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366 results in Middle East government, politics and policy

Page 1 of 19

The Rise and Fall of Tunisian Democracy
  • Populism, Polarization, and the Perils of Power-Sharing
  • Sharan Grewal
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026

Salafism in Tunisia
  • Political Engagement and the Advent of Post-Salafism
  • Théo Blanc
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026
  • By offering a comparative analysis of Salafi movements in Tunisia, Théo Blanc advances a systematic theory explaining variation in Salafi pathways of political engagement, built around the concepts of subjective and processual opportunities. The book first explores how Salafism developed in the country and crystallised into distinct currents – scholastic, political, and Jihadi – and then examines their respective adaptations to the 2010–11 revolution and evolutions during the democratisation decade (2011–21). This evolution culminated in what Blanc calls a shift towards post-Salafism, defined as a re-hierarchisation of actors' priorities in action. Blanc draws on rich fieldwork material, including interviews with the founding figures of Salafism in Tunisia, leading Salafi clerics and ideologues, and Salafi and Islamist party leaders, alongside original documentary sources. In doing so, Salafism in Tunisia makes a significant contribution to key debates in political science and Islamic studies, including inclusion-moderation, post-Islamism, political opportunity structure, politicisation, and the conceptualisation of both Salafism and Islamism.

International Relations of the Middle East
  • Theories and Case Studies
  • Edited by May Darwich, Adham Saouli
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026

Higher Education in the Arab Region
  • Resilience, Rebuilding, and Recovery
  • Sansom Milton
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • The Arab region has suffered over a decade of extreme conflict, with significant repercussions for the development of higher education in conflict-affected countries. Yet higher education remains marginal to recovery debates in the region. This book addresses this gap through comparative analysis of five war-affected contexts: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza. Based on extensive fieldwork and sustained policy engagement, it reveals how universities have endured protracted conflict, adapted under extreme constraints, and participated in reconstruction efforts-often with minimal external support. Challenging dominant approaches to post-conflict intervention, it foregrounds local agency, institutional adaptation, and nationally driven processes. It also documents the shift toward recognizing higher education as both a humanitarian concern and a developmental priority. This is the first study to position universities at the center of recovery discourse in conflict-affected Arab states. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

Professional Palestinian Women in Israel
  • Diversity and Racism in the Workplace
  • Amalia Sa'ar, Hawazin Younis
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • Examining the growing numbers of Palestinian women working in Israel as doctors, lawyers, and high-tech engineers, this study documents their efforts to forge successful feminine subjectivities along the fault lines of neoliberal diversity. Through a wide array of interviews, Amalia Sa'ar and Hawazin Younis explore the experiences of women through periods of relative political stability and during war. The book considers their changing attitudes towards success and prestige and their navigation of tensions and conflicting expectations. Additionally, Sa'ar and Younis examine the paradoxical adaptation of neoliberal diversity within Israel's system of racial exclusion and the devastating effects of war on these already precarious mechanisms of inclusion. Finally, this study introduces the concepts of multiple cultural competence and critical cultural competence, highlighting minority women's unique contributions and shifting the burden of inclusion from minorities to the majority.

Insurgent Witness
  • Archetypes of Action in Revolutionary Iran
  • Arash Davari
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • How do we describe the collective identity of people who make a popular revolution? Notwithstanding marked differences, most accounts understand revolutionary collectives as partisan and relegate spectators to irrelevance-or, worse, to the ignominy of cowards and traitors. Revisiting histories of the 1979 revolution in Iran, Arash Davari explores how millions of people defied expectations and joined popular assemblies to demand the fall of the Pahlavi regime. Through the lens of recent global social movements, Insurgent Witness presents an archetype of collective identity as partisan and spectator at once. Combining novel findings with a fresh methodological approach to previously considered collections, this book presents a distinct concept of revolutionary subjectivity-one that describes the terms of mass revolt in Iran and at the same time challenges prevailing assumptions about social change and popular sovereignty in contemporary political thought.

