In the News...
Charis Boutieri to join Middle East & Mediterranean Studies from September 2012
May 2012
We are delighted to announce that Dr Charis Boutieri will be joining MEMS from September 2012 as a Lecturer in the Social Anthropology of the Middle East.
Her appointment will allow us to offer teaching and PhD supervision in a previously uncovered area and we are excited at the opportunities that this provides for collaboration with staff and MA and PhD students in the Programme.
Dr Boutieri's research interests, publications and areas of teaching and supervision are now on our staff pages.
How to export the principles of the peace process
May 2012
Professor Rory Miller was one of five experts from around the world who give their opinion to The Irish Times on whether the Northern Ireland Peace Model can be exported. You can read more about the event in the article published in the Irish Times (“How to export the principles of the peace process” - published 22/05/2012)
Professor Miller also recently spoke on the Consequences for Europe of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War at a two-day workshop in Brussels on 3-4 May, hosted by the University of Birmingham Brussels Office.
Michael Kerr discusses conflict regulation on BBC's Sunday Sequence
April 2012
Professor Michael Kerr appeared on the BBC Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence programme to discuss whether Northern Ireland's successful conflict regulation process can be replicated in places such as Kosovo, Syria or Lebanon.
You can listen to the programme until 06 May 2012 via the BBC website (first broadcast 29 April 2012).
Also in the News...
Karsh on 'The Catastrophe Called Nakba'
May 2012
Professor Efraim Karsh's latest article in The Jerusalem Post (published 10/05/2012) suggests that a ‘distorted history’ of the Nakba stands in the way of a solution to the conflict. Read more on The Jerusalem Post's website.
Nuclear talks: high stakes but low expectations
April 2012
Professor Rory Miller's latest analysis piece for the Irish Times argues that the upcoming Istanbul meeting of Iran with the UN permanent security council and Germany "will have achieved a lot if it can defuse international tensions by showing negotiation is the alternative to military action". Read more on the Irish Times website.
The latest articles from members of the MEMS programme
April 2012
Mohammad Aslam writes for The Independent Blogs, discussing the Russian Federation's state-run natural gas supplier in 'Putin’s Gazprom: An unhealthy mix of business and politics' (published 27/04/2012)
March 2012
Professor Rory Miller's latest article 'The Business of Politics, the Politics of Business. Turning EU Economic Power into Political Influence' has been published in Birte Wassenberg & Giovanni Faleg (eds.), Europe and the Middle East: The hour of the EU? (Peter Lang Publishers, 2012).
Michael Sharnoff’s latest article in The Huffington Post questions the role of the Arab League in the context of the crimes against humanity in Syria. (published 01/03/2012)
Mohammad Aslam’s new article in American Thinker discusses “the rise of the so-called new Arab media”- ‘Al Majalla: The leading Arab magazine?’ (published 03/03/2012)
Professor Efraim Karsh discusses Israel Apartheid week in the his new article for the The Jerusalem Post (published 05/03/2012)
Middle East & Mediterranean Studies at King's at BRISMES 2012
March 2012
On 29 March MES staff made up two panels at the British Middle Eastern Studies Association (BRISMES) Annual Conference.
Mr Hannes Baumann, Dr Ashraf Mishrif and Professor Rory Miller spoke on Political Economy after the Arab Revolution: New Perspectives while Dr Stacey Gutkowski, Dr Charis Boutieri, and Mr Daniele Bolazzi spoke on the subject of Revolutionary Cities, Revolutionary Youth: The Arab Spring Society.
Ashraf Mishrif at the 5th anniversary conference of the Oxford Forum for International Development (Oxford University, 24-26 February 2012)
March 2012
Dr Mishrif chaired the panel discussion on The Arab Spring: Political Islam and the New Landscape for Development, in which he outlined the political, economic and social repercussions of the failure of neo-liberal economic reform programmes in the past three decades across the Middle East and the likely impact of this on future directions of the reform programmes and the development progress.
As a panelist, he focused in his talk on the rise of political Islam from a developmental perspective and how such a new phenomenon could change the political and economic landscape of the whole MENA region, following the overwhelming victories of Islamist political parties in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lybia and Kuwait.
He argued that the distorted image of neo-liberal reforms, which were manipulated by their architects for self-enrichment, and the failure of their policies to reduce inflation, unemployment, inequality and poverty have underlined the emerging model of development, where the state plays a greater role in the development process; such a model will primarily focus on industrailsation and agricultural development rather than deregulations and privatization.
While expressing his concern of the limited capacity of the state to engage in massive industralisation programmes in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, Dr Mishrif insisted on the indispensable role of the private sector, with its financial and technological capabilities, in the development process. He concluded his talk by arguing that the key to the development of the MENA region rests upon the creation of efficient, accountable public institutions that are capable of utilizing their country's natural and huaman resources and a greater role of the private sector in the development process.
New podcast: Frustrations and challenges: Egypt a year on from the fall of Mubarak
February 2012
A year on from the fall of President Mubarak, Dr Charis Boutieri and Dr Ashraf Mishrif, from the Middle East & Mediterranean Studies programme, and Dr Ami Abou Bakr, from the Department of Political Economy, examine the apparent slow rate of political progress in Egypt and discuss the tests the country and its people will face as they make the transition towards democracy. and , from the Middle East & Mediterranean Studies programme, and Dr Ami Abou Bakr, from the Department of Political Economy, examine the apparent slow rate of political progress in Egypt and discuss the tests the country and its people will face as they make the transition towards democracy.
