LSE Middle East Centre Podcasts

This keynote lecture took place at the Gramsci in the Middle East & North Africa Conference organised by the LSE Middle East Centre in cooperation with Ghent University from 9-10 May, 2022. The conference explored, through empirically-grounded research, how Gramsci’s work can help us make sense of our contemporary moment in the region marked by a significant expansion in resistance and uprising. Patrizia Manduchi is Director of the GramsciLab and Associate Professor of History of the Contemporary Arab World at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Cagliari. She has published numerous works on the topic of Islamic radicalism, such as: 'The fury of Allah' (Quaderni di Orientalia Karalitana); 'From pen to mouse: Dissemination tools of the concept of jihad' (curated by Franco Angeli); 'This world is not a place for rewards: Life and works of Sayyid Qutb, martyr of the Muslim Brothers' (Aracne) and 'Voices of dissent: Student movements, opposition politics and democratic transition in Asia and Africa' (Aracne). Brecht De Smet is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Middle East and North Africa Research Group at Ghent University, where in 2012 he completed his PhD. Brecht's research interests entail prefigurative and hegemonic class politics, marginalization, and political economy in Egypt, the MENA region, and beyond. He has published articles, opinion pieces, and two books on the politics of revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt (2016). He is now working on the 'Understanding political change from the Margins: Social and Environmental Justice in Morocco and Tunisia' project sponsored by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research. This conference was supported by the Departments of Government, Sociology, and the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme based at the International Inequalities Institute, LSE.

This event was the launch of Jessica Watkins' latest book 'Creating Consent in an Illiberal Order: Policing Disputes in Jordan' published by Cambridge University Press. Middle Eastern police forces have a reputation for carrying out repression and surveillance on behalf of authoritarian regimes, despite frequently under enforcing the law. But what is their role in co-creating and sustaining social order? In this book, Jessica Watkins focuses on the development of the Jordanian police institution to demonstrate that rather than being primarily concerned with law enforcement, the police are first and foremost concerned with order. In Jordan, social order combines the influence of longstanding tribal practices with regime efforts to promote neoliberal economic policies alongside a sense of civic duty amongst citizens. Rather than focusing on the 'high policing' of offences deemed to threaten state security, Watkins explores the 'low policing' of interpersonal disputes including assault, theft, murder, traffic accidents, and domestic abuse to shed light on the varied strategies of power deployed by the police alongside other societal actors to procure hegemonic 'consent'. Jessica Watkins is an analyst at the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, which assists in the investigation of serious crimes committed in Syria. She is a visiting research fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and a Research Associate at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). Between 2017 and 2021 Jessica was a postdoctoral research officer on LSE’s Conflict Research Programme focusing on regional and domestic drivers of conflict and peace in Iraq and Syria. Jessica has a BA from Cambridge University in Arabic and French, a Masters in International Relations from the War Studies Department, King’s College London, and a PhD on civil policing in Jordan, also from the War Studies Department. Yazan Doughan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Yazan is an anthropologist whose work straddles the linguistic and socio-cultural branches of the discipline, with close engagements with social and legal theory, conceptual and social history, and moral philosophy. His work blends ethnography, genealogy, and history to shed light on the question of social justice in contemporary postcolonial contexts, with Jordan as a primary field site. Yazan’s current research and book project takes the Arab Spring protests in Jordan as an ethnographic entry point to think the postcolonial political present, and the paradoxical status of ‘the rule law’ in it – both as the mark of post-Cold War emancipatory projects for social justice, and the condition of possibility for various kinds of injustices. Milli Lake is an Associate Professor of International Security at the London School of Economics' Department of International Relations. Her expertise lies in political violence, institutions, law, poverty, and gender. She co-directs the Women's Rights After War project, a project that falls under LSE’s Gender Justice and Security HUB, and is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund. Her 2018 book Strong NGOs and Weak States: Pursuing Gender Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa was published by Cambridge University Press. Milli has worked as a consultant with organisations including USAID, The World Bank, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee, Berkeley School of Law and the International Law and Policy Institute. She regularly provides expert testimony in asylum cases and has written extensively on the ethics and practicalities of field research in violence-affected settings.

