‘We are in a Battle with the Virus’: Hamas, Hezbollah, and covid-19

This article examines the response of two non-state actors, Hezbollah and Hamas, to the coronavirus pandemic in Lebanon and Palestine. It studies the patterns of governance, practicalities, leadership, and legitimacy both parties deployed during the Covid-19 crisis. It argues that non-state actors usually imitate states by trying to acquire legitimacy in such cases. The coronavirus was sectarianised, politicised, and used to gain external and local legitimacy by Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively. The success of non-state actors in managing the coronavirus pandemic was rooted in two factors: the existence of a pre-existing and well-developed welfare system, and the party’s capacity to mobilise its constituencies mainly through charismatic leadership. The paper is based on primary sources, including interviews, news articles, and social media.

Governing the covid-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa: Containment Measures as a Public Good

What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global covid-19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with decisive action and the potential costs of uncontrolled spread that are likely to accrue over the long term, we argue that leaders who have fewer incentives to provide public goods to stay in power will lock down later than their more constrained counterparts. We find empirical support for this argument in statistical analyses covering the 1 January – 30 November 2020 period using the Oxford covid-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) and our own original data on the timing of mosque closures and strict lockdowns across the region. We also illustrate our argument with a description of the response to the pandemic in Egypt.

Testing Saudi State Capacity: A Study to Investigate How the Government Responded to the covid-19 Pandemic

This study aimed at testing Saudi state capacity in its response to the covid-19 pandemic. The model investigated the significant impact of different curfew levels (a measure of state capacity) on covid-19 cases across five main cities. We used a Negative Binomial regression model to study the association between the covid-19 cases and other independent variables that include curfew levels. Our regression results have tested Saudi state capacity in four different curfew levels, revealing that the Saudi government exhibited its ability to implement one curfew level that decreased covid-19 cases. This curfew level (four) was the most effective policy implementation of all levels that assessed state capacity but required more resources and manpower. Hence, the Saudi state has the capacity to implement its desired policies, however, it needs an increased number of resources and manpower to do that. These findings render comparative implications to gcc monarchies and other Arab countries.

“Instrumentalize” the Assistance. The Changing Legitimacy of ingo s in Democratizing Tunisia

This study provides two theoretical insights that contribute to the debate on the legitimacy of ingo s that promote democracy to intervene in the third countries’ political affairs. First, it argues that the level of legitimacy that political parties endow to ingo s depends on the “instrumental role” that ingo s play in bolstering the achievements of national partners’ goals and is not based on the values and norms that the ingo s promote. Second, it suggests that the degree of legitimacy that political parties grant to ingo s has to be understood as temporarily limited and context dependent. Using the case of ingo s involved in democracy promotion during the Tunisian democratization, this article argues that Tunisian political elites welcomed ingo s assistance during the initial phase of the democracy transition (2011–2014) because their assistance was helpful to enhance the establishment of democracy system and its procedures. The article suggests that since 2015, political parties are showing less enthusiasm about ingo s’ pressure and interference in national affairs because the action of ingo s is no longer useful to their political agenda.

The Power of Bipartisan Mobilization: The Success of Tunisia’s Feminist Movement During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The Tunisian government, which is deeply divided, especially along ideological lines, responded to growing concerns over increased violence against women during the Coronavirus pandemic by establishing a new domestic violence shelter and 24/7 hotline. This article asks: Why did the state respond to gender-based violence(gbv) concerns during the Coronavirus pandemic in Tunisia, despite ideological and political divisions? We argue that the state addressed some concerns around violence during the pandemic because combatting gbv has bipartisan support in Tunisia. Tunisian Islamist and secularist women’s rights organizations succeeded in building a bipartisan coalition of support on this issue because they worked either together in a short-lived coalition or in tandem with similar goals over the past decade during the democratic transition in Tunisia. Building on the existing coalition literature, we show that feminist coalition formation before a pandemic has implications for feminists’ success in times of crisis.

