Essays

From Katrina to Isaac, hurricanes have brought death and destruction. Two years ago came another calamity: the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster. Adding insult to injury, citizens no longer have a daily newspaper to inform on their troubles. The story of how a great American city wrangles the void.

Understanding SCAF

By Zeinab Abul-Magd

Summer 2012

The oath-taking of a popularly elected president did not complete the democratic transition in Egypt. The cycle of military autocrats has been broken, yet the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces remains a formidable power. Until such time when Egypt is demilitarized, SCAF will likely be part of a marriage of convenience with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Islamism Now

By Ibrahim El-Houdaiby

Summer 2012

The cradle of modern political Islam, Egypt gave rise to the Muslim Brotherhood as well as a variety of other movements, including Salafis and Neoliberal Islamists. Now the revolution is shaking up not only the authoritarian state but also the autocratic structures of the country’s Islamist organizations and institutions. The result is likely to be a new wave of diverse, policy-based Islamist activism.

Cairo: A Memoir

By Éric Rouleau

Summer 2012

Coming of age as a Jew in Egypt, the author protested against the British occupation and, as a young journalist, interviewed Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan El-Banna. Amid the crackdown on suspected Zionists and communists, he emigrated to France. Years later he returned to Cairo, this time as a correspondent for Le Monde, to interview another important Egyptian—President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The Old Guard

By Abdel Monem Said Aly

Summer 2012

To the surprise of many, Ahmed Shafik, a former military leader and Mubarak’s last prime minister, ran a respectable second in the race to become Egypt’s freely elected president. An analysis of why 48.3 percent of the voters preferred a face of the ousted regime to a candidate of the revolution.

Egypt, Israel, Palestine

By Khaled Elgindy

Summer 2012

Egyptian political change is causing unease in Israel and among Palestinian leaders in Ramallah. Questions have arisen about the durability of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. In fact, a case can be made that despite the rise of Islamists in Egypt, this is an opportunity to rethink deeply flawed and outdated approaches to Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Egypt in the World

By Nabil Fahmy

Summer 2012

The leadership and vision of Nasser and Sadat gave way to foreign policy stagnation under Mubarak. After the popular revolt, Egypt now has an opportunity to regain its place as a political and ideological wellspring for the Arab world. A blueprint for a strategic shift.

Brother President

By Shadi Hamid

Summer 2012

Mohammed Morsi was a pedestrian politician until recently, little known outside the circles of the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, he is the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history. An inside look at Morsi’s rise to power, and what to expect from the first Islamist to lead the Arab’s world’s most populous and important country.

The Second Egyptian Republic

By Tarek Osman

Summer 2012

The January 25 revolution brought down the first, military-dominated Egyptian republic established after the 1952 officers’ coup. A new era of youth-driven dynamism has begun, pointing to a more open, efficient, and civic political system that should foster vigorous, healthy debate in the governing of the country.

To Think, To Write, To Publish

By David Guston and Gwen Ottinger and Lee Gutkind

Spring 2012

Global challenges related to technology demand attention to their social and ethical aspects and not only their tec hnical ones. but Science and Innovation Policy is not easy to get across to the gener al public. A solution: communicating policy through the genre of creative nonfiction.

Science Under Siege

By Matthew Harsh

Spring 2012

Political unrest after a disputed presidential election in Kenya left some eleven hundred people dead and three hundred thousand other homeless. But the turmoil also inflicted damage on the country’s knowledge system—the universities and research institutes that generate economic progress and are a key to strengthening democracy against ethnic-based politics.

Policy Makers Versus People

By Gary M. Grossman and Netra Chhetri

Spring 2012

Conventional wisdom says that the issue of climate change is too complex and technical for ordinary people to grasp but a project called World Wide Views on Global Warming brought together four thousand citizens in thirty-eight countries who demonstrated a keen ability to debate the topic and make policy recommendations.

Democracy’s Growing Pains

By Ashraf Khalil

Spring 2012

As Egyptians prepare to vote in the first presidential election since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the old aphorism comes to mind: “Every nation has the government it deserves.” Egypt seems to be getting the presidential election it deserves—one reflecting the social and institutional weaknesses that have plagued the country for too long. There is confusion, suspicion, polarization. Conspiracy theories abound. And there is the mounting anxiety over the economy and public security. Increasingly, it seems, nervous citizens are pining for the stability—or at least the predictability—of Mubarak’s three decades in power.

Knowledge Without Borders

By Michael M. Crow and William B. Dabars

Spring 2012

American research universities are the envy of the world, but they must adapt if they are to create kno wledge that responds to the ‘grand challenges’ of our epoch. Only an amalgamation of transdisciplinary, transinstitutional, and transnational frameworks has the potential to advance broader social and economic outcomes.

Energy Justice

By Clark A. Miller

Spring 2012

In the coming fifty years, choices will be made about what kinds of energy systems to build for the future, where to build them, and how to distribute their benefits, costs, and risks. These choices will help determine which countries and communities flourish and which deteriorate. The fight is on.

Quest for Water

By Farouk El-Baz

Spring 2012

The Middle East is among the driest areas on Earth. Actually, it has plenty of water but much of it lies underground and unexplored. Go vernments in the region must undertake serious efforts to map ground water basins and aquifers and develop regulations for their use.

India’s Nuclear Power Problem

By Monamie Bhadra

Spring 2012

The Indian government launched an ambitious plan to expand atomic energy output seven-fold by the year 2022. But a surprising grassroots movement has sprung up to challenge the program. Rather than focusing on worries about cataclysmic accidents, it is emphasizing citizen rights and government accountability.

Drone Wars

By Michael Burnam-Fink

Spring 2012

Meet the Predator, the unmanned attack aircraft that is defining warfare in the post-Cold War era. Initially deemed useless by the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency, it has become America’s weapon of choice in the War on Terror. With the creation of a new military bureaucracy dependent on identifying and striking new enemies, will Predator missions ever end?

Losing Egypt

By Steven A. Cook

Winter 2012

Washington’s policy of ‘authoritarian stability’ worked for thirty years in the Middle East. Strategic relations with Hosni Mubarak helped enable the U.S. to become the predominant power in the region. But domestic opposition groups used these ties as a cudgel in their struggle against dictatorship. With the fall of Mubarak, future U.S. cooperation with Egypt must overcome a legacy of mistrust.

Erdoğan’s Decade

By Hugh Pope

Winter 2012

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has changed the political face of Turkey, with significant results to show for it—a booming domestic economy and enhanced international prestige. The jury is still out on whether he has the political will to address shortcomings on Kurdish rights, the Armenian genocide question, the future of Cyprus, and the rule of law, and thus elevate Turkey into a truly global player.