Regional Security in a Turbulent World: A GCC Perspective
Lecture
Over the past decade, the nature of the challenges and threats affecting the Middle East region have been among the most complex it has ever faced. The region’s political order is in a state of fundamental disequilibrium: from the unravelling of the Sykes-Picot architecture to the emergence of a…
What has been done, and what can be done, with Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Seminar
Majlis Discussion Group For our first Majlis of 2017 we assess the state of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. What qualifies someone to be an “expert” commentator, to be called a Doctor of Philosophy, or to teach about the politics, religion, society and cultures of the Middle East? What do…
Ghabra
Lecture
Shafeeq Ghabra is a Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. He is now a Visiting Scholar at the Arab Centre, Doha, Qatar. From 1996 to 1999 he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Social Sciences at Kuwait University. He served as Kuwait University Chair of the Committee for…
Post-2003 Iraq and Prospects for National Unity
Other
Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and de-Baathification policies, Iraq has struggled to re-establish national unity and effective governance over a fractious society. In the north, antipathy among Sunni tribes towards the Iraqi government under Nouri al-Maliki…
Power Failure: The Political Odyssey of a Pakistani Woman
Lecture
Minister in the Nawaz Sharif government in the 1990s, and Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States from 1991-1994, Syeda Abida Hussain has detailed 40 years of experience in a recently published book. In Power Failure: The Political Odyssey of a Pakistani Woman, published by Oxford…
Quality control in online course design and delivery
Seminar
The rapid development of internet, interactive multimedia and educational technologies has revolutionized the educational delivery system to widely reach off-campus populations beyond geographical barriers and time constraints. However, most courses are not born digital. This talk is contextualised…
What went wrong with the Arab revolutions, and what is driving Middle East politics today?
Lecture
This discussion will focus on explaining why most of the Arab revolutions have not resulted in smooth transition to peace, stability, and development, but instead slid into violence and civil wars as in Yemen, Libya, and Syria. Factors such as resilient ‘deep states’, institutional reform,…