Duke University Press Log

Guest Post: Abdeslam Maghraoui on the Roots of the Egyptian Protests

Today's post is by Abdeslam Maghraoui, Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University, and author of Liberalism without Democracy: Nationhood and Citizenship in Egypt, 1922–1936.

The mass protests across Egypt this week seem to be coalescing into an unwavering movement intent on toppling Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime.  The magnitude, momentum, and direction of the protests are similar to the movement that forced president Ben Ali to flee Tunisia in January.  Despite significant social and cultural differences, the movements in both countries are fueled by apprehension about endemic social problems and decades of oppressive, authoritarian rule.  Mubarak’s external support and domestic pockets of resistance may delay and influence change, but a revolutionary outcome seems to be already in the making.

    For one, Egypt’s social problems are in many ways worse than Tunisia’s.  Regardless of the scope and speed of unfolding events, Mubarak’s regime is unlikely to survive the challenge.  Thirty million out of Egypt’s 81 million inhabitants live on less than two dollars a day.  Seventy-five percent of the population is under the age of 30 and many are jobless college graduates.  Increasing inflation, high food prices, and stagnant salaries during the last decade have battered middle class families.  Millions of poor and middle class Egyptians juggle two or three different jobs to make ends meet.  According to recent World Bank figures, one-fifth of Egyptians live bellow the poverty line.  In the meantime, the country’s top political and economic elites, associated with the inner circles of power, lead luxurious life styles.  Cairo’s chic, Beverly Hills’ like neighborhoods stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the country. 

Is Mexico Due For Another Revolution?

Today is Mexico's Bicentennial. Are they due for another revolution? This New York Times op-ed by Enrique Krauze describes the revolutions of 1810 and 1910, conflicts so destructive that it took the country decades to recover from each. As many news outlets have reported, Mexicans are ambivalent about celebrating this anniversary because of the drug violence that has overtaken the country in the last year. In the book Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and Revolution in Mexico, historians and social scientists from around the world look compare Mexico’s revolutions of 1810 and 1910 and consider whether there might be a twenty-first-century recurrence or whether a globalizing, urbanizing, and democratizing world has so changed Mexico that revolution is improbable. Writing in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Guy Thomson called the book "an excellent set of essays that will serve students of Mexican history and politics for many years to come." Those interested in taking a deeper look into Mexican history at this crucial point in time should check it out.

Celebrating Grant Farred’s Tenure at the South Atlantic Quarterly

Grant Farred, editor of the South Atlantic Quarterly, will step down this summer; he will be replaced by Michael Hardt. In the video below, Farred and Hardt discuss the journal’s past:

Over the course of his eight-year tenure, Farred has widened the journal’s theoretical and geographic scope while keeping it rooted in its long history of political engagement. (When it was founded in 1901, the journal was at the center of the Bassett Affair, a milestone for academic freedom in the United States.)

Farred describes his work on SAQ as “the most important political thing I have done in this country in the twenty-one years I’ve been here.”  With the publication of such groundbreaking issues as “Palestine America,” “Racial Americana,” and "Ambushed: A Critique of Machtpolitik,” during his tenure Farred worked to expand SAQ’s reputation as a space for timely, political thought.

SAQ Welcomes Editor Michael Hardt

In the video below Michael Hardt and Grant Farred discuss Hardt’s vision for SAQ’s future.

SAQ is pleased to welcome editor Michael Hardt.  Hardt is a professor of literature and Italian at Duke University and is the co-author of Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), and Commonwealth (2009) with Antonio Negri. 

Hardt will introduce a new section, "Against the Day," which will appear in each issue of the journal and will focus on contemporary political issues. Future topics include Obama at midterm and student activism in the University of California system. Hardt sees himself continuing SAQ's long tradition of cultural and political engagement: "I don't want to change SAQ too much. . . . we're still only a small portion of the larger history."

Upcoming issues for 2011 include: "Theory Now," edited by Grant Farred and Michael Hardt, "Sovereignty, Indigeneity, and the Law," edited by Eric Cheyfitz, N. Bruce Duthu, and Shari Huhndorf, and "Digital Desire," edited by Ellis Hanson.

Continuing Violence in Venezuela

What is the government's stance on violence? That is the question that is being asked in Venezuela, where the body count continues to rise. As reported in a recent New York Times article, the government's reaction to a front-page photograph in the paper, El Nacional, seemed to indicate that the government is more concerned over a gory image of violence than the violence itself. According to the article, some critics believe that the Venezuelan government is worsening the problem, rather than attempting to fix it as the government claims.

If Venezuela's government were more democratic, would that help with some of the violence? That is a question taken up by the contributors of Violent Democracies in Latin America (edited by Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel M. Goldstein). The collection explores how individuals and institutions in contemporary Latin American democracies use violence to impose and contest notions of order, rights, citizenship, and justice. Is Venezuela, then, that much different from its other Latin American counterparts? Pick up a copy of Violent Democracies in Latin America and compare for yourself.

Washington Monthly Praises Armatta's Twilight of Impunity

Wesley Clark pens a rave review of Judith Armatta's Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic in the new issue of The Washington Monthly. Clark, who was Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO during the Kosovo War, calls the book "wonderful and important." He says Armatta "brings a boots-on-the-ground understanding of the Balkans from previous work in Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. In her observations, she proves to be an acute student of law, character, strategy, and history." Clark focuses his review on the lasting importance of the trial, which he says "may have been one of the most important international events of a new century." Both Clark and Armatta believe that if we absorb the lessons of the Milosevic trial, "we will have decisively shattered the notions of sovereign impunity, even in the ambiguous and deliberately obscure machinations of internal conflict." Clark concludes, "Every practitioner and student of international relations should read Armatta’s book."

Download a Free Chapter from Debating Moral Education

Duke professor Michael Allen Gillespie published an op-ed in the Durham Herald-Sun yesterday about the recently-concluded NCAA basketball finals. The fact that the schools who ended up facing each other in the championship, Duke and Butler, both are known for serious academics and high graduation rates as well as sports, is a win for all college sports, he says. Earlier this year, David Brooks of the New York Times praised Gillespie's essay on college sports and ethics in the book Debating Moral Education: Rethinking the Role of the Modern University. We are pleased to offer a free download of the chapter on our website. Click on the "Additional Info" tab on under "Explore More" to see the link.

Remembering Julie Graham

We are sad to learn of the death of Julie Graham, co-editor of the book Re/Presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism. She wrote under the pen name J. K. Gibson-Graham with her friend and collaborator Katherine Gibson. Graham was Professor of Geography at University of Massachusetts. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and colleagues.

Todd Shaw Wins W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award

Congratulations to Todd C. Shaw, whose book Now Is the Time! Detroit Black Politics and Grassroots Activism, has won the National Conference of Black Political Scientists's W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award.  In Now Is the Time!, Shaw, Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina, delves into the political strategies of post–Civil Rights Movement African American activists in Detroit, Michigan, to discover the conditions for effective social activism.

Jost Comments on Health Care Reform

Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, author of Health Care at Risk: A Critique of the Consumer-Driven Movement, has been busy commenting on health care reform. Most recently, he offered the New York Times some quotes. "If you lose your employer-related insurance, you will be able to move seamlessly into the exchange," he said. Jost also recently appeared on C-Span, NPR (speaking about the abortion issue), and in the San Diego Union-Tribune, where he answered readers' questions about the health care debate. As to whether he can now take a break because we're done talking about health care, Jost has this to say: "No. As soon as the law is signed, Republicans will begin campaigning to repeal it. But I believe once it is fully implemented in 2014, Americans will wonder how they ever lived without it."