Middle East Initiative

Empirical studies of the causes or consequences of civil war often use measures that do not correspond to theory and results are sensitive to small changes in the coding of civil wars. Civil war is an instance of “sovereignty rupture” and is inherently a polity-level phenomenon, but that understanding of civil war is not reflected in data in which civil war is coded as a dyadic conflict—the state fighting a domestic challenger. We demonstrate the consequences of conceptual ambiguity about which conflicts to code as civil war and when to code the start and end of a civil war. Using a new data set of civil wars from 1945 to 2016 that is consistent with the concept of sovereignty rupture, we replicate several studies and find that their results are often overturned or weakened when we use our data. We advocate for greater deliberateness in data selection in civil war studies, focusing on the fit between the question of interest and the concept of civil war that is underlying a given data set.

BEIRUT — The last thing the Middle East needs is another $8 billion of American armaments in the hands of Arab autocrats, and thousands of additional American troops here, which Donald Trump has decided to send us as he ratchets up the U.S.’s exaggerated and mostly hysterical confrontation with Iran. Such decisions by the Trump administration in recent weeks, combined with supporting roles by autocratic Middle Eastern governments, are central reasons for why our region continues to spin incoherently in its maelstrom of turbulence, destruction, violence, state collapse and massive human suffering.

On May 6, Turkish opposition figure Ekrem Imamoglu became the latest politician to fall victim to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian ambitions. In a move that has been widely characterized as a power grab by Erdogan, Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) stripped Imamoglu of his newly elected post as mayor of Istanbul after just 17 days in office. The decision came after Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) brought forth claims of electoral irregularities in the appointment of polling station officials. Although the polling workers Erdogan was referring to also oversaw races for district administrators, mayors and municipal councils — races that the AKP and its coalition partners won — the YSK canceled only the vote for the Istanbul mayorship and called for a rerun on June 23.

BEIRUT — Washington’s formal announcement of its plan to hold an economic workshop in Bahrain in June to kick-start a promised Palestinian-Israeli peace process — “the deal of the century” — brings us all face-to-face with a momentous decision. Do we dance or stay home?

U.S. set to unveil first stage of blueprint for Palestine and Israel. Rami Khouri, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Initiative discusses the news on Al Jazeera. 

Love. Music. Freedom. These are the universal themes at the heart of “We Live in Cairo,” a new musical by Daniel and Patrick Lazour, which is having its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater. Set during the January 25 Revolution, the 2011 uprising in Egypt, the work, under the music direction of Madeline Smith and music supervision of Michael Starobin, celebrates the hope and exuberance of the uprising, even as it acknowledges the turmoil that has followed.

Audio recording of a May 6, seminar with Soha Bayoumi, Assistant Dean of Harvard College (moderator); Sherine Hafez (University of California, Riverside); Hanan Hammad (Texas Christian University); and Valentine Moghadam(Northeastern University).

Audio recording of a May 1, seminar with Hugh Roberts, Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History, Tufts University.

Audio recording of an April 29, seminar with Dr. Randa S. Hamadeh, Director, Primary Healthcare and Social Health department, Ministry of Public Health, Lebanon.

Co-sponsored by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.