Main description:

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic - at the interlocking levels of politics, economy, and society - have been different across regions, states, and societies. In the case of the Middle East and North Africa, which was already in the throes of intense tumult following the onset of the 2011 Arab Spring, COVID's blows have on the one hand followed the trajectory of some global patterns, while at the same time playing out in regionally specific ways.

Based on empirical country-level analysis, this volume brings together an international team of contributors seeking to untangle how COVID-19 unfolds across the MENA. The analyses are framed through a contextual adaptation of Ulrich Beck's famous concept of "risk society" that pinpointed the negative consequences of modernity and its unbridled capitalism. The book traces how this has come home in full force in the COVID-19 pandemic. The editors, Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh, use the term "Arab risk society". They highlight short-term and long-term repercussions across the MENA. These include socio-economic inequality, a revitalized state of authoritarianism challenged by relentless democratic struggles.

But the analyses are attuned to problem-solving research. The "ethnographies of the pandemic" included in this book investigate transformations and coping mechanisms within each country case study. They provide an ethically-informed research praxis that can respond to the manifold crises crashing down upon MENA polities and societies

Contents:

1. MENA Risk Society and the "Pandemic Condition" Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh

Part I: The Gulf

2. Small States of the Arab Gulf: Diplomatic Dimensions of a Pandemic, Beverley Milton-Edwards
3. Accelerating AI-led Structural Transformation of the GCC Migration Regimes in the Wake of COVID-19 and the Implications for the Labor-Exporting Countries, Abdul Ghaffar Mughal and and Ali A.Hadi Alshawi
4.Socioeconomic Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on the GCC Countries: Threats and Opportunities, Hela Miniaoui1 and Anis Khayati

Part II: The Maghreb (Western MENA)
5. North Africa and the Pandemic, Mohamed El Hachimi
6. The Impact of COVID-19 on the Political and Social Frames in Morocco from a Democratic Perspective, Aisha Kadaoui

Part III: The Mashreq (Eastern MENA)
7. Risking Health Security: Coronavirus-19, the WHO, and the Limits of the State in Egypt Mohammed, Moussa and Takayuki Yokota
8. Dual Combat: Resisting COVID-19 and the Israeli Occupation, Basem Ezbidi
9 Crisis and Ceding of State Sovereignty: The Case of Lebanon and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Assem Dandashly

Part IV: Wider MENA
10. Gendering Security: The Impact of COVID-19 on Refugee Women
in Turkey Ravza Altuntas-Cakir, Aysegul Goekalp Kutlu, and Fatmanur Delioglu
11. Risky Pedagogies: Macro- and Micro-Politics of the Virus in the Times of COVID-19 Epidemic Maziyar Ghiabi

Part V: Regional Perspectives
12. EU-MENA Relations amid COVID-19 Pandemic. Between Economic Issues, Migration Challenges and Authoritarian Risk, Pietro Marzo and Renata Pepicelli
13. The Post-Pandemic Bifurcation: Democratization versus Oligarchy Radicalization in the Arab World, Mudar Kassis

Conclusion
14. A Matter of Pandemics, Politics, and Academics: The Conundrums of Researching COVID-19 in MENA, Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh

Index