Sleeping with the Devil?

This article analyzes the multiple reasons that underlie the lack of cooperation between Western development organizations and Muslim NGOs. The author argues that there is no singular cause for this state of affairs. Instead she demonstrates how existing biases and prejudices, government-imposed obstacles, institutional incompatibilities, and burgeoning distrust mutually reinforce the unlikelihood that Western-Islamic humanitarian cooperation will gain ground

Researching Civic Activism in the Arab World

According to classical Western social theory, the institutions, networks, and projects of civil society operate in a pluralistic, continuously contested public civic realm. Distinct from either the government’s coercive bureaucratic functions or profit-seeking private businesses, often conceptualized as a buffer between states and households, civil society represents a third, non-governmental, non-profit, voluntary sector of modern society. Viewed differently, the civic realm is a zone where culture interacts with politics and economics. Recent research shows that rates of civic activism - of joining communicating, demonstrating, donating, organizing, and participating in events and projects that affect community services, public opinion, and national politics - vary across countries and across time. The question is whether cultural ‘traditions’ explain why the civic sphere is more vibrant in some places and periods than others

Rethinking justice beyond human rights. Anti-colonialism and intersectionality in the politics of the Palestinian Youth Movement

This article discusses the politics of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) – a contemporary social movement operating across a number of Arab and western countries. Unlike analysis on the Arab Uprisings which focused on the national dimension of youth activism, we explore how the PYM politics fosters and upholds an explicitly transnational anti-colonial and intersectional solidarity framework, which foregrounds a radical critique of conventional notions of self-determination based on state-framed human rights discourses and international law paradigms. The struggle becomes instead framed as an issue of justice, freedom and liberation from interlocking forms and hierarchies of oppression. KEYWORDS: Palestine, transnational social movements, intersectionality, human rights, anti-colonialis

Researching Civic Activism in the Arab World

According to classical Western social theory, the institutions, networks, and projects of civil society operate in a pluralistic, continuously contested public civic realm. Distinct from either the government’s coercive bureaucratic functions or profit-seeking private businesses, often conceptualized as a buffer between states and households, civil society represents a third, non-governmental, non-profit, voluntary sector of modern society. Viewed differently, the civic realm is a zone where culture interacts with politics and economics. Recent research shows that rates of civic activism - of joining communicating, demonstrating, donating, organizing, and participating in events and projects that affect community services, public opinion, and national politics - vary across countries and across time. The question is whether cultural ‘traditions’ explain why the civic sphere is more vibrant in some places and periods than others

The Missing Link? U.S. Policy and the International Dimensions of Authoritarian Resilience in the Arab World

In contrast to the hopes of some US observers, the so-called 'Baghdad Spring' of early 2005 did not mark the beginning of an era of sustained political reform in the Middle East. In an attempt to explain the resilience of authoritarian governance in the region, this article aims to demonstrate the insufficiencies of external democratisation efforts that rely on a crude reading of the 'modernisation' school of thinking and ignore the insights of the 'transition' school with regard to the international dimensions of democratisation. Case studies of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two countries sharing close strategic relationships with the United States yet differing in the socio-economic foundations of authoritarianism and experiences with managing external and domestic calls for political reform, demonstrate that the unwillingness of the United States to condition its support for regional partners on human rights concerns constitutes one of the main reasons for the Arab world's 'democratic exception'

Bridging social divides: leadership and the making of an alliance for women’s land-use rights in Morocco

This article analyses a women’s movement that emerged in the context of increased land commodification in Morocco. It focuses on the dynamics that characterised the making of this coalition of actors across the social divide. It mainly analyses the division of tasks among the different partners, highlighting the role played by intermediate organisations and actors in connecting and merging together local, national and international norms, practices and actors. The empowerment of this intermediate layer of leaders indicates a gradual inversion of the power hierarchy and illustrates the fluidity of domination relationships within social movements