Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Browse subjects
  3. Politics and International Relations
  4. Middle East government, politics and policy
  5. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

355 results in Middle East government, politics and policy

Page 1 of 18

Speaking Freedom
  • The Tunisian Public Sphere between Revolution and Democracy
  • Charis Boutieri
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026

Gender and the Global Climate Crisis
  • Women's Voices, Representation and Activism in the Middle East and North Africa
  • Lise Storm
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026
  • There is overwhelming evidence that the impacts of climate change are gender-differentiated and that women are the most negatively affected. Drawing on interviews with nearly 100 female activists and politicians from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine, Lise Storm explores the implications of unequal female political representation for the climate crisis. Storm considers the voices of the women who are, or have been, involved in politics at the highest level. These women have experience with running for election, gender quotas, party politics, portfolio allocation, policy making, agenda setting and other such political dynamics and processes relating to power. This study sheds light on women's agency in climate debates and the impacts of the dynamics surrounding political representation. It adds new perspectives to the backgrounds of female MPs and activists and the drivers of their success – factors which influence how the global climate crisis is tackled locally in the region.

An Introduction to Gulf Politics
  • Edited by Khalid Almezaini, Kristian Alexander
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026
  • The Gulf region is a distinct sub-system of the wider Middle East, including the resource-rich states of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Iran, and commands enduring relevance within the international system. This is the first textbook to provide a focused, comprehensive introduction to Gulf politics, specifically tailored for undergraduate students and newcomers to the subject. It explores the region's political landscape, covering key topics such as state formation, oil and rentierism, regime types, religion and politics, foreign policy and migration. Blending historical context with contemporary analysis, chapters by leading scholars examine the role of oil wealth, tribal structures, regional integration and merchant elites in state-building, as well as the region's strategic importance in global politics. An ideal core text for university courses on the Gulf and GCC, An Introduction to Gulf Politics is essential for understanding the complexities of power, governance and influence in one of the world's most dynamic regions.

European Shiʿism
  • Peripheral Engagement and Religious Retention
  • Matthijs van den Bos
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2026
    Print publication:
    31 May 2026
  • The presence of Shiʿite communities in Western Europe dates to the late nineteenth century, with Britain as the primary destination for immigration, as well as notable communities developing in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Exploring selected encounters of Twelver Shiʿite Muslims with the European West, this study examines local and transnational religious organization to assess socio-political integration. Its central thesis defines European Shiʿism through peripheral engagement and religious retention. Building on a range of language sources, interviews with Shiʿite spokesmen and fieldwork in Iran, Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany, Matthijs van den Bos identifies European Shiʿism with a religious mode of engagement involving hierarchization of collective self and other identities. Shiʿite parties with greater distance to high politico-religious authorities abroad are seen more likely to engage in cultural exchange with their European milieu. On one side stand ethnically varied Shiʿite organizations with limited engagement of others in Europe. The other shows civic outreach, ritual transformation, and integrationist theology.

Monarchies of Extraction
  • The Gulf States in the Global Food System
  • Christian Henderson
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2026
    Print publication:
    31 May 2026
  • In a region known for its export of oil, Monarchies of Extraction explores how the Gulf states are simultaneously defined by the importation of food. Charting the economics and politics of the Gulf through an examination of its food system, Christian Henderson demonstrates how these states constitute a distinct social metabolism. Starting with the pre-oil phase, this book examines the politics of agrarian change in the Gulf. In the contemporary period, Henderson considers the way that the Gulf states represent 'inverted farms', where the import of prodigious quantities of agricultural commodities has enabled these economies to overcome their lack of arable land. As a result of this trade, states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have developed their own agribusiness sectors. Henderson further shows how food and consumption in the Gulf states constitute political questions of diet, sustainability, and boycott.

State Matters
  • Theorizing State Fragmentation and Consolidation from Iraq
  • Nida Alahmad
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2026
    Print publication:
    31 May 2026
  • Why does the state matter to its people? How do people know and experience the state? And how did the state come to be both desired and dreaded by its subjects? This study offers a historically grounded social theoretical account of state consolidation in Iraq, from the foundation of the country as a League of Nations British Mandate in 1921 through to the post-2003 era. Through analysis of key historical episodes of state consolidation (and fragmentation) during the past century, Nida Alahmad argues that consolidation rests on two sequential and interdependent factors. First, domination: the state's capacity to dominate land and population. Second, legitimation: whereby the state is accepted and expected by the population to be the final arbitrator of collective life based on common principles. Moving between intellectual traditions and disciplines, Alahmad demonstrates that a theorization of state consolidation is a theorization of the modern state.

