International Politics of the Middle East Research Papers (original) (raw)

The last time there was this much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was three and a half million years ago. While our planetary history evidences cyclical climatic shifts, this time injustice is the cause. The lifestyles of the wealthy few are sustained not only by increasing economic inequality but the systemic collapse of ecosystems. The richest 20 percent consumes 80 percent of the world's natural resources and generates over 90 percent of its pollution and waste. For most people, the poorer 80 percent, their grossly unequal access to natural resources is compounded by also bearing the brunt of the pollution generated by the rich.

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- Climate Change, International Law, Conflict, International Environmental Law

This article explores the impact of the US foreign policy’s predictability, or lack thereof, vis-à-vis the Middle Easter regional order. It lays out two main arguments. Firstly, since 2003, the US has undertaken some concrete actions which have undermined former expectations of its behaviour among regional actors. By that, Washington distanced itself from open and predictable foreign policy that played a key role in maintaining the regional order, most concretely as an external security provider. US actions fostered a double-level uncertainty: amid a broader process of strategic disengagement from the region, the US’s level of intervention was not really predictable as in some occasions it adhered to its former responsibilities and opted either for direct intervention or offshore engagement, while in others it advanced in its disengagement by not intervening or doing less than expected by regional actors; additionally, in terms of the direction of its interventions, its policies fostered uncertainty as they fluctuated from some reinforcing the status to those disrupting it. Secondly, this uncertainty prompted regional actors to assume further security-oriented responsibilities, as shown by the renewed centrality of the Gulf Cooperation Council or the innovative Saudi foreign policy in Bahrain, Yemen or Qatar since 2011.

- by Jordi Quero and +1
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- International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Middle East Studies, Foreign Policy

The Chinese Identity has known many changes in the twentieth century. After the Humiliation and turbulent period that China has been known by western colonial powers, which is a victim of imperial wars by Japan, and the strong communist State experience of Mao, there is less time for build social structure to define what it means by Chinese in general. The Chinese Communist Party uses a strong state presence, the use of public memorials such as museums, and country-level education, to establish a unified narrative. However, efforts to achieve this have undermined the leadership of the Chinese state by limiting foreign policy options. For the time being, I will outline the common issues related to China's identity in the literature, covering the current theory of Chinese identity, foreign policy, and China's relations with the Middle East and choosing Syria as a case study.

The article discusses the efforts to undertake economic reconstruction in Bosnia following the end of the war. It argues that, despite certain successes such as the rehabilitation of
infrastructure and the privatization of the banking sector, overall progress has been below expectations. The study, accordingly, attempts to analyse the reasons behind the reconstruction
failure by grouping Bosnia’s problems into four different challenges for analytical purposes: the post-Dayton institutional deficiency; overcoming political fragmentation; creating appropriate conditions for economic revival; and graduating from dependency on foreign economic aid. In this respect, it is concluded that the intersection between the economic and political dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction has generated a paradox: while huge amounts of economic assistance have intended to facilitate political reconciliation, the nature of the administrative (political) structure that was established in the post-war period has in turn hindered economic
recovery and the creation of a unified economic space. Moreover, political fragmentation and slow progress in economic reconstruction have been in a mutually constitutive relationship in which the existence of the one has contributed to the sustenance of the other.

- by Nikolaos Tzifakis
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- Geography, International Relations, Multiculturalism, Development Studies
- by James M. Dorsey
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- Gulf Studies, Global Governance, Governance, Diplomacy

Using the Foreign Policy Analysis framework and the concept of Authoritative Decision Units, this article analyzes three cases that required an Iranian response: the Arab Uprisings, the nuclear negotiations, and the 2017 GCC Crisis. The article argues that it was not a single actor taking the foreign policy decisions in those cases, but a combination of individual and collective actors that formed the decision units that designed and implemented Iranian foreign policy. It also contends that those decisions were in line with the overall Iranian foreign policy objective —which is to convert Iran into a regional power— and, to that aim, variations of non-alignment strategies were implemented.

