In the wake of the Arab uprisings, the forces of counterrevolution reared their heads, having firmly cemented their place in the region. From Egypt to Syria to Bahrain, authoritarian states have proved durable despite significant social instability, repeated uprisings at the regional and local levels, and even internal fissures. What do issues pertaining to social class, business-state relations, and the region’s insertion into the global economy tell us about authoritarian retrenchment in the Middle East and North Africa?

Adam Hanieh is Professor of Political Economy and Global Development at IAIS, University of Exeter, and Joint Chair at the Institute of International and Area Studies (IIAS) at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His research focuses on the political economy of the Middle East, with a particular emphasis on the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. His work examines the role of the Gulf states within global capitalism; as well as the ways in which capital accumulation in the Gulf impacts wider issues of development in the Middle East, including inequality, poverty, and social polarization.

Amr Adly is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at The American University in Cairo (AUC). He worked as a researcher at the Middle East directions program at the European University Institute. He also worked as a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, where his research centered on political economy, development studies, and economic sociology of the Middle East, with a focus on Egypt. Adly has taught political economy at AUC and Stanford University. He worked as a project manager at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow.

Shana Marshall is Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Assistant Research Professor at George Washington University. Her dissertation, “The New Politics of Patronage: The Arms Trade and Clientelism in the Arab World” examined how Middle East governments use arms sales agreements to channel financial resources and economic privileges to pro-regime elites. Prior to George Washington University, Dr. Marshall was a fellow at The Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. Her current research focuses on patterns of military entrepreneurship in Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE.

Register here: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrcOmuqT0pG9P_dtPV8ULFGSIXwpXbr02_

This is our first panel in the series on “The Political Economy of Rising Authoritarianism”. The panels will provide analytical rigor and historical context rooted in the tradition of political economy to understand contemporary problems of rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding in a global context.