A minority of the population -- 26 percent of Tunisians and 28 percent of Egyptians -- believes that Islam should play a large role in government.
Islamists Aren't the Obstacle | Foreign Affairs - 0 views
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Islamist parties received considerable support in both countries' recent elections -- not only because there is a broad ideological affinity for Islamism among the population but also because of Islamist parties' effective campaigning.
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Both secularists and Islamists associate democracy with economic prosperity
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The Council on Foreign Relations published an article about democratization in the middle east and the major obstacles that are present in the process. While most assume Islamists and Islamic embedded institutions are the root of the delayed democratic transition, the problems are much bigger than that. While Islamist regimes do indeed stunt the growth of democratic progress in terms of creating a stable government, Arab countries struggle with economic and social factors as well. The Arab Spring Revolutions have caused economic and social degradation across the region, resulting in a road block of political leadership. Without a reliable and capable government structure, the states are unable to progress economically. However, in order to have a stable government, social and economic institutions must be in place to create this capitalist economy that they strive for. Because most wealth resides in oil, the revenue that the states bring in isn't distributed properly throughout society and is concentrated within few business elites. The article stresses that instead of foreign aid going into the hands of an unstable leader or regime, it should be invested in institutions in order to spur economic growth and eliminate corruption. Rather than focusing on the Islamist-secularist divide, the world should be working towards the strengthening of institutions to create a stable foundation for governance.
Political map - Palestine Link - 0 views
http://mgt.guc.edu.eg/wpapers/005mohamed_hamdy2008.pdf - 2 views
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Jordanian survey, 87% of the respondents wanted to eradicate wasta.
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Cunnigham and Sarayrah (1994) suggest that the modern oil boom in the Arab world may have perpetuated wasta by reducing the need for hard work.
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human resource departments in the Arab world depend heavily on subjective assessment tools such as unstructured interviews.
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Compiled by faculty members at the German University in Cairo, this working paper series addresses the effect that watsa has on competence and morality in Middle Eastern economics and society. The authors define watsa as, "the intervention of a patron in favor of a client to obtain benefits and/or resources from a third party." In simpler terms it is a system of social networking in Arab culture in which family and social ties play a significant role in the attainment of economic advantages and resources, largely in the hiring process in businesses and organizations. A person applying for a job seeks out watsa to increase their chances of getting hired. Comparable to nepotism and cronyism, but is not restricted to friends and associates, watsa can also involve strangers linked through some social web of people. Watsa runs somewhat parallel to a Chinese concept of guanxi, based on Confucian ethics and focusing on strong collective ties. While guanxi is a part of Chinese ethics it actually defies Muslim ethical values, which advocates hiring the person most capable. In a Jordanian survey, 87% of respondents want watsa eradicated. While we know that unemployment in the Arab region is widespread, we can assume that this motivates people to do anything they can to improve their chances of obtaining a job. However, the practice of watsa as a whole is actually degrading the economic systems in the Arab sates even further. The article explains the linkage between watsa and poor job performance, economic decline, and the festering of injustice and frustration among the masses in Arab countries.
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This looks super interesting, but I can't get the link to open. Thanks for writing a thorough summary of it!
Oil and Terror: ISIS and Middle East Economies - 0 views
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ISIS's economic cost is significant not just for Iraq but also other Middle Eastern countries.
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Iraq has the fifth largest oil reserves in the world and third highest in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia and Iran.
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Part of ISIS's rise in Iraq can be attributed to sectarian politics.
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UN plan to relocate Syrian refugees in northern Europe | World news | The Guardian - 0 views
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“orderly relocation” of thousands of Syrian refugees from southern Europe to richer countries in the north, and is pressing the EU to agree to a year-long pilot programme
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the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, has approached senior EU figures to get backing for its pilot programme
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new approaches, which could be achieved within the existing Dublin framework, were urgently needed:
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Egypt actors' syndicate suspends actor for distributing condom balloons to police - Pol... - 0 views
Jordan - Educational System-overview - Students, School, Schools, and Secondary - State... - 0 views
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The present structure of the Jordanian educational system comprises formal and nonformal systems
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A compulsory stage for children ages 6 to 15 (grades 1-10), consisting of primary school (grades 1-6) and preparatory school (grades 7-10).
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A comprehensive secondary education (academic and vocational) and applied secondary education (training centers and apprenticeship).
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Education caught in the crossfire of conflict | #ChildrenofSyria - 0 views
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he attack on Al Hayat Primary School in Qaboun, eastern Damascus in November 2014 killed 11 children and injured many more.
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But the Qaboun assault was just one of at least 68 attacks on schools across Syria between January and December 2014 alone
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round 1 in 5 – have been damaged, destroyed, or are currently sheltering internally displaced people according to data gathered by UNICEF
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This article also talks about the problems Syrian children face regarding education. International laws about "schools remain out of conflict" has gone ignored for a long time. Public Schools are overstretched in neighboring countries due to extra children in schools. The most interesting part of this article is the video which goes into more details about the growth of education in the last four years.
Anonymous 'hacktivists' attack Egyptian websites - 0 views
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The loosely organized "hacktivist" group known as Anonymous trained its weapons on Egypt Wednesday, resulting in at least three official government websites being knocked offline. Sites belonging to Egypt's cabinet, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology were inaccessible, most likely due to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, as of 3 p.m.
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