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The politicization of the demos in the Middle East : citizenship between membership and participation in the state
No full textThe four articles that constitute the thesis are qualitative case-oriented comparative studies of the politics of citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). The ‘politics of citizenship’ refers to the relationship between forms of membership in the state and patterns of participation in the polity, as reflected in six Arab states. Two articles are case studies on Lebanon and Syria respectively. Two articles are comparative studies. One compares the politics of citizenship in Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon. The other compares female citizenship in light of family law reform in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Syria.
The thesis looks into the process of state formation and analyzes the political impact of the organization and distribution of power along gendered and religious lines in Arab states. The emphasis on the state’s demos, the Greek word for ‘population’, seeks to highlight how ‘the people’ is constituted upon which kratos, the Greek word for governance, is carried out. A theoretical and analytical focus on the constitution of the demos challenges democratization theories and analytical approaches that do not account for degrees of exclusiveness or inclusiveness of those who constitute members of contemporary Arab polities (citizens and denizens), and residents in territorial states (stateless, refugees, noncitizen workforce). Hence, the ‘politicization of the demos’ reflects that individuals and groups are included or excluded from the citizenry, as well as from full membership in the polity, in ways that are continuously addressed, reframed and sought settled within contemporary Arab states since the establishment of territoriality as organizing principle in MENA after 1920.
Among the main conclusions of the thesis is that the legal status of women as full members of the polity in MENA is a political cursor that reflects the comprehensive democratization of society. Female civil rights are not only ‘women’s issues’. The use of state power in institutionalizing and distributing civil rights among and between citizens in society reflects central issues of consent and dissent pertaining to how, and in which ways, power is organized and allocated within the polity. Seen from a state formation perspective, female citizens are ‘the masses’ in present-day Arab polities. The thesis provides analytical and theoretical tools that enable researchers and observers to understand and explore further political development in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings
Courting women in the Gulf monarchies: State power, gender and judging
Get PDFThe article highlights the appointment of women as adjudicators in court in the Gulf monarchies between 2005–2020. The main question addressed is: What are the driving forces behind the inclusion of women in the judiciary in these overtly conservative societies? Two circumstances are explored: First, the rise in the number of female lawyers along with the appointment of professional women in law as deputy public prosecutors. This question responds to how Gulf women have entered positions of judicial litigation and decision-making. Secondly, the inclusion of women as adjudicators in court. This part addresses questions related to why Gulf women have obtained positions as prosecutors and judges in courts. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia provide case studies in addition to a general review of women’s access to judgeship in the six Gulf monarchies
The Gulf crisis (1990-91) and the Kuwait regime : legitimacy and stability in a rentier state Gulf crisis (1990-91) and the Kuwait regime
No full textTHE GULF CRISIS (1990-91) & THE KUWAITI REGIME - LEGITIMACY AND STABILITY IN A RENTIER STATE
Among the central questions I address are:
What are the factors that contribute to regime stability in Kuwait? How do we understand the relationship between rulers and ruled? In which ways did the regime maintain political authority during the Crisis, and how does it ensure its stability after the experience of the Crisis?
It is argued that the legitimacy of the Kuwaiti regime could be seen as based on a political clientelistic contract between rulers and ruled where the former offers economic welfare in exchange for the latter's political support. The clientelistic arrangement endowed the Kuwaiti regime with legitimacy and ensured its stability before the Crisis. Throughout the thesis I argue that the contract is still existent in post-war Kuwait, ensuring the stability of the regime.
Two conditions enable the regime to perpetuate its rule and maintain the clientelistic contract; the existence of oil revenues which finance an elaborate and extremely generous (non-tax-based) welfare system, and the availability of non-Kuwaiti manpower which constitutes the majority of the labor force in the country. These two conditions are defined as the 'structure of economy' and the 'structure of demography' and constitute the two independent variables of the thesis, whereas the stability of the Kuwaiti regime is the dependent variable. The pre- and post-war economic and demographic structures of Kuwait are considered in order to analyze their impact on the stability of the regime.
On the economic level, income from foreign investments played a dominant role in financing the policies of the Kuwaiti government-in-exile during the Crisis. External revenue secured the regime's financial basis and enabled it to maintain the political clientelistic contract with its citizens ensuring thus its legitimacy and stability after liberation. Despite the destruction of the domestic economic infrastructure (oil wells and refineries), and the depletion of a part of the country's investments, the economic structure has recovered from the damages caused by the war.
The Crisis illustrates the extent to which the Kuwaiti regime exhibits ultimate authority made possible by its control over the country's main extractive channels; the oil and investment sectors. Income from external revenue which characterizes the nature of the rentier state, renders the Kuwaiti regime financially independent, and thereby authoritative in its decision-making. This situation existed before the Crisis, and was reinforced after the Crisis.
On the demographic level, dramatic alterations occured following the Crisis. Kuwait was inhabited by a citizen-majority for the first time after independence in 1961. The policy of citizenship which the Kuwaiti regime practiced functioned as an effective social engineering instrument which formed the demographic constituency of the population. The size of the citizenry was kept artificially low (by denying long-term residents the right to obtain a citizenship) in order to maintain the political interests of the Sabbah rulership and the economic interests of Kuwaiti citizens. Post-war Kuwait showed that the regime relied heavily on a strict control system, based on the use of coercive measures applied against the non-privileged groups, that is those denied citizenship and residency permits despite long-term residency in the country.
One of the major findings in this thesis is that approximately 200,000 persons were excluded from the official population censuses after liberation. These persons correspond to one third of the present Kuwaiti population. An important fact was thereby revealed: Post-war population censuses showed the minimalistic size of the Kuwaiti citizenry which actually received the economic privileges included in the clientelistic contract in pre-war Kuwait. This privileged group constitutes roughly 300 000 - 400 000 individuals depending on the estimates of the size of the Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti populations.
The new citizenship policy notifies that the regime is reinforcing the multi-tiered citizenship cleavages already existent within Kuwaiti society whereby Kuwaitis are divided into first-, second-, and third-class citizens.
The political implications of this policy is evident. First, social cohesiveness experienced by Kuwaitis who endured the occupation is effectively destroyed. Second, the policy of differentiation bolsters the position of the Kuwaiti regime, and ensures its stability.
The stability of the Kuwaiti regimes appears to be maintained after the Crisis because status-quo ensures not only the political objectives of the regime (most important is the maintenance of the hereditary rule of the Sabbah family), but also the economic interests of the Kuwaiti citizenry who are the major beneficiaries of the extensive welfare goods and services included in the clientelistic contract
Arabiske kvinners statsborgerskap
No full textNord-Afrika viser vei for resten av den arabiske verden i drakampen omkring utvidelse av kvinners sivile rettigheter. En kombinasjon av interne forhold og eksternt press har muliggjort reformer innen familierett, og styrket kvinners statsborgerskap det siste tiåret
Ti år etter kvinners stemmerett i Kuwait: Quo Vadis?
Get PDF16. mai 2015 var det ti år siden kvinner i Kuwait fikk stemmerett. Hvordan har de brukt sine politiske rettigheter som borgere i et av klodens rikeste og mest verdikonservative hjørner? Full tekst er tilgjengelig på: https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/babylon/article/view/434
Libanon og krigen i juli 2006 i lys av statsbyggingsteori
No full textHva er bakgrunnen for den libanesiske regjeringens krav på suverenitet over Shab’a-gårdene, et grenseområde som myndighetene i nærmere åtti år ikke har vist nevneverdig interesse for å innlemme i landet? Hvorfor fremmes kravet nå
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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