Echoes of hostility: Democratic sanctions and public backlash against democracy in targeted states

Is such phenomenon as Shadow Economy possible in the Arab (Muslim) countries? In terms of scientific approach as the presence of positive (legal) economy will always have its antipode – the presence of negative (shadow or illegal) economy and no matter which country will have these economic types. Of course, the percentage of legal and shadow economy varies in different countries. At the same time, the volumes of shadow economy are independent of the main religion professed by the population or of the part of the world where the country is situated (countries with Islam as the main religion have a less volume of shadow economy in comparison with countries having Christianity as a predominant religion, and the richest oil countries in the MENA region have bigger volumes of shadow economy than some Western European countries). The causes of shadow economy and the prerequisites of its inception are largely the same by its socio-economic nature. The sources of economical problems lie in the imbalance between limited resources at the disposal of people or a state and in the open-endedness of ever-growing needs of economic agents. It is precisely on these contradictions numerous financial and economic crises appear. It may also be noted that the wish to possess the largest possible quantity of resources leads to the foreignpolicy struggle between countries which results in wars, conflicts, economic sanctions. Recently, the countries of Arab East have been experiencing systemic crisis. Over the past 10 years economic benefits have been redistributed, the map of the region has been redrawn, and moral guidelines of the society have been shifting. This is acutely seen in the events taking place in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Islamic financial institutions and markets, which were less of a financial and more of moral and ethical basis of the Arab countries, currently are taking an exam on “stress tests”. Countries devastated by wars, crisis in oil monarchies, unemployment, enormous migration flows, “black market” growing at a geometric rate – can all these humanistic and social guidelines, which Islamic scientists focus on in the relationships between people, people and authorities, people and God, prevail all this? The transformation of shadow economy in the Arab Region sharply has taken place over the past 10 to 15 years, partly due to the interference of Major Powers (statistics on the economy clearly demonstrate that before the events of Arab Spring and military conflicts non-oil-producing Arab countries had an enormous potential of development on key indicators). The middle class, the business community of Arab countries adapts to circumstances arising in today’s realities carrying out its activities in the shadow or quasi-legal sector of the economy. They don’t feel support from the state concerned about issues of the maintenance of stability by introducing tough tax, control and restrictive measures. In this regard probably appropriate phrase: “One does what one must to survive!” Regional Powers fight for their political and economical independence, the population of these Powers live to work and secure any future to themselves and their families. The issues of the shadow economy do not fall within economic relationships, they are relevant to social or spiritual relationships which are transforming in the modern world regardless of the value of taxes collected or level of GDP.

This study examines the relationship between political attitudes and individuals’ life satisfaction. While there is a massive body of literature on the political economy of subjective well-being, no study has focused directly on political engagement (interest in politics) and political orientation (ideology). To fill this gap in the current literature, the present study investigates the impact of political engagement and orientation on individual life satisfaction through regression analysis (OLS and 2SLS methods) using the European Social Survey dataset. Our initial findings (as well as the results of the Durbin-Wu-Hausman test) point out the endogeneity problem for political orientation. In order to overcome the endogeneity problem, the instrumental variable estimation and the Stock-Watson test were conducted. Our results show that political engagement and orientation have a statistically significant influence on personal life satisfaction. Accordingly, as individuals' political engagement increases, life satisfaction decreases. Second, life satisfaction increases as one moves from left to right on the political spectrum.

At the end of the 60’s, as a result of a military coup, Iraqi Ba’ath Party seized power under the leadership of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, named president of Iraq, and Saddam Hussein, al-Bakr’s deputy, but actually the strong man and the moving force behind the new Ba’athist regime. The Ba’athist government immediately addressed the country’s major domestic problems, such as controlling domestic oil resources and developing an independent national oil industry, which until then had been owned and managed by some of the largest oil companies in the Western world. The nationalization of the Iraqi oil supplies, decided by the Ba’athist regime in 1972 interlocked with the Arab-Israel dispute and the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, which led – as is known to the energy crisis of 1973, with sharp increases in oil prices, production cutbacks and destination embargos by the Arab Countries. In view of the growing economic and political role of the Arab Countries and of Iraq in particular, Italy called for a policy aimed at supporting Arab stance in the dispute with Israel and concluding agreements with Ba’athist regime in order to obtain large quantities of crude oil in exchange of goods and services, so as to contribute to local economic development. Even though it was a time of social and political turmoil in Italy, marked by a wave of terrorism and unrest, Italy’s «oil-for-goods» strategy towards Iraq was quite successful, as Italian State and private companies obtained major contracts covering a variety of important projects, so much so that during the 70’s Iraq became one of Italy’s main oil suppliers.

