By Charlotte Schriwer
Download Insight 77 Schriwer HERE
From the rise of the Roman Empire to the eve of Lenin’s Communist era, from the birth of Dada in the wake of World War I to Hitler’s Nazi regime and beyond, the development of politically-motivated art has been a tool of those opposing power. “Protest Art,” “Art of [...]
By Michael C. Hudson and Rana B. Khoury
Download Insight 76 Hudson and Khoury HERE
If you have been following the presidential campaigns lately, you would be excused for missing the candidates’ ideas about foreign policy. America is still conducting the longest war in its history, is witnessing a shift in global power eastward, is apparently [...]
By Robert R. Bianchi
Download Insight 75 Bianchi HERE
Barack Obama and Hu Jintao, 2009.
President Mohamed Morsy’s historic visit to Beijing has once again thrust Egypt to center stage in world affairs after three decades of isolation and passivity.[1] Egypt is joining a long line of regional powers in the Middle East and the Islamic world that [...]
By Bassam Haddad
Download Insight 74 Haddad HERE
Lest we forget, or forget why, it has become important to consult the basics regarding the Syrian uprising. This might very well be the best time for such a review. For as the death toll rises and the gradual destruction of the social fabric continues, the Syrian tragedy is increasingly more [...]
By Linda Matar
Download Insight 73 Matar HERE
Destruction in Homs, Syria, April 2012
Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, the al-Asad government has taken steps to roll back its accelerated pace of neoliberal reform. After a decade of loosening market regulations, the state is back to governing the market in order to ensure [...]
By Charlotte Schriwer
Download Insight 72 Schriwer HERE
Flowers in front of Oslo Cathedral in memory of the victims of the attacks, July 2011.
July 22 marked the one-year anniversary of one of the darkest days in Norway’s history since World War Two. Seventy-seven people—most of whom were between 14 and 18 years of age—were killed in [...]
By Sami Moubayed
Download Insight 71 Moubayed HERE
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad in 2010.
Analysts are busy trying to predict what will happen to Syria based on the Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, and Yemeni models, which have provided something of a textbook for the “Arab Spring.” The checklist, after all, is hauntingly similar among [...]
By Ali Kadri
Download Insight 70 Kadri HERE
Between 1980 and 2010 the share of the rural to total population in the Arab world dropped significantly from about 60 percent to around 40 percent. In absolute terms, an estimated 70 million people left the countryside to move to urban centers.[1] This conservative estimate is nearly equivalent to [...]
Download Insight 69 Shlapentokh HERE
For much of the presidency of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt seemed one of the most stable countries in the Middle East. The situation in the country changed literally overnight when in early 2011 mass protests led to the downfall of the Mubarak regime and initiated the first free elections in the country [...]
By Sara Bazoobandi
Download Insight 68 Bazoobandi HERE
The pressure to rethink diplomacy toward Iran has increased after two days of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany ended fruitlessly in Moscow on 19 June. The diplomats proposed that Iran suspend its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, give [...]
