Local Politics and Contemporary Transformations in the Arab World : Governance Beyond the Center

After the fall of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Qadafi, the Arab World faces multiple challenges especially with regard to political transformation and governance. The diverse experiences highlighted the vital role of the periphery and of seemingly marginal actors. Although the political landscape of the region changed within months, such developments were rooted in long-term transformations of governance structures. This volume examines the questions of how politics and the state in the MENA is shaped and challenged beyond the center. It develops a novel perspective in Middle Eastern studies center on micro-politics, assess its contribution to the understanding of authoritarian rule and its transformation. It closely links innovative (anthropologically inspired) analytical concepts and ethnographic in-depth case studies from the Arab world. Based on the debates on politics from below and dynamic concepts of state, all the chapters focus on informal institutions, non-elite actors, and the dynamic and contradictory relationship between state and society.