International Relations Commons^™

Military Influence On Middle Eastern Democratization Following The Arab Spring, Andrew Fleming

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Despite experiencing countless wars, sectarian extremism, imperialism, and authoritarian rule, very few events have impacted the Middle East more significantly than the Arab Spring. Starting in 2010, the Arab Spring marked a turning point in which the people of numerous Arabic states collectively gathered to protest and combat the oppressive regimes that had controlled the region for decades. The Spring was indicative of the strong, recurring ambitions for revolution and regime change across the Middle East, presenting the Arab nations with an opportunity to reform their states from within. For some Middle Eastern states, the Arab Spring served as a …

Democracy In The Mena, Alexandria Petrof

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

There is not sufficient evidence that the Middle East will be able to democratize effectively. First and foremost, most attempts of implementing democracy have failed. The landscape and lack of industrialization also plays a role in the inability to apply democratic systems into this area. Lastly, the educational system, or lack thereof, struggles to educate their children and citizens as a whole and education is one of the biggest factors in the success of democracy.

"Who Am I?": The Development Of A Male Palestinian Political Identity, Tala J. Dayyat

Master's Theses

The Palestinian people have lived under numerous imperial rulers; first, the Ottoman Empire, then later the British. Today they live under the military occupation of the state of Israel as second class citizen millions more living abroad as refugees. Young Palestinian men have become the leaders and the physical manifestation of the struggle against Israel, a political Goliath that has used tactics to repress the Palestinians such as, detentions, beatings, and land confiscation, which many outside of the Israeli state deem as illegal. Scholar Rashid Khalidi states that “the quintessential Palestinian experience, which illustrates some of the most basic issues …

The Failure Of Westphalia: A Constructivist Examination Of Western And Middle Eastern Relations, Jayson Warren

Masters Theses

This thesis is not intended to be a dogmatic or pedantic endorsement of any one religion, ethic, or culture. To the contrary, it is the intent of the author to examine a number of competing ideas, philosophies, and belief systems in order to extrapolate their geopolitical implications and to pursue them to their logical (albeit sometimes inevitable) conclusions. Too often, any number of presuppositions at work within a given situation go overlooked and subsequently skew geopolitical analysis and resulting policy decisions. This thesis seeks to transcend mere opinion or speculation and achieve instead a framework of Constructivism for pragmatic comprehension …

The Genealogy, Ideology, And Future Of Isil And Its Derivatives, Ahmed E. Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

The Aesthetic Of Revolution In The Film And Literature Of Naguib Mahfouz, Nathaniel Greenberg

Nathaniel Greenberg

In the wake of the 1952 Revolution, Egypt’s future Nobel laureate in literature devoted himself exclusively to writing for film. The Aesthetic of Revolution in the Film and Literature of Naguib Mahfouz is the first full-length study in English to examine this critical period in the author’s career and to contextualize it within the scope of post-revolutionary Egyptian politics and culture. Before returning to literature in 1959 with his post-revolutionary masterpiece Children of the Alley, Mahfouz wrote or co-wrote some twenty odd scripts, many of them among the most successful in Egyptian history. He did so at a time when …

Wiki Leaks Revelations In Global Context—The War Between ‘Right To Publish’ And ‘Ethical Code Of Conduct, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards …

The Penetration Of Social Media In Governance,Political Reforms And Building Public Perception, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. While we know that social media can play an important role in publicizing political activities such as protests, do we have evidence that such actions have led to substantive political change? Is it possible to develop a set of indicators to more effectively gauge the impact of new technologies and media on questions of political change? That social media can help coordinate large and discrete activities, such as protests and …