{"title":"Consequences of economic sanctions on minority groups in the sanctioned states","authors":"Mehmet Onder","doi":"10.1111/dome.12268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12268","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"92 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81648938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Consequences of economic sanctions on minority groups in the sanctioned states","authors":"Mehmet Onder","doi":"10.1111/dome.12268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12268","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study explores the effects of economic sanctions on vulnerable groups within target states. When a state uses economic sanctions to realize its foreign policy goals, the government in the sanctioned state usually pursues harsh domestic policies against its ethnic minority groups by employing rally around the flag effect policies. Resultant domestic policies work by casting members of minority groups as traitors and then scapegoating them as the cause underlying the sanctions. Many cases have resulted in the mistreatment and death of innocent people due to the target state governments' counter-sanctions policies at the domestic level. In this paper, I analyze the negative effects of economic sanctions on minority groups with a focus on the economic, political, and social discrimination of minority groups within sanctioned states. I argue that comprehensive sanctions are more harmful than targeted sanctions on the minority groups in sanctioned states. By using panel data and logit regression models, I demonstrate that economic sanctions cause target states to enact policies that are discriminatory against members of minority groups. This study contributes to the literature by identifying the effects of comprehensive and targeted sanctions on minority groups in terms of political, economic, and societal dimensions.</p>","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"31 3","pages":"201-227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dome.12268","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72192174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor's introduction","authors":"Catherine Warrick","doi":"10.1111/dome.12271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12271","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This issue of the <i>Digest of Middle East Studies</i> features articles presenting research on a range of timely and important topics, from party politics to foreign policy, political economy, and media representation.</p><p>The performance of Islamist parties in electoral competition and in governance is a subject of long-standing interest, and it has attracted attention anew in the years since the Arab Spring. In particular, political scientists and policymakers have often asked whether the presence of Islamist parties inevitably damages prospects for democracy, and whether electoral participation will result in ideological or political shifts within Islamist parties themselves. Our first two articles offer a reevaluation of some of the earlier political science research on these questions. Justin Curtis assesses the performance of Islamist parties both in elections and in governing coalitions, offering a convincing and empirically grounded argument that seat gains alone are an insufficient measure of electoral success. His new empirical measures support conclusions about both the types of Islamist parties likely to be included in governance and the meaning of such inclusion for democratic systems. Mohamed Saad, approaching the subject from another perspective, seeks to test the well-known inclusion-moderation hypothesis through application to two cases, Iraq and Sudan, where he argues the evidence points to a radicalization, rather than moderation, of Islamist parties. Saad attributes this not only to the parties' political and economic resources, but to the particulars of the two political contexts, in which identity and grievance politics were sources of mobilization for the party and resulted in the continuation of conflict within the systems.</p><p>Mehmet Onder also addresses an issue of enormous interest to policymakers and scholar alike in his study of the effects of economic sanctions on minority groups. His research shows that the imposition of economic sanctions leads the states targeted by such sanctions to enact policies that discriminate against minority groups. He also finds that this result is more harmful to minority groups in cases where comprehensive sanctions are imposed, compared to more narrowly targeted sanctions. This study offers a clear contribution to the further development of foreign policy in the Middle East and around the world.</p><p>The final two articles of the issue both address recent and important developments in Saudi Arabia, although in very different spheres of public life. Tariq Elyas, Abdulrahman Aljabri, Nesreen Al-Harbi, and Areej Al-Jahani offer a study of media representation, comparing British and Saudi newspapers’ visual depictions of Saudi women. Western media outlets have long represented Saudi women as the epitome of the otherness of Muslim and Arab women, shown as hidden and anonymous in traditional forms of dress. But while policies affecting women's rights in Saudi Arabia may have advance","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"31 3","pages":"168-169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dome.12271","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72159164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The enablers of entrepreneurship in the tourism sector of Saudi Arabia: An interpretative structured modeling approach","authors":"Hashem A. Alnemer","doi":"10.1111/dome.12266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12266","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study aims to model the set of enablers that promote entrepreneurship in the tourism sector of Saudi Arabia using interpretative structural modeling (ISM), a qualitative expert opinion-based method that helps describe the interrelationship among variables. A review of the literature identified seven major enablers. Drivers and dependence power from the ISM model reveal that collaboration and relaxing visa norms are the primary enablers of entrepreneurship in the tourism sectors of Saudi Arabia, followed by cutting taxes, public–private partnership, and ease of getting tourism business licenses on the second level of the ISM model. Furthermore, the ISM digraph shows that start-up in the tourism business and entrepreneurship education is highly dependent on the other enablers. To encourage entrepreneurship in the Saudi tourism sector, the government should promote and focus on primary- and secondary-level