Jadaliyya Co-Editor Bassam Haddad interviewed interviewed Jadaliyya Co-Editor Mouin Rabbani, an independent analyst, commentator and researcher, and Char Miller, an associate professor of political theory at George Mason University about the 2020 US Presidential Election.
In this conversation, Char Miller and Mouin Rabbani address the implications of Trump's refusal to concede defeat on democracy in the United States as well as the priorities of a Biden administration foreign policy, with emphasis on the Middle East.
Featuring
Mouin Rabbani is an independent analyst, commentator and researcher specialising in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He has previously served as Principal Political Affairs Officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Head of Middle East with Crisis Management Initiative/Martti Ahtisaari Centre, and Senior Middle East Analyst and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group. Rabbani is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya and Contributing Editor of Middle East Report. Rabbani has published, presented and commented widely on Middle East issues, including for most major print, television and digital media.
Char Miller’s work focuses on political aesthetics and disciplinary technologies, which is to say that he's interested in the art and design of political power. He received my PhD from Johns Hopkins University. He tends to treat ancient sources as contemporaries, such as reading Plato in order to think about our political relationship with algorithms or reading Paul as a useful interlocutor for thinking about the global climate crisis. His more recent book, Cities on the Plains, examined the role of violence in the construction of political community. His previous book, Taylored Citizenship, explored conceptions of economic discipline in the Twentieth-Century. He has published in Political Theory, Theory & Event; PS: Political Science, and the Journal of American History. He is currently finishing a book project, Reigning Money, which examines money as a political and theological form of sovereignty. He loves living in DC, where he can often be heard complaining about his lack of representation. He can be contacted at cmillerd@gmu.edu.
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Forthcoming, Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Magazine. Bassam is Co-Project Manager for the Salon Syria Project and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book tittled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).