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THE ARAB UPRISINGS PROJECT
  • Home
  • About
  • Events
  • Pedagogy
  • Resource Portal
  • Articles
    • Roundtable on Archives, Revolution, Historical Thinking >
      • Historicizing Hope/lessness in Revolutionary Times by Rosie Bsheer
      • Archives as Repositories of Resistance: Syrian Uprisings Past and PresentNew Page
      • The Algerian Archive Between Two Revolutions
      • An Archive of Forgetting: Egypt, 2011-2021
      • “Secrets of Revolution”: Iraq and the Global 1919
      • Archive as Sensorium: 2021 in 1940 and 1940 in 2021
      • In Search of Iran’s Revolutionary Archives

The Arab Uprisings Project

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click here to visit our resource portal

Essential Readings

Uprisings, Resistance, and Popular Mobilization in the Middle East and North Africa 
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​There is a growing literature on uprisings, resistance, and popular mobilization in the Middle East and North Africa. While much of the conventional wisdom on the region is top-down, researchers are slowing building up a more developed and diverse understanding of how oppressed and excluded groups of all kinds have struggled to change their conditions. One noteworthy development is a renewed interest in Gramscian approaches.

This short annotated list of Essential Readings in English offers some highlights from this multi- and inter-disciplinary literature, sorting contributions into various categories: (1) overviews and introductions, (2) major cases and episodes, (3) particular states, (4) interpretive frameworks and approaches, and (5) major themes.

View the full resource on MESPI.org

Compiled by John Chalcraft
Revolutions in the Contemporary Middle East 
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In some ways, the outcome of the Arab Revolutions ten years later is a familiar tale from this history of revolutions, a combination of hope and disappointments.  Tunisia remains a democracy, if one struggling with economic challenges and continuing threats of political instability.  Other Arab regimes, from Egypt and Syria to Yemen and Libya, have reverted to harsh autocracies or remained mired in civil war.  To those who have studied the past revolutions in Russia, Mexico, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Ukraine, this is largely what we should have expected: democratic outcomes are rare, and instability and dictatorship are the more common short-term outcomes of revolutionary upheaval.  Yet there are new and specific elements in the Middle East:  The Arab revolutions have unleashed Turkish assertions of its leading role in the Muslim world, echoing its Ottoman heritage and have led to a three-way competition between Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia for influence across the Middle East and North Africa.  The larger revolutions in Egypt, Syria, and Yemen have reduced the significance of the Palestinian conflict with Israel, giving opportunities for Israel to expand its formal relations and informal cooperation with Arab nations.  And the most extreme, radical Islamic threat—the so-called “Caliphate” of ISIS in Syria and Iraq—has been defeated and driven from the Middle East, only to resurface in multiple locations in Africa and South Asia.  Accounts of the Arab Revolutions and the Middle East ten years later thus are predominantly pessimistic, as they chart major changes in the economies and politics of the region.  Yet the aspirations for greater democracy remain; and despite the oppressive nature of most current regimes, those aspirations may yet resurface in the future.
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The following readings provide the essential background to understanding these latest events. They range from general surveys of revolution to accounts of the particular events of 2011.

View the full resource on MESPI.org

Compiled by Jack Goldstone
Uprisings, Popular Protest, and Resistance
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Middle East studies has traditionally paid more attention to the elite power than the people in subverting that power. The Essential Reading compiled by Lisa Anderson in Jadaliyya guides us to a fine collection of publications on the states and regimes in the Middle East since the 1970s. But serious works on contentious politics, social movements, and resistance in the region have been quite recent. Yet within a relatively short period, some significant historically-sophisticated and theoretically-informed works have appeared that go beyond approaching contentious politics simply in terms of ‘riots’, ‘mob action’ or mere religious reaction. They include regional and historical surveys, country studies, analyses of particular movements or acts of contention. Given that I am constrained by the limited essential and representative titles, some important works might have been omitted here. My emphasis is more on studies with regional scope rather than single country monographs; attention is also paid to theoretical contributions that are drawn on the experiences of the Middle East and North Africa. Finally, these publications are all in English language which inevitably excludes non-English scholarships which may be as valuable and insightful. I have looked at scholarship on contentious politics in terms of three repertoires: uprisings and revolutions, social movements, and everyday politics and resistance.

View the full resource on MESPI.org

Compiled by Asef Bayat

Resources in Development

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Books

Most books on the topic, mainly in  English, will be featured by theme/category
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Peer-Reviewed Articles

Nearly all peer-reviewed articles in  English  will be featured by theme/category
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Documentary and Film

A growing database of films and documentaries in various languages will be featured by theme/category
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Book Reviews

Most peer-reviewed and self-reviewed (NEW Text Out Now Series) reviews on the topic, mainly in  English, will be featured by theme/category
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Essential Readings

These are annotated bibliographic selections by scholars on a theme or sub-theme related to the topic
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Podcasts

Audio and Video podcasts, mainly in English, will be featured by theme/category

Other Resources

Other resources, including documents, photographs, archives, reports, maps, graffiti, memes, and (live) art installations, will also be featured

Stay Tuned!

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Ten Years On: Mass Protests and Uprisings in the Arab World

Organized by: Arab Studies Institute, Princeton’s Arab Barometer, and George Mason’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program. Co-Sponsored by: Georgetown University (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies), American University of Beirut (Asfari Institute), Arab Council for the Social Sciences, Brown University (Center for Middle East Studies), UC Santa Barbara (Center for Middle East Studies), Harvard University (Center for Middle East Studies), University of Exeter (Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies), Birzeit University (Department of Political Science), University of Chicago (Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory), Stanford University (Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, Stanford University), AUC Affiliates, Georgetown University (Qatar) Center For International And Regional Studies (CIRS), The Global Academy (MESA Affiliated), Institute of Palestine Studies.

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The Arab Uprisings Resources 
A project of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI.org)

  • Home
  • About
  • Events
  • Pedagogy
  • Resource Portal
  • Articles
    • Roundtable on Archives, Revolution, Historical Thinking >
      • Historicizing Hope/lessness in Revolutionary Times by Rosie Bsheer
      • Archives as Repositories of Resistance: Syrian Uprisings Past and PresentNew Page
      • The Algerian Archive Between Two Revolutions
      • An Archive of Forgetting: Egypt, 2011-2021
      • “Secrets of Revolution”: Iraq and the Global 1919
      • Archive as Sensorium: 2021 in 1940 and 1940 in 2021
      • In Search of Iran’s Revolutionary Archives