Unheard voices: state-making and popular participation in post-Ottoman Iraq

I explore the nature of the particular nation state form that came into being in Iraq during the British Mandate, and in particular its impact on minorities. The Mandate government, and the broader international legal framework, structured state–minority relations in post-Ottoman Iraq in ways that continue to shape Iraqi politics. While sociocultural differences in Iraqi society were given constitutional recognition, this did not lead to the effective protection of minority rights, primarily because the principle of popular participation was not respected. The Mandate legacy in Iraq has been long-lasting, as the mistakes of the past have been reproduced by postcolonial regimes, and thus the state–minority relationship has been locked in a loop of exclusionary politics and securitization.     

Beyond the state: policing precariousness in South Africa and Palestine/Israel

This short comment on Loïc Wacquant's ‘Marginality, Ethnicity, and Penality’ begins by highlighting three of Wacquant's most important interventions. It then extends the analysis by drawing on research about urban marginality in South Africa and Palestine/Israel. Whereas Wacquant focuses on the state response to urban marginality, I suggest that it is important to look beyond the state to consider how other actors have responded to the growth of precarious populations. Specifically, I point out that private security companies and residents' associations are at the forefront of efforts to police poor black South Africans, while an imperial network of security forces polices the Palestinian precariat.     

Tribal hands and minority votes: ethnicity,regionalism and elections in Iran

Ethnic politics is a serious domestic challenge in Iran. Non-Persian communities are mobilizing to claim their rights and to demand representation in a system that activists claim is biased against minorities and the peripheral regions. Yet the inner workings of contemporary Iranian ethnic politics are largely understudied. This article explores recent evolutions in the role that ethnicity, regionalism and tribalism plays in Iranian domestic politics. It focuses on how these interconnected factors figured in the 2013 presidential and local council elections in Iran in a particular province that has a history of ethnic tensions. Incidentally, these elections brought Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric, to power as president. Among his electoral promises was to end the securitization of the minority issue. This article illustrates some of the barriers to a transformative ethnic politics – barriers that political leaders will have to overcome to enact real change.     

The Middle East's majority problems: minoritarian regimes and the threat of democracy

This article examines the phenomenon of minoritarian regimes in the Middle East, focusing on Bahrain, Syria and Israel/Palestine. It considers, in each, how minority rule was established, the mechanisms through which it is maintained, and the means through which it is legitimated. Although these regimes are not typically analyzed as a category, they have important features in common. In all three, the state's political and security institutions are controlled by members of an ethnic/religious group that is a numerical minority in the country, at the expense of a majority group with a competing claim to indigeneity. While the legal and political mechanisms that these regimes use to restrict access to power vary, they employ similar strategies for legitimating minority rule, presenting democracy as a threat not only to the regime's survival, but also to the security of the group whose interests it claims to represent.     

Anatomy of deception: A behavioral contingency analysis

Deception, a basic and pervasive biological phenomenon, takes many forms, variously referred to as mimicry, trickery, seduction, pretense, feigning, masquerading, impersonation, distraction, or false promises, and these share certain common distinguishing behavioral elements that permit them to be classified into categories. A symbolic language for the codification and analysis of behavioral contingencies shows that all instances of deception are based on a misperception, misprediction, non-perception, or non-prediction by the deceived party, and can be further categorized based on features of the contingencies that define them. Instances of particular interest are those in which a deceiving party predicts (and in that sense “intends”) the deception. In those instances, the effect of the deception is usually to the deceiving party's benefit and to the deceived party's detriment.In economics, finance, business, military operations, public affairs, education, and everyday social interaction, deception takes numerous forms. Special forms, usually involving obfuscation, concealment, counterfeiting, and misrepresentation, occur in certain prevalent types of property transfer, including securitization, the creation of derivatives, and various types of Ponzi schemes. Such property transfers tend to be driven by opportunities for deception. They all involve blurring and clouding of the contingencies that defined the transferred properties, thus permitting their obfuscation.     

A decade of suspicion: Islam and Muslims in Denmark after 9/11

In 2011, al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, was killed in Pakistan and the US president, Barack Obama, concluded a decade of global ‘war against terror’. In light of this, it seems only sensible to explore what implications the post-9/11 international developments have had on a local basis in specific national contexts. With this in mind, this article focuses on Denmark and discusses how the critical event of 9/11 motivated a security/integration response, including various pre-emptive measures that have cast the Muslim population as the usual suspects. It will discuss how these changes have affected the everyday lives of ordinary Danish Muslims over the last ten years and changed the relationship between majorities and minorities. Finally, it will also examine how and why recent national and international events have created the potential for another shift in majority–minority relations.