Description
Minority communities in the Middle East have often been characterised in Western policy circles as one of two extremes – avid supporters of authoritarian states or persecuted minorities living in a hostile Muslim environment (Mahmood 2016; Rowe 2018). In the Middle East, their minority status is often denied by both a group and the state due to connotations with Western intervention to ‘protect’ minorities (Rowe 2018). This panel seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of the experiences of Middle Eastern minorities, how these shape their relations with the state and the implications for international discourse on minority rights, democratization and peacebuilding.
