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This paper discusses the current political phase in South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) or Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by contextualising it in global politics. First, the transformations of the nation state and neoliberal capitalism are discussed along with the mobilisational strategies shared among social movements in the region, Europe and North America, Africa, and Latin America. Second, the paper discusses how such transnational developments have influenced the scholarship on SWANA/MENA politics, highlighting a number of epistemological breaks in the content and process of knowledge production.

This paper discusses the current political phase in South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) or Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by contextualising it in global politics. First, the transformations of the nation state and neoliberal capitalism are discussed along with the mobilisational strategies shared among social movements in the region, Europe and North America, Africa, and Latin America. Second, the paper discusses how such transnational developments have influenced the scholarship on SWANA/MENA politics, highlighting a number of epistemological breaks in the content and process of knowledge production.

The 2009–10 protests were a watershed moment in the history of the Islamic Republic: what governance arrangements were possible after the society and the ruling elite became so polarised as an effect of their de facto exclusion from the ruling institutions and the public sphere? This chapter shows that the effort to refashion governance after the protests reignited the constitutional debate around the foundation of the Islamic Republic, emphasising its epistemological plurality. Individuals calling for the overcoming of social and political polarisation, in fact, built their claim on both the secular and the religious nature of Iran's governance structure, rather than stressing its religious tenets exclusively. This suggests that in order to explain the 'pragmatic' approach to governance, dilemmas pillared around individual and collective rights that Islamists in power might adopt, it is necessary to complement theories centred on Islamic moderation, or analyses pivoted on Islamic liberalism, with a richer and multi-sourced understanding of the intersection between politics and religion. Adopting such a broadened perspective, the following pages will first discuss the centrality of demands for political participation and rights in the history of Iran. This is then followed by an analysis of how Iran's legal hybridity has provided a fertile environment for reclaiming political participation as a fundamental right encoded both in history and the law. In a third and final section, the chapter illustrates how both oppositional and pro-regime forces have utilised a common historical background and legal plurality to advance the demand for a more inclusive political environment, tolerant of diversity, in the post-2009 era.

In post-2009 Iran, not only is space gendered for a variety of reasons ranging from customs to state intervention, but also public space has become less accessible and secluded for security purposes. To securitize the state or replace a sense of trust with that of suspicion, states blend the gendering of space with the architecture of seclusion. In the United States, for instance, the separation of males and females in the prison industrial complex includes seclusion of bodies and often subjects gender-nonconforming people, immigrants, and those with HIV to disproportionate levels of physical danger. In Iran, architectural adjustments with the aim of seclusion have significantly increased since the 2009 protests. In Tehran, for instance, shisha shops in the mountains, which used to be common sites of leisure, are randomly raided by security forces. As a result, participating in such spaces means having to hide in the back areas to engage in an activity that not too long ago was legal. It follows that the combination of gendering and seclusion of space disrupts the formation of organic relationships and generates real, falsely stimulated, and contested intimacies. How we approach intimacies in this complicated situation determines in important ways the impact that this new spatial scheme will have on our research agenda, analysis, and perhaps even safety.

Hydrocarbon revenues have long played a central role in Algeria, where the non-transparent circumstances of their redistribution have enabled the government to survive the Arab Spring and remain in power despite the socio-economic problems affecting the country. This chapter observes that public debate and repression of public dissent co-exist, while oil and gas revenues are used to co-opt and repress demands for reform voiced by civil society. Open discussion, especially concerning the need for economic diversification, is permitted because it is not seen as particularly dangerous to the regime and because civil society activism has limited impact on decision-making. Although civil society is not able to generate major institutional change at the national level, research institutes, opposition parties, media outlets, some institutional actors and ordinary citizens are increasingly contributing to and shaping the public debate over how oil and gas rents are to be used.

This article examines the role of passion among precarious labour force in the Italian academia. By relying on C. Wright Mill's distinction between "passion as a reason" of action and "passion as a motive" to represent and discuss one's employment condition, the article concludes that the symbolic strength of passion is correlated to its applicability both as a tool to govern recruitment in neo-liberal academia and as a strategy to fit recruitment criteria and "become employable". The article is based on more than four-year long documentation and participant observation in political initiatives and campaigns organised by precarious, non-tenured research staff in Italian universities.

Irrespective of their final outcome, the Arab uprisings have changed the region profoundly with important consequences for external actors as well. Since 1995, the European Union has been extremely active in the Middle East and North Africa with a number of policies put in place to achieve often contrasting objectives. The uprisings have exposed the problems affecting these polices and have led the EU to rethink regional relations. The scholarship on EU-MENA relations has provided over time numerous and powerful insights into the workings, shortcomings and success of the EU in the region, but the uprisings demand a radical change in the way in which the MENA is approached. This review article looks at the contribution that the scholarship has made in this field and suggests a new research agenda, which could lead to better informed and more effective policy-making.

The article focuses on the case of Italian psychologysts in order to examine how internship is connected to precarity. In this case, unpaid training enjoys strong legitimacy as it is imposed by the law and represents the prerequisite for the profession. The article investigates the institutionalisation of unpaid training and its consequences for the development of the psychologysts' professional profile. It also examines the consequences of this institutionalisation for the profession, arguing that both top-down and bottom-up incentives for change are absent. Precarious psychologysts find it very difficult to exert voice or ally for political action, whereas employers enjoy free labor force while carrying no responsibility for their working conditions or career development. The article concludes by contributing to the wider debate on training-precarity nexus, which is crucial as the divide between work and training is more and more blurred.

This article examines the role of student activism in enhancing or weakening democratization in authoritarian contexts, focusing on the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It contends that while numerous studies indicate that student activism has been crucial in processes of regime change, insufficient attention has been paid to the circumstances under which it contributes to strengthening authoritarian rule. The case of Iran demonstrates that there are two different ways in which this occurs. First, much like many other civil society actors, student activism can be co-opted and at times willingly so because of a coincidence of material and/or ideological interests. Second, even when student activism genuinely pushes for democratization and becomes independent and autonomous from political power, the authoritarian constraints in place can contribute to marginalize it and defeat it. The Iranian case highlights the problems student activism faces when it attempts to disengage from the dominant structures of authoritarian politics, and in line with Jamal's findings, demonstrates how authoritarian structural constraints can undermine the democratic aspirations of well-organised groups. Adapted from the source document.

Through a non-conventional understanding of civil society activism, the article provides an explanation of the relationship between the student movement and Khatami's governments in Iran. This study approaches 'civil society' as a space where we may observe the dynamics and the exercise of power. The case study of the interactions between the Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat and Khatami's governments illustrates how civil society is not a fixed concept, but a contested one. By analysing the conflicts and interactions between these two actors, the article examines the continuous negotiations that reinvent the meaning of civil society and produce political inclusion or exclusion.