FOREWORD.

• Author: Alexander, Ryan

Dear Readers: It is difficult to focus on all that many things at once these days, as the state of race relations in the United States continues to degrade and as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend our lives and claim those of far too many others (more on that in the editor's message to follow). Yet the multiple challenges facing the global south are as present as ever, so we will keep publishing work that examines the broad range of experiences across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, and Latin America. In this issue, Hae Won Jeong demonstrates how the United Arab Emirates has ramped up its efforts to create a forward-looking and diversified economic development model through its relations with major Asian economies. Linda Alkhawaja, Hanan Ibrahim, and Abdulazeez Jaradat examine patterns of attitudes expressed by Jordanian Twitter users in response to a recent spate of bank robberies, revealing how public reactions to these crimes have drawn out longstanding frustrations with Jordan's government and society. Ronald Mendoza and Miann Banaag utilize a novel political inequality index that, when applied to a provincial Philippine case study, suggests that political inequality strongly correlates with negative socio-economic development...