In this week's episode, Marc Lynch speaks with Sebnem Gumuscu of Middlebury College about her book, Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia. The author draws upon extensive fieldwork in three countries to explain why some Islamist governments adhered to democratic principles and others took an authoritarian turn following electoral success. (Starts at 0:53).

Today's episode also includes a roundtable discussion of the upcoming Turkish elections, with Lisel Hintz of Johns Hopkins University, Şebnem Yardımcı Geyikçi of University of Bonn, and Harun Ercan of Binghamton University.  (Starts at 31:22).

Democracy or Authoritarianism & Upcoming Turkish Elections (S. 12 Ep. 26)

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On this week's episode of the podcast, Nathaniel Mathews of Binghamton University joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Zanzibar Was a Country: Exile and Citizenship between East Africa and the Gulf. This book traces the history of a Swahili-speaking Arab diaspora from East Africa to Oman. The stories of postrevolution exiles and emigrés from Zanzibar provide a framework for the broader transregional entanglements of decolonization in Africa and the Arabian Gulf. Using both vernacular historiography and life histories of men and women from the community, Nathaniel Mathews argues that the traumatic memories of the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 are important to nation-building on both sides of the Indian Ocean. 


Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

Zanzibar Was a Country (S. 13, Ep. 25)

On this week's episode of the podcast, Zachary Lockman of New York University joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Field Notes: The Making of Middle East Studies in the United States. This book reconstructs the origins and trajectory of area studies in the United States, focusing on Middle East studies from the 1920s to the 1980s. Lockman shows how the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations played key roles in conceiving, funding, and launching postwar area studies, expecting them to yield a new kind of interdisciplinary knowledge that would advance the social sciences while benefiting government agencies and the American people. 

Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

Field Notes: The Making of Middle East Studies in the United States (S. 13, Ep. 24)

On this week's episode of the podcast, Courtney Freer of Emory University joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait: Parliament, Rentierism, and Society. This book provides an unprecedented holistic treatment of grassroots contemporary Kuwaiti politics in English in over two decades, incorporating the country's political dynamics into broader debates about the limits of authoritarianism and the practice of democracy in the Arab world, particularly in oil-wealthy states. Freer includes extensive fieldwork and the use of Arabic and English primary sources to assess and examine the institutional setting that Kuwait presents and traces the dominant ideological strands in the country, considering the comparative mobilizational potential of ascriptive identities like tribe and sect. 

Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait (S. 13, Ep. 23)

On this week's episode of the podcast, Sami Hermez of Northwestern University and Sireen Sawalha join Marc Lynch to discuss their new book, My Brother, My Land: A Story from Palestine. This is the story of Palestinian resistance that follows Sireen's family after walking back to Palestine against the traffic of exile.  Through the lives of the Sawalha family, and the story of Iyad's involvement with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hermez confronts readers with the politics and complexities of armed resistance and the ethical tensions and contradictions that arise, as well as with the dispossession and suffocation of people living under occupation and their ordinary lives in such times. 

Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

My Brother, My Land (S. 13, Ep. 22)

On this week's episode of the podcast, Alexander Cooley of Barnard College joins Marc Lynch to discuss Cooley's review essay, The Uprisings of Gaza: How Geopolitical Crises Have Reshaped Academic Communities from Tahrir to Kyiv. This essay reflects upon the contributions of Marc Lynch's edited volume (The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research Since the Arab Uprisings) to address three occurring central issues at the intersection of regional studies and political science that are affected by geopolitical shocks: how shocks highlight previously neglected topics and actors; how they subsequently discredit and privilege certain disciplines and methods; and how they recast the role of academic research within global communities of knowledge and policy-making. Together, Cooley and Lynch explore the comparisons between political sciences in the Middle East and political science in Eurasia.

Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

Democracy or Authoritarianism & Upcoming Turkish Elections (S. 12 Ep. 26)

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