Economic sanctions usually fail, sometimes even provoking the opposite of the intended outcome. Why are sanctions so often ineffective? One prominent view is that sanctions generate popular support for the targeted government and its policies; an outcome referred to as the rally-around-the-flag effect. We quantify this effect in the context of a major trade dispute between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, which led to a cut in gas exports to Ukraine and a sharp increase of gas prices. Using individual data on political and economic preferences before and after the trade dispute and exploiting the cross section heterogeneity in the individual exposure to the price shock—measured by the connection to a centralized gas/heating system—we find that people more directly affected by the increase of gas prices were significantly more likely to change their opinions in support of Western-style political and economic systems preferred by the incumbent government, consistent with a rally-around-the-flag effect.

Previous research shows that economic sanctions affect three facets of public opinion in target states: support for the policy at issue, support for the target government, and hostility toward the sanctioner. We explore the dynamics between the facets of opinion and link them to consumer behavior. How do supportive opinions of the policy and the target government lead to hostility? How does this hostility affect consumers’ propensity to buy the sanctioner's branded products? We examine a case in which China imposed economic sanctions on South Korea in opposition to South Korea's decision to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. We collect comments from relevant newspaper articles and conduct attitude analysis using machine learning. We conduct difference-in-differences analyses using barcode-level data regarding monthly beer sales, for which we argue boycotts are more likely to occur. We find that a backlash effect in public opinion occurred with respect to two facets of opinion. However, despite the public antagonism, we observe no significant backlash in consumer behavior. These findings imply that effects of economic sanctions in target states are multidimensional and thus it is too simplistic to assess the effectiveness of economic sanctions only by looking at public opinion in target states.

Automatic categorization of Arabic articles based on their political orientation

The influence of ideology on the process of translation has been one of the most controversial debates among scholars and translators who may undergo multiple challenges due to certain ideological demands, whether they be political, cultural or religious. In the Arab world, the socio-political scene has been dominated by ideological shifts since the outbreak of the Arab Spring. These shifts have influenced Arab scholars and translators in many possible ways, one of which is the reproduction of incisive narratives that not only account for the causes and effects of revolutions that swept different regions in the Arab world but also provoke political reform. In this vein, this article investigates Shamel Abatha’s translation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) to Arabic. It specifically explores Abatha’s political orientations which result in daring textual manipulations of Orwell’s text before the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011. Following Mona Baker’s narrative theory, the article demonstrates how Abatha’s target text turns into a socio-political national allegory that embodies critical ideological implications. The corpus consists of selected comparisons between Orwell’s Animal Farm and Abatha’s مزرعة الحيوانات [mazraat alḥywānāt] (2009) to show how translation strategies expound the impact of the latter’s political environment on his translation.

Will progress in the Middle East Peace Process spur regional integration? Peace would, theoretically, increase Israeli-Arab trade by removing the political motivations behind Arab economic sanctions against Israel. It could also reduce strategic motives for state intervention in economic affairs in Arab countries, which could lead to a generally more liberal economic order throughout the region. Many people in most camps believe this would be an unqualified good. Indeed, many observers go further by arguing that active policies promoting regional trade agreements between Israel and its more distant Gulf Arab neighbors are needed to facilitate the Peace Process. Others, especially on the leftist and nationalist sides of Arab politics, argue that a resolution of the Palestinian question should not include creation and promotion of trade structures facilitating Israeli commercial and economic domination of the Middle East.

