MERIP and Political Economy in Middle East Studies

AbstractThe Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) was founded in 1971 as a project of the American New Left in solidarity with and drawing inspiration from the Beirut-centered Arab New Left and anti-imperialist struggles for national liberation in the Middle East and North Africa. The question of Palestine was a central, but certainly not exclusive, concern. From its origins MERIP was committed to political economy as a key method to understanding the Middle East and North Africa. It highlighted the importance of oil in the regional power structure and to the emergent U.S. empire. Many of its articles featured analyses of the social relationships of class and capital. MERIP was wary of “Arab socialism” and pan-Arab nationalism as official state ideologies. Its analysis of the 1979 Iranian revolution won MERIP and its emphasis on the importance of political economy a respected place in Anglo-American academia. Political economy never disappeared from MERIP's orientation, although its salience declined from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. The financial crisis of 2008 drew renewed attention to the structure of global capitalism. MERIP's history positioned it to participate in the renewed attention to class, capital, markets with more attention to the racialized and gendered character of these relationships.