Syrian Intellectuals in Exile
  • The Dilemmas of Revolution and the Cost of Leaving
  • Zeina Al Azmeh
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    February 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026
  • In the wake of the 2011 uprising in Syria, a number of Syrian intellectuals were forced into exile. Many of these intellectuals played a crucial role in mobilising people in the early days of the movement, but once in exile an irreconcilable tension emerged between their revolutionary narratives and the violent reality on the ground. Zeina Al Azmeh explores this tension, shedding light on whether and how exile influenced narratives, strategies, and political agency. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Paris and Berlin, Al Azmeh examines how writers and artists work to reconcile revolutionary ideals with the realities of war and displacement. Bringing together insights from cultural sociology, postcolonial thought, and migration studies, Syrian Intellectuals in Exile provides new analytical tools for understanding the intersection of intellectual work and social movements. This study blends empirical research with personal narratives, offering a timely reflection on exile, memory, and the limits of intellectual activism.

States Under Stress
  • Explaining Resilience in the Middle East
  • Eberhard Kienle
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    February 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026
  • Unlike conventional narratives of 'state failure' and its conceptual avatars, the volume analyses the remains of states whose populations had been torn apart by prolonged and violent conflicts and whose rulers lost the monopoly over the means of coercion and the capacity to implement public policies. Focusing on Lebanon since the civil war of the 1970s and 80s, Syria since the repression of the 'Arab spring' in 2011, and Iraq since the 1991 and 2003 wars, it provides a systematic explanation of the continuous, if precarious, survival of these states which draws on international recognition, access to resources, institutional arrangements, and societal ties alongside societal cleavages. In the process, States under Stress defends a definition of the state based on claims to statehood.

Diasporic State-Building
  • Transnational Networks and the Making of Post-2003 Iraq
  • Oula Kadhum
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 brought exiles of Hussein's tyrannical reign flooding back to their native land, bringing with them the flavours and customs from adopted homes and with it sweeping, transnational power. 'Handing over power to the Iraqis' meant handing over power to the country's most elite transplants. Meanwhile, transnational diasporic activism and networks have simultaneously challenged state policies, buttressing the state apparatus through welfare provision and solidarity networks. How did the Iraqi diaspora achieve such a powerful position and shape the Iraqi state in 2003? What kind of state did they build? And what lessons can be learnt from the Iraqi diaspora for understanding Iraqi nationhood and statehood today? This study explores these questions, drawing on interviews with a wide range of actors to offer a pertinent insight into the critical role of diaspora in shaping the evolution of homeland states under modern processes of globalisation.

The Conquest of the Mountains
  • State Violence, Technology, and Authoritarianism in the Ottoman East
  • Owen Robert Miller
  • Published online:
    14 November 2025
    Print publication:
    11 December 2025
  • In the late summer of 1894, Sultan Abdülhamid II ordered several battalions of Ottoman soldiers to destroy Armenian 'bandits' operating in the remote mountains of Sasun. Over a three-week period, these soldiers systematically murdered men, women, and children, beginning a chain of events which led directly to the Hamidian massacres of 1895 to 1897 and prefigured many of the patterns of the Medz Yeghern (Great Crime) of 1915–1917. Taking a microhistorical approach, Owen Robert Miller examines how the Ottoman State harnessed three nascent technologies (modern firearms, steamboats, and telegraphs) to centralize authority and envisage new methods of conquest. Alongside developing an understanding of how the violence took place, this study explores how competing narratives of the massacre unfolded and were both disseminated and repressed. Emphasizing the pivotal significance of geography and new technologies, The Conquest of the Mountains reveals how the tragic history of these massacres underscores the development of Ottoman State authoritarianism.

Labor Unions and Democratic Unrest in North Africa
  • Protest and Resistance in Tunisia and Morocco
  • Ashley Anderson
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    20 November 2025
  • The political upheavals witnessed in North Africa during the 2011 Arab uprisings brought renewed attention to the region. This book focuses on the inconspicuous yet critical role of labor unions in shaping protest success (and failure) during this period. Drawing on a comparison between Tunisia and Morocco, Ashley Anderson connects the divergent protest strategies of each country to the varying levels of institutional incorporation and organizational cohesion developed by labor unions under authoritarian rule. Using material drawn from English, Arabic, and French news sources, archives and extensive interviews, Anderson demonstrates how Tunisia's exclusionary corporatist system enabled the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) to emerge as a powerful political actor, while Moroccan unions struggled to extract minimal concessions from the incumbent regime. By highlighting the interplay between authoritarian institutions, labor activism, and political reforms, this book sheds light on the challenges that labor organizations face in transforming their countries' political and economic future.