After a sustained period of autocratic rule in the Arab region following the independence of the Arab countries in the wake of World War II, the successful Tunisian uprising of December 2010 has ushered in what seems to be a new political phase — the beginnings of the unravelling of Arab autocracy. However, more than four years later, this trajectory is yet to take hold region-wide and, for the foreseeable future, its eventual outcome remains uncertain. Of four countries where the uprisings managed to overthrow the incumbent regime (namely, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen), and one where this attempt has been ongoing for the past four years (Syria), only Tunisia appears to be moving in the direction of a genuine democracy, as attested by its approved constitution of January 2014, the parliamentary elections of 26 October and the presidential elections on 21 December of the same year, as well as the generally and relatively peaceful transfer of power among its major political contestants.

Public attention recently has been drawn to the existence of a “gender gap” in public opinion and electoral politics in the United States. Yet the reasons for this sex difference in politics are unclear. Do men and women have differences of political orientation that are independent of social class differences or do sex differences in politics reflect different class experiences for men and women? This research uses national survey data to compare the political effects of social mobility for three groups of respondents: Males, women employed for wages outside the home, and housewives. I predict that women who are mobile by virtue of their own occupational status will have political orientations close to those of their class-of-destination, while women who are mobile by virtue of a spouse's occupation will retain political orientations similar to those of their class-of-origin. Further, I predict that the difference between the relationship of social mobility and political orientation for employed men and women will decline as women's overall labor force participation increases. In a log-linear analysis of presidential candidate selection from 1948 to 1980, I find that marital and occupational mobility do have different effects on women's political orientation, but the direction of political change across mobility statuses was not consistent. There is no convergence over time in the pattern whereby mobility status is related to political choice for men and women.

An economic sanction is a foreign policy tool that is used to change the behavior or policies of a target state that the sanctioning state deems unacceptable. Economic sanctions often create negative sentiments among individuals in target states. Such negative sentiments can lead individuals to boycott the sanctioner’s branded products in retaliation. We built an agent-based model to examine how individuals start boycotting the sanctioner’s branded products in response to economic sanctions and to identify what factors influence the initiation and continuation of a boycott movement in a target state. In the model, we vary four variables: the threat level of the economic sanction, the media’s reports on the efficacy of the boycott movement, the utility of the sanctioner’s products, and purchase periods. Using these variables, we constructed a baseline model with median values for the four variables. We also created eight scenarios, in which each of the four variables was varied. The results provide new insights into consumer behavior in a target state in response to economic sanctions, as previous studies of economic sanctions focused mainly on public opinion in a target state. We find that the threat level of economic sanctions is crucial in triggering a boycott movement among the first boycotters, and media reports are essential to motivate boycotters to continue the movement. Consumers in a target state are likely to boycott a sanctioner’s product if it has high utility and a short purchase period.KeywordsEconomic sanctionsBoycott movementsTarget statesConsumer behaviorAgent-based modeling

