Search

Within the Special Issue 'Reaching for allies? The dialectics and overlaps between International Relations and Area Studies in the study of politics, security, and conflicts', this article investigates the post-2011 changing relationship between International Relations (IR) and Middle Eastern Studies (MES). The article departs from the assumption that the reading and writing of security in, on and from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has historically been trapped between the projection of security from abroad and endogenous security narratives. We argue that within the post-Arab uprisings renewed scholarly attention, with studies on security in, on and from the MENA region expressing an all-time methodological pluralism and the increasing and original application of bottom-up and non-military security understandings to regional security, societal and human security are among the most promising notions for transformative dialogue between IR and MES. In broader theoretical terms, we show how the ongoing debate on post-Weberian notions of statehood and post-Westphalian sovereignty point to an already transformative dialogue between IR and MES. The article illustrates this trend with two case studies – on Tunisia and on Iraq – pointing to changing security concepts reflecting changing security practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The civil conflicts that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa as a consequence of the failure of the 2011 Arab uprisings show the limits of mediation as a tool for conflict resolution and of negotiated settlement based on power-sharing as a solution to conflict. The article examines mediation processes in Libya and Syria, problematising the role played by the nature of mediators as well as the broader ideational framework in which they have been operating. We show that in both contexts there has been a declining influence of pure mediators, exemplified by the sidelining of the United Nations, in parallel to a gradual but steady dispersion of mediation efforts in favour of 'power' and biased mediators. This trend reflects a broader rise in arguments in favour of stability, often interpreted in authoritarian shapes at both the local and the international level, a development that normatively and politically undermines the existing international regime dealing with civil wars. Taken together, mediation attempts in Libya and Syria point to the hollowing out of the liberal peace consensus and the consolidation of an alternative framework for conflict resolution based on authoritarian settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every actor who commands coercive resources plays a relevant role in the complex processes of state restructuring following regime change. The role of armies in the 2010-2011 Arab uprisings has been widely explored, but limited attention has been devoted to how different agents with coercive power have been involved in the restructuring of political order. This contribution presents the theoretical framework within which the remaining empirical contributions are situated. The central insight is that better understanding of the emerging political orders requires moving away from binary notions of hierarchy and anarchy as ordering principles and look at how, within heterarchical political orders, coercive agents behave within fluid state-society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]