Farnaz Fassihi Candidates in Iran’s presidential elections have always been strictly vetted, and those deemed insufficiently loyal to the Islamic Revolution were disqualified. Within those limits, contenders held…
Yassamine Mather Iran’s presidential elections will be held on June 18 and so far it is not clear who will be the candidates proposed by the many Islamic…
Cihan Tuğal Ten years ago, Erdoğan’s Turkey was hailed in Washington as an example to the Muslim world—a free-market, pro-American Islamic democracy with high growth rates, renowned cultural…
Cihan Tuğal Ten years ago, Erdoğan’s Turkey was hailed in Washington as an example to the Muslim world—a free-market, pro-American Islamic democracy with high growth rates, renowned cultural…
Abdullah Al-Arian Last month, Tunisia’s parliamentary speaker and head of the Ennahda Party, Rached Ghannouchi, came under fire for comments he made following a meeting with the French ambassador. Following a recent string…
Muriam Haleh Davis, Thomas Serres, and the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) This collection of texts in English, Arabic and French is a first attempt to gather…
Djene Rhys, BajalanSara Nur Yildiz, Vazken Khatchig Davidian The outbreak of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan has thrust the long-running dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh (Mountainous Karabakh, known to Armenians…
Julie Simon, Theo Bass, Victoria Boelman, Geoff Mulgan This paper shares lessons from Nesta’s research into some of the pioneering innovations in digital democracy which are taking place…
Tony Greenstein Israel’s third general election in a year has shown a decisive shift to the Zionist right, but whether it will be sufficient to enable Binyamin Netanyahu…
Phil Hearse The Arab Spring of 2011-13 was drowned in rivers of blood, sometimes after being first diverted by the dead-end of political Islam. But in the last…
Michael Roberts The New York Times magazine has described Richard Wolff as “probably America’s most prominent Marxist economist”. And that is probably not an exaggeration as a description of this emeritus Professor of…
Frieda Afari Police stations, banks, some public buildings, a few religious seminaries and many posters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been set on fire. Demonstrators have…
An interview with Rosa Burç and Kerem Schamberger The death of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi isn’t the end of the Syrian bloodbath — even in…
Certainties that had defined Turkish politics for a generation were thrown into doubt by the overwhelming victory Istanbul voters handed the opposition CHP party’s mayoral candidate Ekrem İmamoǧlu…
Madleine Freeman On the fifth day of a series of massive protests in Lebanon, workers from the country’s largest unions have joined over a million protesters in the…
Amira Abo el-Fetouh We may be too optimistic to hope that the massive demonstrations that have spread in all the cities of Lebanon will lead to the collapse…
Moshé Machover I would like to deal with two aspects of Israeli politics: the attitude to Iran and the internal situation. Common to both parts is the intertwining…
Bashar al-Assad has started confiscating the homes of Syrians who fled during the Civil War. For decades, his clan has purged the state of all but the most…
Gülistan Gürbey. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) was able to win the mayoral election in Istanbul (31 March and 23 June 2019) and at the same time experienced…
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman Not so long ago, human rights were seen as a way out of the crises of a divided world. From the late 1970s, almost all political…
Omar Dahi. The question of donor conditionality and how it could be used to influence behavior and promote respect for human rights and political inclusion has increasingly gained…
L K Sharma. The people accepted electoral authoritarianism for their security. This neutralised warnings by intellectuals and opposition parties that Modi’s India was heading towards fascism. Narendra Modi’s…
Pat Fry. It was 7 AM April 30th in Caracas when I awoke to hear gun shots outside my hotel. Our group, seven US citizens and one Canadian,…
Richard Falk. Prefatory Note: There are important recent developments in Turkey. An unprecedented decision by the High Electoral Council (HEC) of Turkey to cancel the outcome of the…
Moshé Machover. Binyamin (‘Bibi’) Netanyahu’s motive for calling an early election to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), one year before the end of its term, was purely personal: it…
Jonathan Fenton-Harvey Civil societies and political actors in the Middle East and North Africa have continuously fought for democratic change and positive reforms since the 2011 Arab Spring…
Adam Shatz. Israel’s legislative elections on 9 April were a tribute to Binyamin Netanyahu’s transformation of the political landscape. At no point were they discussed in terms of…
On Thursday night, hundreds of people packed into the Old South Church in Boston to hear the world-renowned dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky speak. He looked back at…
Hamza Hamouchene. What is happening in Algeria is truly historic. The people won the first battle in their struggle to radically overhaul the system. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president for…
Tony Greenstein. In most western countries, political parties compete in general elections over issues such as taxation, nationalisation/privatisation, poverty, etc. Those in most European countries, with the exception…
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