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This paper uses Iraq as a case study to answer the research question, how do consociational settlements impact the state? Firstly, the paper argues that consociationalism, at best, has an under-theorized conception of the state, implicitly defaulting to an unexamined neoWeberian model. The paper then surveys state theory and finds that key works on the state in the Middle East are vulnerable to the postcolonial critique of Eurocentrism. To overcome this, the paper deploys the works of Mann, Jessop, and Bourdieu to develop a universal model of the state, disaggregating the state, conceiving of it as a series of competitive fields, bureaucratic, political, coercive, and economic. The paper then uses this model to assess how a consociational political settlement impacts upon the state. Deploying a disaggregated model of the state, the paper argues that Iraq’s consociational settlement shifted the balance of power in the bureaucratic field away from any autonomous power or centralized coherence that the institutions and the civil service possessed toward the political parties empowered by the consociational system. After being empowered by the informal consociational settlement, it is the political parties who now dominate the system for their own ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders Ezekiel's alleged anti-imperial attitude toward the Babylonian empire. It nuances the alleged attitude with Frantz Fanon's theory of colonized subjects' desire to be like their colonizer. Looking at Ezekiel's privileged social location, I argue that the book exhibits a desire to be like the Babylonian empire. Ezekiel intertwines Babylonian's "anti-Egyptian" propaganda with Yahweh's interest in maintaining loyalty toward the empire. To support this argument, the paper first surveys the Babylonian and Egyptian conflict over the Levant. It then reconsiders the situation of Ezekiel and his community in exile. Further, it discusses Fanon's theory of colonized subjects' desires and how Ezekiel operates within it. It concludes by looking at what Ezekiel might gain through this maneuver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the debate on how harmful online content translates into violent offline actions continues in the Global North, this debate should be enriched by data from the Global South. In Libya, the kidnapping of a female politician (Seham Sergiwa) in 2019 was arguably foreshadowed on social media, with some analysts warning of an imminent danger to her life when tracking social media discourse in June/July 2019. Following her abduction, the outcry was loud and reverberated outside of Libya. However, this was short lived and similar occurrences happen in Libya still. This paper contributes a systematic analysis of Facebook content in the months leading up to and after Sergiwa's disappearance. Using thematic content analysis to explore 259 posts and 4,367 comments – between January and December 2019 – this paper outlines three dominant themes: Contempt, ridicule and indifference. This study presents a refocus on the dangers of online speech while acknowledging complexities around categorising the former. The study adds nuanced understandings on online discussions in Libya and gendered dynamics in a violent, post-revolutionary environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary conflicts are becoming increasingly transnational in nature. In particular, individuals are leaving their homelands to participate in foreign conflicts at an unprecedented rate. This paper analyzes the foreign fighter phenomenon in the context of the Islamic State. Using primary source data on individual ISIS members from the Middle East, this paper contributes to the literature with two key findings. The first affirms previous work on terrorist participants and finds that those who join the Islamic State are more educated and younger than others from the same country. Second, other characteristics that are thought to correlate with joining a terrorist organization, such as prior occupation and marital status, have an inconsistent association and vary by country. Specifically, individuals with a university education and who also hold an unskilled job have the highest likelihood of joining ISIS. Overall, the results suggest that relative deprivation drives participation in foreign fighting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Middle Eastern contexts, like Jordan, the public participation spaces referred to as “invited spaces” for state-led participation are heavily controlled by the state and its representatives. This paper explores the various ways in which grassroots and civic organizations navigate and sometimes manipulate the state apparatus’ planning rules and grids to create alternative modes of meaningful participation in the production of the city. Following the Arab Spring in 2011, local grassroots organizations started adopting “new languages and taktikat” (تَكتِيكَات,’ tactics in English, words used by the grassroots to describe their practices) that allowed them to move beyond direct confrontation with the state in the so-called “invented” spaces of participation led by civil society. Building on de Certeau’s notion of “tactics,” this paper looks at these approaches as tactics used by grassroots to negotiate power and participation within neoliberal top-down authorities. Ultimately, it argues against viewing grassroots initiatives solely in terms of a binary lens of legality/informality or “invited”/“invented” dichotomies, as they neither function as insurgents nor remain passive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arab world faces serious challenges in the protection of human rights. Merely criticising government policies towards human rights