A series of incidents have recently brought the Persian Gulf to the brink of war. While all the countries in the region are wary of the catastrophic consequences that a war could have, they appear trapped in a highly risky vicious cycle of mutual suspicion, inflammatory rhetoric and tit-for-tat actions. The region is in dire need of a functional regional security system capable of managing risks, facilitating dialogue and enabling peaceful resolution of conflicts while at the same time favouring the emergence of cooperative order to replace confrontation. To address the shortcomings of the Gulf security environment, this ebook aims to answer several questions and to propose a new approach to exit from the current stalemate. What are the key drivers of the current regional insecurity? What options are there to respond to the unfolding crisis and why have previous efforts to create an effective regional security architecture failed? How can a new regional security-building approach em...

Sino-Russian relations is largely perceived in much of the West as an 'entente' or an 'axis of authoritarians' that threatens the West and the current global order. This tendency to lump China and Russia together raises two questions that are addressed in this analysis: (1) Is this practice replicated in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa? (2) Are perceptions about China and Russia shared by MENA elites and the public? We answer these questions by examining polling data across MENA and within particular states.

There is plenty of studies focusing on China's global outreach through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In tandem with this, the extensive literature on China depicts it as the next hegemon to succeed in the USA. Along this line, flourishing ties with various Asian nations, including the Middle Eastern countries, as a result of China's recent foreign policy activism has been addressed extensively. While most research has been stressing the rising assertiveness of China in world politics, only a limited number of studies have touched upon the responses from middle or small powers against China's ascent. Drawing from neoclassical realism, this article contends two levels of analysis for delineating the interaction between Turkey, a middle power, and China, a rising great power. First, the exchange between Turkey and the USA is vital in determining the cordial relations between Turkey and China. Alteration in the American policy vis-à-vis Turkey in the wake of the Arab Spring is relevant to Turkey's growing relations with China. Second, is the rising anti-Westernism of foreign policy elites as part of the alteration in the strategic culture of Turkish politics, which makes Turkey's rapprochement with China possible. Nevertheless, it should be noted that these two levels are intertwined and feed each other. Consequently, employing a neoclassical realist approach, the article argues that the middle powers' stance against a rising hegemon is conditional upon the bilateral relations with the current hegemon and peculiarities of domestic politics.

- by Federico Donelli
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- International Relations, Turkey, Turkish Foreign Policy, Middle East Politics

This handbook brings together a mix of established and emerging international scholars to provide valuable analytical insights as to how China’s growing Middle East presence affects intra-regional development, trade, security, and... more

- by Dr Naser al-tamimi
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- Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Gulf Studies, Saudi Arabia

Iran’s nuclear program is a complicated issue that involves many variables. In the process of deconstructing the issue is necessary to look over the steps that lead to today’s diplomatic confrontation. Starting from the period of the monarchy, when Iran was looked at as a friendly state to the west leading up to the latest efforts of the Islamic Republic to possess nuclear power and, according to western point of view, the potential for nuclear weapons production.

- by Panagiotis Dakoutros
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- International Relations, Middle East Studies, Middle East Politics, Israel

This volume presents a comprehensive, detailed, and accessible account of the international politics of the region. Focusing on the key factors that give the Persian Gulf its strategic significance, contributors look at the influence of vast deposits of oil and natural gas on international politics, the impact of the competing centers of power of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the nature of relationships among countries within the Persian Gulf, and the evolving interaction between Islam and politics.

Europe is increasingly confronted with China’s footprint in different geostrategic spaces. This publication offers analysis on major competitive dynamics. Accordingly, the team of the Institute for Peace Support and Conflict Management (IFK) examines soft power outreach, economic facts, socio-economic trends and monetary policy in tandem with military capacities.
Six authors provide analysis for their areas of expertise, covering a wide geographical range. In addition, four authors explore strategic narratives shaping China’s current foreign policy, in order to make the political moves of a new global power easier to understand. What are the strategic convergence points for the EU in a competitive environment or rival setting with Beijing? The present volume highlights this crucial question, but also addresses options for cooperation.

- by Walter Posch
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- International Relations, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Uyghur

The crisis in the Gulf that pits Qatar against a UAE-Saudi-led alliance is Qatar’s least problem when it comes to the 2022 World Cup.

