The Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism
The Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism

Author: Mojtaba Mahdavi

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2023-02-28

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 0815655770

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

More than a decade after the birth of contemporary social movements in the Middle East and North Africa scholars are asking what these movements have achieved and how we should evaluate their lasting legacies. The quiet encroachments of MENA counterrevolutionary forces in the post-Arab Spring era have contributed to the revival of an outdated Orientalist discourse of Middle East exceptionalism, implying that the region’s culture is exceptionally immune to democratic movements, values, and institutions. This volume, inspired by critical post-colonial/decolonial studies, and interdisciplinary perspectives of social movement theories, gender studies, Islamic studies, and critical race theory, challenges and demystifies the myth of "MENA Exceptionalism". Composted of three sections, the book first places MENA in the larger global context and sheds light on the impact of geopolitics on the current crises, showing how a postcolonial critique better explains the crisis of democratic social movements and the resilience of authoritarianism. The second section focuses on the unfinished projects of contemporary MENA social movements and their quest for freedom, social justice, and human dignity. Contributors examine specific cases of post-Islamist movements, the Arab youth, student, and other popular non-violent movements. In the final section, the book problematizes the exceptionalist idea of gender passivity and women’s exclusion, which reduces the reality of gender injustice to some eternal and essentialized Muslim/MENA mindset. Contributors address this theory by placing gender as an independent category of thought and action, demonstrating the quest for gender justice movements in MENA, and providing contexts to the cases of gender injustice to challenge simplistic, ahistorical and culturalist assumptions.

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The Myth of American Exceptionalism

Author: Godfrey Hodgson

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780300125702

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The idea that the United States is destined to spread its unique gifts of democracy and capitalism to other countries is dangerous for Americans and for the rest of the world, warns Godfrey Hodgson in this provocative book. Hodgson, a shrewd and highly respected British commentator, argues that America is not as exceptional as it would like to think; its blindness to its own history has bred a complacent nationalism and a disastrous foreign policy that has isolated and alienated it from the global community. Tracing the development of America’s high self regard from the early days of the republic to the present era, Hodgson demonstrates how its exceptionalism has been systematically exaggerated and—in recent decades—corrupted. While there have been distinct and original elements in America’s history and political philosophy, notes Hodgson, these have always been more heavily influenced by European thought and experience than Americans have been willing to acknowledge. A stimulating and timely assessment of how America’s belief in its exceptionalism has led it astray, this book is mandatory reading for its citizens, admirers, and detractors.

The Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism
The Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism

Author: Mojtaba Mahdavi

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2023-03-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780815637929

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

More than a decade after the birth of contemporary social movements in the Middle East and North Africa scholars are asking what these movements have achieved and how we should evaluate their lasting legacies. The quiet encroachments of MENA counterrevolutionary forces in the post-Arab Spring era have contributed to the revival of an outdated Orientalist discourse of Middle East exceptionalism, implying that the region’s culture is exceptionally immune to democratic movements, values, and institutions. This volume, inspired by critical post-colonial/decolonial studies, and interdisciplinary perspectives of social movement theories, gender studies, Islamic studies, and critical race theory, challenges and demystifies the myth of “MENA Exceptionalism”. Composted of three sections, the book first places MENA in the larger global context and sheds light on the impact of geopolitics on the current crises, showing how a postcolonial critique better explains the crisis of democratic social movements and the resilience of authoritarianism. The second section focuses on the unfinished projects of contemporary MENA social movements and their quest for freedom, social justice, and human dignity. Contributors examine specific cases of post-Islamist movements, the Arab youth, student, and other popular non-violent movements. In the final section, the book problematizes the exceptionalist idea of gender passivity and women’s exclusion, which reduces the reality of gender injustice to some eternal and essentialized Muslim/MENA mindset. Contributors address this theory by placing gender as an independent category of thought and action, demonstrating the quest for gender justice movements in MENA, and providing contexts to the cases of gender injustice to challenge simplistic, ahistorical and culturalist assumptions.

Israeli Exceptionalism
Israeli Exceptionalism

Author: M. Alam

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-11-09

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0230101372

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book discusses the small band of European Zionists, who entered the world stage in late 19th century, determined to create a Jewish state and considers how, at that time in Europe, Jewish-Gentile frictions were local problems, whilst today in Israel they have come to form the pivot of global conflict.

A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa
A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa

Author: Joel Beinin

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2020-12-22

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1503614484

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book offers the first critical engagement with the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Challenging conventional wisdom on the origins and contemporary dynamics of capitalism in the region, these cutting-edge essays demonstrate how critical political economy can illuminate both historical and contemporary dynamics of the region and contribute to wider political economy debates from the vantage point of the Middle East. Leading scholars, representing several disciplines, contribute both thematic and country-specific analyses. Their writings critically examine major issues in political economy—notably, the mutual constitution of states, markets, and classes; the co-constitution of class, race, gender, and other forms of identity; varying modes of capital accumulation and the legal, political, and cultural forms of their regulation; relations among local, national, and global forms of capital, class, and culture; technopolitics; the role of war in the constitution of states and classes; and practices and cultures of domination and resistance. Visit politicaleconomyproject.org for additional media and learning resources.