This panel explored the interconnectedness of Turkey’s domestic and foreign politics over the past two decades. How do geopolitical histories and imaginaries affect Turkey’s foreign policy? What are the links between everyday culture and Turkey’s foreign policy? To what extent have global and regional developments impacted on and informed domestic politics? In what ways has foreign policy been used as a technique of governance? Evren Balta is Professor of International Relations and chair of the International Relations Department at Özyeğin University. She is the author of 'The American Passport in Turkey: National Citizenship in the Age of Transnationalism' (with O Altan-Olcay, UPenn, 2020), 'Age of Uneasiness' (İletisim, 2019) and 'Global Security Complex' (İletisim, 2012). She is the editor of 'Neighbors with Suspicion: Dynamics of Turkish-Russian Relations' (with G. Ozcan and B. Besgul, İletisim, 2017); 'Introduction to Global Politics' (Iletisim, 2014) and 'Military, State and Politics in Turkey' (with I. Akca, Bilgi University Press, 2010). She served as a research fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences/Russia in Global Dialogue Program (Vienna, Austria 2017) and as a Fulbright visiting associate professor at New York University, Program in International Relations during the 2017-2018 academic year. Balta is a senior scholar at Istanbul Policy Center, a member of the Global Relations Forum and co-editor of International Relations Journal. She was appointed as the academic coordinator of TÜSİAD Global Politics Forum in 2021. Lisel Hintz is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University and was visiting assistant professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. She studies the arenas in which struggles over various forms of identity – e.g., national, ethnic, religious, gender – take place. Her regional focus is on Turkey and its relations with the Middle East, Europe, and the US. Her 2018 book 'Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey' (Oxford University Press) examines how Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) used foreign policy gambits to weaken its domestic obstacles and open up space for disseminating its own Ottoman Islamist understanding of Turkish national identity and, ultimately, the ways in which contestation over national identity spills over to shape and be shaped by foreign policy. Her current book project, under contract with Cambridge University Press, investigates Turkey’s state-society struggles over identity in the pop culture sphere. Her work also appears in journals and news outlets contributing to discussions on Turkey’s increasing authoritarianism, opposition dynamics, foreign policy shifts, and identity-related topics including Kurdish, Alevi, and gender issues. Spyros A. Sofos is a Researcher at the LSE Middle East Centre. Spyros has been a member of the Fragmentation of peacemaking and peacebuilding: Non-Western dynamics of peace and transition management project team, funded by the FCDO and the PeaceRep Consortium. His research explores the intersection of societal insecurity, identity, and collective action and, to date, it has focused on Turkish politics and society, nationalism, populism and Islamism in Europe and the Middle East, urban citizenship, and European Muslim identities and politics. His latest book Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism (Edinburgh University Press) – explores the emergence of populism in Turkey and its genealogy as a tradition of action and discourse. His other publications include 'Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe' (Routledge), 'Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey' (Oxford University Press), 'Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks' (Palgrave).

This event was the launch of three papers authored by Courtney Freer and Spyros Sofos of the LSE Middle East Centre as part of the Global Transitions Series, a research output from PeaceRep – the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform funded by the UK Aid from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). 1. Qatar and the UAE in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding by Courtney Freer 2. Peacebuilding in Turbulent Times: Turkey in MENA and Africa by Spyros Sofos 3. MENA Regional Organisations in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding: The League of Arab States, Gulf Cooperation Council and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation by Courtney Freer. Courtney Freer is Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. Previously, Courtney was Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. From 2015-2020, Courtney was a Research Officer for the Kuwait Programme at the LSE Middle East Centre. Her work focuses on the domestic politics of the Gulf states, particularly the roles played by Islamism and tribalism. Her book Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies, based on her DPhil thesis at the University of Oxford and published by Oxford University Press in 2018, examines the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood groups in Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. She previously worked at the Brookings Doha Center and the US–Saudi Arabian Business Council. Spyros Sofos is a Research Officer on the LSE Kuwait Programme project 'Ecologies of Belonging and Exclusion: An Intersectional Analysis of Urban Citizenship in Kuwait City.' Spyros's research explores the intersection of societal insecurity, identity and collective action and, to date, it has focused on Turkish politics and society, nationalism and populism in Europe and the Middle East, urban citizenship in the Middle East, European Muslim identities and politics, and the theory of populism. His latest book Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism published by Edinburgh University Press explores the emergence of populism in contemporary Turkey and its genealogy as a tradition of action and discourse. His other publications include Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe published by Routledge, Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey published by Oxford University Press, and Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks published by Palgrave. Greg Shapland is a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and an independent researcher, writer and consultant on politics, security, resources and environment (including water) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). His entire career has been focussed on the Middle East and North Africa, whether as a commercial representative, university lecturer or government official (in the Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office and FCO). From 1979 until 2015, he served in the MENA Research Group in the FCO. He was also Head of Research Analysts from July 2010 to July 2013. During his time with the FCO, Greg served in British Embassies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Tel Aviv and in the Consulate General in Jerusalem. Since leaving the FCO, Greg has worked on post-conflict stabilisation, Israeli-Palestinian relations, inter-state and intra-state water disputes and the impact of climate change in the MENA region. He is currently working on a book on the politics and geography of the MENA region.

