MER Article From Ballot Box to Battlefield Artillery and bombs rather than innocent fireworks marked the fourth anniversary of Yemeni unity and the first anniversary of free parliamentary elections of the Arabian Peninsula. The fight between the armed forces under President ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih and those loyal to Vice President ‘Ali Salim al-Bayd was complicated by ideological, Sheila Carapico • 10 min read
MER Article Column: Reality Checks Attacks on US policies are nothing new in Egypt. But as government representatives and NGOs prepare fore the September UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the loudest protests come from an unlikely corner: the Vatican. John Paul II has blessed a campaign (none dare ca Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article Demographic Change in the Arab World Two of the most populous Arab countries, Egypt and Morocco, lie far apart in geography, in their histories and in the size of their populations. Egypt has 57 million inhabitants, more than twice as many as Morocco’s 25.5 million. [1] One thing they do share is a dramatic long-term rate of demographi Youssef Courbage • 12 min read
MER Article Autonomy and Gender in Egyptian Families The Egyptian family is changing in significant ways, modified by the social and economic realities of everyday life which are in turn affected by changes in the local and international economy. Extended family living arrangements are declining in favor of nuclear families, which now account for 84 p Cynthia Lloyd, Barbara Ibrahim, Laila Nawar • 3 min read
MER Article Devices and Desires The development of population policy in the Islamic Republic of Iran provides fertile ground for reexamining the widely held assumption that Islamist ideology is the antithesis of modernity and surely incompatible with any form of feminism. Recent strategies that the Islamic Republic has adopted to Homa Hoodfar • 22 min read
MER Article From Demographic Explosion to Social Rupture Experts and politicians seem to agree that the demographic structures of the Arab countries have reached a critical point. They acknowledge that rapid population growth seriously constrains a country’s economy and, consequently, its social and political possibilities. In the relationship between consumption, savings and investment, demographic imbalance imposes an Philippe Fargues • 14 min read
MER Article Gender, Population, Environment Miryam lives with her family in Manshiyat Nasir, originally a squatter settlement at the foot of Cairo’s Muqattam hills, now largely a brick-built community of small apartment buildings and box-like single family homes. Most now have piped-in water and electricity. Her family is one of the thousands Sally Ethelston • 8 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1994) The question of population and development needs to be framed first and foremost as a question of equity. The articles in this issue address explicitly the matter of gender equity in families and societies, in ways that challenge the notion that Middle Eastern birth and fertility rates can be neatly The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (July/August 1994) ‘Abd al-Hadi, ‘Izzat, Usama Halabi and Salim Tamari, al-Mu’assasat al-wataniyya, al-intikhabat wa al-sulta (National Institutions, Elections and the Authority) (Ramallah: Muwatin, 1994). Abu-Amr, Ziad. Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Bloomingt The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 744 pages. Salah Hassan • 3 min read
MER Article Against All Odds Dan Connell, Against All Odds: A Chronicle of the Eritrean Revolution (Red Sea, 1994). Basil Davidson • 3 min read
MER Article The Islamic Movement and the Palestinian Authority Bassam Jarrar, a leading Islamist thinker in the Occupied Territories, is a teacher of Islamic studies at UNRWA’s Teacher Training Center in Ramallah in the West Bank and a member of the board of trustees of the Union of Islamic Scholars. He was among the 415 Palestinians expelled by Israel in Decem Graham Usher • 6 min read
