Authors

Ellis Goldberg

 

 

 

Ellis Goldberg (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1983) is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. He specializes in the study of Middle Eastern politics. From 1995-1999 he chaired the Middle East Center of the Jackson School of International Studies. His first book, Tinker, Tailor and Textile Worker (University of California Press, 1986), deals with the Egyptian labor movement. His most recent book is Trade, Reputation and Child Labor in 20th Century Egypt (Palgrave/MacMillan, 2004). Other publications include work on Muslim political movements in Islam, the origins of the post-colonial trade union movement in Egypt, and human rights. From 2007-2008, Prof. Goldberg was a visiting research fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

Goldberg’s teaching interests include comparative politics, Middle East politics, and international political economy.

 

ARTICLES BY Ellis Goldberg

  • Sinai: War in a Distant Province

    Sinai: War in a Distant Province

    The July 1 battle in which the Egyptian Armed Forces regained control of a small border town from the self-proclaimed Sinai Province of the Islamic State (formerly known as

  • Sacrificing Humans

    Sacrificing Humans

    In recent months, to general horror, the Islamic State (in Iraq and Syria) has carried out many beheadings and one immolation.  So, too, have others loosely or closely affiliated with it, most recently of twenty-one Egyptian Christians in Libya.  These events have provoked significant ..

  • Constituting Generals

    Constituting Generals

    In the lengthy, acrimonious and not always enlightening debate about the decision of the Egyptian Armed Forces to oust former President Mohamed Morsi it has been widely been asserted that—whether what they did was politically wise—the Egyptian generals acted unconstitutionally and immorally.&nbs..

  • Where the Nile Flows into the Rubicon

    Where the Nile Flows into the Rubicon

    Never in recent history have officials, commentators, and even political activists spent so much time parsing the meaning of a handful of words—notably, “coup”, “revolution”, and “democratic legitimacy.” The quality of magical thinking inherent in much of the discussion is striking. It is most s..

  • The Political Consequences of Mr. Morsi

    The Political Consequences of Mr. Morsi

    The week, before demonstrations planned for 30 June demanding President Morsi step down and new elections be held, has been one of unsettling violence. There is an increasing sense of foreboding that the political situation is spinning out of control. It is clearer to many what Egypt is not, (Tu..

  • Two Saints and a Sinner

    Two Saints and a Sinner

    The name Ahmad Lutfi Ibrahim does not, for most people, evoke any particular memories. It would hardly surprise me if a few friends thought I had meant to type Ahmad Lutfi Al-Sayyid, the renowned and sometimes reviled leader of the Egyptian Constitutional party of nearly eighty years ago.&n..

  • Whatever Happened to Egypt's Democratic Transition?

    Whatever Happened to Egypt's Democratic Transition?

    There is a paradigm nobody talks about much anymore in regard to Egypt: the democratic transition. The problem with the idea of democratic transition, dearly beloved by the Barack Obama Administration, most of my colleagues in political science, and the Muslim Brotherhood, was that it presu..

  • Morsi and his Adversaries

    Morsi and his Adversaries

     

    With November nearly at an end, it seems like an eternity ago that Israel and Gaza were engaged in intense, if unequal fighting. Yet it was only two weeks ago that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi spent intense hours on the telephone with US President Barak Obama to craft a truce. N..

  • Reflections on Egypt's Draft Constitution

    Reflections on Egypt's Draft Constitution

    Constitutions define and set out relationships between the primary institutions of the state. They also suggest some of the compromises and agreements between powerful political forces that have been necessary to create these institutions and it gives us some hints about what the drafters t..

  • The Missing Ikhwan and An Electorate Split in Three

    The Missing Ikhwan and An Electorate Split in Three

    The first round of the Egyptian presidential election, like every other election over the past year and a half, and unlike those over the previous sixty years, brought its own surprises. The usually unreliable polls were again wrong, as were most of the pundits (both Egyptian and foreign).&..