The Arab world witnessed an influx of satellite channels during the 1990s and in the early years of the first decade of the new century. Many analysts in the Arab world applauded this influx as a potential tool for political change in the Arab countries. Two stations were at the heart of the new optimism: Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the two most prominent 24-hour news channels in the region. Al-Jazeera proved to be more controversial because in its early years of broadcasting it managed to break taboos in the Arab media by tackling issues of human rights and hosting Arab dissidents. Also, its coverage of international conflicts (primarily Afghanistan and Iraq) has marked it as a counter-hegemonic news outlet. For the first time, the flow of news went from South to North. Some scholars who study Arab satellite media, and Al-Jazeera specifically, have gone so far as to suggest that it has created a new Arab public sphere (Lynch, Miladi). However, the political developments in the Arab world, mainly the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and what is now happening in Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen, have raised questions as to how credible these suggestions are. And are we going to claim the same powers for social media in the Arab world? This article takes the form of a personal reflection on how successful (or not) Arab satellite channels are proving to be as a tool for political change and reform in the Arab world. Are these channels editorially free from Arab governments’ political and economic interests? And could new media (notably social networking sites) achieve what satellite channels have been unable to over the last two decades? 1996 saw the launch of Al-Jazeera, the first 24-hour news channel in the Arab world. However, it didn’t have much of an impact on the media scene in the region until 1998 and gained its controversial reputation through its coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars (see Zayani; Miles; Allan and Zelizer; El-Nawawy and Iskandar). In the Arab world, it gained popularity with its compelling talk shows and open discussions of human rights and democracy (Alterman). But its dominance didn’t last long. In 2003, Al Walid Al Ibrahim, son-in-law of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia (1921-2005) established Al Arabiya, the second 24-hour news channel in the Arab world, just before the start of the Iraq war. Many scholars and analysts saw in this a direct response to the popularity that Al-Jazeera was achieving with the Arab audiences. Al Arabiya, however, didn’t achieve the level of popularity that Al-Jazeera enjoyed throughout its years of broadcasting (Shapiro). Al Arabiya and Al-Jazeera Arabic subsequently became rivals representing political and national interests and not just news competitors. Indeed, one of Wikileaks’ latest revelations states that Al-Jazeera changed its coverage to suit Qatari foreign policy. The US ambassador to Qatar, Joseph LeBaron, was reported as saying: The Qatari prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, had joked in an interview that Al-Jazeera had caused the Gulf State such headaches that it might be better to sell it. But the ambassador remarked: “Such statements must not be taken at face value.” He went on: “Al-Jazeera’s ability to influence public opinion throughout the region is a substantial source of leverage for Qatar, one which it is unlikely to relinquish. Moreover, the network can also be used as a chip to improve relations. For example, Al-Jazeera’s more favourable coverage of Saudi Arabia's royal family has facilitated Qatari–Saudi reconciliation over the past year.” (Booth). The unspoken political rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Lebanese domestic disputes, over Iran, and over the Palestinian internal conflict was played out in the two channels. This brings us to my central question: can Arab satellite channels, and specifically Al-Jazeera Arabic and Al Arabiya, be regarded as tools for democratic political change? In the recent revolution in Tunisia (spring 2011), satellite channels had to catch up with what social media were reporting: and Al-Jazeera more so than Al Arabiya because of previous encounters between Al-Jazeera and Zein Al Abidine bin Ali’s regime (Greenslade, The Guardian). Bin Ali controlled the country’s media and access to satellite media to suit his interests. Al-Jazeera was banned from Tunisia on several occasions and had their offices closed down. Bin Ali allowed private TV stations to operate but under indirect state control when it came to politics and what Ben Ali’s regime viewed as national and security interests. Should we therefore give social networking credit for facilitating the revolution in Tunisia? Yes, we should. We should give it credit for operating as a mobilising tool. The people were ready, the political moment came, and the people used it. Four out of ten Tunisians are connected to the Internet; almost 20 per cent of the Tunisian population are on Facebook (Mourtada and Salem). We are talking about a newly media-literate population who have access to the new technology and know how to use it. On this point, it is important to note that eight out of ten Facebook users in Tunisia are under the age of 30 (Mourtada and Salem). Public defiance and displays of popular anger were sustained by new media outlets (Miladi). Facebook pages have become sites of networking and spaces for exchanging and disseminating news about the protests (Miladi). Pages such as “The people of Tunisia are burning themselves, Mr President” had around 15,000 members. “Wall-posts” specifying the date and place of upcoming protest became very familiar on social media websites. They even managed to survive government attempts to disable and block these sites. Tunisian and non-Tunisians alike became involved in spreading the message through these sites and Arab transnationalism and support for the revolution came to a head. Many adjacent countries had Facebook pages showing support for the Tunisian revolution. And one of the most prominent of these pages was “Egyptians supporting the Tunisian revolution.” There can be little doubt, therefore, that the success of the Tunisian revolution encouraged the youth of Egypt (estimated at 80 per cent of its Facebook users) to rise up and persist in their call for change and political reform. Little did Wael Ghonim and his friends on the “Kolinah Khaled Said” (“We are all Khaled Said”) Facebook page know where their call for demonstrations on the 25 January 2011 would lead. In the wake of the Tunisian victory, the “We are all Khaled Said” page (Said was a young man who died under torture by Egyptian police) garnered 100,000 hits and most of these virtual supporters then took to the streets on 25 January which was where the Egyptian revolution started. Egyptians were the first Arab youth to have used the Internet as a political platform and tool to mobilise people for change. Egypt has the largest and most active blogosphere in the Arab world. The Egyptian bloggers were the first to reveal corruption and initiated calls for change as early as 2007 (Saleh). A few victories were achieved, such as the firing and sentencing of two police officers condemned for torturing Imad Al Kabeer in 2007 (BBC Arabic). However, these early Egyptian bloggers faced significant jail sentences and prosecution (BBC News). Several movements were orchestrated via Facebook, including the 6 April uprising of 2007, but at this time such resistance invariably ended in persecution and even more oppression. The 25 January revolution therefore took the regime by surprise. In response, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his entourage (who controlled the state media and privately owned TV stations such as Dream TV) started making declarations that “Egypt is not Tunisia,” but the youth of Egypt were determined to prove them wrong. Significantly, Mubarak’s first reaction was to block Twitter, then Facebook, as well as disrupting mobile phone text-messaging and Blackberry-messaging services. Then, on Thursday 27 January, the regime attempted to shut down the Internet as a whole. Al-Jazeera Arabic quickly picked up on the events in Egypt and began live coverage from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which resulted in Mubarak’s block of Al-Jazeera’s transmission in Egypt and the withdrawal of its operational licences. One joke exchanged with Tunisian activists on Facebook was that Egyptians, too, had “Ammar 404” (the nickname of the government censor in Tunisia). It was not long, however, before Arab activists from across the regions started exchanging codes and software that allowed Egyptians to access the Internet, despite the government blockades. Egyptian computer science students also worked on ways to access the Worldwide Web and overcome the government’s blockade (Shouier) and Google launched a special service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by dialling a phone number and leaving a voice message (Oreskovic, Reuters). Facebook group pages like Akher Khabar’s “Latest News” and Rased’s “RNN” were then used by the Egyptian diaspora to share all the information they could get from friends and family back home, bypassing more traditional modes of communication. This transnational support group was crucial in communicating their fellow citizens’ messages to the rest of the world; through them, news made its way onto Facebook and then through to the other Arab nations and beyond. My own personal observation of these pages during the period 25 January to 12 February revealed that the usage of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter changed markedly, shifting from being merely social in nature to becoming rapidly and primarily political, not only among Arab users in the Arab world, as Mourtada and Salem argue, but also throughout the Arabian diaspora. In the case of Libya’s revolution, also, social media may be seen to be a mobilising tool in the hands of both Libyans at home and across the

