While the (re)conquest of Arabia as manifest in 2003 Iraq, and 2006 Lebanon, were respectively Act I and II accenting sovereign figures exercising necropower by adjudicating (il)legal doctrines (i.e., pre-emptive defense strategy) legalizing extrajudicial techniques of violence founded on discursive technologies of racism, I argue that the “Islamist Winter” – temporarily dubbed the “Arab Spring” in 2011 – is Act III reifying similar legal doctrines (i.e., Bethlehem Legal Principles) and a (secular) linear temporal perception of time seeking to implement a New Middle East (NME) that is no longer “resistant to Latin-European modernity” but amenable to such inclusive exclusion historicist telos. The importance of “creative anarchy” as a positivist legal technique in producing chaotic developments such as carnage and a “crisis” or “emergency” of displacement – with sovereign members of jus gentium authorizing agents of terror (i.e., death squads/war-machines) – is that it reveals the deadly technologies of racism and relations of enmity inherent in sovereignty as a positivist juridical concept endowing sovereign figures with the power to formulate legal doctrines that ultimately subjugate Arab life to the power of death (necropower). Therefore, one of the main questions orbiting the writing of this dissertation is interested in deconstructing and critiquing jus gentium – by adopting a Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL) in tandem with necropolitics and biopolitics as paradigms of analysis – to disclose that it is because jus gentium valorizes positivist jurisprudent scholastics postulating an unbridgeable cultural gap between an Athenian mode of Being as a universal sovereign subject, and a Madīnian mode of Being as the particular object denied sovereignty, that leads ratiocinative sovereign figures to legally exercise necropower on the Arab body. Therefore, the following chapters seek to go beyond the limited (post-colonial) idea asserting that the problem with international law is that it is primarily “Eurocentric” since the simple solution to such a claim would be to include the non-European body in International Law. Rather, the primary question constellating this monograph is: what are the experienced consequences of being temporally included and what are the experienced consequences of being temporally excluded from a legal regime (i.e., jus gentium) reifying a Latin-European philosophical theology universalizing a particular set of liberal-secular cultural mores as a “cultural benchmark” (i.e., purity-metric) in order to be-come imagined as temporally “inside” jus gentium? / Thesis / Doctor of Social Science

Die Dissertation untersucht, wie Bedingungen und Dynamiken auf der Makro-, Meso- und Mikroebene autoritäres Lernen während Krisen beeinflussen. Die Studie verfolgt einen Mehrebenenansatz, der Informationen und Daten auf drei Ebenen in einem analytischen Rahmen und einem Forschungsdesign kombiniert, das sich auf mehrere Methoden stützt. Auf der strukturellen Makroebene findet Analyse, dass die Bedingungen für autoritäres Lernen in Ägypten aufgrund der Sequenz der Protestdiffusion während der arabischen Aufstände weniger förderlich waren als in Marokko. Auf der Mesoebene stürzte die tägliche Mobilisierung das ägyptische Regime innerhalb weniger Tage in eine existenzielle Krise, während in Marokko die wöchentlichen Proteste weniger Druck auf den Palast ausübten und dadurch Regimeeliten ermöglichten, zu lernen. Auf der Mikroebene zeigt die Studie, dass die ägyptischen Eliten unter Mubarak die Parallelen zwischen ihrer Situation und den Entwicklungen in Tunesien unterschätzt haben. Dies führte dazu, dass die ägyptischen Eliten die Bedrohung durch die Proteste unterschätzten. In Marokko haben sich die Wahrnehmungen der Regimeeliten im Laufe der Zeit verändert. Während die Proteste in Tunesien und Ägypten, nicht besonders relevant schienen, änderte sich diese Wahrnehmung, als die Proteste auf Monarchien wie Bahrain und Jordanien übergriffen. Die Anerkennung der Parallelen zwischen der eigenen Situation und der von Regimen, die bereits von den Protesten betroffen waren ermöglichte autoritäres Lernen in Marokko. Die geringe Bedrohungswahrnehmung der ägyptischen Regimeeliten führte dazu, dass Sie die Gefahr falsch einschätzten. Die Studie entwickelt einen analytischen Rahmen und einen methodischen Ansatz zur Untersuchung von autoritärem Lernen in Krisen, der empirisch zwei Fallstudien zu Ägypten und Marokko während der arabischen Aufstände untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen vielversprechende neue Wege für die Erforschung autoritären Lernens in der Krise aufzeigen. / This study explores how conditions on the macro-, meso- and micro- levels affect authoritarian learning during crisis. It combines data from three levels into a multi-level analytical framework and research design relying on various methods of data collection. On the macro-level, the study finds that the sequence of protest diffusion during the Arab Uprisings in Egypt were much less conducive to authoritarian learning than those in Morocco. On the meso-level, the massive daily mobilisation plunged the Egyptian regime into an existential crisis in a matter of days, while in Morocco, weekly protests allowed the palace more opportunity to learn. On the micro-level, the study finds that bounded elite perceptions led the Egyptian regime elites to underestimate similarities between their situation and developments in Tunisia. Leading them to reject that they can learn anything from events in Tunisia. In Morocco, perceptions amongst regime elites shifted over time. While they did not consider the initial protests particularly relevant to their situation, this perception shifted when the protests spilled into other monarchies. Acknowledging parallels between their situation and those of regimes that were deposed by protests led to authoritarian learning affecting regime calculations. Lastly, relatively low threat perceptions amongst Egyptian regime elites led them to misjudge the threat that the protests posed for their rule, rendering it less likely that authoritarian learning impacted regime calculations. In contrast, before the protests in Morocco even erupted, the palace elites acknowledged the threat posed by mass mobilisation for the hegemonic position of the monarchy. Further, this study develops an analytical framework and methodological approach to investigate authoritarian learning applied in a comparative case study of Egypt and Morocco during the Arab Uprisings. The findings provide promising avenues for researching authoritarian learning during crisis.

