Center Journals

This paper draws on examples from the volatile history of Palestine under the British Mandate (1919-1948) to show how the political legacy of Palestine’s colonization has formed the basis, in part, of “criminal law” and how this was used as a tool in building colonial rule in Palestine. In the wake of the Buraq (Wailing Wall) Revolt in 1929, the British introduced a new legal process in an effort to preserve their control of Palestine, and quell Arab resistance. Barakat explains how the British constructed a system of laws and legal procedures during their colonial tenure that were both reactionary and foundational both within the context of British presence in Palestine and in how their relatively short colonial rule has resonated well beyond its historic tenure. By providing a close reading of the British methods and procedures that, at the time, were part of a concerted effort to control a strategic colonial outpost, Barakat shows how the law was manipulated as a means of control, which subsequently contributed to the ultimate failure of their rule. In an effort to suppress a national movement, the British manipulated their own version of a localized judicial system, to create a criminalizing process that is still used as one of the primary means of controlling the Palestinian Arab population nearly a century later.

This paper stresses that surveillance played a key role in re-conceptualizing politics and the public sphere in the Ottoman Empire. Kirli maintains that notions of “public” and “public opinion” were formed through a series of governmental practices that redefined politics in the second quarter of the 19th century. In doing so, the author resists employing conventional antagonistic conceptualizations of state and society and reductive notions of public and public opinion as merely sociological referents that emerged despite and against the state. Kirli details how public and public opinion were engineered by way of two examples. First, he traces the shifts in public opinion that coincided with the establishment of surveillance, using a set of informant reports generated by the Ottoman government in the 1840s. Second, he highlights the symbolic, though consequential, meaning of an unprecedented practice in courtly behavior (i.e., the sultan's public appearance). These new surveillance practices reflected a new form of governing based on the notion that the population is not a vague entity, but one that is knowable. Making the population legible was at once a process of inscription that required a reconfiguration of power relations, and an inevitable opening up of a new space for communication between the ruler and the ruled. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the formation of the public sphere and the surveillance of the population were inextricably linked.

Book Title: The Quest for Prosperity: How Developing Economies Can Take Off Author: Justin Yifu Lin Place of publication: Princeton, NJ Publisher: Princeton University Press Date of publication: 2012 Number of pages: 322

This paper is premised on a central hypothesis that argues the processes of surveillance and control in the colonial and post-colonial state are related to the growth of the state apparatus and its ideological discourse, as well as to the structuring of its elites in accordance with an externalist model of modernity that emerged in the periphery of the capitalist world. Within the framework of this hypothesis, Zayid used historical data and literature analysis to reveal the manner in which the processes of surveillance became institutionalized in the modern Egyptian state (the era of colonialism and its aftermath). Egypt’s methods of direct surveillance were transformed into institutions whose functions became increasingly intricate as the state structure became more complex and opposition to the existing political regimes grew. At the same time, these institutions came to increasingly rely on the symbolic power of the state and its agencies of surveillance and control, applying violence to broader social circles, making it an indirect tool to subdue and control individuals. The paper investigates the significance of surveillance mechanisms and control in terms of the formation of the political elites, the type of discourse adopted by these elites, and the inherent contradiction in the roles that they fulfill. Implicitly, the paper also reveals the significance of surveillance mechanisms and control in relation to the making of a national state during and after the colonial era and, more specifically, the fragile nature of this construction, devoid of a sturdy economy or real plans for development.

يقدم زياد منى في هذه الورقة مجموعة من التقديمات للكتب الصادرة حديثًا وهي (عدالة المنتصر – من نورمبرغ إلى بغداد، تاريخ الديمقراطية: تأويل ماركسي، فهم الظلال: الاستعمال المنحرف للاستخبارات، الشرق الأقرب: الألفية الأميركية والإرساليات إلى الشرق الأوسط، انحدار الإمبراطورية البريطانية وسقوطها (1781 – 1997)، خط في الرمال: بريطانيا وفرنسا والصراع الذي شكّل الشرق الأوسط).

الكتاب : الثورة السورية الوطنية وتنامي القومية العربية الكاتب : مايكل برفنس ترجمة : وسام دودار مكان النشر : بيروت الناشر : دار قدمس تاريخ النشر: 2013 عدد الصفحات: 340

At the heart of al-Hubayyeb’s analysis is the fact that Tunisia’s state crisis in the current transitional phase can be understood by analyzing Tunisian politicians’ ideological visions. On this basis, the study attempts to apply a comparative critical analysis of the ideological concepts and visions of Tunisia’s main political actors. The paper investigates the Tunisian state’s representation in the wake of its independence in Tunisia’s contemporary ideological context, explaining how the notion of a national state was excluded. It further analyzes the concept of revolution against this state and the representation of the January 14, 2011 event in the discourse of the main political actors on the Tunisian scene today. Al-Hubayyeb offers a thorough investigation into the links between the Tunisian crisis and Tunisians’ different ideologies and visions of Tunisia post-independence, the revolution against it, and the meaning of democratic transition.

This study investigates the manner in which the Arab citizen turned to the Internet during the Arab Spring as means for defying surveillance mechanisms that were put in place by the region’s despotic regimes. Khabash accentuates the fact that the success of the Arab Spring in bringing down regimes was partially due to these regimes’ inability to update and develop their tools and strategies for surveillance and control. Furthermore, social media networks and digital chat rooms have provided Internet users with a range of possibilities that do not exist in daily life, including the possibility to mask one’s identity, hiding their location, taking time to react, and receiving information in a direct unmediated manner. This has allowed Internet activists to not only bypass methods of surveillance and control that are employed by the existing authority, but also have enough courage to discuss taboo subjects that could not be broached in daily life.