ABSTRACT

In 2011, as the Arab uprisings spread across the Middle East, Jordan remained more stable than any of its neighbors. Despite strife at its borders and an influx of refugees connected to the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS, as well as its own version of the Arab Spring with protests and popular mobilization demanding change, Jordan managed to avoid political upheaval. How did the regime survive in the face of the pressures unleashed by the Arab uprisings? What does its resilience tell us about the prospects for reform or revolutionary change?

In “Jordan and the Arab Uprisings,” Curtis R. Ryan explains how Jordan weathered the turmoil of the Arab Spring. Crossing divides between state and society, government and opposition, Ryan analyzes key features of Jordanian politics, including Islamist and leftist opposition parties, youth movements, and other forms of activism, as well as struggles over elections, reform, and identity. He details regime survival strategies, laying out how the monarchy has held out the possibility of reform while also seeking to coopt and contain its opponents. Ryan demonstrates how domestic politics were affected by both regional unrest and international support for the regime, and how regime survival and security concerns trumped hopes for greater change. While the Arab Spring may be over, Ryan shows that political activism in Jordan is not, and that struggles for reform and change will continue. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with a vast range of people, from grassroots activists to King Abdullah II, “Jordan and the Arab Uprisings” is a definitive analysis of Jordanian politics before, during, and beyond the Arab uprisings.

SPEAKER BIO

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This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

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Conversation will be moderated by Amr Hamzawy, Senior Research Scholarat the Middle East Initiative, CDDRL, FSI.

Copies of The Return will be available for sale.

This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

This talk expounds a book project to study various questions related to the long-standing socioeconomic inequality across non-Muslims and Muslims in the Middle East. The book draws on novel primary data sources including medieval papyri, historical population censuses, and tax registers, in order to document the socioeconomic advantage of non-Muslim minorities in the region and how it evolved over time and varied across groups and territories. It then examines how inter-religion socioeconomic inequality was impacted by European influence and state-led development since 1800. Finally, it explores the historical roots of this inequality and the role of Islamic taxation in its emergence, and how the Islamic tax system itself evolved in response to it. Overall, the planned manuscript is part of a larger project that attempts to write a new evidence-based economic history of the region that draws on the digitization of various primary unexplored data sources at local and European archives, and that combines the quantitative approaches of the social sciences with the historical literature. In doing so, it builds on earlier work of pioneering economic historians of the region, while attempting to go beyond the conceptual and methodological divisions that separate economic historians from historians as well as those that separate nationalist from colonial narratives.

SPEAKER BIO

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Mohamed Saleh is an Assistant Professor at Toulouse School of Economics and Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France. In 2017-2018, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, Stanford University. His research interests are in economic history, empirical political economy, and development economics, with a focus on the economic history of the Middle East, and particularly Egypt. His research agenda focuses on understanding the historical origins of the socioeconomic differences between religious groups, the effects of state industrialization and public mass education on these differences, and the historical role of the Islamic tax system in the formation of religious groups. Another area of his research examines the long-term evolution of the institutions of labor coercion and land tenure in the Middle East. He approaches these questions using novel micro data sources constructed from archival and secondary data sources.

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DAY 1: Friday, April 27

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

9:00-9:15 a.m.    Introductory Remarks

9:15-11:00 a.m.  Panel 1: Youth, Culture, and Expressions of Resistance

Ayca Alemdaroglu, Stanford University

“Affective Pedagogies: Governing Youth in the Times of Dissent in Turkey”

Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University

“Uprisings Upended: Arab Youth Between Dissociation, Disenchantment, and Desecration”

Yasemin Ipek, Stanford University

“Imagining Social Change after the Syrian Civil War: Entrepreneurial Activism and Cross-Sectarian Political Mobilization in Lebanon”

Chair: Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break

11:15-1:00 p.m.  Panel 2: Situating Gender in the Law and the Economy

Hanan Hammad, Texas Christian University 

“Democracy from the Gender Edge”

Alessandra Gonzalez, Stanford University

“Do Source or Host Country Practices Dominate in Female Executive Hiring? Evidence from Firms in the GCC Countries”

Ibtesam Al Atiyat, St. Olaf College

“Repealing Rape Article 308: The Missed Opportunity to Women’s Emancipation in Jordan”

Chair: Joel Beinin, Stanford University

1:00-2:00 p.m.    Lunch

2:00-3:45 p.m.    Panel 3: Social Movements and Visions for Change

Dina El-Sharnouby, Freie Universität Berlin 

“The 2011 Revolutionary Movement in Egypt and Youth’s Socio-Political Imaginaries of Transformation and Change”

