Istanbul elections Current Analysis Autopsy of Erdoǧan’s Istanbul Defeat Turkey's authoritarian President Erdoǧan’s attempt to manipulate Istanbul's recent mayoral election led to a humiliating defeat. Despite the tight grip Erdoǧan and the AKP appear to have over Turkish politics, Turkey's population is much more fractious and agitated by the regime than previously kno Steve Niva • 14 min read
Primers Behind the Drive to War in Iraq: A Backgrounder on the Crisis Answers to the major questions swirling around the Iraq crisis of 2002. Steve Niva • 1 min read
Current Analysis Turkish Voters Upset Erdoǧan’s Competitive Authoritarianism Turkish voters sent a strong message to its long-standing ruling party and its leader on March 31, 2019 that the government’s authoritarian turn has not fully succeeded. In nationwide municipal elections, for the first time in a quarter century, the political movement largely associated with Turkey’ Steve Niva • 13 min read
MER Article Drawing the Wrong Lessons from Israel's 2006 War For many military critics of COIN, the future of war is not to be found in the steamy jungles of Vietnam but rather on the rocky hillsides of southern Lebanon, where Israel was fought to a standstill by the guerrilla army of Hizballah in the summer of 2006. Israel possesses one of the world’s most p Steve Niva • 11 min read
MER Article Alternatives to Neoliberalism A growing network of labor and human rights activists, women’s and indigenous people’s groups and grassroots movements is shaping a transnational consensus on global economic reform that challenges the ideological and programmatic triumph of neoliberalism over the last two decades. These activists r Steve Niva • 3 min read
MER Article Reform or Reaction? This issue of Middle East Report presents critical -- and timely -- analysis of the impact of neoliberal economic policies in the Middle East and North Africa. Authors representing a variety of disciplines and viewpoints explore the dilemmas confronting progressive forces searching for alternative p Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Marsha Pripstein Posusney, Karen Pfeifer, Steve Niva • 4 min read
MER Article Between Clash and Cooptation As the specter of Communism has receded with the end of the Cold War, few international developments have generated more anxiety in US public imagination than the perceived threat of "Islamic fundamentalism" in the Middle East and elsewhere. Samuel Huntington’s warning of a coming “clash of civilizations” Steve Niva • 12 min read
MER Article Countering Israel's Fiftieth on the Internet The struggle over the historical record and popular memory of 1948 has reached the Internet. A number of websites and posted materials devoted to the Palestinian experience in 1948 known as the nakba (national catastrophe) offer a wealth of information to counter the virtual media silence about the Steve Niva • 1 min read
MER Article (Re)Made in the USA Over the last two decades, a number of presidents of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) have used their platform at annual meetings to express concern about decline in the field. [1] One is reminded of the Ottomans who, according to many (now discredited) accounts, were also in perpetual dec Lisa Hajjar, Steve Niva • 21 min read
