Read all about it : the free press, the public sphere and democracy in Iraq

Despite a wealth of recent research which has detailed the impact that new media outlets and technologies have had on the Middle East’s nascent public sphere and its role in promoting democracy, there has been little investigation into the re-emergence of the free press in Iraq following the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the corresponding end to his tight control over the nation’s media sector. This paper begins by reviewing Iraq’s long relationship with the written word and its corresponding public sphere. It traces the introduction of the printing press to Iraq by the Ottomans and details those periods when the Iraqi press was truly free, fostering the emergence of a civil society and democratic reforms (such as under the Young Turks, the early Hashemite era and following the Second World War). It also examines those periods when the Iraqi media was most restricted and did little else than praise the regime at hand (such as under Ottoman rule and most recently under the Ba†th regime, especially under Saddam Hussein). Following on, this article reviews the developments since the fall of Saddam Hussein and, despite the extensive interference in Iraq’s media sector from governmental entities both outside and inside Iraq, it concludes by arguing that these papers have been central to the re-emergence of an Iraqi public sphere which has openly debated and discussed the issues pertinent to post-Saddam Iraq.

Multi-market industrial organizational economic models for the internationalization process by small and medium enterprise construction design service firms

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are critical to strategic initiatives in an economy; however, their contribution to foreign trade is not as significant. SMEs are one of the principal driving forces in economic development. One of the greatest challenges is the internationalization process for longevity rather than seeing the process as initial market entry. The internationalization process research has typically involved four key constructs: market selection, decision to enter, entry modes and factors affecting entry modes. Past research has focused on large manufacturing firms. The export of architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) firms has undergone growth, yet there is still significant opportunity for further growth. The majority of AEC firms are SMEs. Notwithstanding assistance provided through international trade missions, organized export firm support networks and information packages by a burgeoning number of government agencies, there are still perceived barriers to market entry and long-term economic sustainability for SMEs. There are a number of problems faced by SMEs acting in foreign trade. This investigation explores the successful initial internationalization process constructs and identifies unique project-oriented sector characteristics. The study identified similarities and differences between two firms that have been exporting to various localities, including Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East, UK, Asia and South America, for more than two decades. The similarities and differences were identified within eight major constructs: purpose, firm type, market image and design philosophy, entry mode strategy, institutional arrangement, factors affecting mode of entry, market selection and firm strategy in relation to project selection. The primary reasons for internationalization were associated with the firms' motivations related to growth and financial viability. This article discusses the various internationalization processes and strategies intrinsic to each case study and establishes a detailed set of empirical observations from which to develop further a grounded theoretical model of reflexive capability for the internationalization process. This study contributes to the body of knowledge around the SME AEC design service firm's internationalization process, as a dynamic, evolving and continuously adaptable construct for project-based sectors.

Towards understanding what Australia’s Muslims really think

Over the past decade, issues concerning Islam and Muslims have featured prominently in public and media discourse. Much of this discourse is stereotypical, anecdotal and often unsubstantiated. Indeed, relative to the extent of comment on Islam and Muslims, few factual data exist on what Muslims really think. This article presents the views and opinions of the Queensland Muslim community based on the findings of a survey conducted at the 2009 Muslim Eid Festival in Brisbane. The findings of this research contradict many of the assumptions made about Australia’s Muslims concerning their views and opinions on a range of social and political issues. The research shows that Muslims highly value Australia’s key social and political institutions, including its democracy, judiciary, education and health-care systems. However, Muslims do express a lack of trust in certain institutions, namely the mass media. Also, consistent with the views of people globally, Muslims are deeply concerned about conflicts in the Middle East as well as the environmental crisis. This article suggests the need for a shift in public discourse to more accurately reflect the commonality, rather than incongruity, between Muslim views, opinions and concerns and those of the wider society.

