Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

It is clear that the presence of large oil revenues has impacted development paths in MENA and ultimately produced damaging political and social outcomes in the region; however, this is not due solely to the region’s large size of those rents. Oil rents, in conjunction with a state’s labor abundance, state capacity, and history have […]

In Lisa Anderson’s 2006 article, “Searching Where the Light Shines: Studying Democratization in the Middle East,” she discusses the problems she sees with political scientists’ attempts to understand the political forces at work in MENA. Approaching the issue from multiple perspectives, Anderson argues that the main problems she sees consist of a projection of Western […]