The Arabic-language news environment is facing significant challenges. Arab journalists work under multiple pressures including the lack of political freedoms, the proliferation of digital technologies and social media, the assumed disinterest of younger audiences and financial constraints facing many outlets. As part of the research project Arab News Futures (led by Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi, LSE and Dr Abeer Al-Najjar, AUS), in this webinar, we hear from London-based Arab journalists and editors, who discuss the state of Arab news as viewed from London. They address questions such as: what are the critical issues facing Arab journalists and news media? What are the future trends in news making and consuming? How are digital technologies changing the understandings of the audience? And finally: Is London still relevant as a hub of Arabic news? About the speakers: Najlaa Aboumerhi is Senior Journalist, Presenter and Writer with with Alaraby TV since 2017 when she joined after 10 years of working for BBC Arabic TV. She has 18+ years experience working for different media platforms (Online, Radio and TV) and outlets in Beirut and London. She has presented news, reported, supervised, and produced political talk shows, documentaries and reported on special coverages including the Sudan Uprising, Algeria/Boutaflika resignation, Gaza War and Beirut Explosion. Recently, Najlaa has been in Ukraine covering the war from Kyiv, adding this experience to a list of events that she covered from the field, such as US Elections, Tunis, (July war in 2006, October 17, Lebanon.), Afghanistan. Omar Al-Ghazzi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. His work focuses on questions around the global power asymmetries in the reporting and representation of conflict. He researches digital journalism, the politics of time and memory, and the geopolitics of popular culture, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Ibrahim Hamidi is a Syrian journalist and Senior Diplomatic Editor at Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in London. Hamidi was the Damascus bureau of the Arab daily newspaper, Al-Hayat, for 22 years and contributes to several other international media outlets and think tanks. Mai Noman is a media consultant and strategist. She's currently the Digital Content Editor for BBC Arabic. She for responsible for leading digital video content aimed at reaching young and female audiences. Before joining BBC Arabic, Mai worked as a Senior Journalist with the BBC’s World Service Digital Development team tasked with overseeing the digital transformation of the BBC’s 40 different language services. She assisted journalists in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, creating digital strategies and creative visual content. Prior to that, Mai was a video journalist with experience in finding innovative ways of telling complex stories. Isam Uraiqat is co-founder and editor of the award-winning political satire magazine Alhudood. With experience working in animation, film, writing, and software development, Isam has run Alhudood as a multi-disciplinary innovative organisation, challenging how media in the region and the public interact.

This event was the launch of Leïla Vignal's latest book 'War-Torn: The Unmaking of Syria, 2011–2021' published by Hurst. In order to consider the future of Syria, it is crucial to assess not only what has been destroyed, but also how it was destroyed. It is equally vital to address the structural and possibly enduring results of large-scale destruction and displacement. These dynamics are not only at play in Syrian society, but are tearing at the economic fabric and very territorial integrity of the country. If war is a powerful process of human and material destruction, it is equally a powerful process of spatial, social and economic reconfiguration. Nor does it stop at national borders—the unravelling of Syria, and of the idea of Syria, has affected and will continue to affect the entire Middle East. War-Torn explores these transformations and the processes that fuel them. The book throws light on neglected aspects of the Syrian war, and contributes towards understanding conflicts in the twenty-first century. Leïla Vignal is Professor of Geography at the École normale supérieure, Paris, and the editor of The Transnational Middle East: People, Places, Borders. Specialised in cities, globalisation and transnational dynamics in the Middle East, since 2011 she has studied the transformations of Syria and of its society through the war. Deen Sharp is an LSE Fellow in Human Geography at the Department of Geography and Environment, LSE. He is an urban geographer whose research focuses on the political economy of urbanization in the “Middle East”. He is the co-editor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Urban Research: 2016) and Open Gaza (University in Cairo Press: In Print). He is currently working on a edited volume on the spatial dynamics of the conflict in Syria with Nasser Rabbat, provisionally entitled, Reconstruction as Violence: The case of Syria. Michael Mason is Director of the Middle East Centre. He is also Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment and Associate of the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. His research interests encompass environmental politics and governance, notably issues of accountability, transparency and security.

