POMEPS Middle East Political Science Podcast

This special episode features a round-table discussion from the POMEPS 12th Annual Conference, which was held on June 9-10, 2021. The panel, "Confronting Old and New Obstacles to Political Science Research," features five scholars: Nermin Allam, Assistant Professor of Politics at Rutgers University Mert Arslanalp, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bogazici University Laryssa Chomiak, Director of the Centre d'Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT) Jannis Julien Grimm, Freie Universität Berlin, Member of the Executive Board and Associated Researcher at the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies in Berlin (ipb) Sarah Parkinson, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Johns Hopkins University Music for this season’s podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Maha Nassar of the University of Arizona talks about her book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book is the first book to reveal how Palestinian intellectuals forged transnational connections through written texts and engaged with contemporaneous decolonization movements throughout the Arab world, challenging both Israeli policies and their own cultural isolation. Nassar reexamines these intellectuals as the subjects, not objects, of their own history and brings to life their perspectives on a fraught political environment. (Starts at 0:40). Also, Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania talks about his book, Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality, with Marc Lynch. The book argues that negotiations for a two-state solution between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River are doomed and counterproductive. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can enjoy the democracy they deserve but only after decades of struggle amid the unintended but powerful consequences of today's one-state reality. (Starts at 29:37). Music for this season’s podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Omar Ashour of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies talks about his latest book, How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book analyses the military and tactical innovations of ISIS and their predecessors in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. Ashour shows how their capacity to mix conventional military tactics with innovative guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism strategies allowed ISIS to expand and endure beyond expectations. (Starts at 30:52). Max Gallien of the University of Sussex talks about his article, "Informal Institutions and the Regulation of Smuggling in North Africa." (Starts at 0:45). Aytuğ Şaşmaz of the Harvard Kennedy School Middle East Initiative talks about his article, "Navigating welfare regimes in divided societies: Diversity and the quality of service delivery in Lebanon" (co-authored by Melani Cammett). (Starts at 16:22).

This is a special edition of the POMEPS Middle East Political Science Podcast. Our program typically hosts conversations with scholars about recent books and academic publications. But the ongoing war in Gaza and the broader political crisis among Israelis and Palestinians impacts so many members of our scholarly field and the people and communities we study that we felt both an intellectual and a moral obligation to put together something different: a special edition of the podcast featuring short research based conversations with a wide range of scholars from within the POMEPS network. Marc Lynch The podcast includes contributions from the following scholars. For more from these scholars, see below: Yousef Munayyer, University of Maryland and Arab Center Washington – “There Will Be a One-State Solution But What Kind of State Will It Be?” Dana el-Kurd, University of Richmond – Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine Nadav Shelef, University of Wisconsin –Evolving Nationalism: Homeland, Identity, and Religion in Israel, 1925–2005 and Homelands: Shifting Borders and Territorial Disputes Maha Nassar, University of Arizona – Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World Nathan Brown, George Washington University – The Old Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Dead—Long Live the Emerging Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Tariq Baconi, International Crisis Group and University of Western Cape – “Gaza and the One-State Reality” and Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance Imad Alsoos, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology – “What explains the resilience of Muslim Brotherhood movements? An analysis of Hamas’ organizing strategies” and “From jihad to resistance: the evolution of Hamas’s discourse in the framework of mobilization” Abdalhadi Alijla, Orient Institute in Beirut – “Gazzawi as bare life? An auto-ethnography of borders, siege, and statelessness” and “Palestine and the Habeas Viscus: An Auto-ethnography of Travel, Visa Violence, and Borders” Diana Greenwald, City College of New York – “Military Rule in the West Bank” Yael Berda, Harvard Kennedy School Middle East Initiative – Living Emergency: Israel’s Permit Regime in the Occupied West Bank Noura Erekat, Rutgers University – Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine Nadya Hajj, Wellesley College – Protection Amid Chaos: The Creation of Property Rights in Palestinian Refugee Camps and “Networked Refugees: Palestinian Reciprocity and Remittances in the Digital Age“ Marwa Fatfafta, Access Now Gershon Shafir, University of California, San Diego – A Half Century of Occupation: Israel, Palestine, and the World’s Most Intractable Conflict and Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship Michael Barnett, George Washington University – The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland – “Here’s how experts on the Middle East see the region’s key issues, our new survey finds” (with Marc Lynch) and “Changing American Public Attitudes On Israel/Palestine: Does It Matter For Politics?“

