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The question of SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) diasporic identity formation has been widely debated in area studies, ethnic studies, and the burgeoning field of Arab American Studies with scholars such as Sarah Gualtieri (2009), Nadine Naber (2012), and Neda Maghbouleh (2017) arguing that people of SWANA descent are racial minorities even though the U.S. government classifies them as white. However, these works have not adequately addressed SWANA racialization in the context of higher education following 9/11. This co-authored paper closely examines institutionalized SWANA erasure from the shared intersectional perspective of one faculty member, one graduate student, and two undergraduate students at a California State University campus in Southern California. Specifically, in this co-authored paper, we draw on our individual and collective co-organizing experiences to illustrate (a) the persistence of specific structural inequities that SWANA heritage people face in the academy, (b) the multilayered impact of these educational barriers, and (c) our wide range of ongoing activist responses to them. We say "khalas!" (enough!) to systemic oppression and argue that the ultimate antidote to institutionalized SWANA erasure is solidarity within and between marginalized subjects at every level of academia in the service of anti-racist and anti-colonial education. This co-authored paper uplifts SWANA resilience and resistance in California's most diverse public university system to shed new light on the understudied issue of how higher education perpetuates SWANA racialization.

The Arab Spring was a period of intense activism demanding democracy and freedom that swept across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. While previous research has focused on the role of diaspora communities in the uprisings and the strategies employed by regimes to suppress them, it has primarily centered on countries that experienced large-scale revolutions and endured severe consequences. Consequently, the current literature has failed to explore the situation of Arab Gulf dissidents living in exile, instead focusing on a few isolated incidents. This paper examines the transnational repression (TR) campaign of the Arab Gulf states (AGSs). Drawing on the literature about the long arm of authoritarianism and TR, this paper explores the various TR methods employed by the AGSs to silence activists living abroad. The paper finds that the nature of TR in the Arab Gulf region is unique when compared with other MENA countries. The TR campaign of AGSs is alarmingly expanding, using various mechanisms and resources, making the region one of the world's leading perpetrators. The methods employed by the AGSs include travel bans as part of their coercion by proxy, digital transnational repression, and the use of multilateral organizations as tools of repression. Additionally, this paper highlights the AGSs' support of other countries' TR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we exploited big data (The Global Database Events, Language and Tone - GDELT) by utilizing network analysis to elaborate on the Justice and Development Party's (JDP) Middle East (ME) policy for 2015 and 2020 - our conceptual framework built on the role theory. We identified two dynamics - the positioning of the "Transatlantic" link in Turkish Foreign Policy's (TFP) orientation and the shape and politics of the JDP elites? conception of activism - based on which we developed two hypotheses to conceptualize the JDP's role performance for the period: 1) There was a mismatch between national role conceptions and systemic role prescriptions for Turkey in the period of analysis; 2) This mismatch led the appeal of partnership with non-Western actors to rise. We utilized network analysis by exploiting the GDELT big dataset to test our hypotheses empirically. The empirical findings proved the validity of our conceptual arguments. [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]

Terrorism research focuses on the other as the one who will always be using terror as a means to an end. In terrorism research, terror is narrowly understood, trying to distinguish between political activism, radicalism, terrorism, state violence and pointing out that terror is mainly and strictly connected with terrorists. However, the manifestations of terror are noticeable throughout history in different spheres of lives. In this paper, the aim is to acknowledge terror as a phenomenon that can be experienced both physically and mentally affecting the perception of terrorism and terror. Although colonialism is no longer relevant in the 21st century, there are some similarities between the colonization violence and the violence in the Middle East (thus also terrorism). Similarly to the way terrorists are perceived - the other, the inhumane, the colonized were called violent and savages based on the prejudices and ignorance of the colonizers. Analysing how colonizers tried to stop the colonized violence and inhumanity and to teach the colonized to be civilized and become like the colonizers, the paper aims to reveal that terror is both a mental and physical experience, that impacts not only the colonized but also in the end colonizers too. Through analysis of Frantz Fanon, the paper aims to explicitly view colonized violence (relived terror) as an opportunity for the colonized to fight for one of the most important human values - freedom. However, to make it more relevant to the living experience and 21st century daily terrorism, the