This event was a launch of Professor Christopher Phillips' latest book 'Battleground: 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East' published by Yale University Press.

The Middle East is in crisis. The shocking events of the war in Gaza have rocked the entire region. More than a decade ago, the Arab Spring had raised hopes of a new beginning but instead ushered in a series of civil wars, coups, and even harsher autocracies. Tensions were exacerbated by the meddling of outsiders, as regional and global powers sought to further their interests. The United States, for so long the dominant actor, had stepped back, leaving a vacuum behind it to be fought over.

Christopher Phillips explores geopolitical rivalries in the region, and the major external powers vying for influence: Russia, China, the EU, and the US. Moving through ten key flashpoints, from Syria to Palestine, Phillips argues that the United States’ overextension after the Cold War, and retreat in the 2010s, has imbalanced the region. Today, the Middle East remains blighted by conflicts of unprecedented violence and a post-American scramble for power – leaving its fate in the balance.

Meet the speakers

Christopher Phillips is Professor in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. Phillips joined the School in January 2012, having previously worked as deputy editor for Syria and Jordan at the Economist Intelligence Unit. He is currently an associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, working primarily on the Syria conflict and its impact on neighbouring states and the wider Middle East. He is co-curator of ‘Syria: story of a conflict’ a public exhibition at the Imperial War Museum and the Imperial War Museum North. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in 2014 & 2015. Chris lived in Syria for two years, in Aleppo, Damascus and Latakia, and much of his research focuses on that country. Phillips is also author of The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East published by Yale University Press in 2016.

Faisal Al Yafai is International Editor at New Lines Magazine. He is a journalist, playwright, and partner at Hildebrand Nord. He was previously an investigative journalist for The Guardian in London and a documentary journalist for the BBC, and has reported from across the Middle East, from Eastern Europe, Russia and Indonesia.

This event was moderated by Rim Turkmani.

Rim Turkmani is a Senior Research Fellow in LSE IDEAS and the Research Director for Conflict Research Programme work in Syria. Rim is also the Principal Investigator of the Legitimacy and Civicness in the Arab World research project at the LSE Middle East Centre. Rim's research focuses on legitimate governance in the Middle East with an emphasis on constitutional legitimacy and local conflict and peace drivers.

Battleground: 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East

Lisel Hintz speaks about what lead to and the significance of this weekend's constitutional referendum in Turkey.

"The question: is how long will [Erdogan] stay in power? Right now, this could leave him in power up until 2029— possibly even longer, depending on some certain circumstances. We suspect that he's probably grooming you know his son-in-law, who's currently a minister, to to take his place. Will he be willing to give up those reins? We've seen successive purges of his own party from those who don't agree with him. It is important to go back and understand the AKP's trajectory, which was that not everyone agreed with Erdogan," said Hintz. "It's going to be fascinating to see— both from institutional and from a personal perspective— how Erdogan plans to continue this, particularly given that Turkey— from an economic standpoint— is in a very fragile state."

"From an identity politics perspective— and also just sort of an institutional party politics perspective as well— not a whole lot has changed." said Hintz. "I'm not really optimistic about a really strongly united opposition that can come forward and challenge the AKP."

"[Erdogan] doesn't have the coalition that he would like to enact some of the reforms he would like in the future. He has been courting the Nationalist Action Party, but only some of them supported the referendum. There was actually quite a big split."

"What we know is that the AKP is probably going to do is push for the death penalty to be reinstated because that's something that polls at about 65-70 percent across Turkey— and would really be able to rally up a lot of support for him. So I think he has channels to further consolidate the regime."

Hintz is a visiting assistant professor in the Political Science Department at Barnard College, Columbia University. Next fall, she will be an

Turkey’s Constitutional Referendum: A Conversation with Lisel Hintz (S. 5, Ep. 33)

On this week's POMEPS podcast, Marc Lynch talks with Peter Krause, an assistant professor at Boston College. Krause's new book, Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win﻿, focuses on the internal balance of power among nationalist groups, who cooperate with each other to establish a new state while simultaneously competing to lead it.

"The book itself answers several questions to people who study national movements, nationalism, or political violence. The first question is why some nations get states and others don't," said Krause.

"These groups simultaneously have, what I call, organizational goals— which is, they want to have power. They want to have power and notoriety. They want to survive. They want to increase their membership. At the same time they have these strategic goals of statehood or independence. From the work I've done, it's clear to me that groups and individuals in them care about both of these objectives," said Krause. "My argument is simply that: most of the time you never go broke betting on the fact that groups care more about their organizational goals. They always want to make sure that they're maximizing their power. The argument is simply: when maximizing their power means that they should pursue and achieve strategic goals, that's when it happens. That's the idea that if you're the hegemon, the best way to become stronger is actually to win to achieve victory to achieve a new state. Because now you get the office, the wealth, and the status that comes along with it. However, if you are a weaker organization and you're not in line to inherit the throne, then you actually have an incentive to 'spoil a deal.' Not necessarily trying to prevent independence forever, but hold it off for now."

"If you look at studies of national movements and insurgencies, it's pretty close to consensus that foreign support matters," said Krause. "What I argue, however, is what nature of that support takes and how effective it is depends a great deal on the internal balance of power inside the movement."