This webinar was the launch of Mariam Salehi's latest book Transitional Justice in Process: Plans and Politics in Tunisia published by Manchester University Press. Transitional Justice in Process is the first book to comprehensively study the Tunisian transitional justice process. After the fall of the Ben Ali regime in 2011, Tunisia swiftly began dealing with its authoritarian past and initiated a comprehensive transitional justice process, with the Truth and Dignity Commission as its central institution. However, instead of bringing about peace and justice, transitional justice soon became an arena of contention. Mariam Salehi is a researcher at the intersection of peace and conflict studies, international politics, and international political sociology. Salehi is broadly interested in (conflictive) internationalised processes of change, (transitional) justice and the production and circulation of knowledge and ideas. Salehi is currently a research group leader at Freie Universität Berlin and is involved in the SEPAD project at Lancaster University. Previously, Salehi was A.SK Postdoctoral Fellow in the Global Governance Unit at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and a Research Associate at the Center for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg. Salehi's academic work informs policy advice for federal ministries, political foundations and development agencies. As a doctoral researcher, Salehi worked in the research network 'Re-Configurations: History, Remembrance and Transformation Processes in the Middle East and North Africa' at the University of Marburg, which was funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. Salehi's doctoral dissertation on the Tunisian transitional justice process won the 2019 dissertation award of the German Middle East Studies Association. Charles Tripp is a Professor Emeritus of Politics with reference to the Middle East and North Africa, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His research interests include the nature of autocracy, state and resistance in the Middle East, the politics of Islamic identity and the relationship between art and power. He is currently working on a study of the emergence of the public and the rethinking of republican ideals in Tunisia. Together with other colleagues he has been one of the founders of the Centre for Comparative Political Thought at SOAS. Iavor Rangelov is Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE IDEAS and Co-Founder of the Civic Ecosystems Initiative incubated at LSE. His research interests include human rights, human security, transitional justice, and civic activism, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states. He is the author of Nationalism and the Rule of Law: Lessons from the Balkans and Beyond.

This webinar, as part of the LSE Middle East Centre's Kurdish Studies Series, was the launch of Marouf Cabi's latest book 'The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran: Modernity, Modernization and Social Change 1921-1979' published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Although the Kurds have attracted widespread international attention, Iranian Kurdistan has been largely overlooked. This book examines the consequences of modernity and modernisation for Iran's Kurdish society in the 20th century. Marouf Cabi argues that while state-led modernisation integrated the Kurds in modern Iran, the homogenisation of identity and culture also resulted in their vigorous pursuit of their political and cultural rights. Focusing on the dual process of state-led modernisation and homogenisation of identity and culture, Cabi examines the consequences of modernity and modernisation for the socioeconomic, cultural, and political structures as well as for gender relations. It is the consequences of this dynamic dual process that explains the modern structures of Iran's Kurdish society, on the one hand, and its intimate relationship with Iran as a historical, geographical, and political entity, on the other. Using Persian, Kurdish and English sources, the book explores the transformation of Kurdish society between the Second World War and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with a special focus on the era of the 'White Revolution' during the 1960s and 1970s. Marouf Cabi is a historian focusing on Iran and its ethnic structures from World War II to present day. His most recent articles include “The Roots and the Consequences of the Iranian Revolution: A Kurdish Perspective” (2020) and “The Duality of Official and Local: Historical and Intellectual Foundations” (2021) both published in Middle East Studies. His PhD (2019) thesis explores the impact of the modernisation of Iran on twentieth-century Kurdish society. He has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Introduction to Middle Eastern History and Middle Eastern Cultural and Literary Contexts at the University of St Andrews. He also regularly presents his research in Kurdish and Iranian communities in Europe. For more on his works see https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7259-4504. Robert Lowe is Deputy Director of the Middle East Centre and co-convenor of the Centre’s Kurdish Studies Series. His main research interest is Kurdish politics, with particular focus on the Kurdish movement in Syria. Robert was Manager and Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House from 2001–2010. He held a Research Fellowship from The Leverhulme Trust from 2008 to 2010 and was an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, from 2008 to 2010.

