Political security: from the 1990s to the Arab Spring

The 1994 Human Development Report (HDR) set out the definition and parameters of political security in fewer than 400 words. It was defined as the prevention of government repression, systematic violation of human rights and threats from militarization. This was intended to establish an agenda that would protect people against states that continued to practice political repression, systematic torture, ill treatment and disappearance. Yet, the concept of political security has evolved in both theory and practice. This has been done through an ongoing debate, which has been shaped more by immediate crises and the practice of international relations, than the parameters set out in the 1994 HDR report. In practice, achieving the ambitions of the political security agenda has become tied to questions of humanitarian assistance and intervention. This was narrowly interpreted throughout the 1990s as a debate surrounding the nature and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. In the 2000s, this was institutionalized into a Responsibility to Protect agenda, only to see the second decade of the twenty-first century reveal the need for a far more complex and nuanced debate about how this should be carried out.     

Authoritarian ‘geopolitics’ of survival in the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring has shaken not only the state and society dimension in the countries of the MENA region but also the power of authoritarian leaders that had been ensured for a long period of time. This paper takes a critical look at the issue of how authoritarian regimes reacted to the new political atmosphere produced by the Arab Spring. More specifically it attempts to identify how geopolitical reasoning influenced the formulation of new strategies designed to promote the survival of authoritarian regimes. It focuses upon the geopolitical reasoning relied upon by Iran and Saudi Arabia, which included creating threat-enemy chains in domestic politics, shifting alliances in regional policy and taking advantage of relations with external actors to gain support for authoritarian rule at home.     

Stable instability: the Syrian conflict and the postponement of the 2013 Lebanese parliamentary elections

Given the morass of the Syrian civil war and Lebanon’s exposure to the consequences, this article seeks to explore how the intersecting dynamics of Lebanese domestic conflicts and the multiple implications of the bloodbath in Syria have influenced the behaviour of Lebanese political parties in their ongoing struggle over the formulation of a new electoral law, leading to a broad consensus among the country’s parties to postpone the 2013 parliamentary elections. The article argues that, while the usual attempts to profit at the expense of other groups in society are still present and external patrons still wield great influence, the decision to postpone the elections also demonstrates a degree of pragmatism and political development since, despite dire predictions to the contrary, Lebanon has not succumbed to the return of its own civil war. Instead a complex mixture of pragmatism, elision of interests and external influence, combined with local agency, has led Lebanon into a situation of stable instability.     

Trickster Humour in Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home: Negotiating Arab American Muslim Female Sexuality

Randa Jarrar’ s A Map of Home (2008), a major contemporary Arab American woman's novel, utilizes trickster humour as a way to resist the ideological manufacture of the Muslim female body propounded by US orientalism, Islamist orthodoxy and secular Arab patriarchy. Current scholarship on A Map of Home has not examined the relationship between humour and contemporary female sexuality. Focusing mostly on authorial tone, this article reads the novel's narrator-protagonist, Nidali Ammar, as a trickster figure, who resists being perceived as a cultural heroine and in doing so disrupts the sacredness of social conventions. The trickster A Map of Home celebrates, and Nidali enacts, prompts readers to laugh at key cultural norms shaping the Muslim female body in post-9/11 US sculpture. This inquiry examines a range of interconnected sexual themes—most notably, ‘proper’ sexual boundaries, orientations and codes of virginity—to illustrate how trickster humour fosters Arab American women's agency.     

The limits of mediation in the Arab Spring: the case of Syria

This article investigates the limits of mediation during the Arab Spring by focusing on the case of Syria. It examines international mediation attempts by states, non-governmental organisation, and regional and international organisations. Drawing largely on Bercovitch and Gartner’s framework of mediation outcomes, the study suggests that the directive strategy applied by Staffan de Mistura through the United Nations–Arab League joint effort has achieved the closest outcome towards a full settlement. Mediation in the Syrian crisis has been limited by disagreement among key actors, lack of commitment and of coordinated efforts, questions of representation and legitimacy, and lack of neutrality and of inclusiveness. Despite its limits, mediation has been able to achieve important gains such as the longest and broadest ceasefire, access to the majority of besieged areas, considerable de-escalation of violence, commitment among key actors towards a resolution, and resolution of incidents of hostage crises. Despite its limits, mediation is likely to play an important role vis-à-vis the Arab Spring.     

