At the end of 2025, tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE came to a head over conflict in Yemen. What exactly happened, and what does it mean for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the region? @andrewleber.bsky.social explains: youtube.com/shorts/URKId...

Fun thing to publish right as we're kicking off the New New New Middle East Cold War

New Analysis on my Substack: I Detected Over 5,000 Bot-Like Accounts Amplifying UAE-Aligned STC Narratives in Southern Yemen open.substack.com/pub/marcowen...

Yemen’s civil war is back in the news. Why? @andrewleber.bsky.social unpacks what’s going on in Yemen (and beyond): youtube.com/shorts/sIQBF...

Our handbook has a page on the publisher site :) (Available open access! Dont mind the price!) www.bloomsbury.com/us/ib-tauris...

Looking for a short read on your commute home (at the intersection of IR theory and current events)? I wrote on international status and MBS' Washington visit for @carnegieendowment.org

Saudi Crown Price Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington yielded a few headline-grabbing deals. @andrewleber.bsky.social breaks down what changed – and what didn’t – for the U.S.-Saudi relationship this week: youtube.com/shorts/1pEJB...

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will step back from all public commitments in an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me,” he wrote in a statement. Crimson News Staff report. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.

With security cooperation with the U.S. and economic ties with China, do Gulf monarchies get the best of both worlds? @andrewleber.bsky.social explains: China’s manufacturing capacity and high-tech capabilities shape competition in the region. Full article: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

Posting is correlated with affective polarization: 😡 The most partisan users — those who love their party and despise the other — are more likely to post about politics 🥊 The result? A loud angry minority dominates online politics, which itself can drive polarization (see doi.org/10.1073/pnas...)

Join us next week! Tiffany Simon (@harvardkennedy.bsky.social) will present "Happiness as Control: The Political Consequences of Entertainment Policy in Saudi Arabia" and @andrewleber.bsky.social (@tulanepolisci.bsky.social) and @aasiegel.bsky.social (@colorado.edu) will discuss

In case of interest for anybody in the DC area

Initiatives like the Riyadh Comedy Festival aren’t helping Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman “clean up” his image abroad. But the kingdom’s international reputation isn’t its main priority here. @andrewleber.bsky.social, on @npr.org: www.npr.org/2025/10/04/n...

Two especially good bits ⬇️ What @andrewleber.bsky.social’s analysis captures, that much discourse around “-washing” events in the Gulf & beyond often neglects, are these domestic drivers. Not everything is done solely, or mainly, for an international gaze. Some risks are taken despite that gaze.

Dwayne has his job back because we organized for it. We fight or we die. Join AAUP today www.aaup.org/join

I looked at the domestic drivers of the Riyadh Comedy Festival for @carnegieendowment.org carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

🚨🚨 My dear friend and fellow academic, the Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social has been taken by the Cook County Sheriff near Chicago. They have not mirandized her. Please signal boost. All eyes on Broadview for Eman and the community she was defending 🚨🚨

Speaking tomorrow with Elias Muhanna at Brown University on a panel about Gulf-monarchy "giga-projects," for anybody interested in stopping by. events.brown.edu/middle-east/...

"Perhaps the most ghastly piece printed during Hegseth’s reign as publisher was an assertion that Princeton’s characterization of sex with an unconscious person as nonconsensual was an effort to “indoctrinate” students." thebaffler.com/salvos/battl...

it's a great interview, and what's striking is that at the end of the day both klein and coates believe in winning people over. the difference is that coates thinks you do this by telling them the truth, and klein thinks you do it by empathizing with them and recognizing their concerns as Real

"As AI bots like ChatGPT become inextricably tangled with people’s private and public lives, it’s causing unpredictable new crises." futurism.com/chatgpt-marr...

With due respect to the authors, this article further affirms the bankruptcy of terrorism studies in being a) value-neutral on "the state" and b) drawing artificial divisions with other forms of political violence. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion. Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

Across the Middle East, Israel’s strikes on Qatar have raised questions– among them whether the region can rely on the U.S. for protection. Amr Hamzawy, Sarah Yerkes, @andrewleber.bsky.social, and Marwan Muasher share more: carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

🔝 This is the most-read story on FT right now >>

I joined Carnegie colleagues Amr Hamzawy, Marwan Muasher, and Sarah Yerkes in assessing the regional fallout of Israel's recent strikes on Doha. carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

'“They don’t want to go down in history as the people who facilitated either a genocide or the pathway to a genocide,” he says; they want jobs in the next White House.' nymag.com/intelligence...

[email protected] is "seek to hire an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in Comparative Political Economy." Open area focus, but looking especially for: energy transitions natural resources governance domestic environmental/climate politics apply.interfolio.com/172989

"A headline in “Intelligencer” captured Cassidy’s posture: “Key Republican Almost Annoyed Enough at RFK Jr. to Act.”" www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

A good look at US democratic backsliding in comparative perspective from McKenzie Carrier and Thomas Carothers. Via @carnegieendowment.org carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

Sadly a feature, not a bug, for a Trump administration bent on destroying "liberal" institutions. www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...

3 The Saints open next week in the Caesars Superdome, a building named after a casino in a world more dominated by MLMs, crypto, and assorted scams than ever before. Fans will spend a lot of their time watching while also placing bets on apps designed to bleed money from them all day.

The decline in three Superdomes. 1 Katrina ripped the roof off the Louisiana Superdome, a place where Louisiana citizens expected to feel safe 2 The Saints won a championship playing on the Mercedes Benz Superdome, a more expensive, corporate sponsored, literally gilded version of the old building

An absolutely harrowing account of the reality of starvation in Gaza's medical clinics from Haaretz. The pictures are haunting. Those commentators and journalists who have sought to minimise this in recent weeks are complicit in these horrors. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Your occasional reminder -- as arrivals on student visas decrease 28% -- that tuition from foreign students counts as an export, which means that every rejected student visa is going to contribute to the US trade deficit. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"An exodus appears to be under way of Ph.D.s and faculty generally, who are leaving academia in the face of political, financial and enrollment crises." hechingerreport.org/a-great-defe...

Assistant Professor @rjschoner.bsky.social has published her article "Individual Mobilization by Victims of Human Rights Abuse: Who Files Petitions in the United Nations?" in International Studies Quarterly: academic.oup.com/isq/article/...

This is from only *17 days* ago: a CPJ warning that Israel's smear campaign against Anas al-Sharif was a precursor to his assassination.

Good @foreignaffairs.com article by Tyler Jost and @mattingly.bsky.social thinking through the looming succession struggle in China. www.foreignaffairs.com/china/after-...

@emilyctamkin.bsky.social with a critical look at the deal Brown University struck with the Trump administration. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Is there any political hack more desperate for relevance (or business) than Mark Penn. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/n...

On scam/spam fundraising texts...

Joint statement on Gaza from AFP, AP, BBC News and Reuters

Senior Administrators for "Balance," coming soon to your university hierarchy.

"The systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure... reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...

Gulf countries’ response to the U.S.-Iran-Israel conflict was largely to stay away. But each country took a different approach – and their influence in the conflict’s aftermath may be quite limited. @andrewleber.bsky.social‬ explains: youtube.com/shorts/VOW1W...