Nathan Brown's penetrating account of the development and operation of the courts in the Arab world is based on fieldwork in Egypt and the Gulf. The book addresses several important questions. Why, for example, did Egypt's political leaders construct an independent judicial system that limited their[...]

In the wake of the Arab uprisings, al-Nahda voted to transform itself into a political party that would for the first time withdraw from a preaching project built around religious, social, and cultural activism. This turn to the political was not a Tunisian exception but reflects an urgent debate wi[...]

Successive authoritarian regimes have maintained tight control over organized labor in Egypt since the 1950s. And yet in 2009, a group of civil servants decided to exit the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), thereby setting a precedent for other groups and threatening the ETUF'[...]