Nicola Pratt of the University of Warwick talks about her latest book, Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book demonstrates how the production and regulation of gender are integrally bound up with the exercise and organization of geopolitical power, with consequences for women’s activism and its effects. (Starts at 25:11). André Bank of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and Jan Busse Bundeswehr University Munich talk about their special issue, "MENA political science research a decade after the Arab uprisings: Facing the facts on tremulous grounds," published in Mediterranean Politics. (Starts at 0:44). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Paola Rivetti of Dublin City University talks about her latest book Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the Green Movement, with Marc Lynch on this week’s podcast. The book examines the unintended consequences of top-down reforms in Iran, analyzing how the Iranian reformist governments (1997–2005) sought to utilize gradual reforms to control independent activism, and how citizens responded to such disciplinary action. (Starts at 31:48). Alexandra Siegel of the University of Colorado, Boulder talks about her article, “Tweeting Beyond Tahrir: Ideological Diversity and Political Intolerance in Egyptian Twitter Networks,” co-authored with Jonathan Nagler, Richard Bonneau, and Joshua A. Tucker, and published in World Politics. (Starts at 0:52). Konstantin Ash of the University of Central Florida talks about his latest article, “How did Tunisians react to Ennahdha’s 2016 reforms? Evidence from a survey experiment,” published in Mediterranean Politics. (Starts at 17:35). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Ewan Stein of University of Edinburgh talks about his latest book, International Relations in the Middle East: Hegemonic Strategies and Regional Order, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book demonstrates how the sources of regional antagonisms and solidarities are to be found not in the geopolitical chessboard, but in the hegemonic strategies of the region's pivotal powers.  (Starts at 35:11). Steven Schaaf of George Washington University speaks about his new article entitled, "Contentious Politics in the Courthouse: Law as a Tool for Resisting Authoritarian States in the Middle East," published by Law and Society Review. (Starts at 0:53). Zahra Ali of Rutgers University discusses her new article, "From Recognition to Redistribution? Protest Movements in Iraq in the Age of ‘New Civil Society," published in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. (Starts at 19:23). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Jesse Wozniak of West Virginia University talks about his latest book, Policing Iraq: Legitimacy, Democracy, and Empire in a Developing State, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast.  The book demonstrates how police are integral to the modern state’s ability to effectively rule and how the failure to recognize this directly contributed to the destabilization of Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State. (Starts at 32:51). Alexei Abrahams of Harvard University speaks about his new article entitled, "Hard traveling: unemployment and road infrastructure in the shadow of political conflict," published by Cambridge University Press. (Starts at 0:53). Adam Lichtenheld of Yale University discusses his new article, "The consequences of internal displacement on civil war violence: Evidence from Syria," (co-authored with Justin Schon of University of Virginia) published in Political Geography. (Starts at 18:24). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

John Waterbury of Princeton University talks about his latest book, Missions Impossible: Higher Education and Policymaking in the Arab World, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book seeks to explain the process of policymaking in higher education in the Arab world, a process that is shaped by the region’s politics of autocratic rule. (Starts at 33:42). Irene Weipert-Fenner of the Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt talks about her article, "Go local, go global: Studying popular protests in the MENA post-2011," published in Mediterranean Politics. (Starts at 0:59). Mariam Salehi of Berlin Social Science Center discusses her new article, "Trying Just Enough or Promising Too Much? The Problem-Capacity-Nexus in Tunisia’s Transitional Justice Process," published in the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. (Starts at 20:24). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Stephanie Dornschneider of University College Dublin talks about her latest book, Hot Contention, Cool Abstention: Positive Emotions and Protest Behavior During the Arab Spring, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast.  The book traces how decisions about participating in the Arab Spring were made, using psychology literature on reasoning and political science literature on protest. (Starts at 29:47). Matthew Lacouture of Wayne State University speaks about his new article entitled, "Privatizing the Commons: Protest and the Moral Economy of National Resources in Jordan," published by Cambridge University Press. (Starts at 0:54). Maria Josua of the German Institute of Global Affairs and Mirjam Edel of University of Tubingen discuss their new article, "The Arab uprisings and the return of repression," published in Mediterranean Politics. (Starts at 15:11). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.