From Deng’s Reforms to Libya

Author(s):  
Andrea Ghiselli

How and why did the Chinese human and economic footprint develop in some of the most unstable regions in the world like North Africa and the Middle East? As shown in Chapter 3, it happened as part of China’s integration with the world economy. Over time, from Jiang Zemin’s Go Global strategy to Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, a strong political support for this allowed for the loosening of the framework that regulates where Chinese companies can carry out what kind of business. Against this background, the presence of Chinese companies in North Africa and the Middle East begun to develop driven by the necessity to secure access to energy and other natural resources. Then, it expanded to include the flow of goods from China to European, North Africa, and Middle Eastern markets. Yet, Chinese companies failed to understand that the growing freedom to act came with the responsibility to secure the success and, most importantly, security of their operations overseas. This is why they were unprepared when the Arab Spring broke out and, therefore, China’s interest frontiers emerged.

Author(s):  
George Naufal ◽  
Ismail Genc ◽  
Carlos Vargas-Silva

The purpose of this chapter is to present new empirical research on the Arab Spring and, specifically, to focus on the attitudes of residents of one country in the Middle East towards the Arab Spring. This research was conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has been one of the main migrant destinations in the world for the last two decades. This allows for comparisons regarding attitudes towards the Arab Spring across individuals from different regions of origin such as GCC, South Asia, and Western countries. The attitudes of university students are important because the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has experienced a substantial increase in the 17 to 23 years of age population. Existing reports suggest that, by far, those involved in Arab Spring protests were young individuals. The analysis places particular emphasis on the correlation of attitudes towards the Arab Spring with three key aspects: religiousness, attachment to the GCC countries, and attachment to country of origin.


Author(s):  
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Over 300 entriesThis dictionary provides a useful overview of the wide array of political structures and systems that comprise the contemporary Middle East. From Turkey through Iraq and Iran, to the Arabian Peninsula and the states of North Africa, it includes up-to-date definitions of political organizations, key political figures, and important developments, as well as region-specific concepts such as Majlis, academic terms such as rentier state theory, and events such as the Arab Spring.It is an essential reference resource for students taking courses or modules in politics in the Middle East or broader subject areas such as politics, history, economics, and international relations with a specific focus on Middle Eastern politics.


Author(s):  
E. A. Antyukhova

The article considers the consequences of the realization of NATO strategy in the conflicts of "the Arab spring" for the states of the Middle East and North Africa. It is pointed out that the main approaches to the realization of NATO strategy, its results and the consequences of the Alliance crisis management of "the Arab spring" have a contradictory character. On the one hand, the strategic problem of the block has been realized: arrangement of conflicts and an attempt to appear in the opinion of the world community as the only peacekeeping force capable of controlling and resolving regional conflicts. At the same time the Alliance has shown the efficiency of its partner programs. The high quality performance of the military forces of NATO has been confirmed. The North Atlantic Alliance has started moves towards strengthening its own positions in the region under the auspices of assistance in democratization of Arab states by supporting protest performances. On the other hand, the members of the Alliance have very specifically approached the realization of tasks of settlement of the conflicts. As a result, in the majority of the countries of the Arab world the conflicts not only have not been settled but, on the contrary, in a number of cases have intensified. One of the main consequences of the realization of NATO of its approaches to settlement of the events of "the Arab spring" was the export of "instability" which entailed radical changes in the geopolitical situation in the Middle East region. The geopolitical configuration of all the Middle Eastern area has changed. Some diffusion of the territorial activity of certain states (Iraq, Libya, Syria) is observed. In the course of the Arab crisis there appeared new ethnic (Kurdish) and territorial ("The Islamic State") enclaves. More and more countries are found to be involved in the conflict.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. p65
Author(s):  
Sri Michael Das

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, situated not only physically at the center of the world has also been the center of some of its most significant moments. These involved the Kingdom’s role in supporting peace between Israel and Egypt alongside former President and Humanitarian Jimmy Carter. Carter, demonized for his Southern style and failures in the Middle East, especially during the Iran Hostage Crisis, engineered one of its greatest diplomatic feats ever: Peace between ancient enemies, Israel and Egypt. Their long-standing vendetta which had real consequences for centuries nearly moved the modern world to the brink of World War 3. In stepped President Carter, Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and eventually, the Royal Family of Jordan and all that changed. In this paper I would like to explore the personalities, roles and conditions that brought them together, re-celebrate their achievements, and challenge the world to model their characters and repeat their successes. Once again or even still, Israel is the pearl in the Middle Eastern oyster, and a weary world is eager move on. It is my hope my research will give us an inkling where to begin a process that could once again prevent a Global Conflict.


