The Arab Spring surely satisfies the three criteria for a black swan event: surprising, historically consequential, and rationalized by hindsight, notes the World Bank’s Elena Ianchovichina, author of Eruptions of… Read more »
Turnout appeared low on Tuesday as Egyptians voted on the second day of an election that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is virtually certain to win, after all serious rivals were either… Read more »
The violent collapse of the Arab Spring has damaged the cause of liberal politics not just in the Middle East, but around the world. Strongman leaders are back in fashion… Read more »
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is in Washington, D.C., March 19-22, the third stop on his first foreign trip as crown prince, notes the Project on Middle East Democracy: Mohammed… Read more »
The forces of democracy and the moral gains of the liberal world order have given way to great-power conflict and the new autocracy, while the Syrian war reveals the unsettling return… Read more »
Puritanical Salafist Muslims have attacked Sufi shrines and communities across the Arab world in a campaign to spread their influence. But in Tunisia, where national history and identity are intimately… Read more »
The crisis in Yemen was highlighted by Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who painted a bleak picture of human rights violations in more than 50… Read more »
Egypt’s State Information Service has called on Egyptian officials and “the elite” to boycott the BBC in response to a program – Crushing Dissent in Egypt – which it described as… Read more »
He was a prosecutor of Iran’s Islamic revolution and acquired a notorious reputation for the arbitrary executions of thousands of opponents. A few decades later he oversaw the judiciary’s… Read more »
Autocratic allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, have reportedly been told that the U.S. will not “lecture” them on democracy and human rights. U.S. attempts to explicitly… Read more »