The Rise and Fall of Turkey's Democrat Party
  • The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60
  • Reuben Silverman
  • Published online:
    23 October 2025
    Print publication:
    06 November 2025
  • More than sixty years after Turkey's Democrat Party was removed from office by a military coup and three of its leaders hanged, it remains controversial. For some, it was the defender of a more democratic political order and founder of a dominant center-right political coalition; for others, it ushered in an era of corruption, religious reaction, and subordination to American influence. This study moves beyond such stark binaries. Reuben Silverman details the party's establishment, development, rule, and removal from power, showing how its leaders transformed themselves from champions of democracy and liberal economics to advocates of illiberal policies. To understand this change, Silverman draws on periodicals and archival documents to detail the Democrat Party's continuity with Turkey's late Ottoman and early republican past as well as the changing nature of the American-led Cold War order in which it actively participated.

Tied Up in Tehran
  • Women, Social Change, and the Politics of Daily Life in Postrevolutionary Iran
  • Norma Claire Moruzzi
  • Published online:
    28 September 2025
    Print publication:
    16 October 2025
  • Tied Up in Tehran offers a richly interdisciplinary study of ordinary life in Iran since the 1979 revolution and a critical intervention in political theory debates on knowledge and method. Drawing from over ten years of field work in Iran since the 1990s, and originating in the author's surreal experience of being served tangerines during a home invasion in Tehran, Norma Claire Moruzzi examines the experiences of women, young people, artists, and activists: at home, at work, and in the street. These stories - of food and family, film and politics, shopping and crime-reckon with the past, demonstrate resilient democratization in the present, and provide glimpses of a plausible future while offering a refreshing model to ethically engaged modes of study. Moruzzi's lucid and engaging writing explores Iranian daily life as unexpected, contradictory, and full of political promise.

Salafi Political Theology
  • Daniel Lav
  • Published online:
    24 September 2025
    Print publication:
    02 October 2025
  • Salafism is a theological movement whose radical wing is today affiliated with al-Qaʿida and the Islamic State, but which draws on precedents stretching back to the medieval theology of Ibn Taymiyya. This innovative study focuses on the concept of theonomy in salafi thought: the tenet that rule by God's law is an essential component of faith, and the corresponding notion that other forms of rule based on human legislation are inherently polytheistic and thereby illegitimate. It is this tenet which furnishes radical militants with their principal casus belli against ruling regimes in the Muslim world. In this book, Daniel Lav details the intellectual grounding for modern salafi theonomy in Ibn Taymiyya's doctrine of tawhid and the writings of the early Wahhabi movement, in addition to the twentieth-century thought of Abu al-Aʿla Mawdudi and Sayyid Quṭb, while drawing on insights from comparative political theology to analyze this key school of thought.

Return of Tyranny
  • Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed
  • Killian Clarke
  • Published online:
    17 September 2025
    Print publication:
    23 October 2025
  • Why do some revolutions fail and succumb to counterrevolutions, whereas others go on to establish durable rule? Marshalling original data on counterrevolutions worldwide since 1900 and new evidence from the reversal of Egypt's 2011 revolution, Killian Clarke explains both why counterrevolutions emerge and when they are likely to succeed. He forwards a movement-centric argument that emphasizes the strategies revolutionary leaders embrace both during their opposition campaigns and after they seize power. Movements that wage violent resistance and espouse radical ideologies establish regimes that are very difficult to overthrow. By contrast, democratic revolutions like Egypt's are more vulnerable, though Clarke also identifies a path by which they too can avoid counterrevolution. By preserving their elite coalitions and broad popular support, these movements can return to mass mobilization to thwart counterrevolutionary threats. In an era of resurgent authoritarianism worldwide, Return of Tyranny sheds light on one particularly violent form of reactionary politics.

The Arab Spring
  • Ten Years On
  • Edited by Sujata Ashwarya, Mujib Alam
  • Published by:
    Gerlach Press
    Published online:
    05 September 2025
    Print publication:
    30 June 2022
  • It has been more a decade since people across the Arab world rose up in revolt against their governments, demanding political empowerment, social reform and economic improvement. Pro-democracy protests, as they were called in common parlance, which spread rapidly through the mobilisation of social media calls, ended up overthrowing long-standing authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya.

