Research Library

Indigenous natural resource wealth can provide a basis for robust economic development and broad macroeconomic development, especially when there is appropriate governance and robust legal and regulatory institutions. But a lack of institutional fortitude in many regions around the world has contributed to failure to translate resource wealth into broader macroeconomic wealth.

The author reviews four scenarios that could develop as the dispute over Turkey's purchase of a Russian-made missile defense system continues.

To what extent do Moroccans view state leadership in religion favorably, or see head of state King Mohammed VI as a source of religious authority? The author examines these questions in this issue brief, produced as part of a two-year Center for the Middle East study on religious authority in the Middle East.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco has cultivated the country’s image as a bastion of moderate Islam and of himself as a strategic partner, but to what extent does his international reputation correspond to public opinion in Morocco? In this paper, the author evaluates the king’s domestic standing as part of a larger Baker Institute study on religious authority in the Middle East.

Fellow for the Middle East A.Kadir Yildirim and undergraduate intern Meredith McCain explore survey data on the goals, outcomes and beneficiaries of the Arab Spring protests.

Who speaks for Islam and who holds religious authority in the Middle East? These questions strike at the heart of the relationship between religion and politics in the Muslim world, for whoever can legitimately claim religious authority has an opportunity to shape the extent to which religion is politicized in the region. Our study examines this issue by identifying the channels of influence between religious leaders who claim to hold Islamic authority and individual Muslims across the region. The findings depict a complex religious space in the Middle East that reflects its citizens’ nuanced approach toward religion and the religion-politics relationship.

A newly released study from the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University includes a contribution from fellow Jim Krane on subsidy reform and tax increases in the Middle East.

In separate papers, two Baker Institute fellows — one Palestinian, the other Israeli — provide their perspectives on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The mix of good short-term prospects for oil revenues along with long-term market uncertainties has a clear policy implication for oil-dependent Latin American economies: use the larger short-term revenues to diversify their economies, nonresident fellow José Antonio Ocampo writes in a new issue brief.

King Abdullah announced that Jordan will not renew the annex to the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty that created special governing areas in Naharayim and Zofar. Gilead Sher, the Brochstein Fellow in Middle East Peace and Security, and Mor Ben-Kalifa explore this decision and the conditions that led to it in The Institute for National Security Studies: https://bit.ly/2Pvag58