The Uprisings of Gaza: How Geopolitical Crises Have Reshaped Academic Communities from Tahrir to Kyiv

Abstract

Abstract The Arab uprisings spawned a new body of theoretical, empirical, and methodological advances by political scientists of the Middle East. This essay reflects upon the contributions of the edited volume The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings to address three occurring central issues at the intersection of regional studies and political science that are affected by geopolitical shocks: how shocks highlight previously neglected topics and actors; how they subsequently discredit and privilege certain disciplines and methods; and how they recast the role of academic research within global communities of knowledge and policy-making. Topics such as the adaptation of authoritarianism, the role of social media, and the onset of multipolar politics, addressed by the volume on the Middle East, are compared with similar processes that have informed the evolution of social science research in the post-Communist states. The final section reflects on how two contemporary conflicts—Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas-Israel conflict—have affected the American academy, including student protests at American universities, university policies, and academic freedom.