Political economy and social movement theory perspectives on the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of 2011

Workers’ movements contributed substantially to the 2011 popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Bahrain. Comparing the role of workers before, during and after the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt demonstrates that the relatively successful installation of a procedural democracy in Tunisia owes a great deal to the movements of workers and the unemployed in the uprisings and to their organisational structure and political horizon. Tunisian workers could compel the Tunisian General Federation of Labor (UGTT), despite the wishes of its pro-Ben Ali national leadership, to join them and the rest of the Tunisian people in a struggle against autocracy. Egyptian workers, on the other hand, were not able to force the Egyptian Trade Union Federation(ETUF) to support the uprising and had no national organisations and only weak links to intellectuals

Sustained vs episodic mobilization among conflict-generated diasporas

There is increased interest in the connectivity of migrants with both their host-lands and their original homelands. This article brings a social movement perspective to bear on the issue of diaspora mobilization. Why do conflict-generated diasporas from the same original homeland and living in the same host-land mobilize in sustained versus episodic ways? This article focuses on the sustained mobilization of Bosnian Muslims versus the episodic mobilization of Croats and Serbs in the Netherlands in the early 2010s. I argue that a traumatic issue that binds three actors – diaspora, host-state, and home-state – is central to such mobilization. This issue is the failure of Dutch peace-keeping forces to protect the Srebrenica enclave in 1995. Migration integration regimes, threats from radical right parties, host-state foreign policy, and transnational influences can trigger episodic diaspora mobilization, but not sustain it

Political Islam. : essays from middle east report.

Londonx, 395 p.; 23 cm

Class Conflict And National Struggle: Labor And Politics In Egypt, 1936-1954. (volumes I And Ii).

This study examines the Egyptian working class, its organizations, struggles and the various political tendencies (Wafd, Muslim Brothers, Prince ('c)Abbas Halim and communists) contending for leadership during a period of significant industrial capitalist growth. It argues that the central issue in modern Egyptian history is the integration of Egypt into the world capitalist market on a subordinate basis and the expansion of capitalist relations of production and class differentiation within Egypt. The emergence of a politically independent workers' movement and the repudiation of paternalism and patron-client relations in the trade unions is linked to the growth of mass production capitalist industry, particularly textiles. Because the capitalist economy was commonly perceived as a foreign intrusion, class and national consciousness became inextricably interlocked. Among the forces contending for leadership of the workers' movement, only the communists expected the growing industrial proletariat to become conscious of its distinctive class interests. While this did occur to some extent, it was concurrent with successive upsurges in the post-World War II nationalist movement. The concrete mass movement of the working class merged class and national demands, making them indistinguishable for most workers. The Free Officers were ultimately able to suppress and coopt the independent workers' movement which emerged in the period 1936-1954 by promising to grant the nationalist component of the movement's demands and diffusing its most immediate economic grievances, while thwarting and subverting the independent class character of the movement itself. The failure of the workers' movement to withstand the efforts of the military regime to integrate it into the state apparatus is due to the weakness of the industrial proletarian sector of the working class and the lack of sufficiently sharp distinction between class and national demands in the workers' movement.Ph.D.African historySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/127620/2/8304441.pd

Policing thought on Palestine

After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 academicfreedom in the United States is facing its most seriousthreats since the McCarthy era. A new publication arguesthat freedom to pursue critical thinking about the MiddleEast, most particularly Palestine, is under sustained attack

The dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: culture, politics, and the formation of a modern diaspora

In this provocative and wide-ranging history, Joel Beinin examines fundamental questions of ethnic identity by focusing on the Egyptian Jewish community since 1948. A complex and heterogeneous people, Egyptian Jews have become even more diverse as their diaspora continues to the present day. Central to Beinin's study is the question of how people handle multiple identities and loyalties that are dislocated and reformed by turbulent political and cultural processes. It is a question he grapples with himself, and his reflections on his experiences as an American Jew in Israel and Egypt offer a candid, personal perspective on the hazards of marginal identities