This book investigates the power of civil society in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in the context of the post-Arab Spring era, as well as more long-standing challenges and constraints in the region. In recent years, local civil society actors have faced significant challenges from social conservatism, conflict, violence, and the absence of democracy and exclusive political systems. Over the course of the book, the authors investigate how the sector has succeeded in achieving its own objectives despite these shifting conditions, the restrictive political environment and the complexity of the socio-cultural and economic context. Structured around the three themes of peace-building, development, and change, the book also addresses challenges faced by civil society organizations linked to ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversities as well as religious salient differences that are crucial markers of social and political identity. Case studies are drawn from the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Jordan, Iran, Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, and Morocco, and particular effort has been made to showcase original research from contributors who are from the region . This book will be of particular interest to researchers working on development, peace-building, conflict resolution, civil society, and politics within the MENA region.

The second edition of this well-regarded volume explores the societies of the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting original studies written by the world’s leading MENA scholars, it sheds light upon the organizing structures, human vulnerabilities, and dynamic forces that propel social change among the peoples of the Arab world, as well as Israel, Turkey, and Iran. The volume can be used in conjunction with The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa textbook for a comprehensive overview of the region. Carrying over from the previous edition, among the rich topics covered are agriculture, urbanization, development, identity, citizenship, gender, religion, civil society, the environment, and youths. This second edition adds two new chapters on refugees and public opinion, as each constitutes a crucial part of the region’s social and cultural context. This edition also updates existing chapters to account for the latest events and trends, including the COVID-19 pandemic, popular protests, and demographic growth. Written in an accessible way, the chapters are clearly structured and contain insightful analysis, memorable case studies, illustrative photographs, and visualized data that illuminate the contours of social life across this diverse region. Each chapter also ends with curated questions for discussion, followed by annotated bibliographies to help spark further research to encourage seamless adoption into classrooms.

Civil Society in the Middle East is a project of the Department of Politics and the Koverkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University. Project director is Augustus Richard Norton (Boston University). While there is wide disagreement about the outcome among those who follow events in the Middle East, there is little doubt that the regimes in the region are under increasing pressure from their citizens. In rich and poor states alike, incipient movements of men and women are demanding a voice in politics. Recent political developments in Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, even the future state of Palestine, clearly show the vitality and dynamism of civil society, the melange of associations, clubs, guilds, syndicates, federations, unions, parties and groups which provide a buffer between state and citizen and which are now so clearly at the forefront of political liberalization in the region. Civil Society in the Middle East, a two-volume set of papers providing an unusually detailed and rich assessment of contemporary politics within the Middle East, and in this sense alone, quite literally peerless, is the result of a project of the Department of Politics and the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. Volume I contains contributions by Augustus Richard Norton, Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Laurie Brand, Muhammad Muslih, Mustafa Kamil al-Sayyid, Ghanim al Najjar and Neil Hicks, Eva Bellin, Jill Crystal, Saad al-Din Ibrahim, and Alan Richards.

This book examines the links between civil society, religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa region. The chapters in the volume explore the role of religion in shaping and changing the public sphere in regions that are developing and/or in conflict. They also discuss how these relations are reflected on civil society organizations and the role they are expected to play in transitional periods. This volume: investigates the conceptual dilemmas regarding what is ‘civil society’ in the Arab world today examines the dynamic roles of civil society organizations and religion in the Middle East and North Africa explores the future of the Arab civil society post-‘Arab Spring’ events, and how the latter continues to reshape the demand for democracy in the region. A comprehensive study of how the Arab civil society has come into being and its changing roles, this eclectic work will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, especially political Islam, international relations, Middle East Studies, African Studies, sociology and social anthropology.

Leading scholars assembled by the Civil Society in the Middle East program provide lucid, informed essays on the quality of political life, weighing the role of civil society and assessing the prospects for political reform in the Middle East.

This book examines civil society in the Arab world and how authoritarian constraints impact on democratization. It includes case studies from across the region and analyses the divisions between Islamist organizations and secular/liberal ones.

Launched in 1992, the Civil Society in the Middle East program has brought together dozens of leading scholars to analyze political life through an exploration of civil society within the states of the region. This is the first of two volumes to be published by Brill; it contains original studies of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Tunisia, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the prospects for democratization in the Arab world, the consequences of economic liberalization and contemporary Islamic thought on civil society and democracy. This first volume offers a wealth of new material on unions, political parties and professional syndicates, and other components of civil society, as the authors weigh the prospects for political reform in the Middle East, and provide readable yet richly informed assessments of state-society relations.

This textbook offers a systematic and up-to-date introduction to politics and society in the Middle East. Taking a thematic approach that engages with core theory as well as a wide range of research, it examines postcolonial political, social and economic developments in the region, while also scrutinising the domestic and international factors that have played a central role in these developments. Topics covered include the role of religion in political life, gender and politics, the Israel-Palestine conflict, civil war in Syria, the ongoing threat posed by Islamist groups such as Islamic State as well as the effects of increasing globalisation across the MENA. Following the ongoing legacy of the Arab Spring, it pays particular attention to the tension between processes of democratization and the persistence of authoritarian rule in the region. This new edition offers: - Coverage of the latest developments, with expanded coverage of the military and security apparatus, regional conflict and the Arab uprisings - Textboxes linking key themes to specific historical events, figures and concepts - Comparative spotlight features focusing on the politics and governance of individual countries. This is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students approaching Middle Eastern politics for the first time.

Civil Society in the Middle East analyzes the impact of repression on civil society activism in the Middle East through analyzing the cases of Egypt and Jordan. Sika argues that authoritarian regimes' repressive strategies toward civil society actors vary depending on recent historical experience with regime breakdown and/or continuity. Authoritarian regimes that go through breakdown and that transition from one autocratic rule to another increase repression against all civil society actors in an effort to pre-empt large-scale mobilization. This instils fear into civil society actors, who as a result either disengage from civic and political activism or turn to different forms of participation, such as social entrepreneurship. On the other hand, long-standing authoritarian regimes that have not faced breakdown utilize targeted repression and co-optation strategies while tolerating civic and political activism, as well as some forms of contentious activities. Civil society actors in these regimes are able to grasp political opportunities to mobilize for demonstrations at certain times and in certain spaces, and to develop coalition partnerships to push the regime to advance some reforms and change.

In the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, there has always been a tendency to accord complete supremacy to the authority and might of the state, and to see 'society' as a separate, powerless entity. However, after the uprising of 2011, this assumption was turned on its head. And it is the wide range of political activity beyond the remit of the official state where Wanda Krause locates a dynamic potential for political change from the bottom up. She looks in particular at the influential role of women's private voluntary organisations in Egypt in shaping concepts of civil society and democracy. Exploring both secular and 'Islamist' organisations, she offers a steadfast critique of the view that Islamic women activists are insignificant, 'backward' or 'uncivil'. Krause's examination of women activists in Egypt today is vital for those interested in Middle East and Gender Studies, as well as those researching the wider issues of civil society and democratisation.