This webinar presented the results of two LSE Kuwait Programme research projects: 1. Urban Governance and Spatial Patterns in Kuwait: Exploring the Links Between the Physical and the Socioeconomic - Dhari Alrasheed and Nuno F. da Cruz 2. Can Smart Cities Solve the Housing Crisis? A Study on Korea-Kuwait Partnership for a New Smart City in Kuwait - Hyun Bang Shin and Do Young Oh Nuno F. da Cruz is Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE Cities, London School of Economics and Political Science. His work on urban and metropolitan governance is multidisciplinary in nature and global in reach, engaging with a wide range of public policy issues. Nuno has previously worked in cooperation with various non-government and multilateral organisations such as UCLG, Metropolis, UN Habitat and Transparency International. Dhari Alrasheed is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the College of Business Administration at Kuwait University. His research activity spans two fields. The first is urban economics, studying various issues related to housing, spatial inequality, transportation, and social capital. The second is applied econometrics, with interest in discrete choice modeling, Bayesian econometrics, and spatial econometrics. Dhari holds a PhD and MA in economics from the University of California, Irvine, as well as a MSc and BSc in mechanical engineering from Oregon State University. Hyun Bang Shin is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre (SEAC), and Professor of Geography and Urban Studies in the Department of Geography and Environment. Prof Shin’s research centres on the critical analysis of the political economy of urbanisation with particular attention to cities in Asian countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea and China. Do Young Oh is Research Assistant Professor at the School of Graduate Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He was previously a Research Officer, based jointly at the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he finished his PhD in Regional and Urban Planning. Courtney Freer is a Visiting Fellow with the LSE Middle East Centre, and Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Previously, Courtney was an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Middle East Centre. Her work focuses on the domestic politics of the Gulf states, particularly the roles played by Islamism and tribalism. Her book Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies, based on her DPhil thesis at the University of Oxford and published by Oxford University Press in 2018, examines the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood groups in Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

This event, with research drawn from Dr. Golnar Nikpour's book manuscript 'The Incarcerated Modern: Prisons and Public Life in Iran', examined the making of the carceral state in modern Iran. Until the turn of the 20th century, prisons were virtually nonexistent in Iran. Even by the 1920s, as the first modern prison network was being built in central Tehran, there were only a few hundred detainees being held by the centralising Pahlavi government. By the eve of the 1979 revolution, that number had ballooned to approximately 20,000 detainees. Now, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are at least a quarter of a million detainees being held in 268 official jails and prisons. How and why did this extraordinary transformation and expansion occur? How did Iranians come to understand their increasingly policed and punished social worlds? What does Iran’s penal history tell us about the expansion of prisons across the world? Golnar Nikpour is Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth University. Nikpour is a scholar of modern Iranian political and intellectual history, with a particular interest in the history of law, incarceration, and rights. She holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University's department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, & African Studies. She teaches on an interdisciplinary set of topics including modern Middle Eastern and North African history, Iranian history, political theory, Islamic studies, critical prison studies, and women and gender studies. From 2015-2017, Nikpour was an A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and in 2017-2018, she served as Neubauer Junior Research Fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Since 2019, Nikpour has served on the editorial collective of the journal Radical History Review, and she also serves the editorial board of the Radical Histories of the Middle East book series on Oneworld Press. Nikpour is also co-founder and co-editor of B|ta’arof, a journal for Iranian arts and writing, where she has written extensively on the intellectual and cultural histories of Iran and its diaspora. She is currently finishing her first book project, a history of Iranian prisons and carcerality in a global context. Nazanin Shahrokni is Assistant Professor of Gender and Globalisation and Director of MSc Programme in Gender and Gender Research at the London School of Economics. She is the author of the award-winning book, Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press 2020) which offers a gripping inquiry into gender segregation policies and women’s rights in contemporary Iran. Nazanin serves on the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association and is on the advisory board of Middle East Law and Governance, as well, the Global Dialogue.