The MENA Region's Intersecting Crises: What Next? (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA): Fragility, Fragmentation, and Crisis
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, 2023
The paper examines the fragility, fragmentation, and crisis in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by dissecting the region into three subregions-Maghreb, Mashreq, and the GCC-and elaborating on their complex contours, diverse ideological orientations, and unavoidable outcomes. Politically, economically, demographically, and ethnically heterogeneous, and religiously reasonably homogenous, the MENA records high conflict rates. There is a lack of unity in diversity, hurting regional cooperation and cohesion. We argue that fragility and fragmentation lead to persistent inter-and intra-state conflict, high unemployment, water disputes, deepening poverty, recurrent famine, and growing numbers of refugees and displacement. By referring to examples from Maghreb, Mashreq, and the GCC, the paper shows the interplay between fragility and resilience and thus attempts to offer a nuanced understanding of the factors that trigger and sustain fragmentation and conflict in the region. The insights into the dynamics of fragility, fragmentation, and crisis highlight the imperatives of cooperation and cohesion in regional integration.
2018
Definitive solutions for war-torn Syria, Iraq and Libya are still on a distant horizon, but the scale and intensity of violence seem to be ebbing in 2018. With the forceful reclamation of Mosul, Aleppo and Raqqa, as well as the repossession of Sirte and the end of fighting in Benghazi, the greatest battles appear to be over. The civil war in Syria is increasingly localised into pockets of conflict in the South and the North, which are not likely to change the overall course of events. Iraqi central government and the Syrian regime have gained the upper hand in the last two years thanks to undeniable economic and military support from regional and international allies. ISIS, as a territorialised terrorist organisation, has almost been completely wiped out in all three war-torn countries, even though its activities are bound to persist. The military situation in Libya has been relatively stagnant since late 2015, with the exception of localised conflicts.
The Routledge Handbook to the Middle East and North African State and States System
The Routledge Handbook to the Middle East and North African State and States System, 2019
Conflict and instability are built into the very fabric of the Middle East and North African (MENA) state and states system; yet both states and states system have displayed remarkable resilience. How can we explain this? This handbook explores the main debates, theoretical approaches and accumulated empirical research by prominent scholars in the field, providing an essential context for scholars pursuing research on the MENA state and states system. Contributions are grouped into four key themes: • Historical contexts, state-building and politics in MENA • State actors, societal context and popular activism • Trans-state politics: the political economy and identity contexts • The international politics of MENA The 26 chapters examine the evolution of the state and states system, before and after independence, and take the 2011 Arab uprisings as a pivotal moment that intensified trends already embedded in the system, exposing the deep features of state and system—specifically their...
In this new DIIS-book New Conflict Dynamics, Between Regional Autonomy and Intervention in the Middle East and North Africa 10 scholars from DIIS and the American University in Beirut analyze the current patterns of power and politics in the Middle East and North Africa. The book covers vast empirical grounds from France and the US to most of the states in the Middle East and North Africa. Thematically it moves through security infrastructure, arms exports and environmental crises to regional competition, domestic politics and foreign military interventions. As a whole the book goes beyond confirming the picture of a region in crisis and turmoil. It also demonstrates that the recent American withdrawal form the region, which was accelerated under president Obama, did not lead to a linear increase in the autonomy of regional powers in the region. By pointing out the dilemmas, contradictions and unintended consequences associated with the American withdrawal, the book suggests that we may very well be witnessing an incoherent emergence of a new regional order that in spite of carving out increased maneuver room for regional actors, remains deeply embedded in larger global trends. The book includes contributions from Rasmus Alenius Boserup, Waleed Hazbun, Karim Makdisi, Helle Malmvig, Vibeke Tjalve, Lars Erslev Andersen, Manni Crone, Bashir Saade, Coralie Pison Hindawi & Alex D. Barder.
States and sovereignty in the Middle East: myths and realities
International Affairs, 2017
To many observers the Middle East states system since the Arab uprisings remains at a critical juncture. The uprisings, which started late in 2010, were revolutionary in their initial impact, but beyond Tunisia, it is the counterrevolutionary movement has proved more durable. 1 However, the region has witnessed multiple regime changes alongside intense levels of popular mobilisation, violence and transnational activism. The results have been highly destabilising, resulting in challenges to the very sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. This situation, in turn, has contributed to a shifting regional balance of power and repeated episodes of external intervention. Some commentators have argued that the whole regional system, always fragile and contested, is finally undergoing radical transformation; others point to its resilience. This article evaluates the latest wave of instability and its consequences for Middle Eastern states, their sovereignty and regional order, introducing themes and discussions taken up in other articles in this special issue. It argues -connecting directly to the Zartman article -that despite recent upheavals (and multiple predictions to the contrary), it is likely that the Middle East system of states and borders will remain largely intact -at least in the medium term. This does not mean that states are necessarily 'strong' in a argues that understanding the contemporary region requires stepping back from the present and taking a long view of the evolution of states and sovereignty in the modern Middle East. It rejects the use of popular myths and stereotypes, about artificial or failed states or imminent system implosion, and calls for a stocktaking of the state of the Middle East state. In doing so it also considers the Middle East experience comparatively, looking at parallel state trajectories elsewhere. Taking such an historical and comparative perspective permits close analysis of the particular conditions under which modern states were established and helps to track their principal features and development. There are many transformative features, which yield new insights -whether vacuums of state authority, the agency of transnational forces and border porosity -but also continuities in respect to states' legal personalities, institutions and identities, which have survived and developed across time. Highlighting such continuities amid change, the aim of this framing piece is not to offer a fullyfleshed out conceptual framework (see Raffaella Del Sarto's article), but rather to provide some tentative answers to the wider questions addressed in this special issue on contested MENA borders. Namely, how robust is the Middle East states system and its accoutrements of sovereignty, 'Westphalian' or otherwise, a question posed by Middle East scholars long before the Arab uprisings? 2 Why has it been so often assumed that it is in danger of implosion and are the dangers of implosion greater today than in the past? 3 And, in answering this question do we need to rethink the general principles of statehood and sovereignty, adopting critical or post-colonial perspectives; or to discard such concepts altogether?
State-Building Dilemmas after the Arab Spring
The alarming state of West Asia and North Africa (WANA) today reverses conventional wisdom regarding constitutionalism. For long the Holy Grail of constitutional reform was on finding the best way to limit government authority. Yet the sheer chaos and instability of Middle East regimes now leads many to wonder if indeed the real problem is not the lack of functioning statehood to start with. How could one “limit” state authority when the personal dictatorships across the land hardly qualify as functioning states at all? That the states disintegrated into chaos after the fall of the rulers—evident especially in the case of Libya—provokes the question whether the so-called state institutions were not merely extended shadows of one man, whose downfall naturally brought with it the end of the entire political infrastructure.
What prospects for stabilisation and reconstruction in the Middle East and North Africa
2019
A common assumption among policy-makers and pundits is that stabilisation and reconstruction will come a er con icts in the Middle East and North Africa region have been settled. Indeed, in most previous cases, con ict settlements – brought about by the decisive victory of one party or by the successful conclusion of a peace agreement – had always preceded post-war stabilisation. Internationally-assisted reconstruction, intended as both the physical rebuilding of destroyed infrastructure and the rehabilitation of the economy and governance institutions, were considered part and parcel of stabilisation e orts2.