Europe's Role in the United Nations

Two years after the popular mobilisations in Egypt and Tunisia of early 2011, post-uprising authorities, including the Islamist parties that came to power, have failed to deliver on the demands for social justice that triggered those protests. They have responded to past and present socio-economic challenges by adopting measures that are in clear continuity with previous regimes and lacking any coherent long-term vision of economic reform. Indeed, albeit with differences between the two countries, post-uprising authorities, lacking experience and competence, have not fully broken with the old system in reconfiguring power relations within and outside state institutions and have continued to adopt a top-down approach to economic decision-making.     

埃及北部三角洲城市走廊探析

城市走廊是在经济全球化迅猛发展的背景下,城市化速度加快、城市空间大型化过程中形成的一种城市空间形态。埃及城市化进程深入以及区域经济的发展,导致北部三角洲城市走廊形成,并在发展过程中呈现出较强的通达性、土地利用复杂化和节点城市间引力差异明显等特征。三角洲城市走廊已成为该区域重要的基础设施带、区域发展的核心以及国家区域规划的主要目标。从世界范围看,三角洲城市走廊发展尚处于初级阶段,面临着城市沿走廊无序蔓延、协调机制不完善和地价飞涨等问题。尽管如此,三角洲城市走廊跨国化发展已成趋势。     

Egypt versus Ethiopia: The Conflict over the Nile Metastasizes

Egypt and Ethiopia continue to oppose one another over the allocation of the waters of the Nile River basin, despite a succession of provisional multilateral agreements. Officials in Cairo insist that Egypt be guaranteed its “historic rights” to two-thirds of the river’s flow, while their counterparts in Addis Ababa demand an “equitable” distribution of water among all of the riparian countries. More important, Sudan’s shift in alignment from Egypt to Ethiopia has injected new tension into the dispute, and the sustained involvement of South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Eritrea heightens the likelihood that periodic crises will escalate into armed confrontations. Consequently, existing studies that offer sanguine assessments of the potential for a compromise settlement fail to address the key dynamics that drive the conflict.     

British Understandings of the Sanussiyya Sufi Order’s Jihad against Egypt, 1915–17

Abstract

This article considers the Sanussiyya Sufi order’s 1915–16 jihad on Egypt from a fresh perspective, analysing British understandings about the attack that soldiers and officials fashioned as the conflict progressed. By incorporating aspects of imperial and Islamic history and a focus on British perceptions, the article presents new directions in the study of the war in the Middle East that move beyond the concerns of older military histories. It analyses three key areas of British thinking in relation to this jihad. First, the belief that local fighters joined the campaign as a result of economic factors, chiefly the famine that swept the Western Desert from November 1915 as a result of an Anglo-Italian blockade, and that the order had little support from the local population owing to their policy of requisitioning goods. Second, the important set of perceptions that the Sanussiyya were pressured by the Ottomans to attack the British as part of their overall call for jihad against the Allied powers. Third, the divided nature of British views around the broader threat posed by the order to Egypt and the wider war effort. Finally, it examines the broader religious and ideological context of the Sanussiyya as an organised reformist Sufi order, engaged in a struggle for resistance to and survival against European imperialism—a struggle that collided with the changed strategic landscape of a region rent by conflict between the Ottoman and British empires from November 1914.     

Diversity of 17-locus Y-STR haplotypes in Upper (Southern) Egyptians

Seventeen Y-STR loci included in the AmpF?STR^® Yfiler™ PCR Amplification kit were typed in a population sample of 208 males from Upper (South) Egypt. Of 204 observed haplotypes, 200 were unique (96.6%) and 4 were found twice each. The 17 loci gave a discriminating power of 0.9998. DYS458 showed the highest diversity as a single-locus marker (h = 0.868) along with a high frequency of microvariants and new alleles (22% of the sample). Other loci revealed duplicated and null alleles. Comparative analysis with Y-STR datasets of relevant populations and submission of the haplotypes to the Y-STR Haplotype Reference Database (YHRD) were undertaken.     

Arab Citizen and the Arab State: The “Arab Spring” as a Critical Juncture in Contemporary Arab Politics

The basic characteristics and historic significance of the Arab uprisings of 2010–2011 are given a multitude of interpretations, not least in light of the dramatic events that have followed. This article seeks to understand the uprisings as expressions of an unfolding crisis in the relationship between the rulers and the ruled in the region within a historic-sociological approach to citizenship as a “contractual relationship.” A brief discussion of Egyptian developments is used to illustrate the approach. The mass mobilization in the 1950s and 1960s inspired by Nasserism and the “authoritarian bargaining” introduced at the time is contrasted with the demands for a new social contract that mobilized millions during the recent uprisings. The uprisings clearly represent a critical juncture in contemporary Arab history, but their long-term impact on the direction of the future political order in the Arab region remains an open question.     

The Structure of Government Intervention in African Agriculture

This article examines the determinants of various rates of agricultural subsidies (output, input, exchange rate distortions, and aggregate) using commodity-level data from eight African countries in the 1980s. Econometric results indicate that structural adjustment policies were more effective in reforming exchange rate distortions than in liberalising commodity markets. Output policies are determined within the national context while input subsidies are more responsive to commodity-specific conditions. Further-more, agricultural subsidies were strongly influenced by the degree of urbanisation and by the number of people per unit of arable land in a manner consistent with cheap food policy strategies.     

Ideological Reorientation and Counterterrorism: Confronting Militant Islam in Egypt

During the 1990s, Egypt fought a bitter campaign against militant Islamist groups in which over a thousand people died. Since the end of the insurgency in 1997, Egypt's two fiercest Islamic terrorist groups, first the Islamic Group (Al-Gama‘a Al-Islamiyya) and then Islamic Jihad, not only ceased their violent activities but also produced and published texts revising their religious beliefs on the use of violence. Based on the counterterrorism experience of Egypt, this paper defines and describes a counterterrorism strategy of ideological reorientation. We define ideological reorientation as a counterterrorism approach that seeks to change core ideological or religious beliefs of the terrorist group, thus bringing the beliefs of group members in line with societal norms. While we cannot causally attribute the groups' decisions to lay down arms to ideological reorientation versus other regime actions (like repression), the Egyptian experience is highly suggestive. First, it indicates that the ideology of religiously-based groups is not exogenous and fixed, as is often assumed, but rather endogenous and flexible. Second, the Egyptian experience suggests that ideological reorientation may be more effective at stemming militancy in the long run compared to rival approaches.     

Muted criticism in Egypt (part 1)

Egypt, the heart of the Arab world, is the dominant player in Arab‐Israeli and inter‐Arab affairs. Close scrutiny of political and intellectual trends in Egypt tells us much about these trends throughout the Arab world. Reporting from a country such as Egypt, which has an authoritarian form of government, presents problems for journalists and researchers. There is much criticism of the government, but it is muted, often lying just below the surface. One must try to discern the underlying political reality without seeming to criticize the government. Journalists who are considered pro‐Israel are viewed with suspicion. Journalists who ask probing questions may be classified as pro‐Israel. This study examines the complex fabric of Egyptian political reality through interviews with prominent intellectuals and government leaders. The interviews focus on crucial areas of foreign policy.