has long meant risking one's freedom, if not life. Yet despite the myriad threats, there is a long and powerful history of efforts to address human rights from multiple perspectives that has largely been ignored outside the region (and even by many human rights scholars and practitioners within it), in good measure because most of it occurs in Arabic, which most international human rights scholars do not read. This paper critically reviews Arab human rights publications written in Arabic as a first attempt towards elucidating the diversity and depth of human rights literature in the Arab world for the broader field of human rights studies. Bringing this knowledge to the international human rights community is crucial to helping develop a human rights discourse in and for the Arab world that can positively impact research, advocacy and governance despite the broad environment of authoritarian retrenchment across the region. In so doing, our research offers new knowledge for developing human rights studies in trajectories that can have more direct impact on human rights struggles on the ground globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long considered a cultural contact zone, the Mediterranean has become a weaponised border zone keeping refugees from Africa and the Middle East away from 'Fortress Europe'. The Mediterranean has become excessively dangerous to cross, leading many commentators to call this maritime space a 'massive graveyard'. The widespread indifference and enmity towards migrants in Europe is, amongst other things, countered by documentary and commemorative projects by artists drawing attention to the suffering of drowned refugees. In this paper, I zoom in on documentary and memorial artistic projects by Mimmo Paladino, Jason deCaires Taylor, Christoph Büchel, Ai Weiwei and Đỉnh Q. Lê. In the frequent absence of dead bodies and specific grave sites on the 'high seas', they make claims regarding the humanity, singularity and memorability of the human lives of refugees drowned at sea. Based on a description of the artworks and their public, I make two interlinked theoretical arguments. First, the commemorative materialisations by contemporary artists are temporal claims to constitute the cultural heritage of the future. Second, given the sea's aquatic materiality, the commemorative claims of these art projects require that commemorative materialisations must spatially move from the flux of the sea to the fixity of the land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twenty-first century has seen near constant crises and conflicts across the Middle East, many of which have had a devastating impact on the region's rich cultural heritage. Confronted by this reality, UNESCO – the world's foremost body designed to promote the protection of heritage – has struggled to meaningfully address site destruction and has been hamstrung by its own institutional inertia. The vacuum created by UNESCO's failures has given rise to a hybrid heritage landscape of multilateral agencies, INGOs, state bodies and local organisations which seek to emulate, improve on or radically re-imagine the work that UNESCO was designed to lead. In turn, this has created burgeoning business opportunities and a thriving consultancy culture for INGOs, often with little public oversight, accountability or effective monitoring. This paper critically examines the rise of these heritage INGOs and their efforts in the Middle East, bringing into question their efficacy and legitimacy by drawing on results from original surveys conducted in both Mosul and Aleppo. The results indicate that these heritage INGOs largely fail to adequately engage locals in their programmes to protect and restore heritage and that respondents would prefer to see domestic control over the future of their past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the fight against ideological warfare of the Islamic State (ISIS) would not be possible without an effective counter ground operation led by the Kurds, these unique players in regional stability have contributed to the mitigation, and in some cases the elimination of Islamist extremist ideology, conducing to the human security of the region. Viewing these actions within a pro-democracy approach, this paper will demonstrate why the international community, led by the United States and EU, needs to, indeed ought to consider the Kurdish de facto autonomous region model as an element for stability. The resulting outcome could help contribute to the regional security of the Middle East, and also prevent the perpetration of any future atrocities against the Kurds and other minorities. Through a collective case study and a qualitative set of data, this paper will evaluate the de facto autonomous governance experience of the Kurds, its impact, and its potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most ancient and attractive tourism destinations in the Middle East and South Asia, Iran seeks to maximize its competitive identity to compete more effectively at international level. This study examines the major factors influencing Iran's competitive identity as a tourism destination from a supply-side perspective. The paper is divided into two phases using qualitative and quantitative techniques. First, we determined Iran's major competitiveness factors using thematic content analysis. Second, we examined the relationships between the identified factors, Iran's competitive identity, and its international tourism market development. The findings of this study suggest that factors including information technology, politics, products and services, spatial and infrastructure, structure and organization, economic and sociocultural factors significantly impact the destination's competitive identity. This paper also