Politics

Our Politics section brings in-depth analyses to what drives and determines power competition in governments.



Written by :
on : Thursday, 21 Apr, 2011
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Houses Built on Sand

In the past months we have seen the unbelievable in the Middle East: Ben Ali was overturned in Tunisia following Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation; Mubarak was forced to step down in Egypt, bringing the reign of one of the regions most notorious strongmen to an end; the Libyan people have shocked the world with their courage, as have the Bahrainis, the Yemenis, the Omanis, the Syrians and the Lebanese before them. But as we saw in 1979, 1989, and also 2005—when the Lebanese peacefully ...

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Nicholas Birch
Written by :
on : Tuesday, 5 Apr, 2011
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Provincial Hero

A brilliant, educated woman has to choose between two men: one a wealthy, cynical Istanbuliot as cosmopolitan as she is; the other provincial, poor but possessed by a burning desire to do good for his country. It is a love triangle that any reader of the mid-20th century Turkish author Peyami Safa will recognize. In the hands of this nationalist writer obsessed with what he saw as Turkish culture's capitulation to the West, it becomes a sort of national allegory. Attracted by the glit...

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Written by :
on : Thursday, 24 Mar, 2011
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When Democracy Misfires

“It seems that our country has survived the problem of violence,” according to Sarmad Altaee, editor in chief of one of the few secular and politically independent dailie...

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The Majalla: The Leading Arab Magazine
on : Friday, 11 Mar, 2011
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Love to the Death

In the late 1960s, the CIA set up the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior (CAPPB). The new subdivision was tasked with profiling the psychologies of w...

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Written by :
on : Wednesday, 2 Mar, 2011
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Might is Right

In 1975, regional and domestic shifts resulted in the breakdown of the Beirut government. In its stead, disparate communities created mini-states with private armies and thes...

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Tony Badran
Written by :
on : Wednesday, 16 Feb, 2011
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Delivering Démarches

In the midst of the crises in Lebanon and Egypt, the return of the US ambassador to Damascus went by with little fanfare. When news came out of Robert Ford’s recess appointme...

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Written by :
on : Tuesday, 15 Feb, 2011
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The Road Ahead

Divisions between secularists and Islamists represent a major fault line in Iraqi society in the post-Saddam Hussein years. Indeed, ideological conflict is enshrined in Iraq...

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Daniel F. Rivera Gómez
on : Monday, 24 Jan, 2011
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A Bloody Plan

Until clashes at the Saharan refugee camp near Al-Ayoun in November, Morocco’s conflict with residents of the Western Sahara, known as Sahrawis and represented by the Polis...

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Written by :
on : Monday, 10 Jan, 2011
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More Sweet Than Sour

After President Jimmy Carter visited India in 1978, the village of Daulatpur, in the State of Haryana, was renamed Carterpuri. His mother had been based there as a Peace Cor...

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Jacqueline Shoen
Written by :
on : Tuesday, 4 Jan, 2011
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Practice What You Preach

This year’s report, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030, by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, comes at a critical juncture in t...

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