The goal of this study is to generate a more holistic picture of the diffusion and assimilation of universal human rights norms in diverse cultural and political settings such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The overarching question to be investigated in this thesis is the relationship between the evolving international human rights regime and the emerging human rights normative and legal culture in the Middle East. This question will be investigated in detail with reference to regional human rights schemes such as the Arab Charter of Human Rights, as well as local human rights developments in three Middle Eastern states, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Having gauged the take-up of human rights norms on the ground at the local and regional levels, the thesis examines in full the extent of socialisation and internalisation of human rights norms across the Middle East region at large.

This dissertation examines the representations of Casablanca in Moroccan cinema and their articulation of postcolonial subjectivity since the 1990s. To overcome a deep economic recession and simmering social unrest in the early 1980s, Morocco embarked on a comprehensive programme of structural adjustment policies under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund. Market reforms ushered in novel forms of spatial development and social relations in Moroccan cities over the next decades. In the cultural field, a popular cinema emerged in the early 1990s and has projected the complex structures of everyday life in urban space. The New Urban Cinema (NUC) has anchored national cinema in the everyday life and affective economy of a society in transition. The country’s largest city, Casablanca, is the setting for some of NUC’s most original portrayals of the Moroccan subject under globalisation. Taking space, affect and violence as intertwined sites of film analysis, my research project closely examines the new forms of postcolonial subjectivity that have evolved in Morocco through this cinema. Twenty films are read against the backdrop of neoliberal Casablanca and the social, economic as well as political transformation of Morocco and the world under globalisation. The dissertation combines close textual analysis with a cultural studies perspective, which situates films in their historical contexts of production and reception in Morocco and beyond. Drawing on postcolonial, film and urban studies, my aim is to contribute to interdisciplinary scholarship on cinematic responses to neoliberal globalisation, and to a social history of contemporary Morocco.

L’essor des chaînes satellitaires arabes à l’échelle régionale et mondiale a métamorphosé l’espace médiatique arabe. Le début des années 1990 annonce la mondialisation, et l’acquisition de la technologie satellitaire dans les pays arabes semble être le début d’une nouvelle ère dans une région où se conjuguent la rentabilité financière et l’influence politique et idéologique des acteurs. Les chaînes de télévisions d’information en continu sont le modèle approprié qui traduit ce schéma dans une région politiquement, économiquement et culturellement complexe. C’est l’avènement d’Al Jazeera et sa couverture de la guerre en Afghanistan en 2001 et par la suite la guerre en Irak en 2003 qui a bien façonné une large proportion de l’opinion publique arabe. D’autres chaînes arabes du même genre en quête d’influence se sont multipliées en un temps record dans cet espace médiatique, telles qu’Al Arabiya, Al Manar, ONTV, Al Mayadeen et d’autres, le transformant ainsi de façon radicale. L’audience arabe est également convoitée par des chaînes occidentales arabophones financées par les gouvernements respectifs de leurs pays comme la chaîne américaine Al Hurra, française France 24, britannique la BBC Arabic ou allemande DW . L’étude porte sur le rôle de ces chaînes d’information dans les changements qu’a connus et connait à l’heure actuelle la région du Moyen Orient, et leur degré d’engagement pour la diffusion et l’ancrage des valeurs et pratiques démocratiques. Dans quelle mesure les métamorphoses propres de ces chaînes sont susceptibles de révéler les transformations les plus profondes des sociétés arabes? L’objet de cette recherche est de saisir les modalités de l’avènement des chaînes de télévisions d’information en continu, de définir les objectifs de leur création et d’identifier les acteurs de toute sorte afin d’en discerner les conséquences sur le plan médiatique et géopolitique. / The Arab TV satellite channels’ growth at the regional and global scale metamorphosed Arabic media space. The early 90s impulse globalization and satellite technologies’ acquisition by Arab countries seems to be the beginning of a new era in this region where combined financial profitability, political influence and ideological actors. TV Channels rolling news and continuously broadcast information are the appropriate model that reflects this scheme in a region politically, economically and culturally so complex and mostly complicated. It is the advent of the Arab TV channel Al Jazeera and its Afghanistan war coverage in 2001 and thereafter the Iraq war in 2003 that have shaped a huge proportion of Arab public opinion. Other TV channels of the same kind are multiplied and diversified in a record time, such as Al Arabiya, Al Manar, ONTV, Al Mayadeen, etc. Arabic audience is also coveted by Western Arabic TV channels financed by western countries and their governments, such as the U.S. channel Al Hurra, French once 24 French, British one BBC Arabic or the German one DW. The study focuses on the role of the TV channels specialized on news in r evolutions known and continuously know at present the Middle East region.What is the degree of their commitment to broadcasting and anchoring universal values and democratic practices? What is the degree of influence may reveal changes in the Arab societies? The purpose of this research is to understand how the advent of TV Channels rolling news, set goals, and identify actors in order to recognize the consequences over the media plans and geopolitical perspectives.