Download the podcast on iKings.
The European Union's Counterproductive Iran Sanctions: The Case for Pulling Back
February 2012
Professor Rory Miller comments that Brussel's new found hawkishness will squander its influence with Tehran and its credibility with the rest of the international community (in Foreign Affairs, 24 February 2012). To read the article, please visit the Foreign Affairs website.
The Car Bomb: From Belfast to Baghdad
February 2012
In his latest article in American Thinker, Mohammad Aslam (MEMS PhD) discusses the use of the car bomb, the “curse of all urban conflict”, across the world. Read this article by visiting the LSE Global War on Terror blog.
New articles by Michael Sharnoff
February 2012
Michael Sharnoff (MEMS PhD) has released a number of articles in his column in the Huffington Post.
In addition, Michael also recently appeared on The John Batchelor Show on WABC (Amercian radio station) discussing Hamas-Fatah. You can listen to the broadcast online at the WABC website. (Michael's segment occurs around 30:36)
Podcast of Dr Carool Kersten at LSE
February 2012
The London School of Economics have released the podcast of my talk at LSE's Middle East Centre on 'Muslim Cosmopolitanism or Heresy? Lessons for the Aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring' on 06 February 2012.
"In the course of the last decade, dramatic political events involving Muslims across the world have put Islam under increased scrutiny. The focus of this attention is generally limited to the political aspects and often even further confined by constrictive views of Islamism narrowed down to its most extremist exponents. Much less attention is paid to the parallel development of more liberal and progressive alternative Islamic discourses; but the final decades of the twentieth-century has also seen the emergence of a Muslim intelligentsia exploring new and creative ways of engaging with the Islamic heritage. Their ideas appear to provide an alternative to both the hard secularism represented by either authoritarian or more benign regimes and the advocacy of an Islamic state. It appears that this third way resonates with the ambitions and expectations of those involved in the Arab uprisings of 2011.
In this presentation Carool Kersten discusses how three emblematic Muslim intellectuals from Algeria, Egypt and Indonesia give new relevance to religion in the post-secular and post-Islamist Muslim world of the 21st century."
You can listen to this podcast if you visit the LSE website.
Hezbollah’s Missiles: A Brilliant Madness?
February 2012
Mohammad Aslam (MEMS PhD candidate) has published another article in Foreign Relations, discussing Hezbollah’s preparations for military conflict.
To read this article, please visit the Foreign Relations website
Nomination for 'Cosmopolitans and Heretics'
February 2012
Dr Carool Kersten’s latest book has been nominated by Columbia University Press for the Asia Society's Bernard Schwartz Book Award.
On 06 February, Dr Kersten will speak at LSE on 'Muslim Cosmopolitanism or Heresy? Lessons for the Aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring'.
The ascent of Rafiq Hariri and philanthropic practices in Beirut
February 2012
Hannes Baumann (Tutorial Fellow in MEMS) has recently had a new article published in F. Mermier and S. Mervin (eds.), Leaders et partisans au Liban (Karthala: Paris, 2012).
You can access the article online here.
UAE can learn how a little goes a long way
February 2012
Professor Rory Miller (along with Mark Napier and Ghanem Nuseibeh) has recently published a new article in The National:
"It has been widely accepted that investment in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) is vital if the UAE, and the Gulf in general, wants to increase the number of nationals working in the private sector.
Achieving that goal requires the development of a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation as well as investment in infrastructure. While this may seem an inopportune time to be learning lessons from the once widely-admired European model, given the current economic crisis inside the EU, a way forward is perhaps suggested by the burgeoning social enterprise sector in the UK and elsewhere. These countries are neatly fusing entrepreneurial zeal and innovative thinking with a social conscience"
To continue reading, please visit The National’s website.
Michael Kerr on Northern Ireland on LSE blog
January 2012
Michael Kerr's latest article on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog marks the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and argues that "the Northern Ireland of today is governed with a remarkable degree of consensus and represents a best practice case of ethnic conflict regulation"
You can read the article online if you visit the LSE blog.
Nationalism and ethnicity in the Arab revolutions
January 2012
Hannes Baumann, a teaching fellow in MEMS has edited a features section of LSE-based journal Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism on "Nationalism and ethnicity in the Arab revolutions".
Visit the journal here (login required for off-campus access)
The British Secular habitus and the War on Terror
January 2012
Dr Stacey Gutkowski, co-director of the Non-religion and Secularity Research Network, has just published on the impact of secularism on the war on terror, as part of a special issue in the Journal of Contemporary Religion on Non-Religion and Secularity.
You can access the article online.
Playing Second Fiddle
January 2012
Professor Rory Miller has recently had an article published in the Canadian foreign policy think tank-The Canadian International Council.
“The Obama administration’s failure to provide constructive leadership has damaged U.S. credibility and influence in the Middle East. But it has not opened the way for Europe to play the key external role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking that it yearns.”
To continue reading, visit The Canadian International Council website.
Inglorious Disarray - new book by Professor Rory Miller
Professor Rory Miller's new book Inglorious Disarray: Europe, Israel and the Palestinians has been published recently in both the US and UK. It tells the story of Europe's attempt to play a role in the politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the contemporary era.
You can find it at Amazon.
See a review in the Jerusalem Post.
Also see his recent piece in the Sunday Business Post on the Irish role in the quest for Palestinian Statehood.
Waziristan – The Drone Delusion
January 2012
In his latest article, Mohammad Aslam discusses the use of US drones over Waziristan (in South Asia Journal, January 2012).