Africa

For a century, the geopolitics of energy has been synonymous with the
geopolitics of oil and gas. However, geopolitics and the global energy economy
are both changing. The international order predominant since the
end of World War II faces mounting challenges. At the same time, renewable
energy is growing rapidly. Nevertheless, the geopolitics of renewable
energy has received relatively little attention, especially when considering
the far-reaching consequences of a global shift to renewable energy.

The paper starts with a discussion of seven renewable energy scenarios
for the coming decades: the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2016, the EIA’s
International Energy Outlook 2016, IRENA’s REmap 2016, Bloomberg’s
New Energy Outlook 2016, BP’s Energy Outlook 2016, Exxon-Mobil’s Outlook
for Energy 2016 and the joint IEA and IRENA G20 de-carbonization
scenario.

Audio recordings from MEI's Spring 2015 Study Group Rethinking the Arab State: the Collapse of Legitimacy in Arab Politics, with Professor Michael C. Hudson.

During the Spring 2015 semester, Prof. Hudson hosted a distinguished group of scholars to re-examine the foundational concepts of legitimacy, the state, civil society, religion, and regional stability in the wake of the Arab Uprisings.

The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform investigates the wide variance of occurrence and outcomes of Arab uprisings and the deep historical and structural roots of power imbalances within societies to ask why regime change took place in only four Arab countries and why democratic change proved so elusive in the countries that made attempts.

An audio recording from Samer Shehata, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma.

On March 3, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Samer  Shehata assessed the role of the military and pre-2011 regime figures in Egypt's political transition from authoritarianism to apparent democratic opening, and now back to a military-backed authoritarian government, to ask how useful the term 'Deep State' is to understanding Egypt's politics.

"To understand why the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings have had different outcomes, leave aside the dominant narrative of secularism, Islamism and the political weakness of the youth. [T]he more fundamental and essential role [is that] of the ruling elite, without whom no country can make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. We must think of those old elites, even in a revolutionary uprising, as active participants who are neither passive nor innocent."

An audio recording from Ambassador Marwan Muasher, Vice President for Studies and Director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Jordanian Ambassador to the United States.

On October 22, 2014 at MEI, Ambassador Muasher looked back over four years of popular uprisings in the Arab World and took stock of the hope for transition to genuine stability, prosperity, and democracy and tools necessary to do the job.

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Marwan Muasher, Vice President of Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Jordanian Ambassador to the United States, discusses pluralism and democracy in the Middle East and his long term vision for political, economic, and cultural transformation in the Arab World.

"For obvious reasons the coup against President Mohamed Morsi has been compared to the coup against [former Chilean president Salvador] Allende. Emotionally the picture is compelling: democratically elected presidents forced out of office by generals who profoundly hated their politics and who then pursued increasingly violent campaigns against the remaining civilian opposition. In the world of American academic politics the comparison is especially powerful because it suggests that the anti-communism that drove policies a generation ago and now seems shameful and regrettable is surfacing again as “Islamophobia” or an irrational hatred of Islam. Saving democracy, a lost cause in 1973, is now possible and a moral imperative as the events of the past are replayed in a different part of the world with a different cast of characters."

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.