The End of the Myth
The End of the Myth

Author: Greg Grandin

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1250179815

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall. Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.

Life as Politics
Life as Politics

Author: Asef Bayat

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2013-05-01

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 080478633X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Prior to 2011, popular imagination perceived the Muslim Middle East as unchanging and unchangeable, frozen in its own traditions and history. In Life as Politics, Asef Bayat argues that such presumptions fail to recognize the routine, yet important, ways in which ordinary people make meaningful change through everyday actions. First published just months before the Arab Spring swept across the region, this timely and prophetic book sheds light on the ongoing acts of protest, practice, and direct daily action. The second edition includes three new chapters on the Arab Spring and Iran's Green Movement and is fully updated to reflect recent events. At heart, the book remains a study of agency in times of constraint. In addition to ongoing protests, millions of people across the Middle East are effecting transformation through the discovery and creation of new social spaces within which to make their claims heard. This eye-opening book makes an important contribution to global debates over the meaning of social movements and the dynamics of social change.

Victims of Commemoration
Victims of Commemoration

Author: Eray Çayli

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2022-08-03

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0815655460

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Confronting the past" has become a byword for democratization. How societies and governments commemorate their violent pasts is often appraised as a litmus test of their democratization claims. Regardless of how critical such appraisals may be, they tend to share a fundamental assumption: commemoration, as a symbol of democratization, is ontologically distinct from violence. The pitfalls of this assumption have been nowhere more evident than in Turkey whose mainstream image on the world stage has rapidly descended from a regional beacon of democracy to a hotbed of violence within the space of a few recent years. In Victims of Commemoration, Eray Çayli draws upon extensive fieldwork he conducted in the prelude to the mid-2010s when Turkey’s global image fell from grace. This ethnography—the first of its kind—explores both activist and official commemorations at sites of state-endorsed violence in Turkey that have become the subject of campaigns for memorial museums. Reversing the methodological trajectory of existing accounts, Çayli works from the politics of urban and architectural space to grasp ethnic, religious, and ideological marginalization. Victims of Commemoration reveals that, whether campaigns for memorial museums bear fruit or not, architecture helps communities concentrate their political work against systemic problems. Sites significant to Kurdish, Alevi, and revolutionary-leftist struggles for memory and justice prompt activists to file petitions and lawsuits, organize protests, and build new political communities. In doing so, activists not only uphold the legacy of victims but also reject the identity of a passive victimhood being imposed on them. They challenge not only the ways specific violent pasts and their victims are represented, but also the structural violence which underpins deep-seated approaches to nationhood, publicness and truth, and which itself is a source of victimhood. Victims of Commemoration complicates our tendency to presume that violence ends where commemoration begins and that architecture’s role in both is reducible to a question of symbolism.

Chaos in the Liberal Order
Chaos in the Liberal Order

Author: Robert Jervis

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-07-17

Total Pages: 638

ISBN-13: 0231547781

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Donald Trump’s election has called into question many fundamental assumptions about politics and society. Should the forty-fifth president of the United States make us reconsider the nature and future of the global order? Collecting a wide range of perspectives from leading political scientists, historians, and international-relations scholars, Chaos in the Liberal Order explores the global trends that led to Trump’s stunning victory and the impact his presidency will have on the international political landscape. Contributors situate Trump among past foreign policy upheavals and enduring models for global governance, seeking to understand how and why he departs from precedents and norms. The book considers key issues, such as what Trump means for America’s role in the world; the relationship between domestic and international politics; and Trump’s place in the rise of the far right worldwide. It poses challenging questions, including: Does Trump’s election signal the downfall of the liberal order or unveil its resilience? What is the importance of individual leaders for the international system, and to what extent is Trump an outlier? Is there a Trump doctrine, or is America’s president fundamentally impulsive and scattershot? The book considers the effects of Trump’s presidency on trends in human rights, international alliances, and regional conflicts. With provocative contributions from prominent figures such as Stephen M. Walt, Andrew J. Bacevich, and Samuel Moyn, this timely collection brings much-needed expert perspectives on our tumultuous era.

After the Apocalypse
After the Apocalypse

Author: Andrew Bacevich

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1250796008

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A bold and urgent perspective on how American foreign policy must change in response to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Limits of Power and The Age of Illusions. The purpose of U.S. foreign policy has, at least theoretically, been to keep Americans safe. Yet as we confront a radically changed world, it has become indisputably clear that the terms of that policy have failed. Washington’s insistence that a market economy is compatible with the common good, its faith in the idea of the “West” and its “special relationships,” its conviction that global military primacy is the key to a stable and sustainable world order—these have brought endless wars and a succession of moral and material disasters. In a bold reconception of America’s place in the world, informed by thinking from across the political spectrum, Andrew J. Bacevich—founder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a bipartisan Washington think tank dedicated to foreign policy—lays down a new approach—one that is based on moral pragmatism, mutual coexistence, and war as a last resort. Confronting the threats of the future—accelerating climate change, a shift in the international balance of power, and the ascendance of information technology over brute weapons of war—his vision calls for nothing less than a profound overhaul of our understanding of national security. Crucial and provocative, After the Apocalypse sets out new principles to guide the once-but-no-longer sole superpower as it navigates a transformed world.