outlines the key theoretical and practical implications of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, overseas labour migration has become a lifeline for many households in Nepal. Using survey data from 465 randomly selected households and 227 overseas labour migrants, this paper examines the factors influencing overseas labour migration and migration intensity in farming households by employing a generalised two-part fractional regression model, and migrants' destination choice by using the probit model. We find that a higher proportion of educated members in the household, along with household's credit access, indebtedness, and contacts with manpower agencies significantly increase the likelihood of overseas labour migration and migration intensity in the households, whereas the presence of employed members in the household, larger farms, irrigation access, and higher asset index significantly lower such likelihood. We find a lower likelihood of migration to Malaysia and the Middle East countries among individuals with employed household members and a higher asset index, while those connected to manpower agencies are more likely to choose these countries as destinations. Our findings emphasise the significance of creating and providing decent economic opportunities, including strengthening the agriculture sector, to address the existing surge in overseas labour migration from farming households in Nepal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents the state of knowledge of anthropogenic disruption to the climate system, its diverse ecosystem and societal impacts, and the imperative for and challenges of mitigation and adaptation responses. It is foundational for global climate policymaking. This paper examines the place of tourism in AR6 and reviews its key findings for tourism's future. Overall, tourism related content declined relative to previous assessments. While notable improvements in content occurred for Africa, visible knowledge gaps remain in the tourism growth regions of South America, Middle East, and South Asia. There remains limited discussion of many impacts, and very limited understanding of integrated impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies at the destination scale. The contribution of tourism to global emissions was omitted, however tourism was discussed in the context of luxury emissions and just transitions. Tourism is repeatedly identified in solution space discussions, particularly for ecosystem protection, but without consideration of the future of tourism in a rapidly decarbonizing and climate disrupted economy. With only 21% of published climate change and tourism literature in the AR6 review period cited, tourism academics should elevate tourism content and engagement in future assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dental microwear (DMA) is a tool used for the palaeodiet reconstruction of animals in Archaeology. The use of this proxy on domestic ungulates provides valuable information to reconstruct livestock strategies, yet it presents several methodological limitations. Most studies have been carried out using low-magnification DMA and the interpretations often relied on comparisons with databases of extant wild ungulates. In addition, several studies have highlighted challenges in discerning diets in extant domestic caprines. In parallel, dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) – a quantitative methodology based on 3D micro-texture height maps – has shown better discrimination. In this paper, we explore the capacity to distinguish four different management strategies of domestic goats (Capra hircus) and three species of wild ibexes (Capra nubiana, C. pyrenaica and C. ibex) using DMTA. Results revealed good discrimination among extant domestic goat populations and between wild and domestic goats. This new dataset was subsequently used to characterise the palaeodiet of archaeological goats from two Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites in the southern Levant. Preliminary findings suggest evidence of human intervention in goats at least during the early 8th millennium BCE. In addition, incorporating various current management strategies has enhanced our understanding of early goat domestication in southern Levant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poland was the second-to-last country in the Soviet bloc to establish official relations with the PLO – only doing this in March 1976. However, mutual contacts date back to the late 1960s, when Polish military intelligence forged a top-secret relationship with the PLO based around the arms trade. Using a variety of archival sources, this paper seeks to re-assess the relationship between Warsaw and the PLO within the broader framework of Polish policy towards the Middle East from the time of the Six-Day War to the time of opening of the PLO Office in Warsaw in 1976. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combatting corruption has been a long-standing commitment for Jordan, which had particularly heightened in light of the Arab Spring in 2011, with increasing demand for stricter measures and more transparency being voiced by Jordanian political movements. However, despite strong will for change, Jordan had done less to curb informal practices in public administration such as "Wasta," which relies on its deeply-embedded notion of cultural legitimacy in circumventing laws and regulations. This article investigates perceptions of "Wasta" through a sociocultural lens that places emphasis on how culture and informal interactions can challenge mainstream understandings of corruption. Drawing on elite interviews with senior public officials and politicians in Jordan, it argues that conventional understandings of corruption that are typically grounded