aspect of "teaching" emerges as important - the colonized were taught to be violent in the process of repression and the imposition of a new culture, thus also terrorists can be regarded as the result of military training in the Middle East. Terror is viewed as forcing the formation of a new model of government on the colonized, as training for troops in the Middle East, as the feeling that gives rise to confusion as colonizers, peace builders leave the newly acquired lands after the completion or even failure of humanitarian projects. People are thrown back into their daily life, about which they no longer know anything. And now the inner terror that took over the colonized takes over the educated, who are striving to regain their freedom and their original, primal state, which they previously knew to be familiar. Don't the phenomenological experience and the newly imposed meanings on everyday life, the organization of life and culture result in what is now known as daily terror? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2015, an activist movement 'Rhodes must fall' from the University of Cape Town initiated a new form of global socio-political protest, which spread in cities worldwide and was characterized by spatial practices of occupying, modifying and pulling down monuments in public space. Presenting key theoretic points of this special feature in City, this introduction explores the phenomenon of 'urban fallism'–the ways in which the action of contesting, transforming and/or removing a monument from urban space operates as a means of political struggle and as a form of political engagement in urban contexts. It outlines and integrates the contributions to this special feature, which covers a range of historic and contemporary cases in different urban, geographic and socio-political contexts, including: post-colonialism in Africa and the Americas; post-communism and post-imperialism in Europe and Asia; and wars in the Middle East. Drawing on original research and analyses from the fields of archaeology, history, art history, heritage studies, architecture, urban design, and sociology, the papers in this special feature highlight how the fall of monuments operates as a tool for political resistance against marginalization, discrimination and exclusion, a catalyst for democracy and social justice, and a means of dealing with contested heritage. As such, contributions of this special feature speak about the urban politics of race and identity and raise questions about the role of collective memory in the struggle of opposing and/or marginalized social groups for their right to the city and their place and recognition in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether Turkish foreign policy has changed in recent years, specifically in line with the EU accession process, and tries to uncover the main dynamics behind these changes. The main proposition in the paper is that domestic changes in Turkey have led to a reshuffling of foreign policy objectives with a renewed emphasis on improving relations with the country's neighbours. The paper investigates whether such a policy change is complementary to the Turkish goal of inclusion in the EU, and further proposes that the changes in Turkish foreign policy since 2002 involve an increased activism partly in line with the EU accession process and as a result of the changes in domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last four decades, the Middle East has witnessed the rise of Shi'i political activism, through the direct engagement of clerical elites in socio-political arenas. With the re-emergence of activism on the part of Shi'i mujtahids and its impact on the ascent of Shi'i community in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, scholars have defined a distinct strategic difference between what they characterise as 'quietist' and 'activist' Shi'i mujtahids. This paper argues that this distinction is based on a misunderstanding of Shi' doctrines and practices, and that, in the varying political contexts which arise in the Middle East, Shi'i mujtahids are always potentially active. It first introduces an analytical scheme for the study of Shi'i clerical political practices. It then uses this schema to explore recent Shi'i clerical political activism in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a longitudinal study that uses insights from postcolonial feminism to explore women's entrepreneurship as a political form of feminist organizing for social change in Saudi Arabia. Postcolonial feminist approaches challenge Western feminism, which can obscure the diversity of women's lived experiences, agency, and activism. Through Bayat's (2013) theory of "quiet encroachment," I identify the ways in which contemporary Western conceptualizations of feminist solidarity and social movements have dismissed "Other" women's "silent," protracted and (dis)organized activism in parts of the Middle East. By exploring how Saudi women have utilized their entrepreneurial space as a legitimate platform for change, I aim to enrich understanding of women's activism through everyday solidarity practices, which allow them to quietly encroach onto the previously forbidden political space. The findings exemplify how their activism "quietly" developed over time through a three‐step process—from the entrepreneur aiming to empower women within their organization, to developing feminist consciousness within their entrepreneurial network, to becoming a "political activist" lobbying for policy changes for women. These solidarity practices exemplify the West's