Fellowships: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Jesse Dizard, Anthropology: The New Crusades: Tourism,
Religion, and Rebellion in Morocco. This research addresses three interrelated phenomena in
contemporary urban Morocco: tourism, state repression of unlicensed
tour guides, and the increasing popularity of religiously based
explanations of social inequality, also known as "Islamism." Based on
participant observation among urban unemployed young men and women,
and on interviews with European and American tourists, Mr. Dizard
examines not only the life world of tourist guides, who are expert at
providing experiences to tourists, but also the expectations of
foreign visitors, which are often inconsistent with cultural and
material realities of Morocco. Guides translate experiences for
tourists and often feel resentful because of the disdain showed them
by foreigners. Their own powerlessness often contributes to indirect
forms of retaliation such as seeking purity through symbolic
religious terms (like those expounded by Muslims accused of
"extremism"), or in more direct forms, such as participating in
demonstrations against foreign influences (as in the anti-foreign
riots of 1991 in Fez).
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Julia Lynch, Political Science, is studying the economic
policy and rhetoric of two right-wing populist parties in Italy, the
separatist Lega Nord (Northern League) and the "post-Fascist"
Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance). Like the Islamist movements
in North Africa, right-wing populist parties in Western Europe
utilize a distinctive rhetoric of economic morality in political
debates over the scope of state intervention in national markets for
labor and other goods. Ms. Lynch is using her fellowship to fund
travel to Rome and Milan to interview party officials, scholars, and
journalists and to examine documents and publicity materials stored
in party archives, with the goal of learning how these two parties
describe the moral boundaries of the nation's economy in their
appeals to different groups in the electorate.
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Khalid Medani, Political Science, is examining the
influence the informal economy has had in the course of ethnic
violence and state collapse in Somalia and the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism in Egypt. Somalia and Egypt provide an interesting
comparison because, as in other labor exporters in the region, the
political influence of the informal economy in these countries is
linked to the "boom" and "bust" of the oil-producing states. In
Egypt, the boom period of the 1970s and the resultant inflow of
remittances from expatriate labor prompted the development of a new
generation of micro-enterprises and a host of sophisticated financial
institutions that operated outside the system of state regulation. In
Somalia, however, the expansion of the parallel market fueled a
different type of informal market centered around livestock trade.
This in turn facilitated a thriving urban informal sector comprised
primarily of family firms, or "clan-centered" economies. Although the
political implications of these developments remain obscure, Mr.
Medani hopes to discover whether they played a role in strengthening
the political power of Islamist organizations in Egypt or in the
collapse of the Somali state.
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Khalid Medani, Political Science: The Political Economy of Informal Markets: The Development of Islamic and Ethnic Politics in Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia. What are the precise national and global imperatives impinging on informal markets at the local level in ways that are giving rise to a new "politics of ascription" -- that is, politics constituted along regional, religious and ethnic lines? The role of globalization and state regulation of economic
activities in fostering the expansion of informal economies is relatively
well established. Yet there are few comparative studies on how the effects
of similar kinds of transnational economic linkages alter state capacities
and structure informal markets by building on variable social, economic
and political networks at the local level. Mr. Medani's dissertation will evaluate
the extent to which the rise of Islamic politics in Egypt and Sudan, and
ethnic conflict in Somalia, are largely determined by the manner in
which actors in the informal economy aggregate politically -- that is, by
region, economic sector, religion and ethnicity -- and by the economic
policy responses of state and local elites to domestic coaltions engaged
in informal economic activities. Accordingly, his research will focus on three interrelated
questions: What is the link between the globalization of labor and capital
markets (in the form of labor and remittance flows) and the expansion and
re-configuration of informal financial markets? How have specific types of
informal markets, in the form of foreign currency trading, family firms,
and Islamic Welfare associations influenced the development of Islamic
politics in Egypt and Sudan, and clan conflict in conflict in Somalia? And
finally, how are national and regionally specific economic policies
responding to the political and ideological pressures brought to bear by
groups involved in different forms of informal economic organization? This
dissertation will focus primarily on exploring the micro-foundational
sources of identity-based political conflicts.
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Anne Marie Baylouny, Political Science. This research project examines the causes behind both the rise and decline of Islamism in Syria. The movement peaked in the last seventies and early eighties, resulting in the massive governmental repression of the movement's base city, Hama. Government actions destroyed much of the city and its Islamist supporters in 1982. Arguing against theories stating that government violence has been the reason behind the marginalization of the movement, Ms. Baylouny proposes the thesis that the Syrian government has partially met Islamist demands, thereby removing a major factor for its existence. She proposes that the origins and nature of the movement were class based, and that this class nature can be deduced not only from the membership and its demands, but also from government actions following the repression. The enactment of economic reforms shortly after the Hama incident could be evidence of a two-pronged attack on the movement: repression of one segment (lower in class and status) and economic co-optation of the other more wealthy segment.
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