Governance in the Middle East and North Africa will analyze developments in this region of major importance, looking at current issues in historical perspective, and will be essential reading for academics, students and policy makers, and for anyone with an interest in Middle East policies and politics.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the last 100 years in the Middle East from the perspective of social history. It is apt to date the beginning of the modern Middle East to the industrialization era, while it extends its reach into the present. Taking its lead from modernization theory, this book illustrates past expectations of the present and helps to understand everyday occurrences rather than sensational events. It adopts a multi-disciplinary perspective and concentrates on the relationship between history and social theory. From a historical perspective, the categories of social anthropology and social theory are referred to as social mobility, urbanization, migration, cultural change, gender identities and the young generation. The book addresses the primary issues of importance for the region, namely: natural and human resources; demography and its dynamics; family life; patriarchy and the emancipation of women; class structure and social mobility; ethnic and religious minorities; migration and its impact on culture and politics; refugees’ problems in historical and contemporary contexts; urbanization in the Middle Eastern context; the challenges of development; and, finally, the social and political consequences of the Arab Spring.

This Handbook analyzes elections in the Middle East and North Africa and seeks to overcome normative assumptions about the linkage between democracy and elections. Structured around five main themes, contributors provide chapters detailing how their case studies illustrate specific themes within individual country settings. Authors disentangle the various aspects informing elections as a process in the Middle East by taking into account the different contexts where the electoral contest occurs and placing these into a broader comparative context. The findings from this Handbook connect with global electoral developments, empirically demonstrating that there is very little that is “exceptional” about the Middle East and North Africa when it comes to electoral contests. Routledge Handbook on Elections in the Middle East and North Africa is the first book to examine all aspects related to elections in the Middle East and North Africa. Through such comprehensive coverage and systematic analysis, it will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in politics, elections, and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Within the Middle East there are a wide range of minority groups outside the mainstream religious and ethnic culture. This book provides a detailed examination of their rights as minorities within this region, and their changing status throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The rights of minorities in the Middle East are subject to a range of legal frameworks, having developed in part from Islamic law, and in recent years subject to international human rights law and institutional frameworks. The book examines the context in which minority rights operate within this conflicted region, investigating how minorities engage with (or are excluded from) various sites of power and how state practice in dealing with minorities (often ostensibly based on Islamic authority) intersects with and informs modern constitutionalism and international law. The book identifies who exactly can be classed as a minority group, analysing in detail the different religious and ethnic minorities across the region. The book also pays special attention to the plight of minorities who are spread between various states, often as the result of conflict. It assesses the applicable domestic legislative instruments within the three countries investigated as case studies: Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and highlights key domestic remedies that could serve as models for ensuring greater social cohesion and greater inclusion of minorities in the political life of these countries.

This book introduces the politics of the modern Middle East, which includes the countries of the Persian Gulf, the eastern Mediterranean countries, and North Africa. It covers the major geographical regions that make up the Middle East, and summarizes the post-World War I history of the Middle East.

In recent years, the Middle East's information and communications landscape has changed dramatically. Increasingly, states, businesses, and citizens are capitalizing on the opportunities offered by new information technologies, the fast pace of digitization, and enhanced connectivity. These changes are far from turning Middle Eastern nations into network societies, but their impact is significant. The growing adoption of a wide variety of information technologies and new media platforms in everyday life has given rise to complex dynamics that beg for a better understanding. Digital Middle East sheds a critical light on continuing changes that are closely intertwined with the adoption of information and communication technologies in the region. Drawing on case studies from throughout the Middle East, the contributors explore how these digital transformations are playing out in the social, cultural, political, and economic spheres, exposing the various disjunctions and discordances that have marked the advent of the digital Middle East.