As U.S. obesity rates continue to climb, policymakers debate whether federal food assistance funds should be used to buy candy and soda. The author examines both sides of the issue.
David Buckley offers brief reflections on distinct approaches to religion in U.S. diplomacy, particularly at the State Department, and the implications they may have for religious tolerance abroad.
His post is the first of 12 prepared for an April 2019 workshop on “Religion, Reverence and Tolerance” organized by the Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice University. Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/2z6CGZo
Tweets by legislative candidates from four major political parties in Turkey are examined to compare their policy positions with those of party supporters. Journal of Representative Democracy: http://bit.ly/2UrQURQ
Abdullah Aydogan, Tayfun Tuna, A.Kadir YildirimApril 8, 2019
Political science fellow Mark P. Jones charts the ideological positions of the Texas delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Texas Tribune: http://bit.ly/2Xe70fl.
In separate papers, two Baker Institute fellows — one Palestinian, the other Israeli — provide their perspectives on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Even though the United States has long maintained a dominant presence in the Gulf, the Chinese social contract model may actually more applicable to the social and economic dynamics of GCC states than the Western orthodoxy of political liberalism and unbridled free market policies, the author argues in this issue brief.
By Mustafa Gurbuz, Ph.D., Arab Center, Washington D.C.
The Syrian civil war drastically changed the future prospects of Kurds in both Syria and Iraq. This brief examines the challenges that prevent a politically inclusive culture in Syrian Kurdistan—popularly known as Rojava—and Iraqi Kurdistan.
This brief and research paper are part of a project on pluralism and inclusion in the Middle East after the Arab Spring. The project is generously supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
By Mounira M. Charrad and Maro Youssef
The authors discuss the evolution of women’s associations in Tunisia from the Ben Ali regime to the post-Arab Spring period in this Baker Institute blog: https://bit.ly/2NyRZjl
The current leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are trying to assert much more political control over their respective country's religious institutions. The lesson both regimes seem to have taken away from the Arab upheavals is not the necessity of pluralism, but instead the need for more regimentation, hierarchy, control, and exclusion.
