At the fourth annual conference of the Project on Middle East Political Science here at GW, I was discussant for an outstanding paper which in part explored how and why protestors "broke the barrier of fear" in hyper-repressive states such as Syria and Libya. It's a truly fascinating question for political science theory, one for which I still don't think we have any really good answers. But as a discussant, I was at least able to pull out my iPhone and demand to know why the author hadn't engaged with and cited this leading theorist of the causal dynamics of fear: 

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to... suffering."

That's a pretty clear articulation of one potential causal pathway by which violence and state failure produces the kind of horrors which we've seen in Iraq or Syria. But is it the full story? During the early days of the Arab uprising, the overcoming of fear was generally cited in a positive light, as brave protestors took unbelievable risks to rise up and demand their rights. But breaking the fear barrier isn't always and only a heroic narrative of personal liberation and the assertion of universal norms. It can sometimes be that. But fear of shaming, legal punishments, or retaliation can be a necessary component of social order, after all, and losing such fear can clearly unleash ugly new behaviors, identities, or hatreds. I expect to see the Yoda Theory fully cited in future academic work, and tested against alternative theories.   

That was just part of an amazing conference here at GW. We had twenty-five oustanding academics participating, with eleven papers workshopped and four plenary discussions on big themes such as democracy, mobilization, violence and gender.  Hopefully we will be putting out a collection of conference memos over the summer, similar to this one we did last year on "New Opportunities for Political Science" - stay tuned! 

Also, my column this week is now up.  It argues against emerging the master narrative of Sunni-Shi'a conflict structuring regional politics. I argue that a lot of what appears to be Sunni-Shi'a conflict is actually "power politics dressed up in sectarian drag,"  and that intra-Sunni competition and local power struggles are actually more important. At the same time, I'm extremely worried that the cynical manipulation of sectarianism by these political forces, combined with the turbo-charged circulation of images of sectarian violence from Syria, and before that Iraq, is generating a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can read the column over at the FP main page. As always, I appreciate the feedback  already received and look forward to more discussion and debate! 

My column this week focuses once again on human rights issues in Saudi Arabia.  I actually had a different column on an entirely different topic written and ready to run -- look for it next week.  But then I ran into the Saudi lawyer Abd al-Aziz Hussan here in Washington, and heard more about how he has been harrassed for his defense of human rights activists. I thought it was more important to point some attention to these issues, which have largely fallen out of the international spotlight since the mid-March detention of Mohammed Fahed al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamed. His case is only one small example of a much broader repressive trend across the Gulf which deserves more sustained attention and action.

Thanks to to all those Saudis who have already commented on the essay. I'd like to quickly point over to an excellent piece by former ambassador Richard LaBaron on a similar topic today, and also acknowledge Dwight Bashir's note that the U.S. Committee on International Religious Freedom did comment on Qahtani's and Hamed's detention in March.  I hope you'll go over to the FP main page to read it, and I look forward to more discussion.

For some reason, this seems like a good time to post the video of my POMEPS Conversation with Christopher Davidson, author of After the Sheikhs, recorded during his visit to GW in March.  Remember, you can subscribe to all the POMEPS Convos here (they will be sporadic over the summer, most likely, and then return regularly in the fall).

Meanwhile, it's been another great week of fantastic reporting and analysis on the Middle East Channel.  Be sure to read them all:

- Andrew Lebovich, Confronting Tunisia's Jihadists, a carefully reported, detailed essay on Tunisia's simmering battles over salafism and new jihadist groups.

- Aaron Stein, Turkey Waits on Washington, reading the tough choices and limited options on Syria available to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan.

- Nathan Brown and Mokhtar Awad, The Egyptian Judiciary Between a Japanese Tea Ceremony and World Wrestling Entertainment, diving deep into the political issues confronting the Egyptian judiciary

- Kirk Sowell, Provincial Elections and Iraq's Never Ending Crisis,  a very sharp reading of how Iraq's electoral results will play out in the context of its growing violence and ongoing political struggles.

- Brian Dooley, Diplomacy, Threats, and Bahrain's Cabinet, on the remarkable criticisms of the U.S. ambassador by Bahrain's Cabinet.

Elsewhere on FP, don't miss Alia Malek's dispatch from Syria's Alawi community;  Marwan Muasher's skeptical take on the attempted revival of the Arab Peace Initiative; Michael Knights' alarming take on Iraq's spiraling crisis; Thanassis Cambanis' analysis of Iran's potential quagmire in Syria; Mohamed Eljarh on the pushback against Libya's extremists; and this great photo-essay from Aleppo.