L’objectif de cette recherche en linguistique de corpus est d’appliquer, suivant les concepts et principes de la sémantique interprétative, une méthode d’analyse contrastive de textes pour l’apprentissage de la langue arabe, en utilisant l’outil de textométrie Lexico 3. Cette étude se base sur deux corpus : l’un de discours journalistiques (thème des révolutions arabes de 2011), et l’autre de discours politiques (de Gamal Abdel Nasser et Anouar Sadate). Nous posons l’hypothèse que, d’une part, la sémantique outillée permet de caractériser les orientations idéologiques et politiques des différents énonciateurs. D’autre part, nous supposons que les analyses permettront de proposer des pistes didactiques applicables dans le cadre d’un apprentissage de la langue arabe, et en particulier pour la compréhension et la production écrites.La première partie de cette étude présente la linguistique de corpus, situe et décrit la sémantique des textes dans les sciences du langage et expose quelques caractéristiques de la langue arabe. La deuxième partie présente nos analyses de textes journalistiques et politiques et met en évidence, les positions des journaux vis-à-vis des révolutions en Égypte et au Bahreïn et expose, les différences d’énonciation des deux présidents égyptiens sur les politiques conduites en Égypte et dans le monde arabe.La troisième et dernière partie présente le volet théorique et pratique de nos pistes didactiques. Elle ancre notre positionnement sur l’interdisciplinarité, en faisant appel au paradigme des "connaissances" (qui se distingue de la notion de "compétence") en didactique des langues. Cette partie décrit, enfin, l’expérimentation avec sept étudiants de langue arabe. Elle montre les difficultés et les apports de cette expérimentation et montre qu’il est possible de penser un processus de conscientisation vis-à-vis des données langagières, qui doit, en outre, marquer une rupture avec la simple transmission d’informations à l’apprenant. / The purpose of this research in corpus linguistics is to apply, in accordance with the concepts and principals of interpretive semantics, a method of contrastive analysis of texts for learning Arabic using the Textometry tool Lexico 3. It is based on two corpora: a journalistic discourse (from Arab revolutions of 2011), and political speeches (from Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat). We postulate that the Corpus Semantics allows us to characterize the ideological and political orientation of the different enunciators. Furthermore we assume that the study will provide practical didactic approaches in the context of learning the Arabic language, in particular for the understanding and writing learning.The first part of this study presents the Corpus Linguistics, situates and describes the Interpretive Semantics theory in the linguistics field and shows some characteristics of the Arabic language. The second part presents our analyses of journalistic and political texts, highlighting the stance of newspapers on the revolutions in Egypt and Bahrain and exposes the differences in articulation between two Egyptian presidents regarding their policies in Egypt and in the Arab world.The third and last part presents the theoretical and practical component of our educational tracks. It anchors our work on the interdisciplinarity by drawing on the paradigm of "knowledge" in language teaching (which is distinct from the notion of "competence"). This section describes the experiment with seven students of Arabic. It shows the difficulties and the benefits of this experiment and demonstrates that it is possible to think of a process of awareness in regards to the language data, which must, amongst other points, mark a break from the simple transmission of information to the learner.

