Negotiating power and authority in the desert: the Arab Bedouin and the limits of the Ottoman state in Hijaz, 1840–1908

This article explores the techniques and strategies used by Ottoman authorities to control the Bedouin with a specific focus on the province of Hijaz between 1840 and 1908. Using primary sources from the Ottoman and British archives, it argues that the Ottoman Empire developed a ‘politics of negotiation’ towards the tribes in its attempt to secure cities and major pilgrimage and trade routes against tribal attack. The principal agents of the empire who made this negotiated governance possible were the amir of Mecca and the governor of Hijaz. As a result of this policy, imperial authorities had to give significant concessions to the tribes, and they thus incorporated them into the province's imperial order. When the Ottoman economy went through a crisis, as in the 1900s, negotiated governance and order faced great problems.     

Tribes and telegraphs in lower Iraq: The Muntafiq and the Baghdad–Basrah telegraph line of 1863–65

Aside from a few exceptional works, studies on the subject of the Ottoman Special Organization (SO, Te?kilat-? Mahsusa) are marred by confusing, vague, and inconsistent sets of arguments and assumptions. This may be attributed to certain methodological and linguistic shortcomings of particular studies and a general laziness in the use of existing primary and secondary sources. It is also an outcome of the degree to which contemporary political and ideological currents and concerns colour the nature of the historical inquiry into the subject. Based on a comprehensive and systematic critical reading of existing literature in the light of certain sets of hitherto unused archival material, the present study aims to re-open to discussion such historiographical problems both by revisiting the most speculative, and well-trodden, research topics in the literature, such as the very nature of the organization as well as its administrative features, and offering insights into the potential(s) of certain little-explored Turkish archives.     

Ruling the Desert: Ottoman and British Policies towards the Bedouin of the Naqab and Transjordan Region, 1900–1948

The various policies developed by the Ottomans and British for governing the indigenous Bedouin tribes of the Negev/Naqab and Beersheba (southern Palestine) region between 1900 and 1948 are examined using primary sources. Whereas Ottoman attempts to pacify the tribes in southern Palestine and Transjordan were somewhat ineffective, the British Mandate achieved a degree of control and stability by incorporating tribesmen into the Palestine Police, strengthening the frontier areas and enhancing inter-territorial tribunal arrangements between Beersheba, Sinai and Transjordan.     

The German Question and the International Order, 1943–48

In this article, I address two salient issues in IR trust research: first, I introduce a longitudinal, content analysis to measure foreign policy trust. Second, I provide an in-depth analysis of how recent crises affected German political elites’ trust of the United States. I begin with a brief conceptual sketch of foreign policy trust and argue that treating it as a trusting discourse is a useful way to bridge the micro–macro gap. Next, I introduce a content analysis to measure trust, present coding rules and discuss advantages and problems of the approach. The empirical section consists of data generated from coding German Bundestag speeches and newspaper op-eds from 2000 through 2014. By disaggregating the data to specify who trusts whom and regarding which issues, I propose the following: First, there is a significant decline in trust among the traditionally pro-American German center-right politicians. Second, there is a steady decline in trust in the United States as a state entity, as opposed to strongly fluctuating trust in different U.S. presidents. Third, the NSA crisis directly affected German elites’ trust in the bilateral security partnership, an area where trust was stable even during the Bush presidency.     

Centre–Periphery Relations and the Emergence of a Public Sphere in Saudi Arabia: The Municipal Elections in the Eastern Province, 1954–1960

This article examines the introduction of municipal elections in Saudi Arabia during the reign of King Sa?ud. The elections from 1954 to the early 1960s constituted important political arenas that have hitherto been overlooked in scholarship on Saudi Arabia. Grievances and political aspirations of the Saudi population were publicly voiced during these elections, which coincided with an emerging radical press and a labour movement at the ARAMCO oil company. Though these elections were limited in scope, marred by procedural flaws and ultimately failed on the institutional level, they nevertheless had a lasting impact on people in the Eastern Province―especially the Shia― and their subsequent political mobilisation outside state structures. As such the municipal elections represent a failed attempt to co-opt local elites and to broaden the popular base of the centre in the periphery. The failure of the municipal elections contributed to the tense relationship between the Saudi centre and the peripheries, which culminated in the 1979 uprising in the Eastern Province.     

Understanding Life in the Ottoman–Montenegrin Borderlands of Northern Albania during the Tanzimat Era: Catholic Mirdite Tribes,Missionaries and Ottoman Officials

The paper reconsiders the development of decentralization/centralization dynamics during the Ottoman Empire, focusing on the Ottoman–Montenegrin borderlands of Northern Albania with particular reference to the Mirdite territory inhabited by Catholic tribes. First, the paper describes the local socio-political system and balance of power in Mirdite territory before the enactment of the Gulhane decree. Secondly, the paper focuses on the developments and changes occurring in this land during the Tanzimat. Interaction, intertwining and overlapping between different strategies and policies are analysed in regard to the relationship between Catholic tribes, missionaries and Ottoman officials. Because of them, the changes and developments in the local administrative system occurring in both the religious and the political dimensions during the last part of the nineteenth century were expressions of the process of decentralization/centralization triggered by Istanbul from the third decade of the nineteenth century on.     

