History education in schools in Iraqi Kurdistan: representing values of peace and violence

The Kurdistan Regional Government has implemented a wide range of reforms in Iraqi Kurdistan’s education system since its establishment in 2003. This qualitative study utilises critical discourse analysis to investigate the content of History Education (HE) textbooks (grades five to eight) and to assess how far peace education values and principles have been integrated into the curriculum. The ME’s top-down approach has faced significant resistance from teachers and it fails to consider the importance of hidden and null curricula. It focuses on the history of Iraq, Kurdistan, and Islam, glorifies war, excludes different narratives or interpretations, and fails to foster critical debate or enquiry. The curriculum appears to encourage violence and foster divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims, and the null curriculum is regulated to maintain the dominance of the group in power.     

The identity crisis in Jordan: historical pathways and contemporary debates

This study aims to identify the attempts to form a Jordanian national identity from the establishment of the Jordanian state in 1921 to date. This study reviews the efforts of the Jordanian state, which was subject to internal, external, political, social, economic, and cultural circumstances, and variables that led to change the Jordanian national identity to incorporate religious, national, regional, ethnic, and tribal aspects. The regime has been unable to address and resolve the issue of national identity; instead, it has tried several means to circumvent the problem of national identity. The identity card is a means that the regime has used to achieve its goals. These policies led to the state’s failure to define, establish, and maintain a comprehensive national identity for its citizens. The formation of a national identity has been a dilemma for Jordan since the establishment of the state; there is almost no known national identity. This situation calls for the construction of the Jordanian national identity on a fixed and clear basis to prevent its disintegration, to facilitate the process of social integration, and to build a final national identity that is both inclusive and representative. Without this identity, division and conflict may prevail in Jordanian society.     

Politics,Economics and Saudi Military Intervention in Bahrain

The March 14, 2011 Saudi military intervention in Bahrain to suppress pro-democracy uprisings created serious regional and global concerns. Political analysts and commentators have interpreted the Saudi intervention primarily in terms of domestic and regional political and strategic dynamics. This paper analyses the intervention issue from both political and economic perspectives and argues that the Saudi decision to intervene in Bahrain to trample the democratic rights of common Bahrainis was no less, if not more, influenced by economic factors than political and strategic calculations. Moreover, similar Saudi interventions in other Gulf Cooperation Council countries remain a reality if the status quo is seriously threatened by any internal pro-democracy forces, with or without external support.     

Neoliberal economic reforms,the rich and the poor in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has been implementing neoliberal structural adjustment policies since the early 1980s. This article analyzes the economic and social outcomes the reform policies have created in the past two decades. It argues that the reform policies, instead of distributing benefits among different societal groups, have brought an economic windfall mainly for the business and industrial class in Bangladesh. Compared to the 24 families of erstwhile United Pakistan, there is now a small group of 40 to 50 families who effectively control the total industrial and financial assets of this poor nation. The vast majority of other societal groups and classes- the industrial and agricultural labor, small businesses, marginal and small farmers, and urban and rural poor — are left out by the reform agenda. The lack of policies of distributional justice has resulted in widening disparities in income and wealth between the low and high strata of the society and deterioration in the overall poverty situation of the country.     

Rationality,Culture, and Structure in the Making of Suicide Bombers: A Preliminary Theoretical Synthesis and Illustrative Case Study

Suicidal violence involves three levels of analysis: individual motivations, organizational strategies, and societal conflicts. Using rationalist, culturalist, and structuralist approaches to contentious politics, this article explores the intersection of rationality, norms, and conflict in the making of extreme violence. The case of Palestinian suicide bombers demonstrates the interdependence of the three approaches to explaining suicidal violence. For individuals, self-sacrifice is conceived as an act of personal redemption rooted in religious morality and national salvation. For organizations, human bombs provide strategic advantages in the context of asymmetrical warfare. For collectivities, martyrs are venerated when three conditions converge: (1) cultural norms encompass symbolic narratives that honor martyrdom; (2) legitimate authorities acquiesce to extreme violence; and (3) conflicts generate feelings of victimization and threat by external enemies.     

Assessment of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme in Karaga district,Ghana

This article assesses the contribution of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme in reducing rural poverty in the Karaga district of Northern Ghana, using a mixed research design to compare the livelihoods of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. It concludes that the programme is contributing to poverty reduction among the poor and vulnerable, and recommends that school children benefiting from LEAP should be exempted from paying extra expenses such as examination and PTA fees. There should also be a system to provide subsidies for agriculture inputs to enable beneficiaries to engage in agriculture to promote longer term poverty alleviation.     

Is foreign direct investment good for the poor? New evidence from African countries

This paper conducts an empirical investigation of the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and poverty in selected African economies. Using system generalised method of moments, our findings showed that FDI inflows have significantly contributed to poverty reduction in African countries. Our results also showed that better institutional quality and human capital development are associated with reducing poverty. Furthermore, interacting FDI with financial development was found to significantly reduce poverty, thus providing support to the hypothesis that better functioning financial systems enhance the efficiency of FDI in reducing poverty.