Politics And Change In The Middle East

This edition presents an intensive update of facts, figures and events. It contains extensive discussion of democracy and contains an abundance of visual aids and maps.

Prior to 2011, popular imagination perceived the Muslim Middle East as unchanging and unchangeable, frozen in its own traditions and history. In Life as Politics, Asef Bayat argues that such presumptions fail to recognize the routine, yet important, ways in which ordinary people make meaningful change through everyday actions. First published just months before the Arab Spring swept across the region, this timely and prophetic book sheds light on the ongoing acts of protest, practice, and direct daily action. The second edition includes three new chapters on the Arab Spring and Iran's Green Movement and is fully updated to reflect recent events. At heart, the book remains a study of agency in times of constraint. In addition to ongoing protests, millions of people across the Middle East are effecting transformation through the discovery and creation of new social spaces within which to make their claims heard. This eye-opening book makes an important contribution to global debates over the meaning of social movements and the dynamics of social change.

The author, analyzing major social groups in this area, treats particularly the "new middle class," a group socially isolated from the traditional life of Islam and committed to a wide-ranging modernizing impulse. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Aimed at undergraduate-level courses, this brand-new textbook provides an overview of Middle Eastern politics, offering in-depth examination of the forces of stability, change, uncertainty, and progress in the region. Building on both historical and contemporary analysis, the chapters are timely, engaging, and provocative, covering topics such as: Turmoil and transition in Middle Eastern politics The Arab-Israeli conflict The Persian Gulf and global security The rise of the internet Terrorism and the Islamic State US-Iran relations The role of new regional players, such as China, India, and Russia Increasing investment in wind and solar energy in the post-carbon era. Providing a unique perspective on the major themes and current state of knowledge about the region, this new textbook will be invaluable to students of Middle Eastern politics.

This text takes thematic and multidisciplinary approaches that integrates regional experiences into a whole. Major themes include political development, economic development, international relations, Islam - mainstream and jihadist, colonialism and post-colonialism; and recent political changes, with particular emphasis on the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the rising interest in democracy regionally.

This exciting new edition of the successful textbook for students of Middle Eastern politics provides a highly relevant and comprehensive introduction to the complexities of a region in constant flux. Combining a thematic framework for examining patterns of politics with individual chapters dedicated to specific countries, the book places the very latest developments and long-standing issues within an historical context, introducing key concepts from comparative politics to further explore the interaction between Middle Eastern history and the region’s contemporary political development. Presenting information in an accessible and inclusive format, the book offers: • Coverage of the historical influence of colonialism and major world powers on the shaping of the modern Middle East. • A detailed examination of the legacy of Islam. • Analysis of the political and social aspects of Middle Eastern life: alienation between state and society, poverty and social inequality, ideological crises and renewal. • Case studies on countries in the Northern Belt (Turkey and Iran); the Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Israel/Palestine); and those West and East of the Red Sea (Egypt and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council), moving through an historical examination to close analysis of the most recent developments and their political and social impacts. • Extensive pedagogical features, including original maps and further reading sections, provide essential support for the reader. A key introductory text for students of Middle Eastern politics and history at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels, this new edition has been extensively updated to also become a timely and significant reference for policy-makers and any motivated reader.

Taking a comparative approach, this book considers the ways in which political regimes have changed since the Arab Spring. It addresses a series of questions about political change in the context of the revolutions, upheavals and protests that have taken place in North Africa and the Arab Middle East since December 2010, and looks at the various processes have been underway in the region: democratisation (Tunisia), failed democratic transitions (Egypt, Libya and Yemen), political liberalisation (Morocco) and increased authoritarianism (Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria). In other countries, in contrast to these changes, the authoritarian regimes remain intact (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Arab United Emirates.

The Middle East has undergone enormous change since 9/11, from the invasion and occupation of Iraq to the events of the ′Arab Spring′. An Introduction to Middle East Politics engages with questions of democratisation and political reform in the region. It covers: Historical Legacies; The Ottoman Empire, WWI, colonialism and the Cold War; nationalism and Islamist politics Authoritarianism in Egypt, Algeria and Syria; political changes in Iran; the politics of oil in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab States Intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq The recent uprisings in the Arab World, human rights, social movements and social media Each chapter opens with helpful learning objectives and concludes with study questions. Annotated bibliographies aid further reading, whilst the companion website provides links to additional material. This book will prove a fascinating read for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of Middle East Politics and related courses across Politics and International Relations.

Offers a critical and realistic reassessment of the threats posed to the environment in the Middle East, and what can be done about them.

Although most Arab countries remain authoritarian, many have undergone a restructuring of state-society relations in which lower- and middle-class interest groups have lost ground while big business has benefited in terms of its integration into policy-making and the opening of economic sectors that used to be state-dominated. Arab businesses have also started taking on aspects of public service provision in health, media and education that used to be the domain of the state; they have also become increasingly active in philanthropy. The ‘Arab Spring,’ which is likely to lead to a more pluralistic political order, makes it all the more important to understand business interests in the Middle East, a segment of society that on the one hand has often been close to the ancien regime, but on the other will play a pivotal role in a future social contract. Among the topics addressed by the authors are the role of business in recent regime change; the political outlook of businessmen; the consequences of economic liberalisation on the composition of business elites in the Middle East; the role of the private sector in orienting government policies; lobbying of government by business interests and the mechanisms by which governments seek to keep businesses dependent on them.