relationship with "the Other," and reveal that feminist organizing for social change must be explored within its own context in order to fully appreciate its global political potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Gallup poll data to assess two narratives that have crystallized around the 2011 Egyptian uprising: (1) New electronic communications media constituted an important and independent cause of the protests in so far as they enhanced the capacity of demonstrators to extend protest networks, express outrage, organize events, and warn comrades of real-time threats. (2) Net of other factors, new electronic communications media played a relatively minor role in the uprising because they are low-cost, low-risk means of involvement that attract many sympathetic onlookers who are not prepared to engage in high-risk activism. Examining the independent effects of a host of factors associated with high-risk movement activism, the paper concludes that using some new electronic communications media was associated with being a demonstrator. However, grievances, structural availability, and network connections were more important than was the use of new electronic communications media in distinguishing demonstrators from sympathetic onlookers. Thus, although both narratives have some validity, they must both be qualified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses an important era of women's activism in Kuwait. In the 1950s, when the government recognized women's rights for education, the wave to obtain other civil rights clashed with culture, tradition and religion which became serious obstacles facing women in their struggle for basic rights. This historical study focuses on the establishment of two women's organizations -- the Arab Women's Development Society in December 1962 and the Kuwait Women's Cultural and Social Society in February 1963. To sway the negative image of women in a patriarchal society, women used activism as a public relations tool to achieve their social, civil and political rights. The study uses cultural-economic model (CEM) to illustrate how activism and public relations were articulated as synonymous to foster women's rights in Kuwait. Archived documents and content analysis of media content published in the 1960s reveal that activism played a vital role as a public relations strategy and that social activism was more effective than political activism. The study highlights the implications of culture within the context of both public relations and activism. • Study adopts the cultural-economic model of public relations to analyze activism in the womens rights movement of Kuwait. • Content analysis of newspapers and magazines suggests public relations and activism were synonymous to the women's rights movement in Kuwait. • Women's activism for social rights was more emancipatory than for political rights in an Islamic society such as Kuwait. • Study provides insight into public relations, activism and the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's foreign policy activism in recent decades, characterized by an ambitious regional agenda and visibility in global affairs, has generated a lively debate. This paper attempts to position Turkey in modern-day international relations, in order to develop an analytical framework capable of theorizing its regional and global-level activism coherently. It thus proposes to conceptualize Turkey as a regional power and argues that such actors' behavior can be analyzed with reference to three interrelated variables: the nature of regional order, their behavioral attitudes, and the interactions at the regional-global nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By uncovering and scrutinizing the politics of labour during the Second World War in the world's biggest oil refinery – located in the city of Abadan in Iran's southwestern province of Khuzistan – this article aims to strengthen our understanding of the Second World War in the Middle East generally and our understanding of the role of oil company power in Iran specifically. By analysing changes in and around the urban oil industry complex at Abadan, the present article will thus provide new insights into British imperial strategy in the context of the 1941–1946 British–Soviet occupation of Iran. We argue that the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company, in partial concert with British state and military actors and institutions, managed to turn threats and challenges arising from the war into opportunities for expanding power and experimenting with a new security regime that was designed to curb rising socialist and anti-colonial nationalist activism. This overlapping history of the Second World War, oil, labour and empire, then, is not only key to a fuller understanding of Iran, the Middle East and the world on the cusp of the Cold War but can also contribute to the historical analysis of energy imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst multiple foreign policy flip-flops of the Turkish government, the Middle East is where observers agree most about the explanatory priority of ideational factors over realpolitik calculations. The assertive foreign policy activism to extend the country's role in the region has largely been linked to the Islamist leanings of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This study revisits Turkey's Middle East policy with a particular focus on the AKP's relations with the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al Muslimin), which marked Turkish foreign policy formulation and implementation in multiple