Pomeps Conversations

Kevan Harris speaks about his new book, A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Harris is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "In the book, I lay out the main social welfare organizations— both that preceded the 1979 revolution and the ones that germinated afterwards. And then I asked the question, 'How can we explain the expansion of both social policy organizations and access to these organizations by the majority of the population because expansion of social policy and access to social welfare has grown since 1979," said Harris. "Very few scholars have looked at the institutions themselves, and historically trace the development of them. So I ask why, and how, did a particular social welfare organizations in Iran grow— and continue to be created?" "Iran is not Lebanon. Iran has a population of 80 million. You can't explain mass politics in Iran through single anecdotal stories of clientelism. We get surprises on a regular basis in Iranian p

"There are market forces that explain why jihadists succeed in civil wars— when so many other types of groups look like they should have traction on the ground— don't," says Aisha Ahmad. "In order for your movement to succeed, and you have enough money to buy the bullets and feed your foot soldiers. And so there is a logic that's taking place behind the scenes that explains why these seemingly illogical movements rise to power." "Where jihadists do well is in a vacuum in the political chaos of a failed state," says Ahmad. Ahamd is the author of Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power, which looks at financing through two sets of case studies: the Afghanistan/Pakistan cluster and Somalia. "When we look at these sorts of war economies, we need to have a holistic understanding of the kind of businesses that take place— which span both licit and illicit activities," says Ahmad. Ahmad is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, a senior fellow at Massey College, and the co-director of the Isl

Wendy Pearlman speaks on our podcast this week about her new book, We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria. "Ultimately, I was asking people, 'Tell me about your story.'" said Pearlman. "And the people I interviewed told me anything they wanted to tell me." "The book has a trajectory and has an arc. It begins with a sense of fear, intimidation, and silence— a sense of futility under authoritarianism. Then it moves through the euphoria of people participating in protest. Then it becomes increasingly dark, increasingly fragmented— and by the end there are stories of despair." Pearlman's book is structured in different sections outlining Syrians' experiences through its modern history (you can watch Pearlman's book talk at GW here). "I thought, 'What what does a reader need to know to understand Syria? What are the kinds of questions that occur to most readers about what does this regime all about?'" Pearlman said. "All the kinds of things that I thought readers might want to know— and the ki

This week's guest is Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, who is the author of a new book, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons. Braut-Hegghammer is an associate professor of political science at the University of Oslo. "The main ambition [of my book] is really to tell a history of these nuclear weapons programs and set them in the context of these regimes. One of my frustrations has been that many have discounted and suggested that the program wasn't successful— and that more broadly that authoritarian leaders will inevitably fail in their efforts to pursue nuclear weapons. Now, with North Korea, we can we can see that that doesn't seem right." "The Iraqi program was actually on the threshold of success in 1991, when the Gulf War interrupted the program. Whereas the Libyan program dwindled down until 2003, without ever coming close to any kind of success and breakthrough," Braut-Hegghammer says. "These are very different outcomes even though neither country ended up with nuclear weapon

Carter Malkasian speaks about the recent history of conflict in Iraq and how it it laid the foundation for the Islamic State to flourish. His new book is Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State. "The question confronting every tribal leader in Anbar was: 'How do I stand up against the Islamic state if that means siding with the government— and siding against Islam?'" Malkasian also speaks about the way the military action has changed— and what lessons we should take from Iraq. "I think if you talk to generals in the military today, you would get a much greater degree of skepticism about what one can attain. There is more worry about, 'If we're doing here is going to last? Can there be success?' I think you have much more skepticism of, 'You can have complete victory.'" "I think this should give us pause for thinking about future interventions. So we're going into an intervention. We should be thinking, 'Well, if we're going to be putting troops there, we're going to have

"The fact that Qatar is, after all, a tiny state— but clearly with a lot of leverage that can amplify their message." Kristian Coates Ulrichsen speaks about the crisis within the GCC with Marc Lynch in our first POMEPS podcast in the launch of our fall season. Ulrichsen is a fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston. His latest book is The United Arab Emirates: Power, Politics and Policy-Making. Ulrichsen explains this summer's diplomatic showdown in historical context. "We've been here before. Like many other people, I was taken quite by surprise when this whole crisis erupted again. I had thought that the Qatari decision in September 2015 to send a thousand troops to Yemen signified the return of Qatar to the GCC fold."

