Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons^™

1340–1345: Ibn Qayyim Al-Ǧawziyya On The Question Of Permanent Truce, Suleiman A. Mourad

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

This article analyses Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya’s discussion of permanent truce (al-hudna al-muṭlaqa) in his “Legal Judgements about the People of Protected Status” (Aḥkām ahl al-ḏimma). Focusing on Ibn al-Qayyim’s method and arguments, the article examines the content of a relevant section from the work, situating it within the broader discussion of “truce” in the Sunnī legal tradition. Ibn al-Qayyim manages to ground permanent truce in the Prophetic tradition. Both his argument and its justification do not conform to anything we find in Sunnī law, including Ibn al-Qayyim’s own Ḥanbalī school. The article thus underscores the creativity …

Economic Development, Governance, And Human Security After The Arab Uprisings, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Syrian Regime Resilience And State Power Through Contracting Stateness: The Cases Of Al-Hasakeh And Aleppo, Reinoud Leenders, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Books

This chapter challenges the concepts of state weakness and state fragility that treat territorial control and control over the means of violence as key indicators of state strength in the context of civil war. We demonstrate that during the years of civil war in Syria, including periods when its survival was most precarious, the Assad regime’s
capacity to manage processes of state contraction and state reassertion played a critical role in its endurance.

Networked Authoritarianism And Economic Resilience In Syria, Karam Shaar, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Making Sense Of The Arab State, Steven Heydemann, Marc Lynch

Middle East Studies: Faculty Books

Book abstract:

No region in the world has been more hostile to democracy, more dominated by military and security institutions, or weaker on economic development and inclusive governance than the Middle East. Why have Arab states been so oppressively strong in some areas but so devastatingly weak in others? How do those patterns affect politics, economics, and society across the region? The state stands at the center of the analysis of politics in the Middle East, but has rarely been the primary focus of systematic theoretical analysis. Making Sense of the Arab State brings together top scholars from diverse theoretical …

Authoritarian Learning, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

Authoritarian learning plays an increasingly important role in global processes of autocratization and democratic backsliding yet remains understudied and undertheorized. This chapter reviews conditions that elevate the role of authoritarian learning in the international system. It assesses the state of research with a focus on definitional debates concerning what authoritarian learning is and is not. In contrast to more restrictive definitions, the chapter presents an expansive definition of authoritarian learning as a process in which autocratic actors assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of ideas, rules, norms, and practices based on their observed utility. It argues that such processes are evident …

Annulled: Marriage, Sex, And Violence In The Archives Of The Ottoman East, Matthew Ghazarian

Environmental Science and Policy: Faculty Publications

On October 2, 1878, Narduhi Magarian and Sahag Ağa Tevrizian were wed in the Ottoman border town of Erzurum. Soon afterwards, both of them sought freedom from this union, one foisted upon them by Narduhi’s wealthy, violent, and alcohol-addled father, Garabed Efendi Magarian. The toxic fallout of this failed marriage prompted the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople to order an investigation. The resulting witness testimonies, held in a fragment of the Patriarchate’s records in Paris, describe the beginnings of this coerced marriage, the domestic violence it involved, and the anxieties about sex and potency that it stoked. These letters also have …

Sex, Sovereignty, And The Biological In The Interwar Arab East, Susanna Ferguson

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

This article frames the history of anticolonialism in the Arab world as a history of gender, sex, and power. By thinking with early twentieth-century Arab intellectuals, it revises the assumption that the heterosexual body enters into politics primarily as a site of regulation and control. Europeans justified colonialism in the Arab East by arguing that Arabs were like children who needed tutelage before self-rule. Arab writers contested these temporal assumptions through their own theories of human development. Some figured childrearing as a form of temporal engineering through which Arab women would control human and civilizational growth. Others, like cosmopolitan Arab …

The Syrian Conflict: Proxy War, Pyrrhic Victory, And Power Sharing Agreements, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

The Syrian conflict presents as a case that has been well-studied in the power-sharing literature. It is typically coded as an ethno-sectarian civil war moving towards a decisive military victory by an authoritarian regime and thus unlikely to end in a power-sharing agreement. Yet Syria’s experience offers important insights into the effects of new conflict environments on prospects for power-sharing in ‘hard’ cases. Syria’s conflict exhibits attributes and is unfolding in an environment that requires rethinking simplistic correlations between the military and political outcomes of civil wars. Moreover, the form of political settlement that emerges in Syria may also complicate …

Rethinking Stabilization In Eastern Syria: Toward A Human Security Framework, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

As the United States faces important decisions regarding its future role in Syria’s conflict, a new Atlantic Council report by Dr. Steven Heydemann, “Rethinking Stabilization in Eastern Syria: Toward a Human Security Framework,” provides important context, analysis, and strategic policy recommendations.

Civil War, Economic Governance & State Reconstruction In The Arab Middle East, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

Civil wars currently underway in Libya, Syria, and Yemen demonstrate that patterns of economic governance during violent conflict exhibit significant continuity with prewar practices, raising important questions along three lines. First, violent conflict may disrupt prewar practices less than is often assumed. Second, continuity in governance highlights the limits of state fragility frameworks for postconflict reconstruction that view violent conflict as creating space for institutional reform. Third, continuity of prewar governance practices has important implications for the relationship between sovereignty, governance, and conflict resolution. Civil wars in the Middle East have not created conditions conducive to reconceptualizing sovereignty or decoupling …

Sovereignty Versus Sectarianism: Contested Norms And The Logic Of Regional Conflict In The Greater Levant, Steven Heydemann, Emelie Chace-Danahue

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

The Middle East is experiencing an extended period of turmoil and violent conflict. Two main explanations exist to account for heightened levels of conflict and competition. The first attributes current conditions to the intensification of sectarian polarization in the Arab east; regional dynamics are best explained by identity politics, which serve as instruments of sectarian regimes. The second attributes current conditions to state weakness; states in the Arab east are fragile, lacking effective institutions and suffering from a deficit of legitimacy, allowing state elites to govern in ways that exacerbate social cleavages. We view both these arguments as insufficient to …

Sexualized Collaborations And The Politics Of Ghost-Writing In Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles To Tout Le Monde Aime Mohamed, Mehammed Mack

French Studies: Faculty Publications

In the last few decades, the landscape of Franco-Arab fiction has seen a great many authorship scandals, in which French non-Arab authors have impersonated Arabs and found publishing success. In this essay, I revisit these scandals while focusing on a recent “autobiographical” novel that raised suspicions of ghostwriting: 2011’s Tout le monde aime Mohamed (Everyone Loves Mohamed ) by Malik Kuzman. An impressionistic collage of homo-erotic encounters, its fleeting structure recalls that of Barthes’ Incidents, a series of social vignettes culled from the author’s time in Morocco. I explore the simultaneity of Barthes’ Death of the Author argument and the …

After The Earthquake : Economic Governance And Mass Politics In The Arab World, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

The revolutionary wave that washed over the Arab world in 2011 swept away the rulers of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. This article compares the economic policies adopted by the various governments in response to popular dissatisfaction, finding significant similarities between post-authoritarian transition regimes and authoritarian "survivors". Both have relied on a similar mix of economic strategies : a temporary increase in redistribution, direct monetary transfers to what are deemed politically useful sections of the population and an ongoing commitment to preuprising policies of reduced social spending and economic liberalization. This convergence runs counter to expectations that elected transitional governments …

La Question De La Démocratie Dans Les Travaux Sur Le Monde Arabe, Steven Heydemann

Middle East Studies: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.