Publications

The decades’ long relationship between the European Union and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has gone through different stages and phases in response to regional events, developments in the EU and broader global geopolitical trends. While navigating through often troubled waters, the EU has fallen prey to three main false dilemmas or perceived [...]

In the Middle East, multilateralism has often been associated with intervention and creating order (or disorder), rather than being a positive force for integrating the region in an equitable manner. Many of the regional struggles and their attendant multilateral implications that have taken place have played out in international institutions, and particularly in the United [...]

Following the push for reform during the popular uprising in 2011, authoritarianism is once again dominating domestic politics and power relations in the MENA region. Drawing on data collected during field trips to Cairo, Tehran, Beirut and Kuwait city, the authors of this MENARA report analyse three distinct ways in which political leaders in Egypt, [...]

The MENA region has been dealing with waves of refugee crises for decades. Addressing urban and protracted refugee crises in the region contributed to triggering reflection on the global governance of refugee protection. The Global Compact on Refugees now sets out the parameters for stronger solidarity and responsibility-sharing, based on multi-stakeholder partnerships, inclusive and comprehensive [...]

Refugee movements are not a new phenomenon in the Middle East and North Africa. The history of the region has been shaped by waves of displacement and refugee crises, and the most recent, the dramatic case of Syria, is still in process. This paper investigates refugee movements in the region and their impact on regional [...]

This paper asserts that the Arab–Israeli conflict, and in particular the question of Palestine, has been the major issue of regional concern across the Middle East for over a century. It claims that the failure to resolve the question of Palestine will continue to impact on the region’s stability and its geopolitical dynamics and to [...]

In 2018, Morocco became the first country of departure for migrants from Africa, as Spain became, simultaneously, the most important gateway to Europe during the same year. For Spain, this development revived fears generated by the events of autumn 2005, when hundreds of migrants breached, for the first time, the security fences between its cities [...]

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is both the source of concern about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the driving force pushing for multilateral arms control. While most states in the region are parties to – or have signed, but not ratified – the multilateral WMD-related arms control treaties, the few outstanding cases [...]

This paper examines the links between jihadi organizations and illegal criminal activities in the Sahel region. Based on extensive interviews conducted in the region, the paper argues that, while radical organizations are linked with activities such as human trafficking and drug trafficking, this is not their main sources of revenue, which in fact generally comes [...]

In the MENA region the important technological trends of digitalization and of information and communications technologies (ICT) are very diverse due to different levels of development both between and within countries. Aspects like infrastructure, economic conditions, job market, social media are discussed. Adequate governance for innovation and specifically ICT is severely lacking in most of the MENA [...]

How have armed conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen challenged or weakened each state? This report underlines the main dynamics that have affected state capacity and authority and highlights the key challenges facing policymakers in rebuilding centralized, efficient and legitimate states. It puts particular emphasis on the need for building consensus around governance mechanisms [...]

This paper analyses the dynamics of relations between the two regional powers in the Maghrebi sub-regional system: Algeria and Morocco. More specifically, it examines the trajectory of the long and complex interactions between those two states as well as the key issues at stake, especially the Saharan problem. Based on extensive interviews conducted in both [...]

This paper explores how the current dynamics in the energy market sector affect, and are affected by, the interactions between the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the global order. In particular, it aims to answer the overarching question: “Is MENA peripheral to or embedded in global dynamics in relation to energy?” To [...]

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is increasingly embebbed into the global order in the transnational field, namely through the intra- and interregional interactions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with state actors. The phenomenon is investigated in the framework of the “international NGO triangle”, namely the system of relations between the non-governmental organization, the [...]

Existing regional cooperation platforms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are internally fragmented and largely ineffective. Focusing on the League of Arab States, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab Maghreb Union, this paper discusses attempts to re-energize and instrumentalize existing regional organizations following the Arab uprisings. It shows that regional [...]

This paper analyses the drivers behind some of the different types of proliferation of armed groups in power and politics that have taken place in the Middle East and North Africa after 2011. Based on thick empirical description and analysis of the highly distinct ways that armed groups have proliferated in Egypt and in Libya [...]

