POMEPS Middle East Political Science Podcast

Kevan Harris speaks about his new book, A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Harris is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "In the book, I lay out the main social welfare organizations— both that preceded the 1979 revolution and the ones that germinated afterwards. And then I asked the question, 'How can we explain the expansion of...

"There are market forces that explain why jihadists succeed in civil wars— when so many other types of groups look like they should have traction on the ground— don't," says Aisha Ahmad. "In order for your movement to succeed, and you have enough money to buy the bullets and feed your foot soldiers. And so there is a logic that's taking place behind the scenes that explains why these seemingly ill...

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...

This week's guest is Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, who is the author of a new book, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons. Braut-Hegghammer is an associate professor of political science at the University of Oslo. "The main ambition [of my book] is really to tell a history of these nuclear weapons programs and set them in the context of these regimes. One of my frustratio...

Carter Malkasian speaks about the recent history of conflict in Iraq and how it it laid the foundation for the Islamic State to flourish. His new book is Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State. "The question confronting every tribal leader in Anbar was: 'How do I stand up against the Islamic state if that means siding with the government— and siding against Isl...

"The fact that Qatar is, after all, a tiny state— but clearly with a lot of leverage that can amplify their message." Kristian Coates Ulrichsen speaks about the crisis within the GCC with Marc Lynch in our first POMEPS podcast in the launch of our fall season. Ulrichsen is a fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston. His latest book is The Un...

Caitlin Talmadge talks about her her book 'The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes.' Her book works to explain why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well―and the opposite. Talmadge is an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. "In my book, I present a different argument noting that we really hav...

Neil Ketchley speaks about his new book Egypt in a Time of Revolution: Contentious Politics and the Arab Spring. Ketchley is a Lecturer in Middle East Politics, King's College London. "The book really tries to make a contribution by drawing on a range of new and unique data sources and methods— from analyzing video footage of crowd dynamics at Tahrir, police radio transcripts from the formative ea...

How did the idea of a unified global Muslim community come about? That's the question Cemil Aydin and Marc Lynch tackle in this week's podcast. Aydin's new book explores the how the world's 1.5 billion Muslims have become seen as a single religious/political bloc. "In many ways, I wanted to engage with the contemporary discussions of Muslim unity, Muslim solidarity or Muslim exceptionalism by goin...

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

Iran holds presidential elections later this week, and Marc Lynch talks with M. Ali Kadivar about what to expect. Kadivar is a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute. "Ahmadinejad's era was significant for several reasons, but one reason was that the process started to replace the old guard of the Islamic Republic with a new set of elites," said Kadivar. "I think Rouhani repres...

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...

Nadia Marzouki explores how the topic of Islam has become so contentious in America. Marzouki says her research showed her that controversies around Muslims living in America don't just express Islamophobia. "They betray and express a deeper discomfort and unease with an understanding of law, an understanding of rights, and an understanding of equal democracy. This is really what's at stake in the...

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 pla...

"One of the most interesting puzzles to emerge out of contentious Islamist movements is the fact that these movements are not united," says Mohammed M. Hafez on this week's POMEPS Conversations podcast. "The common finding today is that— in civil wars, insurgencies, and civil conflicts in general— these movements are fragmented, they're competitive, and sometimes they're fratricidal. Hafez talks a...

On this week's POMEPS podcast, Marc Lynch speaks with Ora Szekely, an assistant professor of political science at Clark University. Szekely's recent book, The Politics of Militant Group Survival in the Middle East, compares the performances of four key non-state actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict ecosystem: the PLO, Hamas, Hizbullah, and Amal. "Why is it that you can have two militant groups— fig...

Lihi Ben Shitrit speaks about her new book, Righteous Transgressions: Women's Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right. Shitrit is an assistant professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, Athens. "The book is a comparative study of women's activism in the Israeli and Palestinian right, but specifically four groups: the Jewish settlers in the W...

"The IRGC's powers are often exaggerated.... but on the flipside of that, I think it's also often dismissed— where particularly from the U.S. perspective, they see the IRGC as a convenient foil. How do we how do we make the case against Iran? We use the IRGC and all of its nefarious activities as an excuse," Afshon Ostovar said. "You see this in Yemen in particular, where there's countless article...

"I think the most important change [in Syria] was a stepping back by the United States," said Phillips. "You get a desire by all passing opportunities being seen by other emerging regional powers: notably, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia in opposition to the rise of Iran. They all want to take advantage, or to push their own agendas more. as the U.S. seems to step back. Because they have a particu...

Colin Kahl speaks with Marc Lynch about U.S. foreign policy during the Obama administration. Kahl is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. On Iran, Kahl spoke about the strategy behind...

Drafting a Constitution: A Conversation with Asli Ü. Bâli (S. 5, Ep. 26) by Marc Lynch

On this week's podcast, Marc Lynch speaks with Michael Farquhar about the history of the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, where more than 11,000 young men have studied religion in Saudi Arabia. "There were obviously suggestions and not always ill-founded suggestions that this had fed into the rise of a very morally conservative Salafi understanding of Islam in lots of context around t...

“As it approaches year 40, the Islamic Republic of Iran is suffering from a deep crisis of legitimacy,” Nader Hashemi says on this week’s POMEPS Conversation podcast. “The biggest threat that I think the regime faces— from its own statements and policies— is really the threat that it fears, like other authoritarian regimes, from its own population and groups that want political change.” Hashemi is...

This semester, POMEPS hosted Merouan Mekouar to speak about his latest book, Protest and Mass Mobilization: Authoritarian Collapse and Political Change in North Africa. Mekouar is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. "Without respected actors willing to use their prestige to raise the attention of the rest of the population, their instit...

"I felt paralyzed when the Arab uprising started unfolding. I saw the focus back then on on social media to be missing something and I did not know quite what I felt it was missing," said Marwan M. Kraidy. On this week's Middle East politics podcast, Marc Lynch has a conversation on creativity and the Arab Uprisings with Kraidy, the Anthony Shadid Chair at the University of Pennsylvania, . "So I d...