UPDATE: I just found out officially that I've been promoted to full professor here at GWU.  That's a double L to the F U y'all! 

-- Marc Lynch, Middle East Channel Editor

We try to keep a close eye on Yemen here at the Middle East Channel. So I'm happy to post the latest video in the POMEPS Conversations series (subscribe here to the podcast), where I sit down with Stacey Philbrick Yadav of Hobart and William Smith Colleges for a short conversation about Yemen's National Dialogue. She really has some interesting points to make about the changing roles, identities and attitudes of Yemeni protestors and the nature of the emerging political transition. For more from Yadav on Yemen, see "Best Friends Forever for Yemen's Revolutionaries?" (March 19, 2013).

For a roundup of recent articles, see POMEPS Brief #19 "Yemen's National Dialogue." Even more recently on Foreign Policy, check out: "Saving the South of Yemen From Itself", by Fatima Abou Alasrar;  "Yemen's Power Wedding," by Adam Baron; "Can Yemen Talk Itself to Peace", by Farea al-Muslimi and Laura Kasinof.  If you haven't seen it already, I'd also recommend "Yemen's Military-Security Reform: Seeds of a New Conflict?" from the International Crisis Group (April 2013). I've also just been reading Michael Knights, "The Military Role in Yemen's Protests", in the new issue of  Journal of Strategic Studies,  which has some interesting perspective on the interaction between tribes and the Yemeni military during the uprising of the last two years.

Also, I'm about halfway through Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars, which really does a great public service with its unflinching look at the political, legal and human dimensions of the U.S. drone program.  It's not only about Yemen, obviously, but it plays a lead role in his investigation of the "global battlefield" as defined in both the Bush and Obama administrations.  It's a very good read, especially paired with Gregory Johnsen's The Last Refuge.

The persistence of anti-American views in the Arab world represents an important policy challenge and an intriguing puzzle for political scientists. In the new issue of Foreign Affairs, I use Amaney Jamal's fascinating new book, Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy At All?, to explore a range of competing arguments about Arab views of the United States (many thanks to the Foreign Affairs team for temporarily ungating the essay). As I argue in the introductory paragraphs, "even major changes, such as Bush's departure, Obama's support for some of the Arab revolts of 2011, the death of Osama bin Laden, and the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, have had surprisingly little effect on Arab attitudes toward the United States." Why? Does it matter?

Jamal's book offers a sophisticated answer focused on the domestic coalitional politics of authoritarian regimes allied with the United States. Drawing on both survey evidence and extensive interviews in Jordan and Kuwait, she traces the ways in which that alliance has distinctive distributional effects which may do more to explain why certain groups end up expressing pro-American and others anti-American views. The analysis suffers from some flaws, which I dissect in the essay, but it's an interesting analysis which poses a real challenge to prevailing theoretical explanations.

The big question which the essay seeks to engage, and to which neither Jamal nor I offer any conclusive answers, is whether and how Washington could realistically change the direction, salience, or intensity of views of the United States. The ambivalent, conflicted response to changes in U.S. policies from Egypt and Iraq to Libya and Syria show that it isn't as simple as "change unpopular policies." Nor am I persuaded by the invocations of the region supposedly yearning for American leadership which tend to be popular in Washington, if nowhere else.

In truth, none of the dominant theories really strike me as convincing, nor do many of the popular policy arguments about public diplomacy seem useful. In the essay, I point back to the arguments about cognitive bias in an influential book edited by Peter Katzenstein and Robert Keohane as one possible angle. I also think that antipathy to the U.S. is only intensified by the trends toward political polarization, more open public argument, resistance to change by U.S.-allied regimes, confusion about U.S. intention and capability to continue to underwrite the status quo, and the deep political uncertainty everywhere in the region. There are surely other explanations. 

In another piece which just came out, Colin Kahl and I argue that the U.S. needs to do much more to engage with this emergent public opinion. Because of the Arab uprisings, public opinion matters more than ever before in the region, even if it isn't and shouldn't be the only consideration for the formation of policy. But understanding that public opinion and how the U.S. can effectively engage with it has never been more difficult. We try to lay out a grand strategy for the region which protects U.S. interests, "right-sizes" America's military and political presence, and responds more effectively to this potent but divided new public.

I encourage you to go read both essays, so kindly made available by Foreign Affairs and by The Washington Quarterly.  These are really interesting challenges, which I don't pretend to be able to resolve conclusively -- the perfect combination for a roundtable if there's enough interest! 

