SACPA to discuss crises in the Middle East

The crisis of the global political economy continues to sharpen. Trade wars involving the United States, the European Union, China, India, Mexico and Canada are intensifying.

Today, during the regular weekly SACPA session, set for noon at the Royal Canadian Legion, speaker Sean McMahon will present “Middle East Societies in Crisis.”

McMahon is a visiting assistant professor of political science at the University of Lethbridge and a tutor of labour studies and economics at Athabasca University. From 2007-18, he was a post-doctoral fellow and assistant professor of political science at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

His primary fields of research are international relations/global political economy and comparative politics of the Middle East.

This crisis has a myriad expressions in the societies of the Middle East: Imperial wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Palestine; United States’ negation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the so-called “Iran deal”) and escalation of war on Iran; the further institutionalization of fascism in Israel; revolts in Algeria and Sudan; and currency deflation and immiserating inflation in Turkey and Egypt.

The speaker will locate the crises of the societies of the Middle East in the global political economy; and conceptualize wars, state policies and social dynamism as regional and national processing(s) of global relations in crisis.