The Monthly Digest is a resource provided by Security in Context that provides a list of recent publications, calls, conferences and other items relevant to the critical global, security, and international political economy studies audience. In addition to new items, our digest may contain relatively recent entries, so please double check dates on any calls or conferences. All descriptions taken from their original sources unless otherwise indicated. If we’ve missed something, or you have items you’d like to contribute for future digests, please email us at: submissions@securityincontext.org
Books
Securitizing Youth
Young People’s Roles in the Global Peace and Security Agenda
Edited by Marisa O. Ensor
Contributions by Nasrat Khalid, Valeria Izzi, Victoria Bishop, Carole MacNeil, Ali Altiok, Willice Onyango, Grace Atuhaire, Jeni Klugman, Matthew Moore, Diana Budur
Securitizing Youth offers new insights on young people’s engagement in a wide range of contexts related to the peace and security field. It presents empirical findings on the challenges and opportunities faced by young women and men in their efforts to build more peaceful, inclusive, and environmentally secure societies. The chapters included in this edited volume examine the diversity and complexity of young people’s engagement for peace and security in different countries across the globe and in different types and phases of conflict and violence, including both conflict-affected and relatively peaceful societies. Chapter contributors, young peacebuilders, and seasoned scholars and practitioners alike propose ways to support youth’s agency and facilitate their meaningful participation in decision-making. The chapters are organized around five broad thematic issues that correspond to the 5 Pillars of Action identified by UN Security Council Resolution 2250. Lessons learned are intended to inform the global youth, peace, and security agenda so that it better responds to on-the-ground realities, hence promoting more sustainable and inclusive approaches to long-lasting peace.
The Reagan Revolution and the Rise of the New Right: A Reference Guide
For students of U.S. history, The Reagan Revolution explores how a Hollywood upstart and eventual conservative leader became one of the most successful and influential presidents in U.S. history—one whose presidency helped to define the end of the Cold War.
This book covers Ronald Reagan's long rise to the presidency and the conservative political revolution he brought about in the 1980s. Spurning the moderate values and policies Republicans had previously championed, Reagan's revolution continues to play an outsized role in America's political life. This important reference book gives browsers and readers alike an opportunity to focus on many of the intertwined issues of the 1980s: abortion, gay rights, law and order, the Cold War, tax cuts, de-industrialization, the Religious Right, and the political divisions that made Reagan's legislative victories possible.
The book opens with a concise biography covering Reagan's rise from radio personality and actor to governor and president. Subsequent chapters cover politics and policy. Chapters also include an important review of Reagan's legendary public relations operations ("morning in America" and the perfection of the television "photo opp") and the ways in which 1980s popular culture influenced and was influenced by his presidency. This section portrays Reagan as a product of Hollywood who keenly understood the importance of public opinion and creating a positive image.
Scholarships/Fellowships
Multicultural Postdoctoral Fellow in Criminology and Criminal Justice
The Criminology and Criminal Justice Program at the University of Rhode Island seeks to hire a Distinguished Multicultural Postdoctoral Fellow for the Academic Year 2021-2022. Subject to a favorable review of teaching and scholarly activities within the first twelve months, the fellow will transition into a full-time, funded, tenure-track position at the level of Assistant Professor at the end of the first year.
Articles/Journal Articles
Northern Syria Security Dynamics and the Refugee Crisis
(May 23, 2021)
The Syrian conflict, now entering its second decade, has cost more than 500,000 lives and forced 13 million Syrian civilians to flee their homes—more than half the prewar population—including 6.6 million who are refugees outside the country.1 This profound humanitarian crisis also threatens the stability of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Moreover, the out-migration has contributed to the growth of right-wing populism across Europe and severely affected the project of European unity.
Arab Studies Journal, Spring 2021, Vol XXIX No. 1
Articles:
Egyptian Textbooks in Times of Change, 1952–1980
Farida Makar and Ehaab D. Abdou
Reconceptualizing Algeria in Italy: Amara Lakhous and Leonardo Sciascia
Claudia Esposito
Arab Critical Culture and Its (Palestinian) Discontents after the Second World War
Adey Almohsen
Reviews:
Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire by Lâle Can
Reviewed by Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky
Popular Fiction, Translation and the Nahda in Egypt by Samah Selim
Reviewed by Adéla Provazníková
Feminism and Avant-Garde Aesthetics in the Levantine Novel by Kifah Hanna
Reviewed by Rachel Green
Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930 by Judith Surkis
Reviewed by Darcie Fontaine
Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Languages of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-39 by Dónal Hassett
Reviewed by Jim House
Academic Challenges in the Time of COVID-19 in the Arab Region: Social Scientists and Humanists in Focus
The @acss_org has published its report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social science and humanities community across the Arab region. To read the full report:
in English
in Arabic
in French
Desert Shield of the Republic? A Realist Case for Abandoning the Middle East
David Blagden & Patrick Porter
Political realists disagree on what America should “do” and “be” in the Middle East. All are skeptical toward extravagant geopolitical projects to transform the region. Yet they differ over whether hegemony in the Gulf and its wider environs are worth the substantial investment of blood and treasure. Hegemonic “primacy realism” finds the commitment effective and affordable, and that Washington should stay to stabilize the region to ensure a favorable concentration of power. There is an alternative “shield of the republic” realism, however, which views the pursuit of armed supremacy in the Middle East as harming political order at home, reducing security more than generating it, and costing too much for too little gain. It involves interests that are either manageable from a remove or largely generated by being there in the first place. In this article, we lay out the latter position, arguing that the unruly Gulf is increasingly peripheral to US national interests. The region is losing its salience grand strategically, entanglement and continuous war damage republican liberties, and the calculus of whether continued hegemony is “worth it” has shifted decisively toward the downside. The time for abandonment has come.