P.S. --  I wish I could claim credit for "Pity the Feloul", but that was all the FA editorial team!

My column this week, "How Syria Ruined the Arab Spring", tries to step back from the intervention debate to look at the broader ways in which that country's escalating horrors have altered the trajectory of political contestation across the entire region. It traces some very specific ways in which the Syrian civil war has altered the region over the last year: the endless, escalating and unavoidably visible violence; the regional proxy struggles; the focus on international intervention; the shift from unity to sectarianism; the dramatic effects on the international and Arab media coverage of the region.

The essay has already generated some really interesting commentary and discussion, particularly about trends which I might have missed or downplayed, and whether these trends could have been avoided or are at this point reversible. And then there's the predictable 57 variations on "oh noes, he called it the Arab Spring", 73 versions of "I'd like to apologize on behalf of the Syrian people for being depressing", and all the finger-pointing over who's to blame for the disaster. Duly noted. But can anyone really deny that Syria's uprising has taken a very different path and has had a very different impact on its people and on the region than any other of the Arab uprisings?

My essay is only one of many efforts to make sense of those differences and trends, and like all of them may well get some important points or degrees of emphasis wrong.  I really wanted to try to broaden the discussion beyond the intense debate going on right now about intervention, chemical weapons red lines, and the like -- though I'm sure I'll engage on those soon enough as well. But for now, I look forward to a discussion on the broader trajectories -- thanks to those who have already contributed, and to those who will. So go on and read my essay on Syria's effects on the path of the Arab uprisings. 

My FP column this week takes a look at the growing crackdown by the monarchs of the Gulf on perceived "insults."  I argue that their campaign is a clear signal of their declining power and legitimacy: confident leaders don't need to arrest people for criticizing them.  It's another manifestation of the  inability of traditional authoritarian regimes to control or tolerate the rapidly transforming new Arab public spheres -- and one which poses unique challenges to the monarchies, which have invested so heavily in the notion that they command a distinctive legitimacy and respect.   Once again, this is why I don't buy the popular notion that the Gulf monarchies have somehow avoided the Arab uprisings -- look beneath the surface of regime survival, and it's obvious that public politics across the GCC are changing rapidly and in potentially unpredictable ways. 

So go on over to the main page and read "The Kings of Cowardice."

This is just a placeholder post to alert blog readers that my weekly column came out yesterday: "Did We Get the Muslim Brotherhood Wrong? Nope, but that's not enough." The column looks back to pre-revolution academic writing on Egypt's MB and tries to assess what it got right, what it got wrong, and what has to change given the new circumstances.  It's generated some great feedback already, along with some of the usual silliness. I'm hoping to be able to put together a roundtable/response post some time early next week, so shoot me a line if you're interested in contributing to that. I might also throw together a bibliography of that academic literature for those interested in pursuing the topic. But for now be sure to check the column out!

Last night was a big one for foreign policy bloggers and for Foreign Policy bloggers at the International Studies Association. At the first annual reception for International Studies Blogging organized by our friends at the Duck of Minerva, the Duck's Dan Nexon announced the winners of the first annual OAIS (Outstanding Achievement in Interrnational Studies) Awards, i.e. the "Duckies." FP's Dan Drezner won the prize for Best Blog. And I won the Special Achievement Award, defined as having made "an outstanding contribution to the development, legitimation, and forwarding of international studies blogging."

That's a great honor for a little old Aardvark. It's humbling to be recognized out of so many great peers and colleagues -- I guess now I have to try to actually blog more! So many sincere and profound thanks to all. A full list of the winners, including Erica Chenoweth and Barbara Walter for Political Violence at a Glance for Best New Blog, will likely be posted over at the Duck soon.

The Duckies were fun, and I think they are part of something important about the growing centrality of blogging for political science and international studies. The large, enthusiastic crowd at the reception revealed the increasingly robust intellectual community around these blogs. The fact that the reception was hosted by Sage and placed on the official conference program signals growing institutional acceptance. And that's the context in which the Duck's Dan Nexon has just been named the new editor in chief for the association's flagship journal International Studies Quarterly with an insanely ambitious plan to incorporate online engagement and blog-tested innovations.   

I have to get back to the conference and don't have time to dig in right now, but the debates about the role of public online engagement in our scholarly portfolios and the changing realities of academic publishing and public engagement are only going to accelerate. I'm excited to see them and plan to write more about this all soon. But for now, back to the ISA!