Benjamin MacQueen's Posts
Hollow Institutions
On Wednesday this week, the Emir of Kuwiat Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah appeared on Kuwaiti state television to announce that he had dissolved his country's parliament and was seeking to schedule new elections. The Emir's actions again highlight not just the fragility of pluralist political structures in the Arab world, but their ultimate hollowness.
Fuel on the Fire? The New Military Strategy in Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan is at a tipping point. For the past 8 years, the NATO-led forces have been fighting doggedly against a highly resilient and surprisingly adaptable Taleban insurgency. However, the inability of the Bush administration to articulate a clear strategy beyond “search and destroy” missions has seen the operation stuck in a tail chasing exercise that requires fresh thinking and innovative new approaches.
The release of Ayman Nour and liberal opposition in Egypt
Ayman Nour, the public face of Egypt's liberal, centrist and secular opposition, was released from prison in February this year (officially for health reasons, Nour being diabetic), prompting speculation as to why the Egyptian government had seen fit to allow one of its most vocal critics back into the political spotlight.
Putting Humpty back together again: ‘Change’ and US Middle East Policy under Obama?
Whilst overtures were made during what seemed an endless Presidential campaign through 2008 as to a change in direction in US Middle East policy under an Obama administration, intrigue has remained as to what the first moves and first priorities of the new foreign policy team would be.
Benjamin MacQueen
Dr Benjamin MacQueen is an ARC Post-doctoral Fellow exploring the impacts of US foreign policy on political transformation in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. He previously served as a research fellow on an ARC-funded project exploring Muslim perspectives on global justice and the possibilities for accommodation and reform within the structure of the United Nations. Dr MacQueen completed his PhD in 2006 at Deakin University, focussing on conflict resolution and the role of political culture on the form and legitimacy of peace agreements in Lebanon and Algeria. This thesis was awarded the 2006 Isi Leibler Prize for Social Science Research. He is a regular media commentator on a vareity of issues relavent to Middle Eastern and Global politics as well as having worked as a consultant for the Victorian Arabic Social Services (VASS) and teaching in the areas of Middle Eastern Politics and History, the International Relations of the Middle East, International Relations Theory, and Conflict Resolution amongst other areas.
Dr MacQueen's latest publications include: Political Culture and Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Lebanon and Algeria (Melbourne: MUP, 2009); 'Democracy Promotion and Arab Autocracy', Global Change, Peacde and Security, vol. 21, no. 2 (2009), Islam and the Question of Reform: Critical Voices from Muslim Communities (Melbourne: MUP, 2008), with Kylie Baxter and Rebecca Barlow; Islam and Human Rights: Perspectives Across the Ummah (London: Routledge, 2008) with Shahram Akbarzadeh; and 'Iraq and the Limitations of American Foreign Policy in the Middle East', Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 61, no. 2 (2007), with Kumuda Simpson.