282 Items

Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Nayef Falah Al-Hajraf during a press conference during the 41st Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting being held in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021.

AP Photo/Amr Nabil

Paper - Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center

From #Hashtags to Legislation

    Authors:
  • Oussama Belmejdoub
  • Bilal Diab
  • Samira Kalla
  • Ha Nguyen
  • Abdulla Saif
  • Ivan Yotzov
| February 2023

Ownership of reforms by citizens is often presented as important for success. This paper explores media engagement and support for economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using text analysis techniques on publicly available sources. Results show that while reform efforts have intensified in recent years in the GCC, these efforts tend to focus on stronger rather than weaker policy areas, potentially limiting the growth-enhancing effect of reforms. Social media analysis using Twitter shows that the population’s support for reforms has been declining. The analysis of traditional
news media points to more engagement by international than by local media. However, sentiment from international media is less positive about economic reforms in the GCC. Sentiment in international media and social media matters, as evidenced by its positive and strong correlation with FDI inflows into the GCC.

Clients wearing masks to help protect themselves from the coronavirus wait to use ATM machines outside a closed bank in Beirut, Lebanon.

(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Analysis & Opinions - Lebanese Center for Policy Studies

The Twin Crises and the Prospects for Political Sectarianism in Lebanon

| Apr. 04, 2020

LCPS solicited the opinion of key experts to answer one question: “Will the financial crisis, exacerbated further by COVID-19, strengthen or loosen the power of Lebanon’s governing political parties?” 

Maria Adele Carrai

Belfer Center

Analysis & Opinions - Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship

Triangular Economic Relations: China, the EU, and the United States

    Author:
  • Winston Ellington Michalak
| Mar. 16, 2020

In recent years the crisis of the transatlantic relationship and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become a common theme in media, and various scholars have frequently questioned the futures of both entities. Not only are the new sovereigntist and populist trends within the NATO members calling the relevance of the transatlantic relationship into question, but some have found a reason to identify a crisis in the transatlantic relationship from the rise of global actors and the emergence of China as a great power in particular. China’s economic recovery after its “century of humiliation” is reshaping the international geopolitics and shifting the economic epicenter of the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

 In this April 4, 2018 file photo, a U.S-backed Syrian Manbij Military Council soldier passes a U.S. position near the tense front line with Turkish-backed fighters, in Manbij, north Syria.

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

The International Community Must Stop Turkey’s Ethnic Cleansing Plans in Northern Syria

| Oct. 11, 2019

For years, Turkey’s government allowed Islamic State fighters to cross its territory into Syria. But, before Monday, there were no Islamic State fighter elements along Turkey’s border with Syria because Kurds, Arabs and Christians expelled them with help from the U.S. military. Today, these U.S. allies are running for their lives.

A fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF, stands inside a post where U.S. troops were based, in Tel Abyad town, at the Syrian-Turkish border, Syria, Monday, Oct. 7, 2019. 

AP Photo/Ahmad Baderkhan

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Impacts of U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Syria

Following President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, Belfer Center experts discussed the impact on America, our allies and adversaries, and the region.

Former Diplomat Farah Pandith Speaks to PBS News Hour About Reducing Extremism

PBS News Hour

Analysis & Opinions - PBS NEWSHOUR

Why We Need to Think About Extremism Differently in Order to Reduce It

| Apr. 22, 2019

As Sri Lanka reels from a series of deadly Easter Sunday attacks, the problem of violent extremism enters the spotlight once again. How can the U.S. and the world anticipate and counter the threat of terrorism, which experts agree cannot be addressed by military means alone? Amna Nawaz talks to former diplomat Farah Pandith, whose new book “How We Win” outlines a strategy for keeping us safe.

(POMEPS Studies)

(POMEPS Studies)

Report Chapter - Project on Middle East Political Science

A landing strategy for Saudi Arabia

| January, 2019

With rising population and incomes, the “rentier” mode of development in Saudi Arabia has long been unsustainable. While the issue of fiscal stabilization will occupy policy-making in Saudi Arabia in the short and medium terms, the long-term challenge of finding new sources of growth to complement oil has only been made starker by the recent drop in oil prices. Analysis of the prospects for such reforms in KSA has long been divided between two opposite camps: those who believe that the inadequacies of the rentier model will necessarily usher a doomsday scenario sooner or later, regardless of economic policies; and those who believe the impending crisis can be met by moving from the current mono-sector economy to a modern and diversified knowledge based economy OECD-style.