National Movements in the Middle East: A Conversation with Peter Krause (S. 5, Ep. 35)

Protest, Democracy, & Violence in the New Middle East: Conversation with Steven Cook (S. 5, Ep. 37)

Speaker:  Frédéric Vairel, University of Ottawa
Discussant: Nawal Mustafa, LSE
Chair: John Chalcraft, LSE

Frédéric describes how self-limitation works in contemporary Moroccan mobilisation, with particular reference to the 20th February Movement. In 2011, contestation dynamics did not reach national amplitude despite being spread across various parts of the country. Frédéric looks at the institutionalisation of contentious space, shedding light on the relation between contentious space and institutional politics. He also addresses how different actors within contentious spaces calculate their actions and explains why self-limitation is not embedded in a moral economy in Morocco. Recorded on 20 May 2015.

This seminar forms part of the 'Social Movements and Popular Mobilisation in the MENA Research Theme'.

Image Credit: Hasna Lahmini, Flickr. Protesters carry the Moroccan flag during the February 20 protest in Rabat.

How Self-Limiting Mobilisations Work: The Case of Morocco

Speaker: Claire Beaugrand, Institut Français du Proche Orient
Discussant: Filippo Dionigi, LSE Middle East Centre
Chair: John Chalcraft, LSE

Bahrain has had a long history of exiling its opponents as a way to regulate political dissent. The 2011 political uprising in Bahrain marked a new phase in the history of Bahraini outmigration and exile politics. The brutal repression with which the protest movement was met (particularly from March to July 2011) led to a new wave of political exile, affecting a wider range of socio-economic categories. With most of the Arab countries, notably Syria, themselves in turmoil and Gulf countries having closed ranks behind the Bahraini government, the destinations of out-migrants also became more limited with the UK and Lebanon on the top of the list.

This research examines the forms of opposition and advocacy that were built on previous exile experiences, focusing on a new generation of opponents that includes children of political exiles and long-time expatriates in Bahrain. This seminar forms part of the 'Social Movements and Popular Mobilisation in the MENA Research Theme'. Recorded on 3 June 2015.

This seminar forms part of the 'Social Movements and Popular Mobilisation in the MENA Research Theme'.

Image credit: humanrightstv.com. Bahraini human rights activists Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja (left) and Nabeel Rajab (right).

Bahraini Activism in Exile: Legacies and Revolutionary Ruptures

Wendy Pearlman speaks on our podcast this week about her new book,  We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria.

"Ultimately, I was asking people, 'Tell me about your story.'" said Pearlman. "And the people I interviewed told me anything they wanted to tell me."

"The book has a trajectory and has an arc. It begins with a sense of fear, intimidation, and silence— a sense of futility under authoritarianism. Then it moves through the euphoria of people participating in protest. Then it becomes increasingly dark, increasingly fragmented— and by the end there are stories of despair."

Pearlman's book is structured in different sections outlining Syrians' experiences through its modern history (you can watch Pearlman's book talk at GW here).

"I thought, 'What what does a reader need to know to understand Syria? What are the kinds of questions that occur to most readers about what does this regime all about?'" Pearlman said. "All the kinds of things that I thought readers might want to know— and the kinds of things from our shared political science background we know— were important parts of the story... I also found that the testimonies that could say them on their own. I just had to put it in a place that could walk the readers through the story."

Pearlman is an associate professor of political science at Northwestern University, where she also holds the Martin and Patricia Koldyke Outstanding Teaching Professorship and is a faculty fellow at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies.

"So arranging the sequence was about thinking how each excerpt could connect to what went before it and also bridge to what came after. In a way that the reader would get lost, and would leave feeling like they understood Syria better— but all of it through Syrians' words, and all of it intensely profoundly human not theoretical abstractions. By individuals saying how all of this mattered for their lives, as real people."

Voices from Syria: A Conversation with Wendy Pearlman (S. 6, Ep. 4)

Mark Leonard speaks with ECFR Policy Fellows Hugh Lovatt, Ellie Geranmayeh and Julien Barnes-Dacey about reactions to Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the new divergence between Washington and Europe across the Middle East.

Bookshelf:

The Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks 
Gaza: Preparing for Dawn by Donald Macintyre
No Knives in the Kitchen of this City: A Novel by Khaled Khalifa

US and Europe clash in the Middle East

Speakers: Youssef Cherif, Deputy Director of Columbia Global Centers, Tunis, member in Carnegie's Civic Research Network. 

Youssef Cherif analyses how the Maghreb region is another theatre of the cold war raging between the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) members. By means of fake news, political pressures and transfer of weapons, the three leading protagonists of the GCC are influencing the political, security and economic situation in North Africa which in turn deepens their crises and risks destabilizing the region. Recorded on 10 October 2018.

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Youssef Cherif (@Faiyla) is a political analyst who specializes in North African affairs. He is Deputy Director of Columbia Global Centers, Tunis, member in Carnegie's Civic Research Network and is contributing to a number of think-tanks. 

Courtney Freer (@courtneyfreer) is Research Officer at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her work focuses on the domestic politics of the Arab Gulf states, with a particular focus on Islamism and tribalism.

Image: Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed speaks with King Mohammed VI at Sea Palace barza. Source: Rashed Al Mansoori / Crown Prince Court - Abu Dhabi

The Qatar Crisis in the Maghreb: fake news, political pressures and real weapons

On this first episode of Instant Coffee, Omar al-Ghazzi (@omar_alghazzi) talks to Jean Kassir about covering the Lebanese revolution in times of Coronavirus. Jean is co-founder of Megaphone news, an independent media platform covering Lebanon and the region.

You can find Megaphone on: 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megaphone.news/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/megaphone_news
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/megaphonenews/

Episode 1: Reporting the Lebanese Thawra with Megaphone's Jean Kassir

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