Lse Middle East Centre Podcasts

Speakers: Ginny Hill, LSE Middle East Centre; Baraa Shiban, Reprieve Chair: Robert Lowe, LSE Middle East Centre Yemen is embroiled in multiple civil wars, triggered by a long-term decline in oil production, the failure of state-building, strong sub-national identities and internal competition between rival elite networks that comprised the regime of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Ginny Hill and Baraa Shiban present their paper for the Remote Control Project, examining the use of special forces, mercenaries and armed drones. They highlight the moral and political risks for Western governments training and arming regional protagonists, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to fight in Yemen. They argue that the implications of the Saudi-led intervention may extend far beyond Yemen’s borders to influence the conduct of future wars. Recorded on 9 November 2016. Image credit: Richard Messenger, Flickr. Sanaa, Yemen.

Speaker: John Chalcraft, LSE Chair: Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, LSE Middle East Centre John Chalcraft launches his book Popular Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, which gives an account of popular protest that emphasizes the revolutionary modern history of the region. Challenging top-down views of Middle Eastern politics, Chalcraft looks at how commoners, subjects and citizens have long mobilised in defiance of authorities, taking examples from a wide variety of protest movements from Morocco to Iran. Recorded on 26 October 2016.

Speaker: Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi Chair: Professor Toby Dodge, LSE In his lecture, UAE based writer and art collector Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi will be discussing the political undertones of iconic artworks of the 20th century in the Arab world. From the Baathist regimes of Syria and Iraq to Egypt’s pan-Arabism under Gamal Abdel Nasser, paintings and sculptures in addition to film and performance have been employed by various governments as a tool of soft power to propagate their policies to the public not only in their respective states but throughout the region and beyond. Despite this government patronage of the arts, many artists have chosen to challenge their authorities through their art practices. This talk is an attempt to shed light on an often neglected dimension in the modern history of the Arab world. Recorded on 18 October 2016. This is an LSE Kuwait Programme event. Watch the video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHpLbuvbROQ

Speaker: Amina Boubia, Sciences Po Centre for International Studies Discussant: Cristina Moreno Almeida, LSE Chair: John Chalcraft, LSE Amina Boubia presents her paper which studies the role new music genres such as rock and rap have played in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring. She argues that music is a powerful form of collective action and should therefore be taken seriously by academics and stakeholders as it can either effectively strengthen contentious movements emerging in a specific context, thus challenging the established order, or, on the contrary, contribute to supporting the status quo. Recorded on 11 October 2016. This seminar forms part of the Social Movements and Popular Mobilisation in the MENA Research Network.

Speaker: Lahur Talabany, Zanyari Agency Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre Since ISIS' occupation of Iraqi territory in June 2014, the Kurdish security forces have been on the frontline as one of the most effective forces in the international coalitions’ efforts to reclaim territory in both Iraq and Syria. Zanyari Intelligence Agency and Counter Terrorism Group Special Forces, under the leadership of Lahur Talabany, have played a key role in these efforts. Lahur Talabany will share with you his insights into how the struggle against ISIS is proceeding. Recorded on 6 October 2016.

Speaker: Nelida Fuccaro, SOAS; Ulrike Freitag, ZMO; Rasmus Christian Elling, University of Copenhagen Chair: Fran Tonkiss, LSE Nelida Fuccaro launches her edited book 'Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East', with two of the contributors to the volume, exploring violence in the public lives of modern Middle Eastern cities, approaching violence as an individual and collective experience, a historical event, and an urban process. In reconstructing the violent pasts of cities, new vistas on modern Middle Eastern history are opened, offering alternative and complementary perspectives to the making and unmaking of empires, nations, and states. Recorded on 5 October 2016.

Lebanon hosts the highest number of Syrian refugees relative to its local population. This poses many challenges to a state known for its fragility and instability. UNHCR Representative to Lebanon Mireille Girard discusses the impact of the Syrian crisis on Lebanon and the responses of international and local institutions. This event launches an MEC workshop on the long-term challenges of forced migration in the Middle East.

Speaker: Rebecca Steinfeld, Goldsmiths, University of London Chair: Avi Shlaim, University of Oxford Rebecca Steinfeld looks at the historical and contemporary struggles that have led to the gap between the restrictions on, and availability of, abortion in Israel. She attributes this gap to the compromise necessitated by conflicts amongst competing policymakers, motivated by opposing viewpoints and interests, over the objectives and substance of abortion policies. Recorded on 7 June 2016.

Speakers: Cengiz Çandar, Radikal; Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre Turkey has traditionally favoured a policy of maintaining the status quo in its foreign relations in the Middle East and has placed limits on its own engagement with the region. Today however, it finds itself more deeply involved in Middle East politics than ever before. This event marks the launch of a collection of papers that were presented at a workshop aimed at untangling Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policies in the Middle East under the current rule. Cengiz Çandar and Zeynep Kaya offer insights into significant changes now unfolding in Turkish, Syrian and Kurdish politics. Recorded on 18 April 2016.

Speaker: Filippo Dionigi, LSE Middle East Centre Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre In this event, Filippo Dionigi discusses how states such as Lebanon and Jordan have coped with the challenges of mass displacement within their borders. He poses questions and advances hypotheses on the current and future implications of forced mass displacement in the Middle East for states in the region. Recorded on 24 February 2016. Image credit: World Bank, Flickr. Line of refugees in front of the UNHCR registration center in Tripoli, Lebanon.