Mohamed Daadaoui, Oklahoma City University 

“It’s Good to Be the King, or Is It? Protest Movements, the “refo-lutionary” promise of PJD Islamists and the King’s Dilemma in Morocco”

Nora Doaiji, Yale University

“After Saudi Women’s Driving: What Happens When A Marginal Movement Is Centered by the State”

Chair: Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University

DAY 2: Saturday April 28

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

9:00-10:45 a.m.  Panel 4: The Economy, the State and New Social Actors

Mona Atia, The George Washington University 

“Territorial Restructuring and the Politics of Governing Poverty in Morocco”

Amr Adly, European University Institute

“Egypt's Shattered Oligarchy and Big Business Autonomy”

Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University 

“Egyptian Economic and De-Democratization Trends”

Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

10:45-11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 p.m. Panel 5: Social Change and International and Regional Dynamics

Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

"Geopolitical Myths and Realities under Neo-Authoritarianism"

Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University 

“The Roots and Impact of Democracy Resistance and Autocracy Promotion in the Arab World”

Nancy Okail, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

"Political Reform, Security, and U.S. Middle East Policy"

Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University

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This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

How can we make sense of the tragedy in Syria? Wendy Pearlman has conducted open-ended interviews with more than 300 displaced Syrians across the Middle East and Europe from 2012 to 2017. She has brought together these personal stories in the acclaimed new book, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins 2017). In this talk, Pearlman will share a selection of voices from the book, along with her own commentary and analysis, to explain the origins and evolution of the Syrian conflict, as well as what it has been like for the ordinary people who have lived its unfolding. Her talk will paint a portrait of silence and intimidation under an oppressive authoritarian regime before 2011, expresses the euphoric experience of participating in protest against that regime, conveys the resilience of communities enduring unspeakable violence thereafter, and offers a window into the challenge of becoming and being a refugee. This talk will offer a humanistic interpretation of the current conflict in Syria and how it has transformed those who have experienced it.

SPEAKER BIO

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Wendy Pearlman is the Martin and Patricia Koldyke Outstanding Teaching Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, where she specializes in the comparative politics of the Middle East. She is the author of three books, We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins 2017), Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003), as well as dozens of essays, academic articles, or book chapters. Pearlman holds a BA from Brown University, an MA from Georgetown, and a PhD from Harvard. She speaks Arabic and has studied or conducted research in Spain, Germany, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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ABSTRACT

The formation of Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption commission and the arrest of dozens of princes and former ranking officials have brought to focus the prospects for political and economic reform in the Kingdom. Many observers have characterized these recent steps as an attempt by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to sideline opponents of his bold, far-reaching reforms. Yet a closer analysis suggests that these measures are part of an effort to consolidate and centralize power in ways that will only move the Kingdom farther away from greater political inclusion and participation. They also threaten the future of stability inside the Kingdom and the region at large. More generally, these recent developments raise critical questions regarding the feasibility of advancing the Crown Prince’s proposed economic reforms in the absence of meaningful political reform that could allow for monitoring and holding accountable the proclaimed leaders of economic reforms.

SPEAKER BIO

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Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi journalist, columnist, and author. Born in Medina, Saudi Arabia, in 1958, where he completed high school, Jamal graduated from Indiana State University in 1982. Khashoggi began his career as a correspondent for the English language Saudi Gazette. Between 1987-90, he was a foreign correspondent for the pan-Arab Arabic daily Alsharq Alawsat and the Jeddah-based, English language daily Arab News. He became widely recognized for his coverage of the Afghan War and the first Gulf War (1990-91). From 1990 to 1999, Jamal was foreign correspondent for the other prominent pan-Arab Arabic daily, Al-Hayat. There he reported on Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan, and various conflicts in the Middle East. As a result of his extensive experience, he became known as an expert in political Islam and related movements. In 1999, Jamal was appointed Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Arab News, the leading English newspaper of Saudi Arabia. In 2003, he became Editor-in-Chief of Al-Watan, the country’s pioneering reformist newspaper. In less than two month he lost his job because of his editorial policies. He was then appointed as the media advisor to Prince Turki Al-Faisal, then-Saudi Ambassador in London and later Washington. In 2007, he returned to Al-Watan as Editor-in-Chief. In 2010, again due to his editorial style, pushing boundaries of discussion and debate within Saudi society, he was fired. In June 2010, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal appointed Jamal to lead a new 24-hour Arabic news channel, Al-Arab. He launched the station in Manama, Bahrain, in 2015. On the air less than 11 hours, the government ordered Al-Arab to cease broadcasting. Jamal is now an independent writer based in Washington, DC.