    That gave rise to hope for a more representative future, as well as economic reforms, after decades of mismanagement and stagnation. However, such hopes were quickly dispelled, as the political vacuum created by the elimination of regional dictatorships deepened fractures in many of these societies along ethnic, religious and tribal fault lines.

    As Islamists and secularists jockeyed for power, Egypt's brief alliance with democracy was halted by a neo-militarist, counter-revolutionary takeover. Tunisia is a notable exception, where both factions in political society have resolved to settle their differences through dialogue and set the tone for democratic politics, while the country is struggling with economic growth and transformation.

    Very little, if anything, has changed in Yemen, Libya and Syria, where long-drawn and bloody civil wars are raging. The monarchies of the Gulf have not been untouched, but remain markedly unchanged.

Political Reforms in Qatar
  • From Authoritarianism to Political Grey Zone
  • Cihat Battaloglu
  • Published by:
    Gerlach Press
    Published online:
    29 August 2025
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018
  • In the past decade, Qatar has emerged as one of the world's most proactive mediators in the international arena. It has also experienced a number of domestic changes to its economic infrastructure, welfare system and political system, along with material improvement in its citizens' standard of living. Nonetheless, despite such radical and rapid advances, political reform in Qatar has proved to be relatively tentative.

    This book examines political reforms in Qatar from an analytical, normative and ideological perspective. It applies the main concepts and theories found in the literature on democratic transition.

    Five elements are discussed as the reason of why the political reform process in Qatar has stagnated in the political 'Grey Zone': (1) Absolute power of the ruler over the political institutions, (2) Tribal social structure in Qatar, (3) Rentier style social contract, (4) Lack of public demand for reforms and politically apathetic society, and (5) New regional and international atmosphere, emerging after Arab Spring.

Iran's Strategic Thinking
  • The Evolution of Iran's Foreign Policy, 1979-2018
  • Nikolay Kozhanov
  • Published by:
    Gerlach Press
    Published online:
    28 August 2025
    Print publication:
    01 June 2018
  • What are the ideological motives behind Iran's foreign policy? This new study examines Tehran's twin desires to protect national interests and to project real power.

    Factors determining Iran's foreign policy include: Potential economic leader of the Middle East Region; Key player in the oil and gas market; Centre of resistance against global Western domination; US and Israel policy; and Syria as the bridge to Lebanon and Palestine.

    There is a strong focus on primary sources, as well as interviews with EU, Russian and Middle East experts, supported by field trips to Iran, Turkey and GCC countries. Political, economic, religious and cultural aspects of Iran's influence abroad are covered. The final chapter covers most recent events and implications of Trump's rejection of the JCPOA.

Yemen and the Gulf States
  • The Making of a Crisis
  • Edited by Helen Lackner, Daniel Martin Varisco
  • Published by:
    Gerlach Press
    Published online:
    23 August 2025
    Print publication:
    30 September 2017
  • Yemen is the only state on the Arabian Peninsula that is not a member of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). It is also the only local state not ruled by a royal family. Relations between Yemen and the GCC states go back for centuries with some tribes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman tracing genealogy back to ancient Yemen.

    In this timely volume six scholars analyze Yemen's relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iran with a focus on recent developments, including the conflict after the fall of Ali Abdullah Salih in Yemen.

Gulfization of the Arab World
  • Edited by Marc Owen Jones, Ross Porter, Marc Valeri
  • Published by:
    Gerlach Press
    Published online:
    23 August 2025
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018
  • From projecting ideology and influence, to maintaining a notion of 'Gulfness' through the selective exclusion or inclusion of certain beliefs, cultures and people, the notion of Gulfization is increasingly pertinent as Gulf countries occupy a greater political and economic role in wider Middle East politics.

    This volume discusses the notion of Gulfization, and examines how thoughts, ideologies, way of life and practices are transmitted, changed, and transduced inside and outside the Gulf. From historical perspectives such as the impact of the 1952 Egyptian Revolution in Yemen, to studies on the contemporary projection of Salafism or hyper-nationalism in the Gulf monarchies, this book explores, contends, and critiques the transnational and regional currents that are making, and unmaking, the new Gulf Moment.

    This is the first volume of the new Exeter Critical Gulf Series and is based on the 28th Gulf Conference held at the University of Exeter in 2016.

Page 1 of 18