theatres from Yemen to Egypt to Libya. Using a neoclassical realist approach, it argues that the AKP's ideological ties to the Ikhwan are significant for the availability of new resources but Turkish foreign policy behavior in the Middle East, including relations with the Ikhwan, reflects a grand strategy to respond to systemic and sub-systemic stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, ordinary people have been refusing to exit the social and political stages and they have been generating and discovering new spaces within which they can voice their dissent and strive to enhance their lives. Nevertheless, through the prism of prevailing social movement theories, which were primarily developed in politically-open western societies, many scholars have concluded that there is no such thing as a youth or women's movement in the Middle East because the characteristics of Middle Eastern women or youth activities do not comply with the principle "framework." Social movements in most Middle Eastern and Muslim societies may be unconventional but they definitely exist. Contrary to the prevailing discourse, activism and agency in Middle Eastern societies merely take on a different form but have yet to been recognized because they do not fit Western conceptual imaginations and prevailing categories. This documentary paper seeks to raise a number of methodological and theoretical questions regarding ways to view social movements, agency, and change in the Middle East. In order to examine the unique socio-religious and socio-political character of the current movements in Muslim societies, the researcher conducted a case study about the peaceful "One Million Signatures" campaign which was carried out by a group of women in Iran. The women collected one million signatures in support of changing laws which discriminate against women in Iran. The study reveals that women's movements for gender equality under the modern autocratic and patriarch regimes take on a unique character: they are largely horizontal in form. In other words, Iranian reform movements are not headed by formal leadership, as is usually the case in politically open societies in the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outburst of The Iranian Revolution in 1978 generated fear and hope at the same time for several political forces across the West and the East. The emergence of Islam as a political force came as a surprise across all political spectrums in Europe, even though religion was already at the time becoming a determining variable in the field of international relations. The echoes of The Iranian Revolution precipitated even further the making of several organizations of political Islam in the Middle East, forging transnational identities. Through primary and secondary sources drawn from mainly British leftist organizations, this study aims at examining the responses of the British Left towards Islamic revivalism. Thus, this article gives an historical outline of the intellectual production and the strategies of interpretation adopted by the British Left during the period of 1978–2001, by exploring the main historical events that involved (political) Islam, such as The Iranian Revolution, the Lebanese civil war, the Palestinian Intifada and The Algerian Civil War. The main argument postulated is that interpretation trajectories by the British Left were highly dependent on ideological and geostrategic lineages and respective synchronic political alliances, resulting in putting the centre of gravity sometimes on Islamic activism's regressive nature and sometimes on its anti-imperialist perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the United States, China is still reliant on the Middle East for energy, importing nearly half of its oil from the region.[12] The Middle East also provides critical sea and land links for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). After decades of wars in the Middle East, growing great power competition, and changing priorities at home, there is much uncertainty about America's place in the world today. Continued crises, often related to Iran, and longstanding commitments to regional partners - combined with bureaucratic inertia and the interests of major defense contractors - could keep the United States tethered to the region for the foreseeable future, even if a growing number of policymakers in Washington would no longer like to be there.[1] Is the United States really leaving the Middle East? Regional states have also increased their own diplomatic and military activism to fill the perceived absence of an assertive US role.[3] A post-American Middle East, however, is not a Middle East without America. [Extracted from the article]

Turkey redefined its geographical security environment over the last decade by deepening its engagement with neighboring regions, especially with the Middle East. The Arab spring, however, challenged not only the authoritarian regimes in the region but also Turkish foreign policy strategy. This strategy was based on cooperation with the existing regimes and did not prioritize the democracy promotion dimension of the issue. The upheavals in the Arab world, therefore, created a dilemma between ethics and self-interest in Turkish foreign policy. Amid the flux of geopolitical shifts in one of the world's most unstable regions, Turkish foreign policy-making elites are attempting to reformulate their strategies to overcome this inherent dilemma. The central argument of the present paper is that Turkey could make a bigger and more constructive impact in the region by trying to