Non-State Actors: A Theoretical Limitation in a Changing Middle East Carmit valensi (original) (raw)
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Rise of Non-State Actors in Middle East: Regional Dimensions
2015
The situation in the Middle East has become extremely precarious due to issues which can be traced back to the colonial era. Imprudently drawn state borders, unsettled disputes like Palestine and ethno-religious schisms accentuate the inter-state and intra-state rivalries which have spun out of control due to foreign interventions. Extremist radical Islam acquired new dimensions after 9/11 which consequently painted the 2003 Iraq war in ideological colours. A new trend of radicalization is visible across the region from Lebanon to Pakistan, which has resulted in the emergence of non-state actors. The raging conflict in and across the Middle East can only be pacified by devising regional strategies under international actors. Any further foreign intervention would have catastrophic consequences for the whole region.
IPRI Journal, 2015
The situation in the Middle East has become extremely precarious due to issues which can be traced back to the colonial era. Imprudently drawn state borders, unsettled disputes like Palestine and ethno-religious schisms accentuate the inter-state and intra-state rivalries which have spun out of control due to foreign interventions. Extremist radical Islam acquired new dimensions after 9/11 which consequently painted the 2003 Iraq war in ideological colours. A new trend of radicalization is visible across the region from Lebanon to Pakistan, which has resulted in the emergence of non-state actors. The raging conflict in and across the Middle East can only be pacified by devising regional strategies under international actors. Any further foreign intervention would have catastrophic consequences for the whole region.
THE SITUATION REGARDING NON-STATE MILITARY ACTORS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
UFRGSMUN: UFRGS Model United Nations, 2014
The 21st century has seen an increase in the number of actions against the so-called non-state military actors, whose common features are: the fact of being organized groups operating outside state control; their use of force to achieve political objectives; the irregularity of its military actions, in opposition to the most common military doctrines of regular armies; among others. The Middle East, by its turn, is home of maybe the most important and internationally well-known non-state military actors of our time. Besides the wars triggered to fight the terrorist menace, against Al-Qaeda, for example, other non-state military actors have also been involved in conflicts, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The UNSC, as guarantor of international security and peace, must address such pressing and polemic issue. This topic is relevant not only due to the high polarization that it involves-since one side tends to see all these groups as radical and terrorist actors at the same time that the other side claims the importance to differentiate between all kinds of such groups-but also by the fact that the UN must evaluate all the efforts that it have been taking in regard to non-state military actors, especially after this whole decade of conflicts involving the Middle East and these groups, also updating its approach to them in such region.
Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 2020
The Arab world has witnessed two interrelated phenomena after the Arab Spring. The first is the aggravation of the crisis of the nationstate, where many states experienced failure and disintegration, such as Libya, Syria and Yemen, while many other states continued to suffer from weakness. The second is the rise of violent non-state actors (VNSAS) such as terrorist jihadi organisations, warlords, organised crime syndicates and armed militias affiliated with political parties, tribal, ethnic and sectarian groups. The second phenomenon is a natural outcome of the first one. When the state fails, it becomes unable to monopolise the use of force, impose its control over its territory and secure it borders. These conditions create a security and political vacuum and ungoverned spaces, which are considered a suitable environment for the expansion of VNSAs. Currently, in many Arab states, the role of VNSAs makes state-building and peacemaking efforts more difficult and complicated. This article aims to analyse the causes of the crisis of nation-state building in the Arab world, which explains the failure and collapse of many Arab states once the authoritarian regimes that have governed them for decades collapsed. Also, it discusses the types of VNSAs and the reasons behind the expansion of these actors and the escalation of their roles in many Arab countries, particularly in the post-Arab Spring era. Additionally, the future of VNSAS will be examined.
Foreign Policy Analysis and Armed Non-State Actors in World Politics: Lessons from the Middle East
Foreign Policy Analysis
The study of armed non-state actors (ANSAs) has grown exponentially in the last two decades. This article explores the foreign policy of ANSAs as a new empirical domain for foreign policy analysis (FPA) by drawing on various examples from the Middle East to show the merit of this area for novel empirical and theoretical studies. The article identifies the domain of ANSAs’ foreign policy showing how FPA research has so far remained state-centric and almost completely ignores ANSAs. While the external engagement of ANSAs were examined within the scholarship on civil wars, FPA can be adapted to provide systematic scholarly understanding of this phenomenon. Finally, the article explores how studying ANSAs’ foreign policies can revitalize FPA and drive its agenda into new directions.
Palgrave Communications
This article presents a theoretical framework for a collection of articles ("special issue"), which aims at discussing the role of non-Arab state actors and non-state actors in a changing Middle East. The articles in the collection offer perspectives that have been overlooked in recent research, namely those focusing on the role of non-Arab state actors and non-state actors in connection with the changing security environment in the region. Furthermore, these articles discuss how changes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are appearing in different and shifting contexts in the creation of new local, sub-regional, or regional security subcomplexes in which Arab states, non-Arab states and non-state actors enter into new conflicts, alliances and other political relations with and against each other. The role of international actors interfering in the region is also analyzed in the context of the changing Middle East.
Analyzing Middle Eastern Armed Non-State Actors' Foreign Policy
Within the Middle East several armed non-state actors challenge the (nation) state system by controlling a territory, claiming a monopoly of violence and pursuing a Foreign Policy. Some scholars suggest that new paradigms are needed, as state-centric Foreign Policy Analysis paradigms do not fit these actors. This study indicates that existing, traditional approaches – the Rational Actor Paradigm, the Organizational Behavior Paradigm and the Governmental Politics Paradigm – prove sufficiently equipped to provide accurate analyses on Middle Eastern armed non-state actors as long as the analysts applying them are aware of both strengths and constraints of each approach.
The Arab Spring and the Rise of non- State Actors
In the past four years, Arabs have been living in an endless Sisyphean ordeal, an unexpected nightmare after rising for what they called "the Arab Spring". The scenario was cloned in most Arab Spring countries. Alas, hopeful revolution turned into belligerence, then into strife followed by a war, as if a new regional order was endorsed to guarantee instability and chaos in the region. This new regional order has markedly new features and novel actors. The feature most starkly apparent is the rise of non-state actors, which have bolstered their presence and influence across the region, disregarding borders and ignoring the strategic equations that ruled the region for decades. Also available in French@ https://fadihusseini.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/les-residus-printaniers-avons-nous-tous-egare-notre-chemin/
2020
The main aim of this chapter is to conceptualise the conflict between states and non-state armed groups in the Middle East. It begins by tracing the colonial origin of the distinction between state and non-state violence, the emergence of counterinsurgency and its reincarnation in liberal interventions. It then considers the politics of demarcation of legitimate and illegitimate violence and its centrality in the scramble among local and international state and non-state actors to control the Middle East. The chapter analyses the effects of both physical violence and ideological confrontation in the origins and consequences of political violence in the Middle East. It finally illustrates these dynamics by analysing the concerted international and Lebanese campaign to destroy Hezbollah and the resilience of Hezbollah to withstand such enormous pressure and become stronger as a result.