MER Article Poverty Mapping At the spring 2013 meetings, World Bank President Jim Young Kim set 2030 as the target date for eradicating extreme poverty, defined as subsistence on less than $1.25 per day, across the globe. In line with this goal, the United Nations created a New Global Partnership to lift the 1.2 billion poores Mona Atia • 6 min read
MER Article Small Farmer Uprisings and Rural Neglect in Egypt and Tunisia “We should make it up to the peasants,” Muhsin al-Batran, erstwhile head of the economic affairs unit in Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture, told the official daily al-Ahram two months after the toppling of Husni Mubarak in 2011. “Make it up” -- why? And what is it that needs to be made up? Habib Ayeb, Ray Bush • 14 min read
MER Article Bush and Ayeb, Marginality and Exclusion in Egypt Ray Bush and Habib Ayeb, eds. Marginality and Exclusion in Egypt (London: Zed Books, 2012). Marginality and Exclusion in Egypt is an insightful volume addressing the various forms of inequality that plague Egyptian society, with particular focus on the poor and working classes. With few exceptions, Mona Atia • 2 min read
Current Analysis Economic Prison Zones When a project mixes the feel-good words of jobs, economic development and Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, how can anyone complain? These things are some of what the international community has been promising to deliver through the construction of industrial free trade zones in the Occupied Palesti Sam Bahour • 14 min read
MER Article Investing in Inequality Beginning in the late summer of 2008 teachers in Egypt have waged a series of public protests against new assessment exams that would determine whether they would receive pay increases or not. In protest teachers argue that the exams are humiliating, questioning their ability to teach regardless of performance or Marion Wood Dixon • 12 min read
Current Analysis Signpost in Somaliland’s Quest for Sovereignty A year after its inception, the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia remains in disarray. The interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf, lingers north of Mogadishu, amassing weapons and recruiting troops for his return to the capital. His 91-member cabinet and 42 ministries, forged in exile, are scattered across the globe. Meanwhile, on Nathalie Peutz • 11 min read
MER Article Water and Women As the year 2000 approaches, humanity has passed an important milestone, one that has nothing to do with the new Millennium, but which may have many more consequences than the Y2K bug. On October 12, the world’s population officially passed six billion. While pundits debated whether this was cause f Sally Ethelston • 14 min read
MER Article Rediscovering Palestine Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) Ussama Makdisi • 2 min read
MER Article Yemenis on Mars Like other recent neo-nationalist mobilizations of diasporas, a Yemeni government-sponsored gathering of émigrés this May sought to harness the newly perceived wealth and influence of Yemen’s diaspora towards national ends. Ethnic mobilization of émigré capital is nothing new. Early this century, Ja Engseng Ho • 8 min read
MER Article Controlling Capital, Disciplining States Asia’s developing economies pose challenging questions for the left’s conception of the relationship between the state and development in this era of global capitalism. Neoliberals often cite East Asian economies as proof of the validity of their laissez faire development theories because they achie Marsha Pripstein Posusney • 2 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 Satellite Television and Development in the Middle East Upon hearing a Dutch diplomat recite a dismal litany of statistics indicating the current social and economic plight of most Middle Eastern states, a Jordanian academic heaved a sigh. “This is a triple tragedy,” she said. “Not only are the figures bad, but they have to be collated by foreign agencie Naomi Sakr • 9 min read
