Table Of ContentCOVID-19 and Risk Society
across the MENA Region
ii
COVID-19 and Risk Society
across the MENA Region
Assessing Governance, Democracy, and Inequality
Edited by
Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh
I.B. TAURIS
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For Zidane and Tayeb
vi
Contents
1 MENA Risk Society and the “Pandemic Condition” Larbi Sadiki and
Layla Saleh 1
Part I The Gulf
2 Small States of the Arab Gulf: Diplomatic Dimensions of a
Pandemic Beverley Milton-Edwards 31
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 Ali A.Hadi Alshawi 46
4 Socioeconomic Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on the GCC Countries:
Threats and Opportunities Héla Miniaoui and Anis Khayati 72
Part II The Maghreb (Western MENA)
5 North Africa and the Pandemic Mohamed El Hachimi 97
6 The Impact of COVID-19 on the Political and Social Frames in Morocco
from a Democratic Perspective Aisha Kadaoui 119
Part III The Mashreq (Eastern MENA)
7 Risking Health Security: COVID-19, the WHO, and the Limits of the
State in Egypt Mohammed Moussa and Takayuki Yokota 139
8 Dual Combat: Resisting COVID-19 and the Israeli Occupation
Basem Ezbidi 157
9 Crisis and Ceding of State Sovereignty: The Case of Lebanon and the
COVID-19 Pandemic Assem Dandashly 176
Part IV Wider MENA
10 Gendering Security: The Impact of COVID-19 on Refugee Women
in Turkey Ravza Altuntaş-Çakır, Ayşegül Gökalp Kutlu, and
Fatmanur Delioğlu 195
11 Risky Pedagogies: Macro- and Micro-Politics of the Virus in the Times
of COVID-19 Epidemic Maziyar Ghiabi 214
viii Contents
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 235
13 The Post-Pandemic Bifurcation: Democratization versus Oligarchy
Radicalization in the Arab World Mudar Kassis 252
Conclusion
14 A Matter of Pandemics, Politics, and Academics: The Conundrums of
Researching COVID-19 in MENA Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh 277
Index 289
1
MENA Risk Society and the
“Pandemic Condition”
Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh
Introduction
At the interlocking levels of polity, economy, and society, global changes wrought
by the COVID-19 pandemic prompt investigation, reflection, and deliberation by
academics, civic activists, and political practitioners. In the middle (and aftermath)
of widespread uncertainty and the “collapse” of taken-for-granted functions of states,
economies, and international institutions, it is apropos to reconsider some widely held
conceptions. How do crises bring to the fore the contradictions in the discourses and
practices seeking to ensure democracy, freedoms, and socioeconomic rights through
the national, regional, and global actors and institutions? This compelling question is
far from abstract. Lives and livelihoods, many already precarious, have been bulldozed
off-track in the wake of the pandemic and policy responses aiming (or claiming) to
contain it. Hence, it is fitting to reflect on how social scientists can engage in research
aimed at problem-solving to confront enormous challenges heightened by COVID-
19. These range from inequality and human indignity to contracting opportunities
compounded by resurgent authoritarianism in many Arab settings. Prior to March
2020, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was already in the throes of intense
tumult and trenchant violent conflict, particularly since the onset of the 2011 Arab
Spring uprisings and counterrevolutions. These have played out not only in the Arab
states but have also ricocheted to other states in the region, such as Iran (Holliday
2015). The pandemic has piled on difficulties of health, sustenance, and aspirations to
security and emancipation. COVID’s woes in this region may be understood through a
sort of duality. Its blows have, on the one hand, followed the trajectory of some global
patterns. At the same time, the pandemic’s impact has played out in regionally specific
ways. The collection of chapters in this edited volume collectively seek to untangle
how COVID-19 unfolds in the MENA region. That is, the book attempts to probe
the contours and configurations of its “pandemic condition,” with special reference
to issues of socioeconomic (in)equalities, (self) governance, civic engagement, and
democracy. An eye to problem-solving research, the “reflexivity” dimension, further
enhances the empirical, country-level analyses attuned to major trends exacerbated