Urban Mobilization in Iraqi Kurdistan during the British Mandate: Sulaimaniya 1918–30

Abstract

Great Britain created ‘Southern Kurdistan’, an autonomous Kurdish entity with Sulaimaniya as its capital, under British political supervision in November 1918. Sulaimaniya became a political and social testing ground in the hands of British officers who participated in the process of building local identities by defining the arena in which the elites entered into competition, by defining the categories into which the political blocs were arranged, and by defining which leaders were recognized. Furthermore, the creation of ‘Southern Kurdistan’ allowed the extension of nationalist rethoric among its inhabitants culminating in the radicalization of Sulaimaniya's notables. Paradoxically, the peak of nationalist agitation in urban areas in 1930 coincided with the Kurdish mobilization shifting its centre of gravity to the countryside.     

Syria,Saudi Arabia,the U.A.E. and Qatar: the ‘sectarianization’ of the Syrian conflict and undermining of democratization in the region

Understanding the Syrian conflict only in terms of sectarian politics amounts to dismissing a very modern effort at emancipation within the context of the country’s populace fighting for its civil, political and economic rights, and in the process robs Syrians of their agency and diminishes their humanity. A closer look at events and political alignments in Syria reveals a more complex picture better understood through the lens of regimes’ desire to counteract the dissident and reformist dynamics that emerged with the Arab Spring. And while this paper is most certainly not minimizing the fact that the sectarian discourse and animosity, once activated, acquired its own dynamic, it underlines that this is not a case of so-called ancient sectarian rivalries emerging unprompted and of their own accord. As a result, the Syrian crisis and the regional ramifications of it can be appreciated as not simply identity politics writ large, but as an example of the authoritarian resilience paradigm in action. In making these arguments, this paper examines the interplay of the domestic and regional policies of three actors involved directly in the Syrian conflict: the Syrian regime, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. (considered as a unitary actor within the context of the Syrian crisis), and Qatar.     

Saudi Arabia: the ‘arab street’, the media and popular agitation since September 11

Dr Mai Yamani studied Anthropology at Bryn Mawr and Oxford. She has taught at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia, and lectured widely in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. She is currently an Associate Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she has participated in conferences in the Middle East Programme. In February 2003 she, with others in the RIIA Programme, published Iraq, the Regional Fallout, which is available on the RIIA website. She has written numerous articles and her book, Changed Identities: the Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia (Royal Institute for International Affairs, 2001) was reviewed in the February 2002 issue of Asian Affairs.     

Church Finances in the Colonial Age: The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem under British Control, 1921–25

The British Mandatory government established in 1921 a commission in order to control the finances and the vast landed property of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. This paper sketches out the commission's early activity, arguing that its significant powers and its operation at the expense of the clerical apparatus were not so much grounded on the need to facilitate the recovery of the historic church, but were in fact determined by the socio-political developments, at a local and international level, as well as by the necessity to strengthen the British authority in Palestine during a fluid period for public order.     

The failure of economic reform in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (1921–2015): the vicious circle of uncivic traditions,resource curse,and centralization

This study sheds light on the causes of failure of economic reform in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). It argues that the success of economic reform largely relies on the choices available for ruling authorities as well as their willingness to share power with the people and with each other. Since the birth of the Iraqi state and the KRI the interaction of uncivic traditions, rent seeking, and centralization has been the main cause hindering economic reforms that are desired to sustain development. To investigate, the study provides a comprehensive account of the failure of the region’s past and present economic policies and the sociopolitical structure that supported it.     

Media Dissent and Peri-urban Land Struggles in Vietnam: The Case of the Văn Giang Incident

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of media-led dissent in Vietnam's contemporary land struggles. The analysis focuses on Vietnamese-language material published online by domestic and foreign media about the so-called V?n Giang incident – a high-profile land dispute that shook the country between 2009 and 2012. Looking at how the media treated this incident broadens studies of land struggles in Vietnam, which up till now have focused on peasants’ resistance strategies. This case not only shows that media practitioners engage in dissent with regard to land politics, but also that they engage in more straightforward criticism of the state and its corporate redevelopment partners than what most analyses of rural land struggles in Vietnam, centered on the micro-level and on “lawful” (O'Brien) forms of resistance, would lead one to believe. Illustrating this point, the author shows that media dissent throughout the V?n Giang land dispute openly challenged the government's justificatory discourse about “displacement for development” as well as the mismanagement of land resources on which political and economic elites rely to dispossess peasants from peri-urban lands. If it has not yet provoked major institutional changes, the media's contribution to land struggles has nevertheless succeeded in creating a genuine, national public debate on land politics in rapidly urbanizing Vietnam.