The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

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Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

More Information

Location:

Singapore

Genres:

News & Politics Podcasts

Description:

Twitter:

@mideastsoccer

Language:

English

Contact:

91138061

Website:

http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/

Email:

jmdorsey@questfze.com

Episodes

Turkey and the Kurds-What goes around comes around

10/16/2019

Turkey, like much of the Middle East, is discovering that what goes around comes around.

Duration:00:09:46

Landing in Riyadh-Geopolitics work in Putin’s favour

10/13/2019

When Russian President Vladimir Putin lands in Riyadh this week for the second time in 12 years, his call for endorsement of his proposal to replace the US defense umbrella in the Gulf with a multilateral security architecture is likely to rank high on his agenda.

Duration:00:08:08

A self-inflicted wound-Trump surrenders the West’s moral high ground

10/11/2019

For the better part of a century, the United States could claim the moral high ground despite allegations of hypocrisy because its policies continuously contradicted its proclaimed propagation of democracy and human rights. Under President Donald J. Trump, the US has lost that moral high ground.

Duration:00:07:07

Learning lessons-Protesters stay one step ahead of rulers

10/8/2019

There’s a déjà vu feeling to this year’s wave of protests across the Arab world. It’s not that this year saw the toppling of the leaders of Algeria and Sudan as a result of popular revolts, a harking back to the 2011 protests that overthrew the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. It’s that it’s the protesters in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco rather than illiberal or autocratic regimes that have learnt the lessons of 2011.

Duration:00:08:25

Running hot and cold-Gulf balances on the edge of war and peace

10/6/2019

With war and peace hanging in the balance, tensions in the Gulf are running hot and cold. Saudi and Iranian leaders are this week walking back from the brink, signalling that they want to avoid outright military confrontation and manage rather than resolve differences. In fact, there is every reason to believe that neither Riyadh nor Tehran has a vested interest in a definitive solution of the Middle East and North Africa’s multiple problems.

Duration:00:08:53

Hints of Gulf rapprochement-Iranian tactics may be paying off

10/2/2019

Fears of a potential military conflict with Iran may have opened the door to a Saudi-Iranian dialogue against the backdrop of a rethink of US military logistics, involving at least a gradual partial relocation to the United States of command and control operations based in the Gulf for almost four decades.

Duration:00:09:00

Nicholas Walton, "Singapore Singapura: From Miracle to Complacency" (Hurst, 2019)

9/29/2019

Nicholas Walton’s Singapore, Singapura: From Miracle to Complacency (Hurst, 2019) is far more than a portrait of the rise of a resource-poor nation that has become a model of economic development, governance and management of inter-communal relations. Part travelogue, part history, Walton charts the opportunities and pitfalls confronting small states that have become particularly acute in an era of identity politics and civilizational leadership. Potential threats include not only the...

Duration:01:01:42

Saudi policy shift-A rare Trump foreign policy success

9/26/2019

By the law of unintended consequences, US President Donald J. Trump’s mix of uncritical and cynical embrace of Saudi Arabia and transactional approach towards relations with the kingdom may be producing results.

Duration:00:10:04

Big power rivalry in the Gulf requires a US strategy rethink

9/25/2019

As French, Pakistani and other leaders seek to engineer a meeting between the US and Iranian presidents on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, big power rivalry could rack up tension in the waters of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Duration:00:08:26

Trumps Trade Wars-A New World Order

9/23/2019

US President Donald J. Trump may not like armed conflict, but he sure loves economic warfare, whether it is to impose his political will on countries, protect sectors of the U.S. economy, secure more preferential trade terms, or stop others from gaining technological advantage. Mr. Trump’s liberal use of sanctions amounts to more than a penchant for economic warfare in an effort to create trade terms more advantageous to the United States. Economic warfare is the president’s strategy to...

Duration:00:27:37

Putin, clumsily, seeks to exploit mounting Gulf tensions_Podcast

9/21/2019

Vladimir Putin, eager to capitalize on escalating tension in the Gulf, looks like he needs a marketing and reputation management advisor.

Duration:00:11:41

Saudi oil attacks put US commitments to the test

9/18/2019

Neither Saudi Arabia nor the United States is rushing to retaliate for a brazen, allegedly Iranian attack that severely damaged two of the kingdom’s key oil facilities. That is not to say that Saudi Arabia and/or the United States will not retaliate in what could prove to be a game changer in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Yet, reading the tea leaves of various US and Saudi statements lifts the veil on the constituent elements that could change the region’s dynamics.

Duration:00:10:02

Eurasia’s Great Game-India, Japan and Europe play to Putin’s needs

9/16/2019

Eurasia’s Great Game is anything but simple and straightforward. A burgeoning alliance between China and Russia that at least for now is relegating potential differences between the two powers to the sidelines has sparked a complex geopolitical dance of its own.

Duration:00:09:06

Death of female Iranian soccer fans puts FIFA and Asian soccer body in the dock

9/12/2019

When Sahar Khodayari this week set herself alight in front of a Tehran courthouse, she indicted world soccer body FIFA, its Asian regional group, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and their presidents, Gianni Infantino and Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa.

Duration:00:08:54

Playing politics-Trump and Netanyahu risk sparking nuclear arms race

9/10/2019

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani may not be the only one to have welcomed US President Donald J. Trump’s cancellation of peace talks with the Taliban. Probably, so did Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the run-up to this month’s Israeli elections. The cancellation likely reduces fears harboured in recent weeks by Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli intelligence community that the US president may reverse his hardline on Iran and seek to negotiate a resolution of differences with his Iranian...

Duration:00:09:14

A bird’s eye view of Asia-A continental landscape of minorities in peril

9/8/2019

Many in Asia look at the Middle East with a mixture of expectation of stable energy supplies, hope for economic opportunity and concern about a potential fallout of the region’s multiple violent conflicts that are often cloaked in ethnic, religious and sectarian terms. Yet, a host of Asian nations led by men and women, who redefine identity as concepts of exclusionary civilization, ethnicity, and religious primacy rather than inclusive pluralism and multiculturalism, risk sowing the seeds of...

Duration:00:13:01

Challenging the word order-Erdogan wants right to develop nuclear weapons

9/7/2019

Brinkmanship may be his trademark, but Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is unlikely to provoke the ire of the international community by launching a nuclear weapons program. Yet, his demand that Turkey have the right to do so highlights the fracturing of the rules-based international order as well as changing regional realities.

Duration:00:07:19

Gulf wealth-All that glitters is not gold

9/5/2019

Little suggests that fabulously wealthy Gulf states and their Middle Eastern and North African beneficiaries have recognized what is perhaps the most important lesson of this year’s popular uprisings in Algeria and Sudan and the 2011 Arab revolts: All that glitters is not gold.

Duration:00:11:00

Playing Palestinian politics-UAE-backed ex-security chief weighs his options

9/1/2019

A controversial former security official and Abu Dhabi-based political operator, Mohammed Dahlan, has lurked for several years in the shadows of Palestinian politics. Now, he could emerge as a monkey wrench in an attempt to pave the way for US president Donald J. Trump’s much maligned ‘deal of the century’ to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Duration:00:08:37

Protest - The King Is Dead, Long Live The King

8/29/2019

Protest is back on the front burner. Protesters occupy streets in cities ranging from Hong Kong and Moscow to Khartoum and Algiers. They would likely do so in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, were it not for unprecedented pre-emptive security measures.

Duration:00:08:20