in western literature may be less useful for Jordan in tackling deeply-embedded societal practices such as Wasta. The study finds that corruption and Wasta cannot be conceptualized as one and the same due to intrinsic differences between their subjective goals. The study concludes by suggesting that new approaches in defining unethical use of social capital in public administration need to be developed in order for Jordan to improve its capacity for tackling the negative impacts of Wasta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of lean management has been of interest to researchers and practitioners in the construction industry and is implemented in most countries. While achieving waste mitigation in developed countries, lean is still in its elementary stages in the Middle East. Moreover, the implementation in the Middle East poses more challenges than benefit when choosing the right lean tools and techniques for projects. This study will critically investigate the factors affecting the process of adopting lean tools and techniques, which are directed towards technology, artificial intelligence and IoT in the construction industry in the public sector in the four governates of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Thereafter, the investigation will determine the level of lean construction management implementation and consequently its effect on sustainability using a quantitative method. The result from the questionnaire is hoped to shed a light on the poorly researched topic in Bahrain and benefit academics and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of its geographic location, cultural diversity and historical trajectory, the Gaza strip is a key zone of scholarly enquiry and has a central role in the historical, social, political, economic, legislative and environmental discourses for the wider region. Existing historical knowledge of Gaza is dominated by combative narrative trends that emphasise the events of the 20th and 21st centuries and invoke archaeology extensively. In this context, cycles of material preservation and damage—often accompanying other forms of violence—have attracted the attention of academics and international media. Among the corollaries of this situation, is the destruction and marginalisation of vulnerable cultural heritage, particularly maritime cultural heritage, which is subjected to additional environmental, climatic, and anthropogenic pressures. As a means of countering the challenges on current field research in the region and to further assess the damage and threats faced by archaeological fabric, this paper combines data from coastal and archaeological research conducted in the Gaza Strip to create a benchmark for the study of its maritime archaeology. Additional information on the alteration of coastal landscape is deduced through the analysis of aerial photographs and satellite imagery. This study falls within the scope of the Maritime Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and Africa Project (MarEA). MarEA aims to comprehensively document and assess vulnerable maritime archaeology (underwater, nearshore, coastal) and produce baseline information that can enhance existing infrastructure on archaeological monitoring and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation, published a report on the use of forced anal examinations to identify and prosecute putative 'homosexuals'. The report provided detailed descriptions and first-person accounts of these examinations in several countries in the Middle East and Africa. Drawing on theories of iatrogenesis and queer necropolitics, this paper uses these accounts and other reports of forced anal examinations to explore the role of medical providers in the 'diagnosis' and prosecution of homosexuality. The goal of these medical examinations is explicitly punitive rather than therapeutic, making them quintessential examples of iatrogenic clinical encounters which harm rather than heal. We argue that these examinations naturalise socioculturally derived beliefs about bodies and gender that construct homosexuality as 'readable' on the body through close medical inspection. These acts of inspection and 'diagnosis' reveal broader hegemonic state narratives of heteronormative gender and sexuality, both within countries as well as internationally as different state actors circulate and share these narratives. This article highlights the entanglement of medical and state actors, as well as contextualises the practice of forced anal examination within its colonial roots. Our analysis offers the potential for advocacy and holding medical professions and states accountable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does urban migrant and refugee settlement occur in face of national inaction on immigration policy? This paper focuses on recent migration to Cairo, a Global South megacity that is home to migrants and refugees from across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Using in-depth fieldwork, it examines the informal policies that have developed in the absence of national legislation, and explores the impact these have on: (1) the ability for individual migrants and refugees to participate socially, politically and economically; (2) the ability for civil society organizations to organize, provide social services, or engage in activism; (3) occasions when the Egyptian state will forego its hands-off approach in favour of direct intervention. This informs our understanding of the relationship between national policy, informal urban governance, and migrant and refugee settlement in the context of Global South cities, with potential applications to other urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulatory governance literature has shown a rising interest in the development