take a more detached stand and through controlled activism. Thus, Turkey could take action through the formation of coalitions and in close alignments with the United States and Europe rather than basing its policies on a self-attributed unilateral pro-activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shocking image of the young student Neda Salehi dying, after appearing to have been shot by the Iranian government's Security Forces, dominated the global news and online platforms during the 2009 'Iran election crisis'. Iranian protestors took to the streets, internet, blogosphere and Twitter to express their discontent about the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the days following the election, the global news attention shifted from the situation on the ground to the role of Twitter in 'the Iran crisis'. With headlines such as: 'Iran's Protests: Why Twitter is the Medium of the Movement' content organisers such as Twitter increasingly become part of reality and the web becomes a space for analysis. Unique to the web and content organizers is that they mediate the formation of online networks and make these networks traceable. Using natively digital research tools, this paper mapped issue networks of digital activism in the Middle East to understand if the internet mediates the organisation of activism for social change in repressive environments. Digital activists are individuals, sometimes organized in social organizations, that actively express or engage online for development and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the year following the Arab Spring, observers, journalists, and scholars began to predict an authoritarian reversal, including the beginning of a long winter.¹ So, in 2019, when a peaceful coalition of Sudanese activists successfully deposed President Omer Al-Bashir, it was a sign that the political climate in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region would continue to be highly changeable—and somewhat unpredictable. Sudan’s late spring captured global attention because of the wide use of digital media to capture its progress, and the image of high-profile feminist symbolism. There was the image of Alaa Salah, dressed in a white toab, the presence of an elegant symbol of a glorious past.² The defiant Kandaka, or Queen Pharaoh, who once repelled foreign empires at the threshold of her nation; now she stood on the hood of a car, calling out a government which engaged in crime and corruption, and which had flouted the democratic process for three decades.³ Beyond imagery, and far more difficult to capture, was the revolutionary process of the Kandaka leadership—and the loyal persistence of their followers. This includes the role of Sudan’s storied labor and professional unions as they engaged in clandestine leadership in organizing regime change. Then there was a conspicuous presence of social media used by young women, gathered en masse, advancing change, and documenting what Samuel Huntington has called a fourth wave of democratic revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages in a critical analysis of authoritarian rule in pre-war Syria by examining the accounts of sixty-eight Syrian refugee women who were displaced in different areas of Lebanon in 2014. While participants' ideas are informed by their experiences of war and refugeehood, an exploration of their memories of the pre-war period reveals that economic welfare is a key determinant to the formation of their political opinions on dictatorship in 'peace' time. Drawing on feminist research that endeavours to reposition women in the domain of the political, the article argues that political agency must not be conceived only in terms of political activism but, rather, as a distinctive trait of politically inactive women who live under dictatorship. By using a broader conceptualization of the political that does not confine political subjectivity to the realm of formal and/or grassroots politics, the article seeks to recast political agency on Syrian refugee women whose understandings of the political is often silenced by disempowering orientalist representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, Arab documentary filmmakers have highlighted struggles for personal freedom, dignity and democracy by those restricted by oppressive systems of colonialism, occupation and authoritarianism. In this article I study four contemporary Arab documentary films to identify a path vital for the rethinking of cosmopolitanism and global citizenship in Middle East studies. After the 2011 global interest in the Arab uprisings, Syrian and Palestinian documentaries rose to acclaim at international film festivals, and won Emmys and Oscar nominations. The often character-led stories of these films defy orientalist views of the Middle East. Creative global communities at international film festivals are emerging, where Arab documentary filmmakers and their non-elitist stories connect on various humanistic, sociocultural and political levels with non-Arab peers. In this article my aim is to contribute to a redefinition of cosmopolitanism, one not based on the rationalism of the Enlightenment but on the universality of human emotion and sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Iranian advances in the Arab World. History, dictate that Iran will be a major player in the affairs of the Middle East and have major influence in the region. Despite its size and the oil and the ancient glory Iran faces certain disadvantages. It is a multiethnic, predominantly Persian country is a predominantly Arab region.

