wing bloc and increasingly to Jewish Israeli society as a whole.
Despite the recent agreement brokered by Saudi Arabia, it may also be the case that the fight for the future of the country has begun between forces that want militarily either to occupy or liberate South Yemen.
Recent research in Egypt demonstrates how trauma can be (and has been) weaponized as a counterrevolutionary strategy by military and political elites who seek to maintain and strengthen their economic and political power.
Since the 2013 coup, Egypt’s posture vis à vis information and cyber warfare has evolved from a defensive one—geared toward domestic surveillance and blocking—to an offensive one also focused on influence operations abroad. This shift has pulled Egypt further into an open embrace of Russia.
Saudi Arabia’s illicit infiltration of Twitter turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg of regional regime’s efforts to wrest control of political discourse on social media.
US President Donald Trump’s public embrace of autocrats and his virtual silence on their repressive behavior appears to have made autocrats, particularly those allied to the United States, less constrained than they were in the past.
Wealthy, ambitious and emboldened by US acquiescence, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have emerged as key protagonists in thwarting popular movements.
In response to multiple waves of protests, including a surge of protests in 2019, the Jordanian state has worked hard to establish and enforce five red lines for the protests not to cross in order to rein in the potential impact of unified protests across the kingdom.
In order to broaden our frameworks for thinking critically about the new round of uprisings, MERIP editorial committee member Jillian Schwedler asked a number of critical scholars for their perspectives on how we should be thinking about regional protests and what is often overlooked or misunderstood.
Less than a decade after the 2011 uprising that ousted a dictator, the election of an anti-establishment president amidst popular turmoil indicates that many Tunisians reject the narrative that all is well with Tunisia’s new liberal democracy.
Dhiban shares with much of rural Jordan a long history of seismic societal shifts and gradual economic marginalization. This history forebodes continued unrest in underdeveloped areas as long as economic problems remain unaddressed.
But protesters have not gone home, and many have vowed to stay until the underlying structure of rule in Algeria changes and its ruling elite–known as Le Pouvoir (the power)–are expelled from power. The protesters are demanding that an entirely new system–which some call a new revolution–be put in place.
This uprising is demanding justice beyond sectarian, class, religious or cultural divides. In the clarity brought about by the uprising, the regime’s politics of division has been challenged by the uprising’s politics of solidarity.
Chanting “We want a country,” the youth-led protesters of Iraq are demanding nothing less than a new country as the uprising goes beyond narrowly defined political demands concerning electoral politics and legal reforms.
The 2019 uprisings in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq, in addition to resurgent protests in Morocco and Jordan—all countries that did not experience revolutionary uprisings in 2011—extend the previous wave of revolts to the rest of the region.
Over the past few years, students and staff at the American University in Cairo have joined forces with faculty against the increasingly draconian measures taken by the AUC administration.
Why did Abu Dhabi build an ambitious eco-utopian planned city called Masdar City and what does it all mean?