Preface. Acknowledgements. Glossary. 1. Nationalism and Its Theories. The World of Unbelief and Negative Approaches. Rousseaua s Passion. Kanta s Guilt. The World of Positive Belief. A Question of Dignity. The Agnostics or Reluctantly Neutral. 2. Narrating the Nation. Lessons of History. The Rise of Islam. The Modern Age. Darwish al--Miqdadi: The Nation in History. Historical Structures. Lessons of History and Temporal Distances. An Egyptian Perspective. Islam and Arabism. 3. Cultural and Political Arabism. The Ottoman Background and European Rivalry. Cultural Arabism. The Fatherland and Patriotism. The Cultural and the Political. Political Arabism 1900--1945. Articulation of Pan--Arabism. Political Parties. 4. Educating the Nation: Satia al--Husri. The Arab League. What is Nationalism?. 5. In Search of Theory. Regionalism. An Arab Polity. Al--Arsuzi: Language and Industry. Shahbandar: Leadership and Revolution. Michel a Aflaq: The Vanguard. Socialism. Nationalism. Religion. New Politics. 6. Socialism and Pan--Arabism. The World of Social Arab Nationalism. Nasserism. Political Orientations. Theory and Practice. The Universal and the Specific. Baa thism. 7. Epilogue: Civil Society and Democracy. Neo--Arabism. Notes. List of Dynasties. Further Reading. Bibliography. Index.

