Pomeps Conversations

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.

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.

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

On this week's episode of the podcast, Marika Sosnowski of the University of Melbourne Law School joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria. This book explores how ceasefires are not only military tactics but are also tools of wartime order and state-building. While ceasefires have been used in Syria to halt violence and facilitate peace agreements since 2012, Sosnowski demonstrates the diverse consequences of ceasefires and provides a fuller, more nuanced portrait of their role in conflict resolution. (Starts at 0:10). Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Max Gallien of Institute of Development Studies joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Smugglers and States: Negotiating the Maghreb at Its Margins. This book examines the rules and agreements that govern smuggling in North Africa, tracing the involvement of states in these practices and their consequences for borderland communities. Gallien demonstrates that, contrary to common assumptions about the effects of informal economies, smuggling can promote both state and social stability.  Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Cinzia Bianco of the University of Exeter joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, The Gulf Monarchies After the Arab Spring: Threats and Security. This book applies an original theoretical framework to unpack the threat perceptions and strategic calculus driving the behavior of new impactful regional players in the Middle East and North Africa. Bianco looks at how the small monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) spent the decade between 2011 and 2022 trying to re-shape regional equilibria as protagonists to provide reading keys to the past, present, and future of policy-making in the Gulf monarchies, middle powers destined to play an oversized role in the new multipolar world. (Starts at 0:10).

On this week's episode of the podcast, Sharan Grewal of the College of William and Mary and the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book Soldiers of Democracy? Military Legacies and the Arab Spring. The book argues that a military's behavior under democracy is shaped by how it had been treated under autocracy. This scholarly volume illustrates this theory through detailed case studies of Egypt and Tunisia and drawing on over 140 interviews with civilian and military leaders, and three surveys of military personnel.  Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Maged Mandour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Egypt under El-Sisi: A Nation on the Edge. His book follows President Sisi's regime in the aftermath of the coup that brought him to power, as a chronology of the devastating political, economic, and social consequences of direct military rule. Mandour explains exactly how Sisi operates and what makes his regime so different, and so dangerous, compared to those that came before. It shows, for the first time, how Egypt has been pushed to the brink of the abyss and why this will change the country for decades to come. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Brahim El Guabli of Williams College joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship After State Violence. The book shows how Moroccan cultural production has become an other-archive: a set of textual, sonic, embodied, and visual sites that recover real or reimagined voices of these formerly suppressed and silenced constituencies of Moroccan society. The book draws on cultural production concerning the “years of lead”—a period of authoritarianism and political violence between Morocco’s independence in 1956 and the death of King Hassan II in 1999—to examine the transformative roles memory and trauma play in reconstructing stories of three historically marginalized groups in Moroccan history: Berbers/Imazighen, Jews, and political prisoners.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Adam Shatz of Bard College joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.  In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Frantz Fanon’s journey as a prominent intellectual activist of the postcolonial era. Shatz offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon’s extraordinary life—and a guide to the books that underlie today’s most vital efforts to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Anita Gohdes of the Hertie School joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence. Gohdes looks at how digital technology supports traditional, violent state repression. Her book draws on theory and evidence to examine the link between censorship, surveillance, and violent repression, with large-scale analyses of fine-grained data on the Syrian conflict, qualitative case evidence from Iran, and the first global comparative analysis of Internet outages and state repression. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland joins Marc Lynch to discuss the Middle East Scholar Barometer. The Middle East Scholar Barometer is a project of University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll and George Washington University’s Project on Middle East Political Science. It aims to probe the assessments of scholars of the Middle East, particularly members of the American Political Science Association specializing on the Middle East and North Africa and members of Middle East Studies Association, on critical issues of the day. Telhami discusses the origins of the Middle East Scholar Barometer, how it’s run and what it measures. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Sarah Parkinson of Johns Hopkins University joins Marc Lynch to discuss some of her latest publications. Her article, The Ghosts of Lebanon: To See What Lies Ahead in Gaza, Look Back to Israel’s 1982 Invasion, in the Foreign Affairs Journal,  looks at the lessons of Israel’s disastrous 1982 invasion of southern Lebanon—and what they suggest about the outcome of Israel’s current campaign in Gaza. (Starts at 0:09). The journal article, “It’s Just How Things Are Done”: Social Ecologies of Sexual Violence in Humanitarian Aid, explores how patterns of sexual violence have come to light in crisis zones perpetrated by humanitarian aid workers. Finally, in her journal article, Unreported Realities: The Political Economy of Media-Sourced Data, Sarah Parkinson discusses the gap between scholars’ expectations of media-sourced data and the realities those data actually represent. (Starts at 31:18). Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of he

