Suchergebnisse

This volume examines the role of Arab women in Arab Spring and their contribution to the ongoing process of change sweeping the region. The book begins with an examination of the process of democratization and its impediments in the Arab World since the Second World War. It then looks at the conditions that led to the upsurge of the so-called Arab Spring. Finally, it underscores women's role as participants, organizers, leaders, but also as victims. The main thesis of the book is that while Arab women were an integral part of the revolutionary efforts within the Arab Spring paradigm, they did

Review article of books: "The Arab Predicament" by Fouad Ajami, "Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World" by Christine Moss Helms, "The Foreign Policies of Arab States" by Bahgat Korany, Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, and others and "Arab and Regional Politics in the Middle East" by P.J. Vatikiotis. The reviewer notes that undue emphasis on Arabism promotes a kind of romanticism which, in its favourable form, argues that Arabs see themselves as being somehow above politics. (DÜI-Sen)

For many scholars and observers of the Middle East, the uniqueness of the Arabs has proved to be far more interesting than those areas of Arab political life that exhibit similarities with politics elsewhere. Some of the studies reviewed here provide a partial corrective to this gap. They suggest that Arab politics, much like politics in other settings, is concerned with issues of socioeconomic change and conflict, problems of legitimacy, the role of competing ideologies, and elite factionalism. Those of the studies that highlight the weaknesses of pan-Arabism are more persuasive than those that emphasize its vitality. What is needed now is the ability to determine where we can usefully generalize about Arab politics and where politics in the Arab world are in fact unique. The social-scientific approach is deemed more likely to accomplish this analytical goal than the traditional area-studies and policy approaches.

Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States by Evelyn ShakirPraeger, Westport Connecticut London, 1997