MELG 16.3 closes with a Case Comment by Mais Qandeel on “Understanding Constitutional Principles for the Advancement of Digital Rights in Palestine” that examines the constitutional and legal status of digital rights in Palestine, as well as its political and legal challenges

Nataliia Stepaniuk & Golrokh Niazi’s Fieldnote “Reflections on Researcher’s Positionality and the Evolving Role of Research Participants” presents insights into the role of research participants + importance of interpersonal relationships in navigating the field and generating ethnographic findings.

While in “The Fortress State: Extreme Militarization in Jordan” Pete Moore and Sean Yom argue that Jordanian militarization persists not from exogenous structural forces, but the deliberate choices of its political architects.

Abeer Al-Eryan’s “The Political Economy of Energy Security in Wartime Yemen” studies the relationship between energy provision and conflict within the context of the ongoing war in Yemen.

Omar Dahi’s contribution on “Syrian War Economies” contends that political economy and comparative approaches can help explain the connections between global-regional processes and domestic institutional transformations brought by war.

We then have a Roundtable on “Reconceptualizing Security and Political Economy in the Modern Middle East” where contributors seek to reorient prevailing concepts of security within the contemporary Middle East and North Africa through a critical political economy framework.

Next is Sabri Ciftci’s “Crafting Cross-Border Connections: Religion and Perceptions of Erdoğan in the Middle East and North Africa” which examines how religion influences public opinion about foreign leaders, focusing on attitudes toward Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.