Caitlin Talmadge talks about her her book 'The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes.' Her book works to explain why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well―and the opposite. Talmadge is an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. "In my book, I present a different argument noting that we really have to look— not only at regimes military capabilities an external threats that it faces— but we have to look at the internal threats that may be facing a particular regime. In particular, in situations where authoritarian regimes consider their own military perhaps to be a liability because the military actually has the ability to overthrow the regime in a coup." In the podcast, Talmadge goes into detail on the dynamics of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and what it says about each country's governments.

Neil Ketchley speaks about his new book Egypt in a Time of Revolution: Contentious Politics and the Arab Spring. Ketchley is a Lecturer in Middle East Politics, King's College London. "The book really tries to make a contribution by drawing on a range of new and unique data sources and methods— from analyzing video footage of crowd dynamics at Tahrir, police radio transcripts from the formative early days of the mobilization, to event data from Arabic-language newspapers. In terms of the kind of a conceptual contribution, the argument is really geared around an assumption and belief: that the dynamics of street level mobilization— and contentious politics more generally— are really formative in their own right. The book argues that the ways in which Egyptians banded together and ousted Mubarak were not some kind of manifestations of cheering grievances, but also powerfully constituted the postman-Mubarak process." "And if you want to understand the kind of key questions and episodes, you really have to take

How did the idea of a unified global Muslim community come about? That's the question Cemil Aydin and Marc Lynch tackle in this week's podcast. Aydin's new book explores the how the world's 1.5 billion Muslims have become seen as a single religious/political bloc. "In many ways, I wanted to engage with the contemporary discussions of Muslim unity, Muslim solidarity or Muslim exceptionalism by going back to the last 200 years to try to understand the genealogy and the roots of the idea of Muslims constituting a global community and a shared political project," says Aydin, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his book, Aydin makes the argument that up until the 19th century, there really was no Muslim world. "That doesn't mean there were many different Muslims in different parts of the world. They have always had different global or regional imaginations— but it doesn't match with our current conceptions of a Muslim world extending from Senegal or Morocco to

Protest, Democracy, & Violence in the New Middle East: Conversation with Steven Cook (S. 5, Ep. 37) by Marc Lynch

Iran holds presidential elections later this week, and Marc Lynch talks with M. Ali Kadivar about what to expect. Kadivar is a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute. "Ahmadinejad's era was significant for several reasons, but one reason was that the process started to replace the old guard of the Islamic Republic with a new set of elites," said Kadivar. "I think Rouhani represents the different strands: one is the old guard again, being back and exerting control. The other is the social support that Rouhani has. A lot of the reformist people who ruled for democratic change now see Rouhani as the most viable candidate that can push forward their agenda." "An interesting thing about the conservative candidates is that you see the conservative discourse is very weak in their electoral platforms. They don't talk about Islamic values or the Western invasion the culture of Iran. Most of what they're talking is the economic promises," said Kadivar. "In a way, I can see this election as kind of

On this week's POMEPS podcast, Marc Lynch talks with Peter Krause, an assistant professor at Boston College. Krause's new book, Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win, focuses on the internal balance of power among nationalist groups, who cooperate with each other to establish a new state while simultaneously competing to lead it. "The book itself answers several questions to people who study national movements, nationalism, or political violence. The first question is why some nations get states and others don't," said Krause. "These groups simultaneously have, what I call, organizational goals— which is, they want to have power. They want to have power and notoriety. They want to survive. They want to increase their membership. At the same time they have these strategic goals of statehood or independence. From the work I've done, it's clear to me that groups and individuals in them care about both of these objectives," said Krause. "My argument is simply that: most of the time you ne

Nadia Marzouki explores how the topic of Islam has become so contentious in America. Marzouki says her research showed her that controversies around Muslims living in America don't just express Islamophobia. "They betray and express a deeper discomfort and unease with an understanding of law, an understanding of rights, and an understanding of equal democracy. This is really what's at stake in the conversations among the disputes around mosques, Sharia law, and also— in a more minor way— the headscarf... or various forms of religious rituals related to the Islamic communities." As an observer from Europe, Marzouki says, "It was really surprising to see how similar all the rhetorical tropes animating anti-Muslim movements were similar in Europe and the United States. This was all the more surprising because all the sociologies of Islam in Europe and United States. You don't have the same Muslim communities. They don't come from the same ethnic backgrounds. They don't have the same socio-economic level. They

Lisel Hintz speaks about what lead to and the significance of this weekend's constitutional referendum in Turkey. "The question: is how long will [Erdogan] stay in power? Right now, this could leave him in power up until 2029— possibly even longer, depending on some certain circumstances. We suspect that he's probably grooming you know his son-in-law, who's currently a minister, to to take his place. Will he be willing to give up those reins? We've seen successive purges of his own party from those who don't agree with him. It is important to go back and understand the AKP's trajectory, which was that not everyone agreed with Erdogan," said Hintz. "It's going to be fascinating to see— both from institutional and from a personal perspective— how Erdogan plans to continue this, particularly given that Turkey— from an economic standpoint— is in a very fragile state." "From an identity politics perspective— and also just sort of an institutional party politics perspective as well— not a whole lot has changed."