The Gulf conflict — from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 to the ceasefire on 27 February 1991 after the liberation of Kuwait — was the first major international crisis of the post-Cold War era and, therefore, the first test of the US-West European relationship in the changing landscape of world politics. Though international agreement on the steps to be taken against Iraq did not always come easily, the changed nature of the international system was key in ultimately enabling the United States to mobilise broad support. Even many Arab countries, the Soviet Union, and China joined in approving measures for, first, isolating Iraq through a trade embargo and, second, setting a 15 January 1991 deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or face the use of force to expel it. A multinational coalition of almost 30 countries provided naval, air and/or ground forces for use in enforcing the embargo and in combat or support roles once the fighting against Iraq actually started.

Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 41, No.4, Summer 2018 The Changing Energy Landscape: The Persian Gulf and South Asia Gawdat Bahgat* Since the dawn of the twenty-first century the broad Middle East has witnessed fundamental overlapping changes that are likely to have significant implications on the entire region and the rest of the world for a long time. Oil prices were mostly high up to 2014. High prices meant massive accumulation of revenues in the coffers of producing countries. This massive wealth has been transformed into political muscles, and leverage. Saudi Arabia was able to use its then, growing economy and oil revenues to establish itself as a major regional power. Two other developments contributed to Riyadh’s ascendency. First, traditional Arab powerhouses like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq have grown poorer and weaker. Their relative weakness has left a ‘power vacuum’ in the Arab world. With its large economy and strong Arab/Islamic credentials, Riyadh is well positioned to claim leadership of the Arab world. Second, for decades most Saudi monarchs were old and adopted very conservative policy both at home and abroad. Since 2015, the young Crown Prince Muhamad Bin Salman (MBS), has consolidated his power and established himself as the de-facto leader. Under his leadership the Saudi domestic and foreign policy has become much more assertive than in previous decades. Domestically, MBS has challenged the religious establishment and other members in the royal family. Regionally, he started a war in neighboring Yemen and imposed embargo on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) fellow Qatar. In 25 *Gawdat Babgat served as a professor of political science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2009 where he also was the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. In 2006–07 he earned the Distinguished Faculty Award for research. Bahgat has published numerous books, chapters, and articles on various subjects including oil politics, nuclear proliferation and the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions. His works have been translated in several languages. In 2010, Bahgat began teaching at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. 26 short, since 2015 MBS has established himself as one of the most influential (and controversial) leaders in the entire Middle East. On the other hand, Iran, another major energy powerhouse, has witnessed key geo-economic and geo-strategic changes. Since the mid1980s , Tehran has been accused of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran has always categorically denied these accusations. Several rounds of negotiations failed to bring a successful diplomatic conclusion. This failure made Iran subject to severe and comprehensive US, EU, and UN economic sanctions. These sanctions dealt a heavy blow to the country’s hydrocarbon sector, but failed to slow the nuclear program. With the election of President Hasan Rouhani in 2013 the political dynamics in Tehran have changed. Iran successfully negotiated a nuclear deal (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA) with global powers. Accordingly, the nuclear-related sanctions have been lifted. Though Iran has never been completely isolated, since the implementation of the JCOPA (January 2016) relations with foreign powers (minus US) have grown tremendously. Tehran has enjoyed growing economic and strategic interactions with most Asian and European powers. As a result Oil and gas production has risen and the Islamic Republic economic outlook is promising. Despite significant challenges, Iran has grown more confident and more assertive both economically and politically in the last few years. This paper is divided into three sections. The first one examines the key changes in the global energy outlook, followed by a discussion of how Riyadh, Tehran, and other Middle East producers have responded to these changes. The concluding section addresses the implications on South Asia region, particularly China, India, and Pakistan. The Emerging Global Energy Landscape For several decades, oil has been the dominant source of energy around the world and Middle Eastern producers have been the main force shaping production and prices. The birth of the oil industry is generally attributed to the famous well drilled for oil in 1859 by Colonel Edwin L. Drake at Titusville, Pennsylvania.1 In addition, it is claimed that F.N. Semyenov was the first to drill a well...