Reshaping dominant stories : a poststructuralist approach to online role play

Online role play is an increasingly popular teaching/learning technique in higher education (Wills & McDougall 2009) but there has been little research into ways a poststructuralist approach may be supported in this format. This paper describes two very different means of incorporating a poststructuralist approach into role plays in higher education to problematise dominant assumptions in the language and content of the subject matter. The first method was a series of interventions in a face-to-face role play in which medical students practised consultations with adolescent school students. The consultations were interrupted repeatedly with activities designed to interrogate assumptions and the school students acted as coaches to improve the medical students' technique. Although this role play was performed face-to-face, some of its activities may be redeveloped to suit an online role-playing format. The second method was a feature of an online role play involving Middle-East politics and journalism students, in which daily online newspapers provided a reflecting and distorting mirror to the political events simulated by the politics students. Indications of ways in which the two methods produced changes in understanding were gathered using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods: questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, participant observation and analysis of online discussions and artefacts.

Story as a vehicle for learning in online role play : a case study

In online role plays, students are asked to engage with a story that serves as a metaphor for real-life experience as they learn and develop skills. However, practitioners rarely examine the characteristics and management of this story as factors in the students' engagement in and learning from the activity. In this paper I present findings from a recent case study which examines these factors in an online role play that has been named as an exemplar and has been run for 19 years in Australian and international universities to teach Middle East politics and journalism. Online role plays are increasingly popular in tertiary education, in forms ranging from simple text-based role plays to virtual learning environment activities and e-simulations. The role play I studied required students to communicate in role via simulated email messages and draw on real-life resources and daily simulated online newspaper publications produced by the journalism students rather than rely on information or automated interactions built into an interface. This relatively simple format enabled me to observe clearly the impact of the technique's basic design elements. I studied both the story elements of plot, character and setting and the non-story elements of assessment, group work and online format. The data collection methods include analysis of student emails in the role play, a questionnaire, a focus group, interviews and the journal I kept as a participant-observer in the role play. In evaluating the qualities and impact of story elements I drew upon established aesthetic principles for drama and poststructuralist drama education.

Should we teach an old game new tricks?

The Middle East Politics Simulation (MEPS) is a simulation of diplomacy and political tension in the Middle East. This online role-play exercise is aimed at providing students with an improved level of understanding of the political dimensions of the region. Having been run since 1993, the MEPS has not had any major updates to its platform in all those years. However, as such a mature online entity there is the question of whether the MEPS will continue to engage students as their expectations of what constitutes an online role-playing environment became steadily raised by their familiarity with more graphically immersive platforms. The reliance on social media tools for students and political figures to use as conduits for communication is also unrepresented in the MEPS and the subject of some student dissatisfaction in previous years. This research assesses student attitudes towards the MEPS with an eye to balancing the demands of technology, functionality, equity of experience, security and, most importantly, learning outcomes.

Iraq and the Arab revolutions : protesting the failure to democratise governance

As the Arab Revolutions swept across the Middle East and North Africa in late 2010 and into 2011, Iraqis were confronted with the failures of their own democracy to deliver on the many promises made to them since 2003. This led to weeks of scattered protests across Iraq, culminating in the “Day of Rage” (February 25, 2011) in which thousands of protestors took to the streets in at least 17 separate demonstrations across the country following Friday prayers. On the surface, these protests shared much in common with others across the region: the use of Facebook and other social media to promote the protests, and the focus on corruption, unemployment and poor public infrastructure. Also similar was the reaction of key Iraqi political figures such as Maliki and Barzani who met Iraqi protests with a mixture of brutal suppression and modest political and economic concessions. However, as this paper will demonstrate, upon closer inspection the Iraqi protests are in fact very different to others across the MENA and are therefore among the most significant for the future of democracy in the region. The Iraqi people were not protesting against an autocratic regime or an entrenched monarchy that had held power for decades, but a relatively new – and supposedly ‘democratic’ - political elite who had been brought to power in the wake of the US invasion. Indeed, while protestors across the region called for more democracy in the form of a written constitution, free and fair elections, a robust media sphere and the rule of law, Iraqis were protesting against the failures of the Iraqi government to democratise such mechanisms of governance (all of which they more or less have). They felt routinely disenfranchised by a state that has manipulated the very institutions and discourses of democracy to retain, rather than diffuse, power.

