Local Politics and Contemporary Transformations in the Arab World Governance Beyond the Center

The contributors link innovative analytical concepts and ethnographic in-depth case studies from the Arab world. Based on the debates on politics from below and dynamic concepts of state, all the chapters focus on informal institutions, non-elite actors, and the dynamic and contradictory relationship between state and society.

1. Analyzing Politics beyond the Center in an Age of Transformation; Anja Hoffmann, Malika Bouziane & Cilja Harders PART I 2. Contemporary Governscapes: Sovereign Practice and Hybrid Orders beyond the Center?; Finn Stepputat 3. The Bureaucratic Mode of Governance and Pratical Norms in West Africa and Beyond; Jean-Pierre Olivier De Sardan 4. Beyond the 'Radicalism-Pragmatism Dialectic' in the Study of Local Politics: Contrasting Privatizing, Communitarian, and 'Vulgar' Expressions in Revolutionary Cairo; Paul Amar 5. The Inward Turn and its Vicissitudes: Culture, Society and Politics in Post-1967 Arab Leftist Critiques; Fadi A. Bardawil PART II 6. Bringing the Local Back In: Local Politics between Informalization and Mobilization in an Age of Transformation in Egypt; Cilja Harders 7. Negotiating (Informal) Institutional Change: Understanding Local Politics in Jordan; Malika Bouziane 8. Morocco between Decentralization and Recentralization: Encountering the State in the 'Useless Morocco'; Anja Hoffmann 9. Revisiting Politics in Spaces 'Beyond the Centre:' The Case of the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon; Hala Caroline Abou-Zaki 10. Political Participation in Algeria beyond the Polling Stations: Insights from Tizi-Ouzou; Naoual Belakhdar 11. Tribes, Revolution, and Political Culture in the Cyrenaica Region of Libya; Thomas Hüsken CONCLUSION 12. Conclusion; Cilja Harders, Anja Hoffmann & Malika Bouziane

Hala Abou-Zaki, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France Paul Amar, University of California, USA Fadi A. Bardawil, University of Chicago, USA Naoual Belakhdar, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Malika Bouziane, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Cilja Harders, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Anja Hoffmann, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Thomas Hüsken, University of Zürich, Switzerland Jean-Pierre Olivier De Sardan, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France Finn Stepputat, Danish Institute for International Studies