POMEPS Middle East Political Science Podcast

On this week's episode of the podcast, Thomas Serres of the University of California, Santa Cruz joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, The Suspended Disaster. In his book, he examines the dynamics of the Algerian political system, offering new insights into the last years of Bouteflika’s rule and the factors that shaped the emergence of an unexpected social movement. He argues that the Algeria...

On this week's episode of the podcast, Alice Wilson of the University of Sussex joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Afterlives of Revolution. Alice Wilson considers the "social afterlives" of revolutionary values and networks, looking particularly at the legacies of officially silenced revolutionaries in Oman. Marsin Al-Shammary, Sajad Jiyad and Fanar Haddad Shia, contributors on Power Comes...

In this week's episode, Robert Kubinec of NYU Abu Dhabi joins Marc Lynch to discuss his book,. Kubinec argues that businesses must respond to changes in how perks and privileges are distributed after political transitions, either by forming political coalitions or creating new informal connections to emerging politicians. Employing detailed case studies and original experiments, Making Democracy S...

On this week's episode of the podcast, Rabab El Mahdi of the American University in Cairo, Janine Clark of the University of Toronto, Laryssa Chomiak of Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT),  and Rima Majed of the American University of Beirut join Marc Lynch to discuss the ethical challenges and positionally of research. (Starts at 1:41). Dahlia Scheindlin of Century International and Yael...

On this week's episode, Marc Lynch talks with members of the POMEPS Steering Committee and Advisory Board on a variety of topics at the POMEPS Annual Conference held at GWU in late May 2023.  Noora Lori of Boston University, Rima Majed of American University of Beirut, Wendy Pearlman of Northwestern University discuss migration and refugee studies. (Starts at 1:01). Curtis Ryan of Appalachian Stat...

Stacey Philbrick Yadav of Hobart and William Smith Colleges joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Yemen in the Shadow of Transition: Pursuing Justice Amid War. The book shows how the transitional process was ultimately overtaken by war, and explains why features of the transitional framework nevertheless remain a central reference point for civil actors engaged in peacebuilding today. (Starts...

Dying Abroad and The Racial Muslim (S. 12, Ep. 27) by Marc Lynch

In this week's episode, Marc Lynch speaks with Sebnem Gumuscu of Middlebury College about her book, Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia. The author draws upon extensive fieldwork in three countries to explain why some Islamist governments adhered to democratic principles and others took an authoritarian turn following electoral success. (Starts at 0:53...

Samuel Helfont of the Naval Postgraduate School joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Iraq Against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order. In the book, Helfont offers a new narrative of Iraqi foreign policy after the 1991 Gulf War to argue that Saddam Hussein executed a political warfare campaign that facilitated this disturbance to global norms. The book explores how the move...

Rita Stephan of North Carolina State University and Maro Youssef of the University of Southern California join Marc Lynch to discuss their new book, COVID and Gender in the Middle East. Stephen, editor of the book, gathers an impressive group of local scholars, activists, and policy experts, to provide empirical evidence of COVID’s gendered effects. The book examines a range of national and locali...

David Roberts of King’s College London  joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Security Politics in the Gulf Monarchies: Continuity and Change. Roberts offers a definitive guide to continuity and change in the Gulf region. He explores the forces challenging and bolstering the status quo across the political, social, economic, military, and environmental dimensions of security. Jeroen Gunning of...

Sarah Bush of Yale University and Lauren Prather of the University of California, San Diego join Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss their new book, Monitors and Meddlers: How Foreign Actors Influence Local Trust in Elections. Bush and Prather explain how and why outside interventions influence local trust in elections, a critical factor for democracy and stability. Marsin Alshamary of th...

Dawn Murphy of the US National War College joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss her book, China's Rise in the Global South: The Middle East, Africa, and Beijing's Alternative World Order. The book examines China's behavior as a rising power in two key Global South regions, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Murphy compares and analyzes thirty years of China's interactions with t...

Davis Wight of the University of North Carolina joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss his book, Oil Money: Middle East Petrodollars and the Transformation of US Empire, 1967-1988. The book is an expansive yet judicious investigation of the wide-ranging and contradictory effects of petrodollars on Middle East–US relations and the geopolitics of globalization. Although petrodollar ties...

Mohammad Ali Kadivar of Boston College joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss his book, Popular Politics and the Path to Durable Democracy. The book challenges the prevailing wisdom in American foreign policy that democratization can be achieved through military or coercive interventions, revealing how lasting change arises from sustained, nonviolent grassroots mobilization. (Starts at...

Andrew Simon joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss his new book, Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt. The book investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Enabling an unprecedented number of people to participate in the creation of culture and circulation of content, cassette players and ta...

On this week's episode, Marc Lynch is joined by the editors and authors of the new book, The Lebanon Uprising of 2019: Voices from the Revolution. The book includes  include stories about specific events and struggles, views of the uprising from various regions of the country, and reflections on topics such as the labor struggle, disability, the student movement, foreign interventions, the struggl...

David Siddhartha Patel of Brandeis University joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss his new book, Order out of Chaos: Islam, Information, and the Rise and Fall of Social Orders in Iraq. Combining rational choice approaches, ethnographic understanding, and GIS analysis, this book reveals the interconnectedness of the enduring problem of how societies create social order in a stateless...

The War in Court and the Egyptian Economy (S. 12, Ep. 14) by Marc Lynch

Sarah Parkinson of Johns Hopkins University joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss her new book, Beyond the Lines: Social Networks and Palestinian Militant Organizations in Wartime Lebanon. The book shows that most militants approach asymmetrical warfare as a series of challenges centered around information and logistics, characterized by problems such as supplying constantly mobile fo...

Ch12 Triumph over Adversity: Reflections on the Practice of Middle East Political Science by Marc Lynch

Tobias Zumbragel of University of Hamburg joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss his new book, Political Power and Environmental Sustainability in Gulf Monarchies. The book analyzes the political dynamics behind the sustainable transformation in the oil and gas-rich Gulf and explains the political factors behind the green transformation. (Starts at 1:02). Nermin Allam of Rutgers Univer...

Munira Khayyat of The American University in Cairo joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss her new book, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon. The book analyzes life along the southern border of Lebanon, where resistant ecologies thrive amid a terrain of perennial war. (Starts at 1:45). Neil Ketchley of the University of Oxford discusses his new arti...

Dalia Ghanem of the European Union Institute for Security Studies joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss her new book, Understanding the Persistence of Competitive Authoritarianism in Algeria. The book analyzes the secrets behind the Algerian regime’s survival and the pillars of its longevity. (Starts at 0:42). Sammy Zeyad Badran of The American University of Sharjah, discusses his new...

Aaron Rock-Singer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison joins Marc Lynch on this week's podcast to discuss his new book, In the Shade of the Sunna: Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East. The book analyzes how Salafism is a creation of the twentieth century and how its signature practices emerged primarily out of Salafis’ competition with other social movements. (Starts at 0:55). Rana...