of the regulatory agencies in developing countries. We now have a relatively good number of studies on Latin America and Asia. However, there is, to date, very scarce knowledge about regulatory governance in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA countries), where regulatory agencies diffused less systematically and more slowly. This paper makes a first step towards filling this gap and, in doing so, it raises a general question about the role of oil and gas revenues in restraining the propensity for agency creation by national states. Making use of a cross-sectoral database about the creation of regulatory agencies in MENA countries, we discuss the relevance of states' oil and gas revenue to explain their lower levels of agencification compared to other regions. A case study focused on electricity regulation in Algeria is also included for this purpose. We place several hypotheses considering variations in agencification over time and across countries, in order to strengthen our argument about the constraining impact of oil and gas rent on the process of regulatory agency diffusion that occurred worldwide in the previous decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates gender differences in political participation across 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using data from the World Values Survey (2010-2014). A distinction is made between two different participation types, institutional and non-institutional. We use an ordered logit model to evaluate whether the gender gap in both forms is mediated by demographic and attitudinal controls and assess whether variables influencing participation affect men and women differently. We find that most socioeconomic resources and political attitudes are correlated with higher levels of participation. However, the analysis reveals a persistent gender gap that can be generalized to the entire spectrum of engagement in the MENA, with larger gaps for less institutionalized forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite calls for examining how authoritarian regimes employ state structures to prolong their rule and evidence that they regulate religion to shape the behaviour of religious elites, there has been little attention devoted to religious affairs ministries, which are key sites of interaction between religious actors and the state, and are often the primary institution through which regimes manage religion. This study identifies and describes eight core areas these ministries regulate that can be used as instruments for repression and co-optation of regime opponents, and state legitimation: prayer, appointments, education, religious advice and decisions, religious endowments, media, registration, and charity. In this analysis, we seek to bridge the gap between the literatures on religion, the Middle East, and authoritarianism by synthesizing recent research and analysing religious affairs ministries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. We argue that by fulfilling these functions, religion ministries are not benign bureaucracies but impactful institutions of political control. In highlighting key questions that remain unanswered, we outline a research agenda for continued advances towards theorizing how authoritarian regimes might make use of state resources to protect their rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to vividly describe the direct and severe health impacts of conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) using data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD). It also sought to quantify the staggering portion of economic damage attributable to the health burden of conflict and terrorism. From 1990 to 2019, the region endured the devastating effects of conflict and terrorism. These circumstances led to 64%, 50%, and 35% of all causes of Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in Libya, Syria, and Palestine, respectively, in 2011, 2016, and 2008. These figures represent not just statistics but the profound human cost of these conflicts. The health-related economic burden (HEB) due to conflict was estimated at $4.6 billion in Iraq, $3.7 billion in Afghanistan, and $1.7 billion in Libya in current international dollars. However, due to missing data, the HEB could not be calculated for Yemen and Syria despite significant conflict-related DALYs. In 2019, the HEB to Current Health Expenditure (CHE) ratio, which indicates the proportion of the health-related economic burden compared to health expenditure, was 30% in Afghanistan and 25% in Iraq. This high ratio underscores the significant strain that conflict places on the health systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is the most water-scarce region in the world. Recent research suggests that agroecology could be a basis for sustainable agriculture. We assess the spread of agroecology in the region and explore the prospect of self-organization among farming communities as an indicator for self-determination of the farming system. The focus is on Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. We present empirical data and propose an analytical framework for capturing the conditions for self-organizing arrangements in a transition to agroecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it a yearning for more political freedom, or a demand for the more mundane economic necessities of life which drives large waves of potentially destabilizing mass protests against authoritarian regimes? We examine this question in the context of the Arab Spring, which originated from Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 and soon spread through the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We use a static fixed effects model and a dynamic GMM model on a panel of 14 MENA countries