2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24
Author(s):  
Deanna Ferree Womack

This article considers the history and contemporary reality of Middle Eastern Christianity in light of new demographic information available from the World Christian Encyclopedia. For readers interested in church history and World Christianity, it identifies key lessons to be learned about Christians in and from the Middle East today. It focuses on understanding the region’s Christian diversity, the complexities of recent demographic decline, the relationship between Middle Eastern and global Christianity, and the interreligious realities of Christian life in the region.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-214
Author(s):  
Yoram Evron

In recent years, the ties between Asian powers and Middle Eastern countries have grown significantly, and the consequence of this development is a gradual spin-off of intra-Asian political process to the Middle East. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provides an intriguing illustration of such a possible spin-off. Japan’s response to BRI is mostly negative but less clear is the possible implications of the China–Japan confrontation over BRI for their interaction with the Middle East. Japan’s responses to the BRI and China’s perceptions thereof can expand the set of factors that shape the two Asian powers’ involvement in that region.


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 431-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aylin Güney ◽  
Nazif Mandacı

This article critically analyses Turkish security discourses connected to the meta-geography of the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) before and after the developments of the Arab Spring. A critical geopolitics approach and critical security theories in international relations provide the theoretical framework, as security discourses are considered to be a product of geopolitical imaginations and codes that, in turn, shape the making of foreign and security policies. First, the article examines the invention of BMENA as a meta-geography within Turkey’s new geopolitical imagination, as well as the new geopolitical codes underlying the new security discourses. Then, the article assesses the impact of the Arab Spring, which led to major changes in Turkey’s newly established geopolitical codes, formulated in the pre-Arab Spring period, and analyses the ruptures and continuities in Turkey’s security discourses in the light of those developments. Finally, the article concludes that the Arab Spring, especially the Syrian crisis, shifted the focus of Turkey’s foreign policy in BMENA from cooperation to conflict. This has led to a resecuritization of Turkey’s geopolitical codes, discourses and security practices in the region, revealing the limitation of Turkey’s current geopolitical imagination.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-427
Author(s):  
Katherine Recinos ◽  
Lucy Blue

Abstract Maritime cultural heritage is under increasing threat around the world, facing damage, destruction, and disappearance. Despite attempts to mitigate these threats, maritime cultural heritage is often not addressed to the same extent or with equal resources. One approach that can be applied towards protecting and conserving threatened cultural heritage, and closing this gap, is capacity development. This paper addresses the question of how capacity development can be improved and adapted for the protection of maritime cultural heritage under threat. It asserts that capacity development for maritime cultural heritage can be improved by gaining a more comprehensive and structured understanding of capacity development initiatives through applying a consistent framework for evaluation and analysis. This allows for assessment and reflection on previous or ongoing initiatives, leading to the implementation of more effective initiatives in the future. In order to do this, a model for classifying initiatives by ten parameters is proposed. It is then applied to a number of case studies featuring initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa region. This is followed by a discussion of how conclusions and themes drawn from the examination and evaluation of the case study initiatives can provide a deeper understanding of capacity development efforts, and an analysis of how the parameter model as a framework can aid in improving capacity development for threatened maritime cultural heritage overall.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
AKM Ahsan Ullah

Geopolitically intertwined and strategically significant refugee policy in the MENA region is frequently analyzed in light of well-documented ethnic, religious, class, and border conflicts. However, the policy is also inexorably linked to the broader geopolitics of the global refugee protection regime and discourse. This article analyzes the complex relationship between geopolitics, domestic political dynamics, and their attendant crises in the MENA region. The complex set of political shockwaves of the Arab Spring induced massive mobility of people which may compound incipient political tensions between and within MENA states.


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