On this week's episode of the podcast, Anne Irfan of University of College London joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the International Refugee System (Starts at 0:33). This book is a groundbreaking international history of Palestinian refugee politics. Irfan traces the history and politics of UNRWA’s interactions with Palestinian communities, particularly in the refugee camps where it functioned as a surrogate state. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Sumita Pahwa of Scripps College, joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Politics as Worship: Righteous Activism and the Egyptian Muslim Brothers. Sumita Pahwa explores the question of why leading Islamist movements like the Egyptian Muslim Brothers embrace electoral politics while insisting that their main goal is “working for God,” and how they reconcile political with spiritual goals. She examines the movement’s internal debates on preaching, activism, and social reform from the 1980s through the 2000s. She explains how framing political work as ethical conduct, essential for building pious Muslim individuals as well as an Islamic political order, became central to the organization’s functioning. Use the code 05PAW23 for 40% off through Nov 15 when purchaisng the book through the linked press site. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Sarah El Kazaz of SOAS, University of London, joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Politics in the Crevices: Urban Design and the Making of Property Markets in Cairo and Istanbul. In this transnational ethnography of neighborhoods undergoing contested rapid transformations, Sarah El Kazaz reveals how the battle for housing has shifted away from traditional political arenas onto private crevices of the city. She raises critical questions about the role of market reforms in redistributing resources and challenges readers to rethink neoliberalism and the fundamental ways it shapes cities and polities. Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Sofia Fenner of Colorado College joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Shouting in a Cage: Political Life After Authoritarian Co-optation in North Africa. The book offers new ways to understand co-optation’s power and its limits by examining two co-opted parties, the Wafd Party in Egypt and the Istiqlal Party in Morocco. Sofia Fenner argues that co-optation is less a corrupt bargain than a discursive contest—a clash of competing interpretations. (Starts at 0:35). Kristian Ulrichsen of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University also joins Marc Lynch to discuss Saudi Arabia and the GCC. (Starts at 32:50). Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Dipali Mukhopadhyay of the University of Minnesota join Marc Lynch to discuss her new book (co-authored with Kimberly Howe of Tufts University), Good Rebel Governance: Revolutionary Politics and Western Intervention in Syria. This book moves the scholarship on insurgent rule forward by considering how governing authority arises and evolves during violent conflict, and whether particular institutions of insurgent rule can be cultivated through foreign intervention. Mukhopadhyay explains how United States and its allies embarked on an effort to encourage liberal, democratic politics amid the Syrian conflict. (Starts at 00:52). Imad Alsoos of Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology also joins Marc Lynch on a spotlight on Hamas and Gaza. (Starts at 33:00). Music for this season’s podcast was created by Malika Zarra. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Linktree.

On this week's episode of the podcast, Toby Matthiesen of the University of Bristol joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism. This book is an authoritative account of Islam's schism that for centuries has shaped events in the Middle East and the Islamic world. This dispute over who should guide Muslims, the Caliph or the Imam, marks the origin of the Sunni-Shii split in Islam, and Toby Matthiesen sheds light on the many ways that this division has shaped the Islamic world. Lisa Anderson and Rabab El Mahdi of Columbia University also join Marc Lynch to discuss the commission, Research Ethics in the Middle East and North Africa (REMENA). The Special Commission on Social Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa is dedicated to developing guidelines for the conduct of responsible, ethical and constructive social inquiry.  The two-year project will animate an interdisciplinary network of scholars to assess the landscape of social science rese

On this week's episode of the podcast, Ora Szekely of Clark University joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Syria Divided: Patterns of Violence in a Complex Civil War. Szekely draws on sources including in-depth interviews, conflict data, and propaganda distributed through social media to examine how these competing narratives have shaped the course of the conflict. Szekely argues that the competition to control the narrative in the eyes of important audiences at home and abroad has not only influenced the choices of participants, it has also—shaped in part by the use of social media—led many to treat warfare as a kind of performance. Wendy Pearlman of Northwestern University also joins Marc Lynch to discuss the Perspectives on Politics journal, of which she serves as co-editor. The journal aims to foster dialogue and collaboration among political scientists with wide-ranging subfield specializations, epistemological perspectives, analytical approaches, and thematic interests.  The journal plays a role