Intercultural harmony and understanding in the city of Whittlesea

The City of Whittlesea is one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in Melbourne that attracts settlers, often humanitarian migrants from countries in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. With settlers arriving from a broader range of countries than ever before, increasing ethnic as well as ethno-religious diversity presents opportunities for local government to address intercultural harmony and understanding but also significant challenges. This paper reports the findings of fieldwork conducted in 2009 among residents focusing on attitudes towards ethnic diversity and evaluations of the capacity of local government to promote intercultural harmony and understanding. The results suggest that if local government is to be inclusive and gain the confidence and trust of residents necessary to foster empowering partnerships, political spaces that facilitate interactions between long-term residents, new residents, elected leaders and council officers must be facilitated. Such initiatives will contribute to strengthening programs and policies being developed by local government that aim to address discrimination experienced by ethnic minorities and encourage greater acceptance of cultural diversity among the broader community in ways that move beyond measurable outcomes.

Pakistan’s twin interrelated challenges : economic development and security

The 2010 devastating floods in Pakistan have starkly reminded the world of the two critical, interrelated challenges confronting Pakistan: economic development and security. And whilst the Pakistan government's capacity to deal with these two issues before the flood was already shaky at best, its position now is even more precarious given the enormity of the task of rebuilding the infrastructure that has been destroyed in this latest natural disaster. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is a large and strategically important country, critically located on one of the world's most important geopolitical crossroads. It is a pivotal player in a region—covering the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia—which has much potential, but which also has unresolved conflicts and various degrees of instability. Accordingly, because Pakistan is so important to the stability of the region and the world at large, it is vital that it be able to address successfully these twin challenges.

Development and characterisation of 20 microsatellite loci isolated from the large bent-wing bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Chiroptera: Miniopteridae) and their cross-taxa utility in the family Miniopteridae

The large bent-wing bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl 1819), has a long history of taxonomic uncertainty and many populations are known to be in a state of decline. Microsatellite loci were developed for the taxonomic and population genetic assessment of the Australian complex of this species. Of the 33 primer sets designed for this research, seven (21%) were deemed suitably polymorphic for population-level analyses of the Australian taxa, with five (71%) of these loci revealing moderate to high levels of polymorphism (PIC = 0.56 to 0.91). The cross-taxa utility of the M. schreibersii microsatellite markers was assessed in the microbat (Chiroptera) family Miniopteridae. Sub-species and species covering the Miniopteridae’s global distribution (with the exception of the Middle East) were selected, numbering 25 taxa in total. Amplification was successful for 26 loci, of which 20 (77%) were polymorphic. High cross-taxa utility of markers was observed with amplification achieved for all taxa for between four (20%) and 20 (100%) loci, and polymorphism was considered moderate to high (PIC = 0.47–0.91) for 12 (60%) of these loci. The high cross-taxa utility of the microsatellites reported herein reveal versatile and cost-effective molecular markers, contributing an important genetic resource for the research and conservation of Miniopteridae species worldwide.

International contact lens prescribing in 2009

This is the eighth consecutive year that we have presented data from a survey of international contact lens prescribing in Contact Lens Spectrum. In this article we report on an assessment of 25,801 fits across 28 contact lens markets located in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. As in previous years, we opted for a prospective approach to this work. Up to 1,000 survey forms were randomly disseminated in each market to contact lens practitioners (ophthalmologists, optometrists, and/or opticians depending on the market), and information about the first 10 patients prescribed with lenses after receipt of paper or electronic survey forms was anonymously recorded.

Introduction : The complex and contested history of democracy

Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.