Division Chair(s): Marwa Shalaby, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Nadav Shelef, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The COVID-19 pandemic interacted with existing politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in myriad and varied ways, both reinforcing existing disparities and disrupting well-worn processes in the region. It has also created new barriers and exacerbated existing challenges for political scientists studying the region. In the new COVID reality, challenges to field research have affected the knowledge produced as well as scholars’ careers and research agendas. Researchers based in MENA are in a further precarious position, as budget cuts to the already scarce research funds and increased regime scrutiny will have substantial effects on their research output. While the ongoing health crisis will have enduring effects both on politics and society in MENA and on scholarship on the region, it simultaneously provides an opportunity to reimagine how we study the region, the kinds of issues that we address, and the lenses that we apply to them.
With this in mind that the Middle East and North Africa Politics section welcomes submissions that engage with the 2022’s main theme of “Towards A Post-Pandemic Political Science.” We seek individual papers and full panel proposals that engage with post-pandemic politics and political science from diverse methodological and theoretical standpoints. We particularly welcome proposals that engage with the myriad ways in which our field has to rethink, reconstruct, and reconnect in the post-pandemic era and address the following questions within the context of the MENA region: What are the most pressing issues facing the MENA region in the post-pandemic era? In what ways have the recent changes to scholars’ research designs impacted their questions and findings? What opportunities does the pandemic and the response to it provide to ask new questions or question old assumptions? What have we learned about the region from the pandemic and the response to it? What are the effects of the pandemic on mass mobilization, social welfare, conflict, and political contestation in the region? How has the pandemic and its aftermath interacted with pre-existing social, political, and economic disparities?
In an effort to increase the diversity of our presenters and attendees, we strongly encourage proposals from traditionally underrepresented institutions, MENA-based scholars, and racial minorities. We also welcome proposals that are interdisciplinary, reflect diverse methodological and analytical approaches, or explore comparisons between the MENA and other regions.