Introduction

Abstract

In 2022, the Digest of Middle East Studies celebrates its 30th year of publishing diverse and timely scholarship on the Middle East and its second year as a quarterly publication. The transition to the quarterly publication, as well as a sharpened focus on policy-relevant scholarship, was ably undertaken by the outgoing editor, Dr. Kadir Yildirim, who has developed the journal in many valuable ways. As the new editor, I have the honor of carrying this study forward and ensuring that the journal continues to be a venue for wide-ranging, empirically grounded, analytically valuable, and deeply interesting scholarship on the Middle East. In the present issue, our authors address important questions of foreign policy, sectarian mobilization, party politics, ideology, and international law. The wide range and deep expertise presented here are a real strength of the Digest of Middle East Studies as a publication, and we are pleased to present these articles to our readers. Ayfer Erdoğan's “Saudi Foreign Policy Doctrine Post-2011: The Iranian Factor and Balance of Threat” examines a shift toward a more assertive Saudi foreign policy in recent years. The article identifies several changing conditions that have elevated the perceived threat from Iran and prompted a move toward a foreign policy more reliant upon security alliances and the use of force than had been the case traditionally. In “Party Corruption in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Context and Implications,” Farhad Hassan Abdullah provides a highly detailed examination of party choices in the context of Kurdish regional and national politics, arguing that the dominant parties have made use of the features of the electoral system to engage in political corruption. On the often-considered subject of sectarianism, Hadi Wahab's “Sectarian Mobilization from Below: A Case Study of the Druze Anthems” offers a new analysis focusing on songs used as tools of mobilization among Druze; his article describes the anthems and argues that they reveal a connection not only to specific events but to Druze historiography and sectarian polemic. Political meaning and relevance are, of course, found not only in policies and parties; the arts can become an arena for claims about social meaning and ideology. In “The Ideological Trends in Ali Ahmad Bakathir's Salamat al-Qass,” Redhwan Rashed offers an analysis of a novel and novelist whose approach to an apparently nonpolitical subject, love, necessarily implicates attitudes about religion and about the novel itself as art and as a social guide. In 2022, the journal will also continue to include scholarly commentary articles focusing on particularly timely issues; in this issue, Benjamin Muller directs attention to the long-running, controversial, and recently-concluded Special Tribunal for Lebanon, critically assessing its effects in light of not only its original purposes, but the subsequent crises in the country and current conditions. I would like to thank most sincerely the reviewers who have given their time and expertise in the peer-review process; we are always grateful for their valuable work, and particularly so considering the additional burdens many have felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, by the nature of such transitions, this issue continues to reflect the contributions of Dr. Kildirim and outgoing editorial assistant Lara Lin; I am deeply grateful for their assistance and that of the journal's new editorial assistant, Misha Datskovsky. We hope that you will find the articles in this issue of DOMES engaging and interesting.