Rethinking the Arab Spring: uprisings,counterrevolution, chaos and global reverberations

This article evaluates the aftermath of the Arab Spring through the dual optic of a regional phenomenon and a series of country narratives. These narratives are categorised by reference first to the secular states that found a path to stability after experiencing strong uprisings that drove rulers from power, second to the states in which the uprisings generated prolonged resistance and continuing acute instability, and third to the monarchies that neutralised the uprisings at their inception and restored stability. When other dimensions of conflict are taken into account, it seems likely that the Middle East will continue to experience chaos, intervention and counterrevolution for years to come, and possibly even a second cycle of uprisings directed at the evolving order.     

Fluctuating Saudi and Emirati Alignment Behaviours in the Horn of Africa

ABSTRACT

The overthrow of Omar al-Bashir after three decades of rule has brought to light a dynamic that has been present for years: an interweaving of political, economic and security issues between the states of the Horn of Africa and the Gulf monarchies. Since 2011, the most active powers are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which seek political support to counter both Iran’s influence and the growing Turkish presence. The two Gulf monarchies’ search for alignments with African counterparts has favoured the continuous reshuffling of alliances with direct effects on the local actors’ strategic choices. These dynamics need to be considered to understand the determinants behind the currently increasing instability in the Red Sea area.     

The Sephardi and Oriental Jews of Haifa and Arab-Jewish relations in Mandate Palestine

Abstract

This article examines the development of the relations between Jews and Arabs in Haifa during the British Mandate period from the perspective of the Sephardi and Oriental Jews (Mizrahim). It focuses on the two Sephardi neighborhoods in Haifa: Ard al-Yahud and Harat al-Yahud. The article examines the character of the shared Jewish-Arab space that existed in both these mixed neighborhoods, which were inhabited by both Jews and Arabs. The character of this spatial system was exposed during the course of a local political struggle to secure representation for the Sephardi and Oriental Jews and to improve their social condition, as well as during periods of security tension. The article also examines the attitude of the Sephardi leadership toward the ‘Arab question’, and discusses the manner in which everyday life in Ard al-Yahud and Harat al-Yahud manifested the existence of an Arab-Jewish identity during the Mandate period.     

Changing Israeli perceptions of the relations with the International Committee of the Red Cross in the wake of the June 1967 war: from coexistence to open hostility

Abstract

Since 1948/1949 The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been synonymous in the Arab–Israeli context with processes of exchanging prisoners and caring for human lives. After the 1967 war the ICRC changed in status from that of a mediator to that of the executive arm of larger forces. The processes leading to the partial demise of the ICRC are clearly identified in retrospect. It has to do with the asymmetry of perceptions between Israel and the organisation. Israel did not agree to the application of the Fourth Convention in the territories. The ICRC believed that this population fell under the Convention and therefore under the ICRC. Furthermore, the ICRC failed in getting the Israeli POWs back home, especially after the conclusion of the War of Attrition in 1970. The resulting feelings eliminated in the Israeli decision makers' minds the role that the ICRC saw for itself in future POW exchange deals. After the 1973 war the ICRC would lose its position as a negotiator, leaving that arena to other international actors.     

The Ascendance of Official Islams

This article examines how and why four Arab states, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, and Egypt, have increased official Islam (OI) to counter the new challenges in the regional environment following the Arab uprisings. It argues that regimes responded to the initial rise of popular Islam as well as the threat from extremist groups by enhancing their support for official Islam. In an effort to control the religious space and legitimize their rule, these regimes have allocated financial resources, political capital, and institutional power to elements of official Islam. Furthermore, these regimes’ survival strategies vary according to the regime type and the presence or absence of inherited religious institutions. For example, we find that Tunisia turned to foreign training of their imams and greater cooperation with religious leaders in other countries. By contrast, Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, further coopted al-Azhar and OI by setting the agenda for how religion institutions should engage society. Meanwhile, Jordan continued its long-standing development of OI while Morocco further expanded and internationalized OI. These similar goals but distinct approaches demonstrate the importance of the understanding the context in which these specific policies are developed.