The Ideology of ISIS and the Roots of Terrorism
  • Asaad Alsaleh
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2026
  • In this groundbreaking study, Asaad Alsaleh reveals how ISIS weaponized Islamic texts to transform Islamic theology into a tool of ideological violence. Drawing on close readings of Arabic primary sources, he explores the historic notion of takfir – excommunication -- from the 'apostasy wars' that followed Prophet Muhammad's death through modern jihadist movements. Alsaleh demonstrates how political authorities systematically exploited excommunication to eliminate perceived threats throughout Muslim history. He also examines the theological mechanisms through which the group legitimizes violence. Combining theological, historical, and ideological analysis, Alsaleh argues that ISIS pursues a utopian project based on man-made ideology rather than divine revelation, thus distinguishing authentic Islam (rooted in the Qur'an and authenticated Prophetic hadith) from human interpretations that have been tragically conflated with the religion itself. Alsaleh concludes with suggestions as to how to solve the problems that ideology poses, emphasizing that clear efforts must be made to disentangle ideology from religion.

Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  • A Critical Study of Peace Negotiations, Mediation and Facilitation Between Israel and the PLO
  • Raphael Cohen-Almagor
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2026
    Print publication:
    31 August 2026
  • Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is aimed at politicians, diplomats, policymakers, scholars, journalists, and informed readers seeking to understand why peace efforts have repeatedly failed-and how true reconciliation remains possible. Based on over one hundred interviews with Middle-Eastern, European, and American leaders, alongside extensive archival research, the book offers rare insight into the dynamics of diplomacy. It reveals how trust, fairness, and political courage are vital for peace. By analysing pivotal moments-from Oslo to Camp David and the Abbas-Olmert talks, it identifies recurring mistakes and proposes strategies to foster mutual recognition and lasting coexistence. Both authoritative and accessible, the book blends history, law, ethics, and international relations into a practical roadmap for future peace efforts. Its interdisciplinary approach and use of primary sources make it both authoritative and engaging. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the conflict and the tools needed to help resolve it.

Incomplete Constitutions and Coordination in Deeply Divided Societies
  • The Afghan Experiment
  • Shamshad Pasarlay
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2026
    Print publication:
    31 August 2026
  • Why are some deeply divided societies able to craft stable constitutional regimes while others have failed and continue to be mired in endless communal conflict? This puzzle constitutes the central question this book seeks to address. This book is directed at scholars who wish to understand the riddles of constitutional performance in deeply divided societies, and those who are interested in understanding Afghanistan's troubled constitutional history. By providing the most comprehensive account of the drafting and performance of Afghanistan's 2004 constitution, the book is aimed at scholars who want to understand the nuances of the process that produced the Constitution and evaluate its performance with fresh eyes. The world is full of divided, post-conflict societies which continue to witness tragic violent conflicts. This book is thus a valuable resource for policy makers who are currently grappling with how to approach thorny problems of constitutional design and nation-building in these societies.

Jihadist Peace
  • Ending Islamist Civil Wars
  • Desirée Nilsson, Isak Svensson
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2026
    Print publication:
    31 July 2026
  • Islamist civil wars pose a major challenge to peace and security around the world. Written by two leading scholars of conflict resolution, Jihadist Peace: Ending Islamist Civil Wars offers a groundbreaking analysis of why these conflicts are among the most difficult to end, and what can be done about it. The book makes a theoretical contribution by explaining their intractability, arguing that the transnational ideological framing of Islamist civil wars increases uncertainty about the capabilities and resolve of the warring parties. Drawing on conflict resolution theory, rigorous statistical analysis, and detailed case studies of Afghanistan, Mauritania, Mali, and Syria, the authors explore the conditions under which these wars can both come to an end and be resolved. They argue that the local dimension is key: by disentangling both rebel and government actors from broader networks, Jihadist Peace charts a path toward resolving some of the world's most intractable civil wars.

States Under Stress
  • Explaining Resilience in the Middle East
  • Eberhard Kienle
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026
  • Unlike conventional narratives of 'state failure' and its conceptual avatars, the volume analyses the remains of states whose populations had been torn apart by prolonged and violent conflicts and whose rulers lost the monopoly over the means of coercion and the capacity to implement public policies. Focusing on Lebanon since the civil war of the 1970s and 80s, Syria since the repression of the 'Arab spring' in 2011, and Iraq since the 1991 and 2003 wars, it provides a systematic explanation of the continuous, if precarious, survival of these states which draws on international recognition, access to resources, institutional arrangements, and societal ties alongside societal cleavages. In the process, States under Stress defends a definition of the state based on claims to statehood.

