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Editor, Prof. Barry Rubin
Managing Editor, Avi Rembaum
MERIA JOURNAL #2: ANNOUNCEMENT AND PREVIEW
MERIA Journal #2 will be published shortly. For your convenience it will be sent you in separate posts arriving at intervals of several days apart. In some cases, posts contain two articles. You are welcome to download, print or forward articles to others as long as proper credit is given to the author, MERIA, and any other appropriate sources.
This issue includes a rich variety of pieces: a comprehensive survey of the contemporary regional economic scene (Kanovsky); three articles on Islamic radial movements today (Maddy-Weitzman, Kostiner, Zisser); two pieces on Turkish foreign policy (Winrow, Kirisci); and articles about Israel's new electoral system (Mahler), problems in the Gulf Cooperation Council (al-Hamad), the shift from Ottoman ideology to Turkish nationalism (Karaman), and an introduction to studying Middle Eastern diasporas (Sheffer).
| TABLE OF CONTENTS | ||
| posting | author | title (shortened) |
| One | Eliyahu Kanovsky | The Middle East Economies |
| Two | Greg Mahler | Israel's New Electoral System |
| Turki al-Hamad | Will Gulf Monarchies Work Together? [Middle East Quarterly] | |
| Three | M. Lutfullah Karaman | Ottomanism to Turkism |
| Gabi Sheffer | Middle Eastern Diasporas | |
| Four | Gareth M. Winrow | Turkey & Central Asia/Transcaucasus |
| Five | Kemal Kirisci | Turkish Security and the Middle East |
| Six | Joseph Kostiner | State, Islam and Opposition in Saudi Arabia |
| Seven | Bruce Maddy-Weitzman | The Islamic Challenge in North Africa |
ANNOUNCING THE MERIA EDITORIAL BOARD (more members to be added)
Prof. Fouad Ajami, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
Prof. Amatzia Baram, Chair, Middle East History Department, Haifa University
Prof. Yaacov Barsimantov, Chair, International Relations Department, Hebrew University
Prof. Elliot Cohen, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
Prof. Bilge Criss, Vice-Chairperson, International Relations Department, Bilkent University
Prof. Efraim Inbar, Bar-Ilan University; Director, BESA Center
Prof. Lawrence Freedman, Kings College, London
Prof. Ali Karaosmanoglu, Chair, International Relations Department, Bilkent University
Prof. Efraim Karsh, Director, Program for Mediterranean, King College, London
Prof. Kamal Kirsici, Associate Professor of International Relations, Bosphorus University
Prof. Martin Kramer, Director, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and North African Studies, Tel Aviv University
Prof. Robert Lieber, Chair, Government Department, Georgetown University
Prof. Philip Robins, St. Antony's College, Oxford
Prof. Shmuel Sandler, Bar-Ilan University
The Winter 1997 issue of Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies has P.R. Kumaraswamy, "Benjamin Netanyahu's Policy Statement: An Assessment" and Bulent Aras, "The Place of the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process in Turkish Foreign Policy.
Amatzia Baram, "Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Husayn's Tribal Policies 1991-1996". International Journal of Middle East Studies, 29 (Feb. 1997), 1-31.
Eliyahu Kanovsky, "Iran's Economic Morass: Mismanagement and Decline Under the Islamic Republic," Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Paper 44. A detailed monograph on Tehran's poor economic situation.
Martin Kramer, "The Middle East, Old and New," a broad evaluation of the region's current situation, is in Daedalus, Spring 1997, pp. 89-112.
The May/June issue of Foreign Affairs includes "Creating Modern Oman," by Judith Miller, an interview with Oman's Sultan Qabus, and 3 articles attacking U.S. Persian Gulf policy: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft & Richard Murphy, "Differentiated Containment"; Jahangir Amuzegar, "Adjusting to Sanctions"; Graham Fuller & Ian Lesser, "Persian Gulf Myths."
Recent Economic Developments, Prospects, and Progress in Institution Building in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Middle Eastern Department, International Monetary Fund, 1997, 49pp, $15.00 By Jim Lederman
For anyone who believes, as I do, that economic issues have played and will continue to play a critical role in the peace process, this report is must reading. Not since the late, lamented Harvard reports that ceased publication in 1994 has there been as wide-ranging and up-to-date a study of the Palestinian economy as this one.
While four authors are given credit for the document, one must assume that the guiding light for this project was Prof. Stanley Fischer, the Deputy Director of the IMF, who was also the editor of the Harvard studies.The report is not just a set of dry statistical tables. Its analytical sections permit the careful reader to enter into the mindset of the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and their concept of governance.
Having said all this in praise of the document, the rest of this review will be devoted to some of the study's shortcomings_in the hope that future editions can be improved.Since the study is based heavily on statistics and projections, it would have been useful if the limitations on data gathering faced by the authors had been listed at the very beginning of the report, in the form of a forward_rather than, as happened, in an appendix at the end. I strongly suggest that readers go through Appendix 1 first, before perusing the rest of the report.On the whole, the graphs are useful. However, the base line for all comparative data is 1992, 93, or 94. It would have been useful if the base line had been 1987, when the intifada broke out.
Moreover, all the graphs are based on aggregate figures. It would have been far more helpful if the data had been graphed on a monthly basis_at least for the preceding year. The text makes constant note of the impact of Israeli closures on the Palestinian economy, but a graphic overlay of statistics such as the number of unemployed, bank deposits, and public revenues for each month following a major political or violent event would have helped clarify the impact closures or the issuance of additional work permits by Israel have had on the economy.While the report is blessedly free of jargon, it also contains parts that are written in exquisitely obscure diplomatese. This particularly applies to those sections that are critical of the PA's handling of its economic priorities. In some cases, one needs to know the background and the substance of the debates that have been going on between the PA and donor countries before one can understand the import of some statements.
In other cases, important material such as the impact of pensions on future government revenues, are presented in the form of throw-away lines. A third technique is the use of juxtaposition. For example, on page 23, at the very end of the section on fiscal developments, the report notes that police salaries now account for 4.8% of GDP. If one were to stop reading there, one would miss the important comparison made in the very next paragraph--separately labeled 'Capital Expenditures'--that total capital expenditures were only 4.9% of GDP.Several major subjects are ignored. The most notable of these is a much-needed analysis of why more than a billion dollars in pledged donor money, dedicated to investment in infrastructure, has gone unused.The report as a whole is far from being comprehensive. However, it is the best study I have yet seen in print on the PA's economic policies; and it makes a valuable contribution to the rather thin library currently available on the economic base of the Palestinian entity.
For information on the association and its journal, write: Nancy Gallagher <gallaghe@humanitas.ucsb.edu> or edoumato@uriacc.uri.edu
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