MER Article Guilty Bystanders The Iran-Iraq war was fought entirely within the boundaries of the two combatant nations, but it was nonetheless a regional war. The war machine of Saddam Hussein’s regime was lubricated with billions of dollars in loans from the Arab oil monarchies, which were anxious to see the revolutionary state Pete Moore • 15 min read
Current Analysis Bouteflika’s Triumph and Algeria’s Tragedy Shoes and pants soaked with rain, I tagged along with a journalist from the popular Arabic daily Echorouk—his paper my umbrella—while he visited polling stations in the Belcourt neighborhood of Algiers on the day of local elections in November 2007. At the first site, disgruntled party officials qui Jacob Mundy • 14 min read
MER Article Power and Patronage Only a dead nation remembers its heroes when they die. Real nations respect them when they are alive. ―Abdul Ghaffar Khan The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 sparked outrage and mourning, not least in the Western media. Exhibiting the overstated piety one might expect upon the Sameer Dossani • 9 min read
Current Analysis Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order For the last ten years Muhammad ‘Attar, 36, has worked in the finishing department at the gigantic Misr Spinning and Weaving Company complex at Mahalla al-Kubra in the middle of the Nile Delta. He takes home a basic wage of about $30. With profit sharing and incentives, his net pay is about $75 a mo Joel Beinin, Hossam El-Hamalawy • 17 min read
MER Article Internalism of the Left Isam al-Khafaji, Tormented Births: Passages to Modernity in Europe and the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005). Any book-length comparison of the historical trajectories of Western Europe and the region “extending from Iran in the east to Egypt in the west, and from Turkey in the north to the John Chalcraft • 8 min read
MER Article Euro-Med Most Americans and many Arabs, Israelis, Turks and Europeans think of Uncle Sam as the superpower in the Middle East -- an avuncular hegemon, waging peace and war, picking favorites and ostracizing errants, disbursing guns here and butter there. Certainly, this image of a Goliath casting a shadow from the Sheila Carapico • 12 min read
MER Article The Decline (But Not Fall) of US Hegemony in the Middle East Americans who voted for “compassionate conservatism” in the November 2000 presidential election have been disappointed. George W. Bush has proven to be much more radical than his moderate campaign rhetoric implied. In the area of environmental policy, Bush’s moves to lift regulations on pollutants, promote the use of nuclear Fareed Mohamedi, Yahya Sadowski • 32 min read
MER Article Economic Reform in Egypt Texts Reviewed Ray Bush, Economic Crisis and the Politics of Reform in Egypt (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999). Nicholas S. Hopkins and Kirsten Westergaard, eds. Directions of Change in Rural Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998). Marsha Pripstein Posusney, Labor and the State i Agnieszska Paczynska • 5 min read
MER Article Turkish Islam and National Identity Turkish Islam is tied up with Turkish nationalism in a unique fashion, the product of Turkish history and identity. Turkey’s brand of Islamist ideology challenges the secularist components and the European identification of Kemalism, historically the dominant form of Turkish nationalism, but retains Sami Zubaida • 17 min read
MER Article The Social History of Labor in the Middle East Ellis Jay Goldberg, ed., The Social History of Labor in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996). The advent of structural adjustment programs since the 1980s has rekindled interest in workers and labor organizations, perhaps the greatest “losers” in recent reform processes. This edited volume Christopher Alexander • 2 min read
MER Article The Palestinian Economy: Between Imposed Integration and Voluntary Separation Arie Arnon, Israel Luski, Avia Spivak and Jimmy Weinblatt, The Palestinian Economy: Between Imposed Integration and Voluntary Separation (Leiden: Brill, 1997). Emma Murphy • 5 min read
MER Article Structural Adjustment and Rural Poverty in Tunisia World Bank and IMF sponsored neoliberal reforms can have different effects on the political and social structure of receiving nations. Reforms may fortify a status quo unfavorable to the poor, or may even make a bad situation considerably worse, or they may undermine the existing economic system, em Stephen King • 7 min read