Speaking Freedom
  • The Tunisian Public Sphere between Revolution and Democracy
  • Charis Boutieri
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026
  • What can a North African country teach us about democracy in crisis? Taking readers inside a ground-up reading of the Tunisian Revolution, this study reveals how ordinary people reshaped political life and why their experience matters far beyond Tunisia's borders. By looking closely at this understudied case, Charis Boutieri challenges familiar ideas about what revolutions are, how democracy works, and the dynamic relationship between the two. Speaking Freedom offers a vivid and accessible way to rethink political change in our own time, and provides not only a powerful narrative but also a systematic framework for reimagining how to support democratic participation. At a moment when democracy is faltering worldwide, this book argues that the Tunisian experience holds urgent lessons, showing that even in times of crisis, people can reinvent the public sphere and reimagine political possibility.

Gender and the Global Climate Crisis
  • Women's Voices, Representation and Activism in the Middle East and North Africa
  • Lise Storm
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2026
    Print publication:
    11 June 2026
  • There is overwhelming evidence that the impacts of climate change are gender-differentiated and that women are the most negatively affected. Drawing on interviews with nearly 100 female activists and politicians from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine, Lise Storm explores the implications of unequal female political representation for the climate crisis. Storm considers the voices of the women who are, or have been, involved in politics at the highest level. These women have experience with running for election, gender quotas, party politics, portfolio allocation, policymaking, agenda setting and other such political dynamics and processes relating to power. This book sheds light on women's agency in climate debates and the impacts of the dynamics surrounding political representation. It adds new perspectives to the backgrounds of female MPs and activists and the drivers of their success – factors which influence how the global climate crisis is tackled locally in the region.

European Shiʿism
  • Peripheral Engagement and Religious Retention
  • Matthijs van den Bos
  • Published online:
    07 May 2026
    Print publication:
    11 June 2026
  • The presence of Shiʿite communities in Western Europe dates to the late nineteenth century, with Britain as the primary destination for immigration, as well as notable communities developing in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Exploring selected encounters of Twelver Shiʿite Muslims with the European West, this study examines local and transnational religious organization to assess socio-political integration. Its central thesis defines European Shiʿism through peripheral engagement and religious retention. Building on a range of language sources, interviews with Shiʿite spokesmen and fieldwork in Iran, Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany, Matthijs van den Bos identifies European Shiʿism with a religious mode of engagement involving hierarchization of collective self and other identities. Shiʿite parties with greater distance to high politico-religious authorities abroad are seen more likely to engage in cultural exchange with their European milieu. On one side stand ethnically varied Shiʿite organizations with limited engagement of others in Europe. The other shows civic outreach, ritual transformation, and integrationist theology.

An Introduction to Gulf Politics
  • Edited by Khalid Almezaini, Kristian Alexander
  • Published online:
    30 April 2026
    Print publication:
    14 May 2026
  • The Gulf region is a distinct sub-system of the wider Middle East, including the resource-rich states of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Iran, and commands enduring relevance within the international system. This is the first textbook to provide a focused, comprehensive introduction to Gulf politics, specifically tailored for undergraduate students and newcomers to the subject. It explores the region's political landscape, covering key topics such as state formation, oil and rentierism, regime types, religion and politics, foreign policy and migration. Blending historical context with contemporary analysis, chapters by leading scholars examine the role of oil wealth, tribal structures, regional integration and merchant elites in state-building, as well as the region's strategic importance in global politics. An ideal core text for university courses on the Gulf and GCC, An Introduction to Gulf Politics is essential for understanding the complexities of power, governance and influence in one of the world's most dynamic regions.