This chapter focuses on the Iraqi Kurdish response to the rapid and devastating advance of ISIS. Of course, the Iraqi Kurdish response to the ISIS advance has been a multifaceted, complex, and evolving one that includes military strategy, pragmatic politics, and aspirations of independence. Leaving aside the fact that the ISIS advance has granted the Iraqi Kurds unprecedented access to Iraq’s rich oil reserves and the fact that the initial Kurdish reaction was to ramp up their rhetoric toward complete secession from Iraq, this chapter focuses on two further dimensions of the Iraqi Kurdish response. Firstly, it documents the Iraqi Kurdish seizure of the so-called “disputed territories,” especially
Kirkuk, and their stated intent to hold a referendum on the future of these
regions (effectively to force a resolution to Article 140 of the constitution). Secondly, the chapter documents the Iraqi Kurdish use of the ISIS advance as leverage to enhance Kurdish relations dramatically with the US and Europe via direct military support (including airstrikes and weapons supply) and to become the key launchpad
in the fight against ISIS planned for 2015. The chapter concludes by briefly assessing the efficacy and wisdom of the Kurdish strategy of leveraging the ISIS onslaught to advance their own interests.

- by Benjamin Isakhan
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- Ethnohistory, Political Sociology, Comparative Politics, Political Economy

International relations theory has traditionally placed alliance politics at the very centre of many analyses of international or regional politics. Realist scholars, in particular, continually revised alliance theories, with assorted debates over time, but often with little reference to the Middle East. International relations theory has been, quite appropriately, accused of being too Western-centric and even US-centric in understandings of global politics, or of being too focused on competing paradigms and schools of thought, or what is sometimes referred to as "theoretical sectarianism" (Salloukh 2015: 50). Scholars of Middle East regional politics, in contrast, have rarely associated with a single school or perspective, and have been more likely to employ a kind of theoretical pluralism or eclecticism to understand the details and nuances of regional political life, including alliances. This chapter first examines key parts of the vast literature on alliances, alignments and changing balances of power in international relations theory. Some of this literature is drawn from Western empirical evidence, some from the Middle East itself. The chapter then turns more exclusively to the region, examining regional politics and especially shifting alliances and changes over time in the regional balance of power, including the frequently shifting politics of inter-Arab relations. Together, these two broad themes-the alliance literature in international relations theory and regional alliance politics in actual practice-combine for a more comprehensive analysis of alliances and the balance of power in the Middle East. As we shall see, most scholars of the region approach these topics from several angles, drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, but ultimately providing fuller explanations for regional political dynamics, including shifting patterns of alliances and alignments in the region, inter-Arab relations and the changing regional balance and the recurring patterns of regional "Cold Wars."

چکیده
دیدگاه های سنتی سالها پارادایم مسلط در روابط بین الملل بوده اند. این دیدگاه ها با تاکیدات خود بر دولت محوری، نقش قدرت در روابط بین الملل و توجه بیش از اندازه به ابعاد نظامی و نادیده گرفتن سایر زوایای امنیت، در توضیح شرایط کشورهای خاورمیانه، بویژه وقایع مربوط به بیداری اسلامی ناکام مانده اند. از حدود دهه 1980 مجموعه دیگری از نظریات با انتقاد از دیدگاههای سنتی بویژه نگاه تک بعدی آن ها به امنیت در مطالعات امنیتی ظهور یافتند. تاکید ویژه ی این گروه به گسترش مباحث امنیتی در سایر حوزه ها و مرجع قرار دادن فرد در این مطالعات بود. دیدگاه های انتقادی نیز با کم اهمیت جلوه دادن نقش متغیر دولت بویژه در حوزه ی خاورمیانه نمی توانند پاسخ مناسبی برای شرایط خاص آن ارائه دهند. این پژوهش تلاش می کند با بهره گیری از نظریه ی پسا استعماری که بر خصوصیات منحصر به فرد تاریخی، سیاسی، اقتصادی، جمعیت شناسی و جغرافیایی در هر منطقه توجه دارد، پیچیدگی های امنیتی خاورمیانه را از این دریچه مورد واکاوی قرار داده و ضعف های مطالعات امنیتی در تبیین
آنچه بر خاورمیانه می گذرد را آشکار سازد.