This study focuses on the factors shaping innovation in online newsrooms in three nations of the Arab World, with particular interest in the adoption of multimedia news innovations. Applying theoretical perspectives from the social shaping of technology and the diffusion of innovation literature, this study sought to identify the key factors shaping the innovation process. Field studies were based in three Arabic newsrooms: Aljazeera Net in Qatar, Almasry Alyoum in Egypt, and Almassae in Morocco. The case studies are grounded in two weeks of participant-observation field research within each online newsroom, along with over 100 in-depth interviews with those involved in the production of online news, and online archival reviews of the three news portals since their inception. Field research began with participant observation at Aljazeera in 2010, prior to the uprisings of the Arab Spring, and continued through early 2013. The political context of each newsroom during the field research became a major aspect of the innovation process of each case study. The thesis reinforces a wide range of social, economic, and organizational factors in the adoption and adaptation of multimedia technologies in the newsrooms studied, supporting earlier research on newsroom innovation across other regions of the world. For example, conceptions about ‘ideal’ industry multimedia models for the modern newsroom were important in each case. However, in the political context of events related to the Arab Spring, the overriding importance of the larger political context emerged in each case. The significance of this observation suggests that research on news organizations cannot take the political context for granted and should more explicitly embed it in discussion of the social shaping of innovation, even under more stable and liberal political conditions. There is a relative lack of systematic empirical research on Arabic newsrooms among studies of news innovation. Looking at the political context of emergent or weak democracies and their influence on modern multimedia newsrooms especially during crisis events, therefore, can contribute to the development of theory and research in Western democracies; and reintroduce politics into theories of innovation within modern newsrooms. This study suggests that future scholarship brings politics into the study of the social shaping of newsroom innovation without losing the many significant advances of existing research in more liberal democratic Western contexts of the multimedia newsroom.

This thesis analyses Persian Gulf states foreign policies development and a position of the region in international relations using a collective case study. At the theoretical level the thesis works on the elements of (neo) realism, (neo) liberalism and social constructivism. The analysis is focused on security context and examines both challenges to internal security (regime and government, Shia expansion, the so called Arab spring, media) and external security (the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Syrian conflict, terrorism, globalization and oil market developments). In the regional security complex of the Gulf are involved interests of the three main world powers, U.S.A., Russia and China. Regional cooperation in the GCC organization and mutual relations of the Gulf States are important, too. Based on the findings it is possible to assert that the development of the region is dynamic and depends on the oil rents.

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis five years ago Syria, its neighbouring countries as well as the western world have been affected by the tremendous casualties brought about by the war. The thesis examines various forms and scale of these casualties, namely the economic, social, political and environmental implications. In its first part the thesis identifies true reasons and motives behind the Syrian crisis so that one can understand actions taken by involved actors. Subsequent to it is a detailed presentation of data on economic and social consequences of the Syrian war. Having all the crucial information on table the third chapter attempts to answer a hypothesis that Syria despite the still ongoing bloody conflict holds big potential for dynamic and long-term economic growth. The thesis could be useful for those seeking independent perspective on the crisis as well as for those who are looking for entrepreneurial opportunities in the after-war Syria.

This case study is the first comprehensive analysis of the German Democratic Republic’s activities in South Yemen, the only Marxist state in the Arab World and at times the closest and most loyal ally to the Soviet Union in the Middle East during the Cold War. The dissertation analyzes East German Foreign Policy as a case of Socialist state- and nation-building and in doing so produces one major hypotheses: The case of South Yemen may be considered both, an ‘exceptional case’ and the possible ‘ideal type’ of the ‘general’ of East German foreign policy and thus points to what the GDR’s foreign policy could have been, if it hadn’t been for the numerous restraints of East German foreign-policy-making. The author critically engages with the normative and empirical dimensions of the ‘Limits of Foreign Policy’ by including a constructivist perspective of foreign policy. Apart from the case study itself, the dissertation provides the reader with a thorough overview of forty years of East German foreign policy with a focus on the interests and influence of The Soviet Union as well as the first introduction and methodological approach to East Germany's foreign policy in the Middle East. The empirical side of the analysis rests on archival documents of the German Foreign Office, the German National Archive and the former Ministry of State Security of the GDR. These documents are reviewed and published for the first time and are complemented by personal interviews with contemporary witnesses. The interdisciplinary approach integrates and expands methods of both History and Political Science, applicable to other cases. Conducted research is intended to contribute to academic discourse on South Yemen’s unique history, divided Germany’s role in the Cold War, East German foreign policy, but also the long-term impact of Socialist foreign-policy-making in the Global South which so far has been neglected almost completely in academia. / Graduate / miriam.mueller@fu-berlin.de