A global idea : youth, city networks, and the struggle for the Arab world

**__A Global Idea__** **outlines how youth—as shown by the Arab Spring uprisings and subsequent state responses—became a prominent social and political category during the first two decades of the twenty-first century in the Middle East.** Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interview data, and textual analysis, Mayssoun Sukarieh explains that the spread of youth as an important category is linked to the operation of a "global youth development complex," a diverse transnational network of state, private sector, civil society, and international development aid organizations that worked through key urban areas such as Washington, DC, Amman, and Dubai. In its analysis of the arrival, extension, and embedding of the youth development complex in the Middle East during this period, __A Global Idea__ addresses a broader question that is of global and not just regional concern. How are certain ideas that are central to the working and reproduction of global capitalism able to travel the world so that they are found virtually everywhere? "The central question this book explores is how a certain set of ideas, discourses, policies, and practices around youth and youth development came to be globally dominant toward the end of the twentieth century and into the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It follows Junior Achievement and Education for Employment Foundation nongovernmental organizations in Washington, DC; Amman; and Dubai"-- Provided by publisher Contents 7 Abbreviations 9 Introduction 13 1. Washington, DC: A Global Ideas City 28 2. Amman: Incubator City 60 3. Dubai: Pivot City 82 4. Global City Networks 94 4. Global City Networks and the Spread of Global Ideas 123 Conclusion 145 References 157 Index 181