Author Archives: jonathankovac

In the following video I intend to share my thoughts on the process of trying to become a country expert. This has been a great experience for me and I am confident that I will put in the effort to learn even more about the UAE in the future.

This week’s lecture featured guest speaker Christin Lüttich, who is part of general management of Adopt a Revolution, a German-Syrian solidarity NGO. This NGO supports civil self-organization during and against the Assad regime, aiming to “create perspectives for peace and work for a life in freedom and dignity.” For example, the organization helps run secularContinue reading “Guest Speaker: Christin Lüttich, Adopt a Revolution”

For this week’s assignment I chose to share a video posted by Al Jazeera covering the 2011 UAE elections for the Emirati Federal National Council. This has been only the second time the Emirates held elections; they were held in 2006, 2015 and 2019. Jane Ferguson, who covered the election, concludes that “in the UnitedContinue reading “Towards Democratization in the UAE?”

This week’s course hosted a guest speaker who shared his experienecs with working and conducting research in Sierra Leone. This insightful account gave students a glimpse into the step-by-step process of engaging with people, countries or environments that are foreign to us. The very first step involves a desk review, in which the researchers prepareContinue reading “Guest-Speaker: Max Montgomery Talk on Work in Sierra Leone”

Following our class discussion, I decided to update my post by adding a flowchart and focusing on the formulation and implementation of the policy: Justifying the quote on the homepage, this post focuses on the UAE National Agenda in education, which was launched by Vice President Muhammad bin Raschid Al Maktum in 2014 and is beingContinue reading “National Agenda 2021: Education in the UAE”

The post for this week will be shorter given that the UAE never experienced a military regime or a personalist rule. I decided to update the post following our class discussion and new insights I gained. The UAE is a federation of seven monarchies, consisting of the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah,Continue reading “Hereditary Succession in the UAE”

The question posed for this week’s portfolio assignment asks whether the UAE experienced a one-party or dominant party rule. The answer is no, though I identify elements in the UAE political system that resemble these forms of governance. As mentioned previously, the UAE is a federation of seven emirates; each emirate has its own leaderContinue reading “The Political System”

This week’s course featured Russian journalist and academic Dr. Anna Litvinenko, who appropriately for our class is a country expert on Russia and among many topics studies the role of elections in Russia. Dr. Litvinenko shared her experience with the class and made some insightful points regarding political sensitivity in the context of researching inContinue reading “Guest Speaker: Dr. Anna Litvinenko”

This week’s post concerns propaganda in the United Arab Emirates. It’s important to note that the term “propaganda” is not used in its negative connotation, but rather in a neutral way, as done in Esarey et al.’s “Support for Propaganda.”[1] Propaganda is viewed as a form of communication among the regime and the citizens withContinue reading “Propaganda in the Emirates”

The economic redistribution in the UAE is particularly interesting as citizens do not pay income tax and due to a major population increase: 234,000 in 1970 to 10 million in 2019, with nearly 90% of the population made of expats. Aside from attempting to attract business and investment, one explanation for this influx of expats isContinue reading “Economic Redistribution”