enablers. This study provides an in-depth insight into the enablers of entrepreneurship in the tourism sectors of Saudi Arabia, which can help in developing a proper policy framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"31 3","pages":"253-270"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72159163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The enablers of entrepreneurship in the tourism sector of Saudi Arabia: An interpretative structured modeling approach","authors":"H. Alnemer","doi":"10.1111/dome.12266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12266","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"497 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78133925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Colors and Orientalism as associations: Exploring the semiotic (re)presentation of Saudi women in British and Saudi newspapers","authors":"Tariq Elyas, Abdulrahman Aljabri, Nesreen Al-Harbi, Areej A-Jahani","doi":"10.1111/dome.12269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12269","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Media representations can have significant influence in shaping opinions and influence public response to certain communities or gender and ethnic representations around the world. Investigating semiotic representation in linguistic discourse as vehicles for meaning in culture has been a fruitful area of research over the past decades. This study explores how stereotypes of women feed into the representations of Saudi women in contemporary press in Britain and Saudi Arabia. The focus is on the newspaper genre. Data for this study have been gleaned from a particular set of British and Saudi newspapers. Using the Color Image Scale (CIS) as a research tool, this study yielded a number of findings, the main one of which is the discrepancy in Saudi women's representation in the journalistic discourse under study. In addition, variances in color choice and usage between the newspapers in the present study were apparent. The study provides an important opportunity to advance our understanding of Saudi women's representation in British versus Saudi newspapers. The present study also makes a major contribution to research on critical discourse analysis by demonstrating how power as well as orientalism impact Saudi women's representation. The findings of this study are important for scholars of gender, religion, media, and cultural diversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"31 3","pages":"228-252"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72159588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
T. Elyas, A. Aljabri, Nesreen Al‐Harbi, Areej A‐Jahani
{"title":"Colors and Orientalism as associations: Exploring the semiotic (re)presentation of Saudi women in British and Saudi newspapers","authors":"T. Elyas, A. Aljabri, Nesreen Al‐Harbi, Areej A‐Jahani","doi":"10.1111/dome.12269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12269","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88990408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Solidifying identity discourse through the politicized monumentation of struggle","authors":"V. Panossian","doi":"10.1111/dome.12264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12264","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89211146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Solidifying identity discourse through the politicized monumentation of struggle","authors":"Vicky Panossian","doi":"10.1111/dome.12264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12264","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article investigates contemporary examples of monumentation and the extent to which they solidify and reproduce a politicized discourse on identities. Focusing predominantly on the representation of refugees and migrants, the article is broken down into four sections, the first of which looks into the challenges of monumentation and the discourse it represents. The second part includes three case studies, each representing a different vestige of the struggle with the discourse propagated by certain monuments. The core of the argument concerns the parameters of social representation of the suffering subject, be it the refugee, the asylum seeker, their mother, or the colonial subject. I propose an adaptation of Fairclough's model of language and power to include monuments as replicas of texts which can be analyzed at word, discursive and social levels.</p>","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"31 2","pages":"151-163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dome.12264","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71966124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The irony of sectarianism: Sectarianizing by desectarianizing in Syria","authors":"Mustafa Menshawy","doi":"10.1111/dome.12263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12263","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The study seeks to resolve a conundrum in Syrian politics: the ruling regime has always claimed and celebrated a harmonious social fabric, national unity, and a long-standing tradition of coexistence despite the prevalence of an opposite grim reality marked by sectarian divisions and factionalism which the regime itself mainly created or sustained. I explore the process of acting “as if not” by analyzing the speeches of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad since the eruption of the conflict in 2011, a period when the country has been buffeted by extreme sectarian waves. The process shows how Assad has constructed a process of desectarianization based on repetition, frequency, and resonance of specific frames in his speeches, and also based on building an image of an idealized present of internal unity and integration. The process includes externalizing sectarianization as a “western” import and emphasizing the regime's ideologies of pan-Arab nationalism and secularism as bulwarks against it. Furthermore, the Assad regime has taken credit as a “desectarianization guardian” in different ways including maintaining the status quo and consolidating the impression of his active positive leadership drawn on taking the country down the path of unity and solidarity. However, ironically, desectarianization has also entrenched the very sectarian practices which it claimed its mission to stand against. Sectarianisation and desectarianization are both sides of the same coin in Syria's politics of authoritarianism.</p>","PeriodicalId":43254,"journal":{"name":"Digest of Middle East Studies","volume":"31 2","pages":"131-150"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dome.12263","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71967208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}