for the period 2006–2017 to identify the major socio-economic and political determinants of both non-violent and violent Arab Spring protests. One of the main findings of our article is that, in contrast with the "intermediate regimes hypothesis", the intermediate regimes tend to be more stable compared to both strictly authoritarian and relatively democratic regimes. Further, more nuanced dimensions of democracy, in terms of institutional checks on the authoritarian regime, have a positive impact on stability and reducing protests. With regard to socio-economic factors, our results show that factors leading to better living standards, such as higher economic growth and higher levels of GDP per capita, and transfers in the form of public expenditure ("authoritarian bargain") partly mitigate the grievances and the resulting protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important foundation for national economic and social development, the energy sector can be affected by financial developments complexly. Using data for 60 countries from 1995–2019 and functional data analysis (FDA) technique, this study explores the dynamic impact of financial development on energy security. The main results suggest that the direction and extent of energy security influenced by financial developments are not singular. Financial developments have contributed to energy security around 2010 and 2015, and the opposite around 2013 and 2017. In addition, the 2008 financial crisis may lead to a deeper degree of uncertainty in the impact of financial development on energy security thereafter. Further analysis also shows that the dynamic process of the impact differed across regions and across income levels. The impact is more significant in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific, and to a lesser extent in Africa and the Middle East. Meanwhile, lower-middle income countries' energy security is more volatile to financial developments than countries in other income categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of international schools has increased significantly this century, with new schools predominately situated in Asia and the Middle East. This growth has also seen a shift from not-for-profit to for-profit education, and from such schools being primarily for children of expatriates to being mainly for host nation children. New actors, such as global chains of international schools, have also entered the arena. This article explores the impact of the contemporary landscape on the professional relationship between international school principals and their governors/owners, by drawing on a study of 12 international school principals in Malaysia. There were five emergent themes from the analysis: principal autonomy; ownership support; principal accountability; principal affective dissonance and the locus of control. There were wide-ranging levels of autonomy given to principals, significant support from owners in terms of financial backing for areas of development and methods of accountability that ranged from formal to informal. Principals seemingly had affective dissonance over working in for-profit schooling and there were issues surrounding the locus of ownership. There is little research in this area, particularly in Asia and this work appears to be the sole work that includes consideration of leadership in international school chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have revealed that sex can predict differences in multiple aspects of atrial fibrillation (AF). These differences are underreported in the Middle East. This study aims to describe sex-specific differences in risk factors, symptomatology, management, and outcomes in Middle Eastern patients with AF. The JoFib (Jordan-Atrial-Fibrillation) study is an observational, prospective, multicenter, nationwide registry in AF. Comparisons were made between female and male patients using Pearson chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests. Multivariable regression models were constructed to investigate whether the female sex was predictive of any AF-related outcomes (all-cause death, cardiovascular death, ischemic stroke or systemic embolism [IS/SE], major bleeding, and clinically relevant non-major bleeding). Of 2,020 patients with AF, 54% (n = 1091) were females. Females with AF were older (median age 71 vs. 69, p <.001), but had less heart failure (20.9% vs. 27.2%, p =.001) and coronary artery disease (7.5% vs. 14.7%, p <.001). Females with AF were more symptomatic (74.7% vs. 66.5%, p <.001) and frequently received anticoagulant therapy (84.4% vs. 78.9%, p =.001). Rhythm control was pursued less frequently in females (23.4% vs. 27.3%, p =.04). All studied outcomes occurred with similar frequencies in females and males, and sex was not significantly predictive of any outcome. Females with AF are more symptomatic, yet they are treated less with rhythm control. Despite higher risk, females have similar risk-adjusted all-cause cardiovascular death and stroke rates compared to males. Future studies should explore how treatments and interventions can influence quality-of-life and cardiovascular outcomes in females with AF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity and petroleum stolen from grids of distribution. Livestock, tea, and tobacco traded as contraband goods across national borders. An apartment building built without permits. A defendant who refuses to show up to his trial. What unites these seemingly disparate situations in Turkey, Kurdistan and Iran is that they are all described with the qualifier kaçak. Although conventionally translated into English as the equivalent of 'smuggled good,' the semantic domain of kaçak in Turkish (loaned into Kurdish and Persian) is more capacious than 'smuggled' signifies: Derived