Citation: David Blagden & Patrick Porter (2021) Desert Shield of the Republic? A Realist Case for Abandoning the Middle East, Security Studies, 30:1, 5-48, DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2021.1885727
SCPR policy reports:
Determinants of forced displacement in the Syrian conflict: An empirical study
More than half of the Syrian population has been displaced as a result of war. This paper sets out to understand the scale of displacement, its distribution, as well as its driving factors. This paper seeks to analyze the correlation between institutions, social capital, economic and social variables with rates of forced displacement and migration. Understanding the determinants of displacement is important so as to predict future displacements.
The Syrian conflict has greatly worsened the country politically, militarily, economically, and culturally, resulting in the destruction of the foundations of society and state alike. Syria is divided, and governance is focused on violence and control over people and resources. Public institutions have been moulded by subjugation and despotism whilst cementing economies of conflict. Killing, besiegement, expelling, and torture have become institutional tools to impose dominance in a country riddled by mobile borders between regions. The conflict has divided the geography and wealth of Syria, sharing them amongst the conflicting forces and their allies. These factors in aggregate have led to the population distribution inside Syria to drastically change.
To download:
Participation in the Context of Asylum and the Determinants of Forced Displacement in the Syrian Conflict
This paper provides an accurate diagnosis of the size and distribution of displacement, whilst also offering critical analysis of the factors driving it. A decade of conflict in Syria has resulted in one of the biggest human catastrophes since the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives, more than 6.6 million have fled Syria to seek safety abroad, whilst 7.1 million people have been internally displaced. Forced displacement of people has not been a side effect of the conflict, but rather a method employed to strategically reinforce political dominance. Deprivation, discrimination, and exclusion of displaced persons further fuels and perpetuates violence.
To download:
Lectures/Webinars
Security in Context Launch of Latin East Working Group
Security in Context publicly launched the “Latin East” working group on June 2nd at 1:30 PM US Eastern Time. The working group is a joint collaboration between Security in Context and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the Arab Council of Social Sciences (ACSS), and the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA). The working group, consisting of scholars from both Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa region, will undertake a year-long study of policing, militarism, South-South solidarity and resistance from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. The event will introduce the working group, with subsequent public presentations though the year showcasing the research findings from the group. Presenters include Jessica Stites, Shimaa Hatab, Nilia Viscardi, Omar Tesdell, Amal Eqeiq, Leandro Gamallo, Pablo Emilio Angarita, Fernando Camacho Padilla, Jose-Vicente Tavares Dos Santos, and Paul Amar. Alejandro Velasco and Omar Dahi are co-conveners.
Project Titles:
Shimaa Hatab: ‘Security Dilemma’, Civil War and Regime Endurance: Syria and Guatemala in Comparative Perspective.
Leandro Gamallo: Security paradigms in dispute. The policing of poor neighborhoods in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires
Omar Imseeh Tesdell: Climate crisis resilience and agroecological solidarity
Nilia Viscardi & Jose-Vicente Tavares Dos Santos: Violence in Literature: a comparative study about Latin America
Pablo Emilio Angarita: Connections. Safe spaces for women and youth in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Paul Amar: Epistemologies of Mines, Militias, and Ministries
Amal Eqeiq: Archives of Massacres and Anatomies of Colonial Violence: Comparative indigeneity in Chiapas and Palestine
Fernando Camacho Padilla & Jessica Stites-Mor: Legacies of South-South Solidarity
Job Openings
Social Science Research Center: Program Officer
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a Brooklyn, NY–based, independent, international, nonprofit organization devoted to the advancement of interdisciplinary research in the social sciences and related disciplines through a wide variety of workshops and conferences, fellowships and grants, summer training institutes, scholarly exchanges, research, and publications. Working with partners around the world to link research to practice and policy, our work strengthens individual and institutional capacities for learning and enhances public access to information. For more information, please visit our website: www.ssrc.org.
The SSRC seeks to hire a Program Officer (PO) to support its work on China and the Global South. The China and the Global South initiative, a new project that builds on the SSRC’s long-standing work on China-Africa engagements, aims to develop research capacity about China in the Global South and to connect institutions and researchers producing knowledge on China in a global network. The program is funded by the Ford Foundation. The principal responsibility of the position is to manage the program’s activities in partnership with the program director, while also supporting other aspects of the SSRC’s work. This includes developing literature reviews and scoping studies, as well as designing and implementing workshops and other program activities.
Podcasts and Videos
"Sheikh Jarrah and Jerusalem in Historical Perspective" Professor Issam Nassar
In this interview Dr. Sami Hermez, coordinator of the working group, interviews Professor Issam Nassar about the historical backdrop of the Palestinian uprising of May 2021. Aided by maps of Jerusalem, Nassar dissects the events in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and situates them in a longer history of Israeli settler colonialism in Palestine and Jerusalem in particular. Nassar explains the significance of Sheikh Jarrah and why Palestinians rose up against this latest attempt at forced expulsion.