This paper, based on extensive interviews and fieldwork conducted in North Africa and the Sahel, considers the recent evolution of jihadi organizations in this region, and offers analysis of patterns of competition and violence among different jihadi groups. We argue that while there is a clear division between Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and those linked with the [...]

This paper analyses the impact of the Libyan crisis on the regional environment in North Africa/the Sahel. More specifically the paper shows that, despite international attempts to resolve the crisis, the situation remains very difficult in Libya with the persistence of instability and radical militancy and a dramatic increase in illegal trafficking, particularly human trafficking. [...]

State–society relations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been deeply impacted by the dynamics around collective identities in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings and of other domestic and regional far-reaching developments, such as the failed coup attempt in Turkey or the ramifications of the Syrian conflict. It is therefore of utmost [...]

This paper argues that the impact of the eight-year war in Syria will reverberate across the region for years to come, and explores, in particular, four noteworthy legacies. First, it examines the series of interventions in Syria by regional and foreign powers (including Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab [...]

Against the backdrop of the growing leverage that MENA states have been acquiring vis-à-vis Europe on the issue of migration and border controls over the last decade, this paper identifies a number of trends in the responses of MENA states on these issues. By providing examples from the western Mediterranean, especially North African countries, it [...]

What impact have regional powers had on shaping regional order in the Middle East? What role will they play in the future of the regional system? Following the US-led invasion of Iraq and the failure of the USA to establish regional order, the area has witnessed a series of attempts by regional states to project [...]

The paper provides historical and political context to current diplomatic and humanitarian developments in the Gaza Strip, and investigates the present and the future of the area. Special attention is given to the political, economic and security dimensions, as well as the relationship between this area and the broader region. The conclusions linger on whether [...]

Russia wields its influence in pursuit of important state interests. As in the Soviet era, contemporary Russia declares ambitious goals and pursues them in a desperate effort to play a decisive role in world politics. The overall objective of Russian foreign policy is to become a world power, and gaining influence over the MENA region [...]

MENA countries’ integration in processes of economic globalization has trailed behind many emerging markets in Asia, but also Latin America. This applies especially to the “bunker states” and “bully praetorian states” of the Arab republics and Iran, less so to Lebanon and the “globalizing monarchies” of the GCC, Morocco, and Jordan and even less to [...]

Motivated by the need to inform the enduring and unresolved debates about religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, this report focuses on the relation between social change and religious diversity and the challenges this poses for the state–religion relationship. It also draws attention to the pluralization of the religious [...]

Although the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has witnessed a long series of conflicts since the end of the Second World War, it is now in the unprecedented situation where nearly all MENA states are involved to a certain extent in ongoing conflict (e.g. in the Iraq–Syria area; Libya; Yemen). MENA states are [...]

This report analyses the key energy factors and trends shaping the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s energy landscape. The unsustainable increase in energy demand, driven by population and economic growth, is exerting considerable pressure on governments in the region to institute significant policy changes and demand-side measures as well as energy mix diversification [...]

The MENARA study area has undergone significant transformation over twenty years decades, resulting from a combination of ideational and material factors. In this report, we examine the magnitude, distribution and trends in key environmental and energy factors that materially affect the economic, social and political profile of the MENA region. We do this by conducting [...]

The Middle East and North Africa is one of the world’s most rapidly transforming regions, politically, economically, demographically and environmentally. Despite largely declining total fertility rates, the momentum of absolute population growth will mean that the region surpasses China in terms of total population by 2090. Land degradation, water stress and trends of urbanisation will [...]

This paper outlines the ways in which the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been embedded in global identity processes and structures in the post-2011 period. It assesses MENA social and political developments in relation to global ideational and identity factors. Important among these is the imagined yet increasingly widespread and pernicious idea [...]

Since independence, states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have been dominant players in shaping the regional order. The purpose of this paper is to explore and define challenges to the state and their role in shaping identities in the MENA region, and to evaluate their regional roots. The paper emphasizes two [...]