Previous studies have noted the dominance of official sources within the news process and their unique ability to shape media narratives. This research addresses the role and implications of news sources in contributing to the overwhelmingly positive portrayal of the anti-Mubarak opposition protesters within British and American newspaper coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Furthermore, this paper will assess how the position of global political elites towards the protests in Egypt possibly opened up the editorial space within the news coverage of the revolution for the anti-Mubarak opposition movement to emerge as the dominant voice within the reporting.

- by Patrick Fitzgerald
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- Sociology, Media Sociology, Political Sociology, International Relations

Since 1970s, Somali people have migrated to several countries because of prolonged civil war, drought, famine and economic crisis. Among other reasons, on the basis of Turkey's development assistance to Somali and developing bilateral relations have accelerated the migration of Somalis to Turkey. This research tries to present a reliable and a narrow section of the picture in which mostly young members of this diaspora. My basic aim is to highlight and explain the underlying causes of their migration to Turkey and their permanent accommodation. By doing this, this research have tested and benefited from the explanatory power of Social Network Theory with regards to perpetuation of Somalis in Turkey. Hence, the primary aim is to collocate and map an overview of the socio-economic status of the Somali diaspora in Turkey. Lastly, by creating a basis for discussion on the Somali diaspora, article also suggests recommendations to different stakeholders in dealing with Somali diaspora in Turkey.

After conquering large swaths of Syria and Iraq, the IS undertook an aggressive sectarian campaign in which they not only enacted horrific violence against the Shia people, but also damaged or destroyed several key Shia mosques and shrines. Drawing on Social Movement Theory (SMT), this article analyzes the response by various Shia nonstate actors—militia leaders, religious clergymen, populist preachers, and seminal poets. It argues that they used the IS threat to Shia holy sites to develop and deploy a mobilization frame that has come to be referred to as the “shrine protection narrative.” The article also documents the manifold consequences of the shrine protection narrative: it underpinned a mass recruitment drive that saw tens of thousands enlist; it legitimized foreign Shia militias to enter the conflicts in both Syria and Iraq; it justified the formation of entirely new militias who declared the centrality of shrine protection to their mandate; and it mobilized them to enact political violence. In doing so, this article extends existing studies of SMT to demonstrate that “sacred spaces”—and particularly the need to protect religious sites from specific threats—can serve as a powerful mobilization frame towards political violence.

- by Benjamin Isakhan
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- Religion, Comparative Religion, Political Sociology, Social Movements

On February 20, 1956, His Grace Bishop Zareh Payaslian, Prelate of the Diocese of Aleppo, was elected Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia at Antelias, Lebanon. The election was contested and declared illegal by a minority of the Electoral Asseably, who, supported by a group of the Cilician Religious Brotherhood and a sizeable group of the Armenian faithful under the jurisdiction of the Cilician See, refused to recognise His Holiness Zareh I as the duly elected Catholicos. Further, the affair was complicated and brought out of its local context, effecting a crisis within the whole Armenian Church, by the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin who refused to accept the election of His Holiness Zareh I. It must be pointed out at the beginning that the disagreement does not concern religious matters; there is no doctrinal divergence nor the prospect of one in the future.

- by Dickran Kouymjian
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- Armenian Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East History, Early Church

Turkey has pursued an assertive military campaign in Iraq to eliminate the presence of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been supported by elements of hard power, coercive diplomacy, and an increasingly emboldened foreign-intelligence apparatus. This article traces the roots of this new phase in Turkey's cross-border military engagement to two interrelated factors. First, Ankara has adopted a new counterterrorism doctrine that relies on a militarized regional policy. Second, the course of Turkey-Iraq relations since the liberation of Mosul and the Kurds’ failed independence bid has allowed Ankara to forge a relationship of dominance over Baghdad and Erbil, facilitating its interventionism. Next, the article evaluates the broader implications of Turkey’s determination to sustain the ongoing campaign. First, Turkey’s military operations against the PKK may play a decisive role in the organization’s evolution. Second, they may expose the challenges and limits of Ankara’s new assertiveness and reliance on the use of force in the Middle East. Third, Turkey may have to pursue a delicate line in its coercive policy, lest it further undermine the fragile internal balances of Iraq. Last, while Ankara’s assertiveness may test the tense relationship with Tehran, it may not end the new understandingthe two countries reached in their regional policies.

in POMEPS (ed.) POMEPS Studies 16: International Relations Theory and a Changing Middle East.

