Research Library

This article argues that Sultan Sa‘id bin Taymur played a more fundamental role in developing Oman than what is commonly portrayed.

In a study for the British Journal of Political Science, the authors found that Muslim religious leaders weaken their perceived religious authority when they engage with politics.

Kuwait has developed and earned a reputation as a mediator in regional affairs, carefully balancing competing regional pressures in light of its own pragmatic interests.

For petrostates like Saudi Arabia, new tactics and strategies will be needed to recapture the strategic interest of global powers, and to cope with the transition away from fossil fuels. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Fall 2020.

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

The role social media can play in the Middle East peace process is examined in this article through an assessment of social media peace campaigns in Israel and the Palestinian territories and an analysis of social media campaign design. 

A series of converging trends provided political cover for reforms of long-standing energy subsidies launched by oil-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, but the new policies appear to be designed to update — rather than jettison — rent-based autocratic governance.

The article analyzes the spread of neglected tropical diseases in Somolia due to severe poverty, and civil strife, and discusses the need for reforms to the country’s health systems and infrastructure.

In this journal article, Peter J. Hotez, fellow in disease and poverty, examines reasons to believe that Zika virus could spread to vulnerable areas of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Islamist parties throughout the world have routinely disregarded environmental concerns in their discourse and actions. However, Islam as a religion places strong emphasis on environmental protection. Thus, it is puzzling that environmental policy is all but absent from most Islamist platforms, writes Middle East Center research scholar A.Kadir Yildirim.