Author: Sami Mahroum

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Asian workers on a building site in Doha, Qatar (photo: picture alliance/dpa)

Gulf State economies

The expat bonus

How should policymakers in the Middle East′s Gulf States manage their countries′ large expatriate workforces? In Saudi Arabia, foreign nationals account for roughly one-third of the population. In Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, nine out of every ten residents is an expatriate. By Sami MahroumMore

Panama Paper revelations: The Emirs of PanamaHamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum: Dubai′s fairytale princeOman's succession problem: Neither heir nor spare
An Arab guest visits a stand during the Frankfurt Book Fair (photo: Deutsche Welle)

Culture and education in the Islamic world

The lonely Arab crowd

The cultural and educational turbulence within the Arab world is due – at least in part – to the absence of a contemporary home-grown intellectual tradition capable of providing societies with an inner compass based on local values and modern perspectives. An essay by Sami MahroumMore

Taha Hussein and the democratisation of education in Egypt: The sea of knowledgeThe Arabic language: A better understandingThe Iraqi education system: education in an age of terror
Protests in Tunisia at the start of the Jasmine Revolution (photo: DW/Mounir Khelifi)

Social Fabric and Solidarity in the Arab World

The Indifference of the Arab Middle Class

The upheaval in the Arab world has radically changed the fabric of society there. The Arab Spring has been followed by a shift in affinities towards people's kinship and religion. Moreover, the recent civil war in Syria has shown that Arab solidarity is a myth. An essay by Sami MahroumMore

After the Military Coup in Egypt: State-tolerated XenophobiaPolitical Pressure Exerted by Gulf States in Egypt: Reaching for the Cheque BookEurope's Syria Policy: Union of the UnwillingQantara dossier: Democracy and Civil Society
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians demonstrating in Cairo against President Mursi and his controversial decrees in November 2012 (photo: dapd)

The Impact of Crowd Dynamics on the Arab Spring

Like Dark Clouds Gathering before a Storm

In this essay, Sami Mahroum takes a closer look at the genesis, dynamics and impact of crowds in particular in the Arab world, where crowds – both spontaneous and those born through social media – have been shaping political processes since before the Arab SpringMore

Social Media and the Arab worldTime for Jordan to Go OfflineAnti-Islam Film ''Innocence of Muslims'': Social Values, Not religion, at the Heart of ProtestsSocial Media in Turkey: Circumventing CensorshipDossier: Uprisings in the Arab World