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This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interactions connect to the global political economy. Through region-wide analyses and case studies from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf of Aden, the Levant and North Africa, the volume highlights the intimate connections of environmental activism, energy infrastructure and illicit commodity trading with the political economies of Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The book's nine chapters analyze how the exploitation and representation of the environment have shaped the history of the region--and determined its place in global politics. It argues that how the ecological is understood, instrumentalized and intervened upon is the product of political struggle: deconstructing ideas and practices of environmental change means unravelling claims of authority and legitimacy. This is particularly important in a region frequently seen through the prism of environmental determinism, where ruling elites have imposed authoritarian control as the corollary of 'environmental crisis'. This unique and urgent collection will question much of what we think we know about this pressing issue.
This book investigates how ecology and politics intersect in the Middle East and how these interactions influence the global political economy. Author Harry Verhoeven, an expert in the political economy of the Middle East and Africa, utilizes a collection of regional analyses and specific case studies to argue that environmental management is a product of political struggle. He posits that the exploitation of natural resources is frequently instrumentalized by ruling elites to justify authoritarian control under the guise of managing environmental crises.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts highlight this collection as a significant contribution to the field of political ecology, noting its success in challenging common tropes of environmental determinism in the Middle East. Readers frequently observe that the prose is academically rigorous and provides a necessary framework for understanding how ecological issues are used to consolidate political power.
Page Count:
360
Publication Date:
2018-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190050241
ISBN-13:
9780190050245
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