Intissar Fakir is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Intissar Fakir was a fellow in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on political, security, and economic change in Morocco and other North African countries. Her research examines political Islam trends, local governance, social mobilization, and foreign policy. She is also the editor in chief of Sada, Carnegie’s Middle East online journal.
Previously, she was the managing editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin, the precursor to Sada, at Carnegie. She has also served as special assistant to the vice president for strategy and policy at the National Endowment for Democracy. She has worked on implementing democracy and education assistance programs in the North Africa and the Middle East. She has consulted for a number of organizations and companies and has written for numerous publications and news outlets in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
Please join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program for the launch of a newly published Sada mini-documentary series, which offers a look into the pandemic’s effect on four vulnerable North African communities.
The complex relations between the state and Islamic institutions in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco shed light on evolving governance and have important implications for Western policies of countering violent extremism and conflict resolution.
In gaining U.S. recognition for its annexation of Western Sahara, Morocco achieved a central foreign policy objective without having to define the political terms of that annexation.
Now, the United States has abandoned its previous support for the determination for the Sahrawi people and simply affirmed that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. In exchange, Morocco has begun to establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel
Rising tensions between Morocco and the Polisario Front come at the worst time for parties to the Western Sahara conflict.
Maâti Monjib is a Moroccan historian, political analyst, and human rights activist. Monjib, president and co-founder of Freedom Now, has faced an array of political charges since 2015 and been subject to digital surveillance by the state. Today, he faces new finance-related accusations, which he denies.
Will the Mauritanian president manage to keep the country’s political transition on track by fending off his predecessor’s attempts to sneak back into office?
While a resource-rich economy might be in Mauritania’s grasp, the benefits are unlikely to be enjoyed by all.
The coronavirus has highlighted deeply ingrained inequality in Morocco, bringing its society to a crunch point. Much will depend on what its leader does next.
The impact of the coronavirus in the Middle East has led to shifts in the nature of authoritarianism.
