Call for Papers: The Impact of Oil Price Changes on the Economic Growth and Development in the MENA Countries (March 23-25, 2016)

Call for Papers: The Impact of Oil Price Changes on the Economic Growth and Development in the MENA Countries (March 23-25, 2016)

Call for Papers: The Impact of Oil Price Changes on the Economic Growth and Development in the MENA Countries (March 23-25, 2016)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Scholars, academics, experts, and students of Middle East economics from around the world are invited to submit research abstracts of papers to be presented at the conference, entitled The Impact of Oil Prices on the Economic Growth and Development in the MENA countries. Abstracts are accepted in English, Arabic and French however authors will be required to write and present their final papers in English. Arabic simultaneous translation will be made available throughout the duration of the conference.

Participants interested in applying can do so at the following link: www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/MEEA2016

For enquires regarding the conference, please contact the conference committee: meea2016@dohainstitute.edu.qa  

Conference Theme

Strong volatilities in oil prices have considerable impacts on the macroeconomy of both developed and developing countries, depending on the extent and strength of the oil price-economic growth nexus of the country. Those changes affect economic growth through affecting costs of production, consumer spending, and exchange rates that in turn affect international trade.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is particularly sensitive to those changes in oil prices because some member countries are major oil producers and exporters, while others are dependent on petroleum as consumers but they still may benefit from the petrodollars saved by the major exporters, whether in terms of remittances, foreign aid or foreign direct investment.

Research has shown that oil price shocks are asymmetric in their impacts, in the sense that positive and negative shocks in oil prices of equal size may have differential impacts on a given country’s economic growth. This finding requires different economic responses from policy makers.

Conference organizers are currently accepting abstracts on topics related to the conference theme:

  • What is the impact of oil shocks on economic growth in the MENA region?Is the impact of oil price on economic development symmetric or asymmetric?
  • How does economic development react to oil prices under different market conditions?
  • What are the current and future states of the oil shale industry?
  • What is the impact of oil shale production on oil prices?
  • Is there a relationship between rig count and oil production and prices?
  • What is the impact of oil price drops on MENA`s financial markets and exchange rates?
  • What is the impact of oil price plunge on MENA`s terms of trade?
  • How does the oil price drop affect commodity markets?
  • How can monetary and fiscal policies in oil exporting countries mitigate the impact of the drastic drop in oil prices in the oil-exporting countries?

However, scientific studies related to other topics such as labor, money and banking, trade, and environment concerning the MENA region are also encouraged. The conference welcomes submissions related, but not limited, to the primary theme.

Travel Grants for Young Scholars

The MEEA and DI are also announcing over 20 travel grants to be awarded to assist young scholars to attend the 15th International conference in Doha. In order to be eligible for a travel grant at the time of application, the author should be either a doctoral student or a young scholar who obtained his/her PhD in the past three years. Priority is given to scholars who have not previously participated in a MEEA conference. Those applying for a travel grant will need to submit an extended abstract of five pages or a complete paper; a two-page resume and a completed Travel Grant Form through the conference website. 

Deadlines and Selection Process

  • Participants will be selected based on evaluation of abstracts of 200-350 words.
  • Deadline for submission of abstracts is October 15, 2015.
  • Selected authors will be notified by November 10, 2015.
  • Final papers are due February 10, 2016.
  • Individuals who have not submitted final papers by the deadline will not be included in the final program.
  • Final acceptance of papers will be by February 20, 2016.
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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412