"One of the most interesting puzzles to emerge out of contentious Islamist movements is the fact that these movements are not united," says Mohammed M. Hafez on this week's POMEPS Conversations podcast. "The common finding today is that— in civil wars, insurgencies, and civil conflicts in general— these movements are fragmented, they're competitive, and sometimes they're fratricidal. Hafez talks about these fratricidal movements globally and throughout the Middle East region. Hafez is an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Hafez focuses on Islamic fundamentalism, radicalization and counter-radicalization.

On this week's POMEPS podcast, Marc Lynch speaks with Ora Szekely, an assistant professor of political science at Clark University. Szekely's recent book, The Politics of Militant Group Survival in the Middle East, compares the performances of four key non-state actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict ecosystem: the PLO, Hamas, Hizbullah, and Amal. "Why is it that you can have two militant groups— fighting against the same adversaries, same territory— and yet you get these really different outcomes?" said Szekely. "The answer to that—or at least the answer we see embedded in a lot of reporting on the Middle East or on non-state actors in general is...this sort of implicit assumption that how well these guys do is basically a function of how much material resources they have. But when you look a little bit more closely, it turns out that even groups that have pretty similar amounts of equipment can have really different outcomes. What I found is that it's not so much the stuff— it's how you got it in the first pl

Lihi Ben Shitrit speaks about her new book, Righteous Transgressions: Women's Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right. Shitrit is an assistant professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, Athens. "The book is a comparative study of women's activism in the Israeli and Palestinian right, but specifically four groups: the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, the Islamist movement in Israel, and the Palestinian Hamas," said Shitrit. "What motivated me to do this was the fact that you can still pick up a book on any of these movements and not find any women mentioned— not by name, not even by subject, not even the category of women. As if women are not important to the politics of these movements. And for me that was a glaring gap because we know women support these movements." "One thing that I found was that women in these movements think that they're not recognized enough in terms of the general public— the media and academi

"The IRGC's powers are often exaggerated.... but on the flipside of that, I think it's also often dismissed— where particularly from the U.S. perspective, they see the IRGC as a convenient foil. How do we how do we make the case against Iran? We use the IRGC and all of its nefarious activities as an excuse," Afshon Ostovar said. "You see this in Yemen in particular, where there's countless articles that come out that say the IRGC is not important in Yemen... This sort of thing I think is also missing the point" "It's hard to get them right, but it's easier to sort of exaggerate or minimize their influence." Ostovar is an Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. His recent book, Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards examines the rise of Iran’s most powerful armed force—the IRGC—and its role in power politics, regional conflicts, and political violence. "I see the IRGC as being much not just devoted to [Ali] Khamenei, but being

"I think the most important change [in Syria] was a stepping back by the United States," said Phillips. "You get a desire by all passing opportunities being seen by other emerging regional powers: notably, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia in opposition to the rise of Iran. They all want to take advantage, or to push their own agendas more. as the U.S. seems to step back. Because they have a particular interest in Syria, Syria ends up pretty early on a battle ground for these regional rivalries. One thing that really struck me doing this research was going right back to the summer of 2011, after the Arab Spring begins to settle down a little bit— and Syria continues to escalate into conflict. Most of these regional actors are looking at Syria, not with Islam, but as an opportunity. And I would argue that they are on their own way pouring fuel onto the fire of the conflict, rather than to sort of try to deescalate. I think that's a major reason why you see a rush to arms answer." On this week's podcast, Marc Ly

Colin Kahl speaks with Marc Lynch about U.S. foreign policy during the Obama administration. Kahl is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. On Iran, Kahl spoke about the strategy behind the JCPOA. "I can't think of an actual bonafide Iran expert on on planet Earth that believed that you were going to resolve this problem without giving the regime some face-saving way out on enrichment. And that was, I think, an inflection point in the decision of the Obama administration, which was ultimately not to drive the program to zero— not because we wouldn't prefer a world in which every nut and bolt of Natanz and Fordow enrichment facility was dismantled— but because that's a perfect world that perfect scenario was impossible to achieve. No matter how much pressure you were going to you were going to put