This report contends that the Middle East regional order since 2011 has changed in several ways. This is evidenced by the decline in US power, the rise of sectarianism, the growing influence of non-state actors, the return of Arab state permeability, intensified rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the emergence of regional players such as Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and the fluidity of alliances. However, these and other changes constitute a change within order, rather than of order.

- by Raffaella A. Del Sarto and +1
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- International Relations, International Studies, Middle East Studies, Regional Politics

This article combines historical analysis with international-relations theory to contend that geopolitical developments around the Eastern Mediterranean in the middle third century BCE were indirectly responsible for the emergence of the Parthian state and a new international system of states in the ancient East. Since the death of Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Empire had ruled over much of the East; however, disastrous military conflicts at home and abroad in the West caused a sudden decline of Seleucid power in the 240s-230s BCE. The troubles of the Seleucid state caused what political scientists call a power-transition crisis that damaged Seleucid hegemony over the East when the Seleucid satraps of Parthia and Bactria declared their independence. Moreover, the deleterious civil wars between Seleucid dynasts in the West and the rebellions of eastern satraps encouraged the nomadic Parni tribe from the Central Asian steppe (later known as the Parthians), who had been seeking a new homeland for decades, to invade northeastern Iran and establish a new kingdom. With the Parni’s successful conquest of Parthia and its immediate consequences, a new interstate system of tripolarity between the Seleucid Empire, Bactrian Kingdom, and the newly formed Parthian state emerged in the ancient East.

- by Nikolaus L Overtoom
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- Critical Theory, History, Ancient History, Military History
- by Islam Hassan
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- Russian Studies, International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Terrorism

The task to reshape governments in the countries confronted with the Arab Spring prompts the question whether there are necessary conditions to realize a stable society that simultaneously seeks to eliminate the elements that have led to the uprisings. Acknowledging some constitutional rights seems indispensable in such a process. I argue that such a state of affairs is indeed the case, at least now that the ‘old’ justifications to differentiate between people do not suffice anymore. That is not to say that the countries involved will have identical laws in each respect, but merely that a common basis has to be realized, manifested in political and legal equality, so this given does not derogate from the fact that each country’s specific legislation needs to be shaped in the light of its own history. Such a basis has no ‘moral’ character, but is simply a necessary condition to prevent sedition.

- by Jasper Doomen
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- History, Political Sociology, Social Change, Social Theory

One highly prominent aspect of ISIS’s program of destruction in Syria and Iraq that has come to the media attention recently is their program of cultural heritage destruction that took the form of smashing artifacts in archaeological museums, iconoclastic breaking and bulldozing of archaeological sites, dynamiting of shrines, tombs, and other holy sites of local communities, and burning of libraries and archives. In this paper, I focus on ISIS’s destruction of archaeological heritage. I argue that this destruction can be seen as a form of place-based violence that aims to annihilate the local sense of belonging, and the collective sense of memory among local communities to whom the heritage belongs. Therefore, heritage destruction can be seen as part and parcel of this scorched-earth strategy described above. I also argue that the Islamic State coordinates and choreographs these destructions as mediatic spectacles of violence aimed at objects and sites of heritage, and these spectacles take place as re-enactments or historical performances that are continuously and carefully communicated to us through ISIS’s own image-making and dissemination apparatus that increasingly utilizes the most advanced technologies of visualization and communication. I will also pose questions about the relatively weak responses from the archaeological community around the world that rarely went beyond the stereotypical expression of “dismay” to ISIS’s heritage destruction. At the same time, I will try to answer the why and how of ISIS’s dislike of archaeological heritage in the context of late capitalism.

- by Ömür Harmansah
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- Critical Theory, Landscape Ecology, Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology