Pomeps Conversations

POMEPS 12th Annual Conference Part 2 (S. 10, Ep. 24) by Marc Lynch

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 st

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

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

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 an

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.

Emy Matesan of Wesleyan University talks about her latest book, The Violence Pendulum: Tactical Change in Islamist Groups in Egypt and Indonesia, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. In the book, she argues that Islamist groups alter their tactics in response to the perceived need for activism, shifts in the cost of violent versus nonviolent resistance, and internal or external pressures on the organization. (Starts at 31:05). Giulia Cimini of University of Bologna speaks about her new article entitled, "Learning mechanisms within an Islamist party: Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement between domestic and regional balances," published in Contemporary Politics. (Starts at 0:50). Jana Belschner of University of Bergen discusses her new article, "Electoral Engineering in New Democracies: Strong Quotas and Weak Parties in Tunisia," published in Government and Opposition, an International Journal of Comparative Politics. (Starts at 15:11). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more o

Somdeep Sen of Roskilde University talks about his latest book, Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book considers the case of the Palestinian struggle for liberation from its settler colonial condition as a complex psychological and empirical mix of the colonial and the postcolonial. (Starts at 27:13). Lisel Hintz of Johns Hopkins University discusses her new article, "The empire’s opposition strikes back: popular culture as creative resistance tool under Turkey’s AKP," published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. (Starts at 0:54). Also, Michaelle Browers joins the podcast to discuss her article "Beginnings, Continuities and Revivals: An Inventory of the New Arab Left and an Ongoing Arab Left Tradition," published in Middle East Critique. (Starts at 14:50). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page. You can listen to this w

Justin Schon of the University of Virginia talks about his latest book, Surviving the War in Syria: Survival Strategies in a Time of Conflict, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. In the book, he emphasizes that civilian behavior in conflict zones includes repertoires of survival strategies, instead of migration alone; he utilizes a microanalysis of civilian self-protection strategies during armed conflict in Syria. (Starts at 32:01). Tarek Masoud of the Harvard Kennedy School and the Director of the Middle East Initiative speaks about his new article entitled, "The Arab Spring at 10: Kings or People?," published in the Journal of Democracy. (Starts at 1:03). Justin Gengler of Qatar University discusses his new article (co-authored with Mark Tessler of University of Michigan, Russell Lucas of Michigan State University and Jonathan Forney of the George Washington University), "Why Do You Ask?’ The Nature and Impacts of Attitudes towards Public Opinion Surveys in the Arab World," published in the British Jou

Marc Owen Jones of Hamad bin Khalifa University talks about his latest book, Political Repression in Bahrain, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book explores Bahrain's modern history through the lens of repression, and spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, looking at all forms of political repression from legal, statecraft, police brutality and informational controls. (Starts at 26:28). Drew Kinney of Tulane University discusses his article, "Sharing Saddles: Oligarchs and Officers on Horseback in Egypt and Tunisia," published in International Studies Quarterly. (Starts at 0:47). Chad Raymond of Salve Regina University talks about his article, "Old Wine in a New Bottle: How to Teach the Comparative Politics of the Middle East with Fiction," published in the Journal of Political Science Education. (Starts at 14:36) Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Devorah Manekin of Hebrew University of Jerusalem talks about her latest book, Regular Soldiers, Irregular War: Violence and Restraint in the Second Intifada, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book presents a theoretical framework for understanding the various forms of behavior in which soldiers engage during counterinsurgency campaigns—compliance and shirking, abuse and restraint, as well as the creation of new violent practices. (Starts at 32:41). Jeannie Sowers of University of Hampshire and Erika Weinthal of Duke University speak about their new article entitled, "Humanitarian challenges and the targeting of civilian infrastructure in the Yemen war," published in International Affairs. (Starts at 0:54). Joshua Freedman of Oberlin College discusses his new article, "The Recognition Dilemma: Negotiating Identity in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," published in International Studies Quarterly. (Starts at 18:17). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of hi

Dara Conduit of Deakin University talks about her book, The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book explores the Muslim Brotherhood's history to understand why it failed to capitalize on its advantage as the most prominent opposition group in Syria as the conflict unfolded, addressing significant gaps in accounts of the group's past to assess whether its reputation for violence and dogmatism is justified. (Starts at 29:05). Marwa Shalaby of the University of Wisconsin joins to talk about her article, "Women in Legislative Committees in Arab Parliaments" (co-authored by Leila Elimam), published in Comparative Politics. (Starts at 0:47). Bozena Welborne of Smith College discusses her article, "On Their Own? Women Running as Independent Candidates in the Middle East," published in Middle East Law and Governance. (Starts at 15:35).  Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.

Robert Springborg of the Naval Postgraduate School talks about his latest book, Political Economies of the Middle East and North Africa, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. In the book, he discusses the economic future of the [MENA] region by examining the national and regional political causes of its contemporary underperformance.  (Starts at 37:19). May Darwich of the University of Birmingham, Waleed Hazbun of University of Alabama, Adham Saouli of University of St. Andrews, and Karim Makdisi of the American University of Beirut speak about their new collection of essays entitled, "The Politics of Teaching International Relations in the Arab World: Reading Walt in Beirut, Wendt in Doha, and Abul-Fadl in Cairo," published in International Studies Perspectives. The collection also includes pieces by Morten Valbjorn of Aarhus University, Bassel Salloukh of the Lebanese American University, Amira Abu Samra of Cairo University, Said Saddiki of University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah, and Hamad Albloshi of K

Avital Livny of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne talks about her latest book, Trust and the Islamic Advantage: Religious-Based Movements in Turkey and the Muslim World, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast.  The book shows that the Islamic advantage is rooted in feelings of trust among individuals with a shared, religious group-identity, and presents a new argument for conceptualizing religion as both a personal belief system and collective identity. (Starts at 27:01). Ala' Alrababa'h discusses the article, Attitudes Toward Migrants in a Highly Impacted Economy: Evidence From the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan (co-authored by Andrea Dillon, Scott Williamson, Jens Hainmueller, Dominik Hangartner, Jeremy M. Weinstein) published in Comparative Political Studies. (Starts at 0:58). Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl of Leiden University talks about his article, On-Side fighting in civil war: The logic of mortal alignment in Syria, published in the Rationality and Society journal. (Starts at 12:58). Music for

Glenn Robinson of the Naval Postgraduate School talks about his latest book, Global Jihad: A Brief History, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book tells the story of four distinct jihadi waves, each with its own program for achieving a global end: whether a Jihadi International to liberate Muslim lands from foreign occupation; al-Qa'ida's call to drive the United States out of the Muslim world; ISIS using "jihadi cool" to recruit followers; or leaderless efforts of stochastic terror to "keep the dream alive." (Starts at 24:22). Dina Bishara of Cornell University discusses her new article, "Precarious Collective Action: Unemployed Graduates Associations in the Middle East and North Africa." (Starts at 0:50). Sarah Parkinson of Johns Hopkins University talks about "Practical Ideology in Militant Organizations." (Starts at 10:17). Music for this season's podcast was created by Feras Arrabi. You can find more of his work on his Facebook and Instagram page.