Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Aslı Bâli

Aslı Bâli is assistant professor of law at the UCLA School of Law.

Generational Dislocation and Academic Solidarity—Aslı Bâli on MESA’s Global Academy — Academics lay down their gowns during a protest against the dismissal of colleagues from universities following a post-coup emergency decree, in the Cebeci campus of Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey, 2017. Umit Bektas/Reuters

MER Article

Generational Dislocation and Academic Solidarity—Aslı Bâli on MESA’s Global Academy

The last ten years have seen a precipitous decline in conditions for academics across the Middle East. With campuses under literal fire in some places and extraordinary repression and authoritarian crackdowns in others, research, writing and teaching have become nearly impossible in many places.

Aslı Bâli, Arang Keshavarzian • 13 min read

MER Article

Turkey’s Constitutional Coup

Turkey has undergone a dizzying array of crises over the last five years. Beginning with the repressive crackdown against the Gezi Protests during the summer of 2013, the country has gone from being cited as a model Muslim democracy to taking pride of place on the growing worldwide list of democrati

Aslı Bâli • 19 min read

MER Article

How Lebanon Has Weathered the Storm

One would imagine that, of all the countries in the Middle East, Lebanon would be among the hardest hit by the global financial crisis. Famous for its weak central state and ferociously capitalist private sector, Lebanon has the closest thing to a free market in the region. It has a dollar-based eco

Nisreen Salti, Aslı Bâli • 9 min read

MER Article

International Law at the Vanishing Point

In the summer of 2006, two border incidents were invoked by Israel, with strong US diplomatic support and material assistance, to justify a prolonged military offensive in Gaza and a crushing “shock and awe” assault on Lebanon. The main international response, effectively orchestrated by Washington,

Richard Falk, Aslı Bâli • 23 min read

MER Article

The US and the Iranian Nuclear Impasse

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) underwent its most recent five-year review in May 2005. There were numerous proposals on the table for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime. None were adopted. Perhaps even more puzzlingly, in an age when the White House repeatedly invokes the

Aslı Bâli • 31 min read