Speakers: Mandy Turner, Kenyon Institute (CBRL); Florian P. Kühn, Otto von Guericke University; Michael Pugh, University of Bradford; Caroline Hughes, University of Bradford; Christopher Phillips, QMUL; Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre In this book launch, the authors of ‘The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace’ critically explore the practices of peacebuilding, and the politics of the communities experiencing intervention. The contributions to this volume have a dual focus. First, they analyse the practices of western intervention and peacebuilding, and the prejudices and politics that drive them. Second, they explore how communities experience and deal with this intervention, as well as an understanding of how their political and economic priorities can often diverge markedly from those of the intervener. From Cambodia to Afghanistan, Iraq to Mali, interventions in the pursuit of peace have not achieved the results desired by the interveners. But, rather, they have created furthe

Speaker: David Roberts, King's College London Chair: Courtney Freer, LSE Kuwait Programme Qatar’s reputation as an uncontroversial, peaceable, quasi-neutral state was undermined as its leadership systematically chose sides during the Arab Spring. Without the capacity, resources, or experience to effectively involve itself in the intractable conflicts that emerged from the Spring, Qatar gained a reputation as a dangerous dilatant, stoking anger among key allies in the Arab and western worlds. David Roberts looks at the challenges that face Qatar’s Emir as he navigates a hazardous path, stuck between path dependency promoting the maintenance of old associations and the reality that Qatar struggles to control and use these relations effectively. Recorded on 22 March 2016. Image Credit: Wikipedia. Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.

Speaker: Katerina Dalacoura, LSE Chair: Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre Building on a long intellectual tradition going back to the late Ottoman period, debates in present-day Turkey on the role of culture and civilisation in world politics, and the relationship between modernity and Islam, are vibrant and ongoing. These debates are inevitably linked to power. In this talk Katerina Dalacoura attempts to move beyond the political maelstrom and focus on the ideas of individual thinkers and intellectual trends in relative isolation. Recorded on 2 March 2016.

Speaker: Filippo Dionigi, LSE Middle East Centre Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre In this event, Filippo Dionigi discusses how states such as Lebanon and Jordan have coped with the challenges of mass displacement within their borders. He will pose questions and advance hypotheses on the current and future implications of forced mass displacement in the Middle East for states in the region.

Speaker: Katerina Dalacoura, LSE Chair: Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre Building on a long intellectual tradition going back to the late Ottoman period, debates in present-day Turkey on the role of culture and civilisation in world politics, and the relationship between modernity and Islam, are vibrant and ongoing. This lecture discusses whether there exist, within this body of thought, new possibilities of going beyond the familiar categories of East and West, secularism and Islam. It asks whether alternative universalist understandings of culture and civilisation in world politics are on offer, or a chimera. Recorded on 2 March 2016. Image description: In 1914, Abdullah Cevdet, an Ottoman intellectual, advocated the wholesale acceptance of Western civilization ‘with its roses and thorns’.

Speaker: Andrew Hammond, University of Oxford Chair: Courtney Freer, LSE Kuwait Programme Despite the large presence of Salafism in Arabic political and religious discourse today, the term remains in fact highly contested and its history unclear. Yet Salafism, with its semantic confusions, is finding its way from Arabic and the Saudi sphere into Turkey and the Turkish language, which had been as a last bastion against its ideological spread. How did it happen, what are its consequences? Recorded on 1 March 2016. Image Credit: Ekremsaringoz, Pixabay.

Speaker: Benedetta Voltolini, Sciences Po Paris & LSE Middle East Centre Chair: Dr Federica Bicchi, LSE Benedetta Voltolini presents her paper investigating lobbying and framing in EU foreign policy towards the Middle East and North Africa. By relying on social network analysis and the literature on policy entrepreneurship, Benedetta will show how non-state actors are involved in processes of framing and knowledge construction, how frames become collective and under what conditions framing processes take place. EU foreign policy toward the Middle East and North Africa will be used as a case study. Recorded on 9 February 2016.

Speaker: Jonathan Hill, King's College London Chair: William Sinton, Society for Algerian Studies The Arab Spring’s influence on the Maghreb has been piecemeal and partial. What explains these varied experiences? Why did Ben Ali’s regime fall and Bouteflika’s survive? Why has Morocco not gone the same way as Tunisia? And what of Mauritania, the oft forgotten and frequently ignored other Maghreb country? Jonathan Hill addresses these and other questions, analysing and comparing Morocco’s, Algeria’s, Tunisia’s and Mauritania’s political development over the past 10 years. Recorded on 3 February 2016. This event is jointly organised by the LSE Middle East Centre and the Society for Algerian Studies. Image credit: Copyright: EPA/Karim Selmaoui. Protest in Rabat, Morocco on 20 February 2011 demanding political reforms.

Speaker: Choukri Hmed, Paris Dauphine University Chair: John Chalcraft, LSE Tunisia is frequently known as the small “noiseless country” of the MENA that achieved its political transition and successfully managed to avoid civil war and authoritarian consolidation. Based on an ongoing fieldwork, Choukri Hmed presents his paper which, without undermining these political outcomes, proposes an analysis of the (un)changing frames and issues in both social movements and the political field in the country. Recorded on 2 February 2016. This seminar forms part of the 'Social Movements and Popular Mobilisation in the MENA Research Theme'. Image credit: Ezequiel Scagnetti, European Parliament Flickr. Demonstration ahead of Tunisian Constituent Assembly elections in 2011.

Speaker: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre Chair: Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre Toby Dodge, MEC Director and Kuwait Professor, considers the reasons behind the rise of the Islamic State and its expansion, looking at the implications of intervention by both international and regional powers on Iraq. Recorded on 27 January 2016.