DOHA: Dr Mehran Kamrava, Professor and Director of Centre for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), has edited a book which explores the political impact of the popular uprisings that swept through the region on governments in the Arab world.
The book, Beyond the Arab Spring: The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East, includes chapter contributions from 16 top scholars and academics from around the world who scrutinise the Arab regimes that experienced upheaval during uprisings.
They also examine the nature and evolution of ruling bargains, political systems that emerged from the post-colonial era, and structural changes to the old systems since the Arab Spring. In particular, insights and perspectives of Arab scholars on these issues are considered.
Dr Kamrava edited the volume and contributed the preliminary chapter, The Rise and Fall of Ruling Bargains in the Middle East, explaining the social, economic, and political context of the Arab Spring.
“The book seeks to explain the Arab Spring and its consequences through an understanding of the unravelling of the dominant ‘ruling bargain’ that emerged across the Middle East in the 1950s,” said Dr Kamrava.
“This is being replaced by a new and constantly shifting system that redefines sources of authority and legitimacy through constitutions, and introduced processes for civic participation, through mass protests, elections, and in some cases, civil war. Charting key personalities, functions, structures, and institutions involved in the ongoing renegotiation reveals a dynamic, often violent, process that has not reached any definitive conclusion,” he said.
The book grew out of one of the research initiatives undertaken by CIRS, and includes a chapter from GU-Q Assistant Professor of History, Dr Abdullah Al Arian.
The book is published by Oxford University Press. Dr Kamrava is also the author of books, including, The Modern Middle East: A Political History Since the First World War; Qatar: Small State, Big Politics; and Iran’s Intellectual Revolution.
His specialities include comparative politics, political development, and Middle Eastern politics.The Peninsula