from the Turkish verb kaçmak - to run away, flee, or be a fugitive - kaçak helps us recover the act of breaching the obligations of a social or legal contract as a constitutive field of politics, framed by the socio-cultural constructions of modern bureaucracy and economy. Each participant tracks kaçak as a good, as a tapped resource or a legally sanctioned person, and shows the many forms kaçak takes in the hands of concrete social actors under historically specific material conditions. Further, kaçak provides a historically and geographically more expansive windows into the politically instituted process that is the making of states and economies in cross-regional and cross-disciplinary ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence is now deeply connected to weapons systems. It therefore plays a critical role in matters concerning international peace and security. AI has also seen military competition take on a new dynamic. However, few studies have addressed the distinct dynamics of AI and its effects on Middle Eastern arms races. Given that these issues have the potential to fuel regional conflicts and jeopardise international security, it is contended that it is crucial to investigate their impact in both the medium and long-term. This article argues that the Middle East has had several arms races in past, which need to be understood to learn the lessons about what might happen in the future. It is also important to understand how a variety of international actors have negatively affected peace and stability in the region with their arms sales. The research argues that at present, there is a lack of understanding about the implications of AI and its economic, legal, security, and political consequences. The article makes a variety of recommendations on the implications of AI, including that states in the region should be coordinating, planning, and developing policy with respect to AI and arms matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's literature can serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. They are mirrors for marginalized groups to see themselves represented, windows for dominant cultures to learn about marginalized groups, and sliding glass doors to develop empathy. In this study, I examined Middle East Picture Book Award to address what books are available about Middle Eastern Muslims who experience xenophobia and Islamophobia; and identify the books that serve as mirrors-windows-sliding glass doors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the first systematic attempt that combines the analysis of the vulnerabilities to which the Iranian intelligence services have been exposed in the last decades and the ways and methods of Israel's intelligence—most and foremost, the Mossad—to exploit them. In particular, four factors have been looked into (i.e., rivalries between various players of the political establishment and intelligence agencies, regime fragility, tense geopolitical environment, and increased complexity due to adversaries' tradecraft sophistication). Examined through the lens of the concept of reflexive control and substantiated by numerous examples available in the public domain, the article seeks to advance our understanding of the dynamics of clandestine intelligence operations in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using SITC-3 product-level data from the CEPII-BACI database, we find that the share of imports from China by countries in the one-belt region slowed down significantly after the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, which predates the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while there was no slowdown in the one-road region. Analysis using the difference-in-differences (DID) method reveals that the GFC inhibited China's export to countries in the one-belt region and this effect has become stronger over time. This conclusion remains robust for other control groups over various time segment points and different product dimensions. Further analysis shows that the slowdown of China's export expansion in landlocked countries, and in Europe, and the Middle East is the main contributing factor to the post-crisis slowdown in Chinese exports in the one-belt countries. Mechanism analysis shows that shrinkage in the geographical import networks of the one-belt countries, which has been aggravated by countries' concentration of import sources and relative trade proximity with China, explains the slowdown in general. Heterogeneous analyses reveal that after the GFC, the share of imports from China fell least in primary and resource-based products, then in medium-tech and high-tech products, and fell most in low-tech products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some organizations come to represent their communities while others remain footnotes of history? While ethnopolitics exist worldwide, there is no consensus about which organizations "rise to the top" to become the standard bearers for their communities and causes. In the developing world, the answer is often presumed to be the willingness to use violence, exercising territorial control, or securing support from external actors like foreign states. This article tests these assumptions using the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (MAROB) dataset, and finds that contrary to much of the policy literature and popular news media, the factors which predict ethnopolitical organizational dominance are instead the provision of social services, incorporating a gender inclusive ideology, and maintaining clear and consolidated leadership in the form of a single individual. These findings have clear policy implications for both domestic and international engagement with ethnopolitical groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]