Suchergebnisse

Abstract: Since the 2011 Arab uprisings, Saudi Arabia's foreign policy in the Middle East has been nonideological, realist, and defensive in intent, but negative in its implications for democracy. To contain Iran, quarantine the Muslim Brotherhood, and combat jihadism, Riyadh has backed local actors that are mostly authoritarian and antiliberal—and the net effect has been damaging for political pluralism and civil society. While the succession to King Salman has produced a more temperate approach to the Brotherhood, such shifts are ultimately tactical. At its core the Kingdom remains an autocratic state wedded to monarchical privilege at home and bent on enforcing political quietism abroad.

Saudi Arabia has emerged as the most vigorous stalwart of what can best be described as the reactionary period of the Arab uprisings—their 'Thermidorian' phase.

Sparked by the protests in Tunis and Cairo, the 2011 Pearl Roundabout uprising was a watershed in the political life of Bahrain—an unprecedented challenge to the tiny island kingdom's ruling bargain and, ultimately, its social fabric. And while the dramatic events unfolding in Tunis and in Tahrir Square may have sparked the Pearl Roundabout uprising, the seeds of dissent were sown much earlier, as Bahrain's post-2001 parliamentary experiment came undone. Behind the tentative steps toward dialogue, the Bahraini parliament continues to loom as the country's most contested institution and also the best-available foundation for lasting peace in the country and even for a political solution that would preserve al-Khalifa rule.

Saudi and Iranian meddling aggravates a divisive, dangerous form of identity politics in fragile, vulnerable states.

This collection seeks to advance our understanding of intra-Islamic identity conflict during a period of upheaval in the Middle East. Instead of treating distinctions between and within Sunni and Shia Islam as primordial and immutable, it examines how political economy, geopolitics, domestic governance, social media, non- and sub-state groups, and clerical elites have affected the transformation and diffusion of sectarian identities. Particular attention is paid to how conflicts over distribution of political and economic power have taken on a sectarian quality, and how a variety of actors have instrumentalised sectarianism. The volume, covering Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Iran, and Egypt, includes contributors from a broad array of disciplines including political science, history, sociology, and Islamic studies.