Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Mar 20
Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and opportunity. For many migrant families, this search centers on access to strong, caring, and equitable educational system ... Show More
27m 50s
Mar 20
Piergiorgio Di Giminiani et al. eds., "The Futures of Reparations in Latin America: Imagination, Translation, and Belonging" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
Over the last thirty years, Latin America has undergone an unprecedented wave of reparations targeting victims of political violence during military regimes, Indigenous and Afro-Latin groups affected by historical processes of dispossession, and citizens suffering from environmen ... Show More
1h 13m
Nov 2024
Scott J. Weiner, "Kinship, State Formation and Governance in the Arab Gulf States" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Tribe-state relations are a foundational element of authoritarian bargains in the Middle East, and in particular in the Gulf States. However, the structures of governance built upon that foundation exhibit wide differences. What explains this variation in the salience of kinship ... Show More
44m 1s
Nov 2024
Scott J. Weiner, "Kinship, State Formation and Governance in the Arab Gulf States" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Tribe-state relations are a foundational element of authoritarian bargains in the Middle East, and in particular in the Gulf States. However, the structures of governance built upon that foundation exhibit wide differences. What explains this variation in the salience of kinship ... Show More
44m 1s
Jul 2024
Zana Gulmohamad, "The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
How is foreign policy made in Iraq? Based on dozens of interviews with senior officials and politicians, The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite (Bloomsbury, 2021) provides a clear analysis of the development of domestic Iraqi politics since ... Show More
1h 6m
Apr 2024
Boubacar N’Diaye, "Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization" (Routledge, 2017)
Boubacar N’Diaye's book Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization (Routledge, 2017), the result of more than a decade of research, focuses on the socio-political dynamics and civil-military relations in a little studied country: Mau ... Show More
1h 35m
Feb 2025
Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States ( S. 14, Ep. 7)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States. This book offers a comparative analysis of military, political, economic and religious power in Bahrain, Kuwait, ... Show More
51m 53s
Apr 2024
Ahmed M. Abozaid, "Undesired Revolution: The Arab Uprising in Egypt--A Three Level Analysis" (Brill, 2023)
Ahmed M. Abozaid’s Undesired Revolution: The Arab Uprising in Egypt--A Three Level Analysis (Brill, 2023) introduces new non-Western perspectives on the Arab Uprisings, decentering and decolonizing International Relations, and Middle Eastern Studies. Drawing on over ten years of ... Show More
1h 39m
Aug 2024
Rachel M. Scott, "Recasting Islamic Law: Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making" (Cornell UP, 2021)
By examining the intersection of Islamic law, state law, religion, and culture in the Egyptian nation-building process, Recasting Islamic Law: Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making (Cornell University Press, 2021) highlights how the sharia, when attached t ... Show More
1h 3m
Jun 2024
From the Red Sea to the Indo-Pacific: Expanding Cooperation Between the Gulf and Asia
In this episode of China-MENA, titled “From the Red Sea to the Indo-Pacific: Expanding Cooperation Between the Gulf and Asia," host Jonathan Fulton engages in a compelling conversation with Dr. Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. T ... Show More
46m 18s
Mar 2024
Noah L. Nathan, "The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Po ... Show More
52m 9s
Tribe-state relations are a foundational element of authoritarian bargains in the Middle East, and in particular in the Gulf States. However, the structures of governance built upon that foundation exhibit wide differences. What explains this variation in the salience of kinship authority?
Through a case comparison of Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, in Kinship, Sta ... Show More