This article intends to provide responses to some of the many unanswered questions about the making and the transformation of the uprising in Syria by exploring a new avenue of research: media development aid. Most academic interest has been oriented towards the role that the new media played at the time of the uprising; insufficient interest, by contrast, has been directed to the development of the sector in the years predating it. What emerges from this article is that the Syrian media landscape was strongly supported by international development aid during the years prior to the outbreak of the uprising of 2011. By looking at the complex structure of media aid architecture and investigating the practices and programmes implemented by some representative organisations, this article reflects on the field of media development as a new modus operandi of the West (the EU and US especially), to promote democracy through alternative and non-collateral, bottom-up support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveying the varied contributions to this special issue, this article examines the relationships, points of inspirations and contradictory dynamics that characterize the current epoch of social movement politics and global protest. The authors argue that with the progression of neoliberal capitalism and the explosion of new technologies, a shared logic of social movement politics has emerged. This logic spans from the Zapatistas and the Global Justice Movement to the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, the Occupy struggles and the most recent wave characterized by Podemos. While each of these waves of contention has a particular character, together they make up a broader epoch of struggle that thrives on multiplicity, emphasized radical participatory democracy, the innovative use of media and the heterogeneity of political struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Western political science literature of the late 20th and early 21st century, the Middle East has often been described, not only as authoritarian, but also as impervious to democracy. Institutional, structural, and cultural explanations were advanced to explain this democracy deficit. This article will debunk the notion that democratization in the Middle East is limited by entrenched Muslim and/or Islamist views on social and sexual mores, and on women's political and social rights. Indeed, the events of the so-called 'Arab Spring' have shown that the desire for democracy is the reason for the overthrow of several regimes in the Arab world. These popular-led regime changes were triggered by a desire for political and social reform. The main actors behind the Arab uprisings have been Arab youths and women, with women actively participating in anti-regime demonstrations and sometimes paying the price for that participation with their bodies. Using examples mainly from North Africa, the article will show three trends that have emerged in the region since the 1990s: changes in the law proposed by grassroots secular activists, the work of Muslim feminists, and that of Islamist female activists in the transformation of women's roles in the Middle East that counter the claim that Islamic views on gender equality limit the emergence of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open social movements and intentional resistance can be dangerous activities in some parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), particularly for women. In this setting, female activism often takes place as non-movements - mundane, collective actions taken by individuals rather than cohesive groups. Non-movements for women in this region consist of commonplace activities such as working, attending college, or participating in sports. This article examines how athletic participation serves as a form of resistance for women in the MENA. To augment and expand upon the concept of non-movements, we consider five non-movement resistance strategies used by women in many parts of the MENA to counter barriers to female sports participation. These strategies address cultural and religious concerns over the role of women in the MENA region by merging athletics with longstanding religious customs and cultural traditions. In doing so, these strategies reduce the potential for criticism and enable greater opportunities for female athletic participation. Ultimately, these strategies may engender opportunities for women beyond the realm of sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events of the Arab Spring led to several reforms in the Arab world and facilitated the creation of feminist movements. Social networking sites such as Facebook were used as tools to promote this kind of online activism and create a collective secular identity for the members of these movements. This study investigated over 220,000 Facebook posts and comments taken from three online feminist movements which supported gender equality in the Arab world. The results show that these movements sometimes face fierce resistance from Islamists who believe that their religion is under attack. Instead of having one type of poster and commentator, three main online groups are identified; each one competes to garner attention and support from the public. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article situates Turkey's approach to the Middle East in a broader historical context, demonstrating that there is more continuity in Ankara's approach to the region than observers tend to believe. It also argues that specific domestic political, economic, and global patterns of politics are likely to produce a divergence between the USA and Turkey on critical Middle Eastern issues, notably the Israeli–Palestinian problem and Iran's drive for regional influence. In an unintended way, however, the Arab awakening may drive a greater confluence of interests between Washington and Ankara. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]