Mapping Covid-19 Governance in Lebanon: Territories of Sectarianism and Solidarity

Many states, including Lebanon, have used the Covid-19 pandemic as an occasion to reassert their power and to consolidate their policing and repressive apparatuses. We are far from a seamless scenario, however. Rather than a mere reproduction of the sectarian political system, we argue in this paper that the governance of the pandemic in Lebanon reveals tensions between powerful political parties, weakened public agencies, as well as multiple solidarity groups with diverging aspirations, colliding over the imagined future of the country. Using various sources of information (broadcast, print and online news media, social media), we build a database of the types of actors and the categories of actions across locations, and analyze the territorial and political variations of the governance of the pandemic. The paper demonstrates that the Covid-19 response in Lebanon operates through ongoing negotiations over the national territory in which timid yet visible aspirations for a non-sectarian country confront sectarian territorialities through back-and-forth cycles.

From Democratic Exception to State of Exception: Covid-19 in the Context of Tunisia’s State of Law

Through an analysis of the early legal and institutional response to Covid-19 in Tunisia, this article demonstrates that the narrative of Tunisia’s democratic exceptionalism following the 2011 revolution is not translated into a liberal legal practice but is instead upheld by an authoritarian rationale that serves the role of a formal channel that legitimizes power discourse. Specifically, this article focuses on what the state of exception, which was declared during the ongoing state of emergency, reveals about the various uses of law in Tunisia. It argues that the state of emergency has become the norm to the Tunisian way of governance post-2011, allowing for the survival of past authoritarian practices where the legal apparatus is used and deployed as a tool of policing and control.

Defining the “Tribal Advantage” in Kuwaiti Politics

Contemporary electoral discourses in Kuwait stress a “tribal advantage” that boosts the representation of tribe-affiliated Kuwaitis in the National Assembly and undermines the character of Kuwaiti democracy. We draw on survey data, elite interviews, and election returns to assess the validity of these claims. Kuwaiti responses in a survey of political attitudes cast doubt on the hypothesis that members of tribes are likelier to view voting as a quid-pro-quo exchange for government services. Election returns suggest a slight over-representation of tribe-affiliated Kuwaitis writ large, but as a result of the interaction of larger post-2006 electoral districts with tribal electoral coordination rather than as a result of government design. Additionally, electoral returns offer evidence of growing tribal coordination intended to ensure representation within the National Assembly, albeit one disrupted by changes in electoral laws. We conclude by highlighting the possibility of electoral appeals that build on, rather than restrict themselves to, ascriptive identities.

Trade relations between the European Union and Palestine: Assessment and Potential improvements

This article examines the bilateral relationship between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority. The EU’s policy towards Palestine, as with other neighboring countries, has always closely linked the economic and political elements of the relationship. Besides financial aid to support Palestine’s socio-economic development and state-building, trade between the EU and Palestine has had an increasingly important role in this regard. The article reviews the possibilities for improvement of EU-Palestine trade exchanges within the existing framework of cooperation by illustrating how implementation, capacity building, and support for regional and global economic integration are key and realistic options for both parties to reap the benefits from the trade agreements in place.

Revisiting the Concept of Moderation in the Age of Populism: the akp case of Turkey

This article presents the case of Turkey within the framework of this special issue entitled “On Islamist Parties and the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis”. I argue that rather than a distinction between the concepts of ”tactical” and “ideological” moderation that the literature talks about, a distinction between the concepts of an “inclusionary-populist” and “moderate Islamist” party could provide a more useful insight over the role of Islamist and post-Islamist parties in democratization and de-democratization processes. Through a re-analysis of the secondary literature and a content analysis of 196 newspaper columns written by three pro-democracy intellectuals, I label the akp’s transition period from moderate-Islamism toward authoritarianism as its inclusionary populist phase. I show that in contexts marked by deep ideological divisions and unconsolidated democratic institutions, a shift in party identity from moderate-Islamism toward inclusionary populism can be taken as the early signal of an unfolding process of autocratization.