Constructing the Achievement State
  • Cultural Administration in Postrevolutionary Egypt
  • Chihab El Khachab
  • Published online:
    05 March 2026
    Print publication:
    09 April 2026
  • After the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian state became an ideological project promoted by national cultural and media institutions. Focusing particularly on the years under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954–1970), Chihab El Khachab uses official written and visual sources produced by different governmental departments to show how low- and mid-ranking bureaucrats represented and embodied the Egyptian state through a praxis of 'achievement' (ingāz, pl. ingazāt). This study demonstrates how a successful anti-colonial nationalist movement built its own state apparatus. El Khachab argues that the state's 'achievements' are neither the tangible outcome of governmental work nor the self-evident metrics needed to evaluate national progress, but an ideological category deployed by bureaucrats. Conceiving achievements in this way allows us to understand how everyday bureaucratic work represents and embodies 'the state', and why this idea remains an important force in contemporary Egypt.

State Matters
  • Theorizing State Fragmentation and Consolidation from Iraq
  • Nida Alahmad
  • Published online:
    26 February 2026
    Print publication:
    19 March 2026
  • Why does the state matter to its people? How do people know and experience the state? And how did the state come to be both desired and dreaded by its subjects? This study offers a historically grounded social theoretical account of state consolidation in Iraq, from the foundation of the country as a League of Nations British Mandate in 1921 through to the post-2003 era. Through analysis of key historical episodes of state consolidation (and fragmentation) during the past century, Nida Alahmad argues that consolidation rests on two sequential and interdependent factors. First, domination: the state's capacity to dominate land and population. Second, legitimation: whereby the state is accepted and expected by the population to be the final arbitrator of collective life based on common principles. Moving between intellectual traditions and disciplines, Alahmad demonstrates that a theorization of state consolidation is a theorization of the modern state.

Monarchies of Extraction
  • The Gulf States in the Global Food System
  • Christian Henderson
  • Published online:
    26 February 2026
    Print publication:
    19 March 2026
  • In a region known for its export of oil, Monarchies of Extraction explores how the Gulf states are simultaneously defined by the importation of food. Charting the economics and politics of the Gulf through an examination of its food system, Christian Henderson demonstrates how these states constitute a distinct social metabolism. Starting with the pre-oil phase, this book examines the politics of agrarian change in the Gulf. In the contemporary period, Henderson considers the way that the Gulf states represent 'inverted farms', where the import of prodigious quantities of agricultural commodities has enabled these economies to overcome their lack of arable land. As a result of this trade, states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have developed their own agribusiness sectors. Henderson further shows how food and consumption in the Gulf states constitute political questions of diet, sustainability, and boycott.

Syrian Intellectuals in Exile
  • The Dilemmas of Revolution and the Cost of Leaving
  • Zeina Al Azmeh
  • Published online:
    20 February 2026
    Print publication:
    19 March 2026
  • In the wake of the 2011 uprising in Syria, a number of Syrian intellectuals were forced into exile. Many of these intellectuals played a crucial role in mobilising people in the early days of the movement, but once in exile an irreconcilable tension emerged between their revolutionary narratives and the violent reality on the ground. Zeina Al Azmeh explores this tension, shedding light on whether and how exile influenced narratives, strategies, and political agency. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Paris and Berlin, Al Azmeh examines how writers and artists work to reconcile revolutionary ideals with the realities of war and displacement. Bringing together insights from cultural sociology, postcolonial thought, and migration studies, Syrian Intellectuals in Exile provides new analytical tools for understanding the intersection of intellectual work and social movements. This study blends empirical research with personal narratives, offering a timely reflection on exile, memory, and the limits of intellectual activism.

Diasporic State-Building
  • Transnational Networks and the Making of Post-2003 Iraq
  • Oula Kadhum
  • Published online:
    25 November 2025
    Print publication:
    18 December 2025
  • The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 brought exiles of Hussein's tyrannical reign flooding back to their native land, bringing with them the flavours and customs from adopted homes and with it sweeping, transnational power. 'Handing over power to the Iraqis' meant handing over power to the country's most elite transplants. Meanwhile, transnational diasporic activism and networks have simultaneously challenged state policies, buttressing the state apparatus through welfare provision and solidarity networks. How did the Iraqi diaspora achieve such a powerful position and shape the Iraqi state in 2003? What kind of state did they build? And what lessons can be learnt from the Iraqi diaspora for understanding Iraqi nationhood and statehood today? This study explores these questions, drawing on interviews with a wide range of actors to offer a pertinent insight into the critical role of diaspora in shaping the evolution of homeland states under modern processes of globalisation.

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