Research Library

Whether out of strategic calculations or due to attitude towards women, the outcome is the same: female candidates often do not follow the party route to political office in Bahrain.

What is empowerment? How can women across the MENA region become empowered? Is it possible for Western-born concepts — such as female empowerment — to travel across complex contexts and patriarchal/male-dominated cultures? While agreeing on a definition for female empowerment has proved to be a challenging task among scholars and policy practitioners, working out a universal framework that is applicable to different settings has proven to be an even more daunting task.

Thursday's Baker Institute Blog carries a commentary from fellow Joe Barnes on President Obama’s Sept. 10, 2014, speech on ISIS and Iraq.

Women living with HIV in the Middle East face public scrutiny, stigmatization and even abandonment. It is critical not only to curb the spread of HIV in the region, but also to educate and protect women who may be less knowledgeable about the disease, writes Ariana Marnicio, research analyst for the Women and Human Rights in the Middle East Program.

One hundred years after the start of World War I, the legacies of decisions made by colonial powers during and after the period cast a long shadow over the Middle East.

Despite his sweeping electoral victory, it seems that Egypt's new president, General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, has learned little from the past mistakes of Mubarak and Morsi.

Talk of a “pivot to Asia” that supposedly would mark President Obama’s second term is “misplaced and even simplistic,” writes fellow Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. In a globalized world, “key U.S. relationships with strategic and commercial partners … cannot be addressed in isolation from one another. The convergence of U.S. ties and Asian ties with the Middle East is a case in point highlights how regions and issues are interconnected as never before.”

As Israeli-Palestinian peace talks "stumble toward collapse," blogs fellow Joe Barnes, the U.S. "needs a thorough rethink" about its role in negotiations.

Despite mounting efforts toward achieving gender equality, the Middle East and North Africa region continues to rank the lowest worldwide when it comes to women's economic participation and opportunity.