Middle East Policy articles from December 2007

Middle East Policy archives from December 2007

Introduction.
December 22, 2007... With so much journalistic and academic attention focused on the conflict in Iraq, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian struggle, Lebanon and other places of interest in the Middle East, North Africa has been relatively neglected. Yet we believe it...

North Africa: reform, development and Islamism.(Symposium: North Africa)
December 22, 2007... The following is an edited transcript of the fiftieth in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was hem on September 14, 2007 in the Caucus Room of the Cannon Building with Chas. W. Freeman,...

The unchanging politics of North Africa.
December 22, 2007... Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Never has this cliche been more appropriate than when applied to the politics of contemporary North Africa. Despite the use of democratic discourse and select application of pluralistic practices, the...

The Maghreb's subordinate position in the world's political economy.
December 22, 2007... Area studies and geostrategic conventions have shaped a longstanding tendency to think of the world as regional blocs. Yet, in the context of regional studies, analysts typically focus on individual country cases. They often offer country...

U.S. policy towards North Africa: three overarching themes.
December 22, 2007... Until quite recently, given the diversity of North Africa, it would have been difficult to talk in a coherent manner about U.S. policy towards the region as a whole. In Morocco, Washington was dealing with a monarchy with longstanding ties to...

Divergent democratization: the paths of Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania.
December 22, 2007... In late 1987, political scientists assessing the prospects for democratization in the Arab world hailed Tunisia as a frontrunner, proclaiming it to be on the brink of the first democratic transition in the region. (1) The new president, Zine...

The dialectics of political Islam in North Africa.
December 22, 2007... As the most intensively colonized region of the Muslim world for the longest periods of time North Africa deserves special attention from U.S. policy makers and analysts concerned with the evolution of political Islam. Indeed, policy-making...

Civil-military relations in North Africa.
December 22, 2007... Many factors shape the role of the military in the political life of a country: the status of the armed forces relative to the population (heroic saviors or marauding bands, for example), the societal commitment to democratic values, the...

Women in the Maghreb: civil society's actors or political instruments?
December 22, 2007... It is impossible to discuss democratization, human development and human rights anywhere in the world without including the role of women. Before evaluating it in the Maghrebi countries, it is important to point out that female representation...

Corruption in Morocco: old forces, new dynamics and a way forward.
December 22, 2007... Morocco "has been spared weapons of mass destruction, but it is being destroyed by weapons of mass corruption." This often-heard statement in the kingdom suggests that, for all the rhetorical emphasis that successive governments since 1998 have...

Russia and Algeria: partners or competitors?
December 22, 2007... Russian-Algerian relations had been relatively subdued before 2006. In that year, however, their ties expanded markedly. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Algeria in March 2006. At that time, major agreements on Russian arms sales to...

Stalemate in Western Sahara: ending international legality.
December 22, 2007... Nearly two decades since the end of the Cold War, the conflict in the Western Sahara has yet to see its definitive resolution. In fact, this 32-year-old dispute belongs to the category of "forgotten" or "frozen" disputes. The Sahrawi refugees,...

Time for a solution in the Western Sahara conflict.
December 22, 2007... The Western Saharan conflict, one of the modern world's oldest, seems to be coming to a head. If so, it will be because the leading states of the United Nations have finally taken an interest in the conflict and decided that it is against their...

A History of Modern Libya.(Book review)
December 22, 2007... A History of Modern Libya, by Dirk Vandewalle. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 246 pages. 14.99 [pounds sterling] ($30.40). Dirk Vandewalle has a reputation as a distinguished scholar of Libya, and this book burnishes it. Professor...

History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria.(Book review)
December 22, 2007... History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria, by James McDougall. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 282 pages. $85.00, hardcover. In his seminal work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict...

Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa.(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa, by Ussama Makdisi and Paul A. Silverstein, eds. Indiana University Press, 2006. 236 pages, index to 243. $32.00, hardcover. "This book explores the intersection of memory, violence...

Women in the Middle East, Past and Present.(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Women in the Middle East, Past and Present, by Nikki R. Keddie. Princeton University Press, 2007. 193 pages. $24.95, hardcover. Few topics are as shrouded in misunderstanding and misinformation among Americans and their policy makers as the...