scholarly journals Conflict Resilience of Water and Energy Supply Infrastructure: Insights from Yemen

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 3269
Author(s):  
Mohammad Al-Saidi ◽  
Emma Lauren Roach ◽  
Bilal Ahmed Hassen Al-Saeedi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Infrastructure Systems ◽  
State Fragility ◽  
Basic Services ◽  
Infrastructure Resilience ◽  
Infrastructure Performance

Political instability and conflicts are contemporary problems across the Middle East. They threaten not only basic security, but also infrastructure performance. Supply infrastructure, providing basic services such as water and electricity, has been subjected to damage, capacity deterioration, and the bankruptcy of public providers. Often, in conflict countries such as Yemen, the continuity of basic supply is only possible thanks to adaptation efforts on the community and household levels. This paper examines the conflict resilience of water and energy supply infrastructure in Yemen during the armed conflict 2015–today. It contributes to resilience studies by linking knowledge on state fragility and conflicts, humanitarian aid, and infrastructure resilience. The paper presents adaptation responses of communities and public entities in the water and energy sectors in Yemen and critically evaluates these responses from the perspective of conflict resilience of infrastructure. The gained insights reaffirm the notion about the remarkable adaptive capacities of communities during conflicts and the importance of incorporating community-level adaptation responses into larger efforts to enhance the conflict resilience of infrastructure systems.

Conflict and political instability in Yemen and its impact on the Middle East

2019 ◽  
pp. 638
Author(s):  
Yathrib Khattab Mandell
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Regional Conflict ◽  
The Stability

The confect in the Yemeni in state and its internal repercussions and the tragedies suffered by the Yemeni people and the divisions and problems that have occurred and political in stability and its impact on the stability of the middle East was the talk of all thinkers and researchers as the internal conflict turned into a regional conflict intersecting and different objectives and interests between the conflicting forces on the middle East As a result the Yemeni arena has become a constant and politically unstable arena.

Outline of legal aspects of the conflict in the Middle East

1991 ◽  
Vol 31 (280) ◽  
pp. 28-30
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Middle East Conflict

The Middle East conflict is beyond any doubt an international armed conflict as defined in Article 2 common to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.The fact that military action has been authorized by security council resolution 678 does not affect this definition or the application of the laws of armed conflict.

The City-Logic of Resistance: Subverting Urbicide in the Middle East City

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
Extreme Variant ◽  
Urban Terrain ◽  
Critical Urban Theory ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Most armed conflict today takes place within urban terrain or within an urbanised context. An extreme variant of such armed conflict is violence perpetrated by external state and non-state forces within the city, known as urbicide. Urbicidal violence deliberately strives to kill, discipline or deny the city to its inhabitants by targeting and then reordering the sociomaterial urban assemblage. Civil resistance within urbicidal violence seeks to subvert the emerging alternative sovereign order sought by such forces. It does so by using the inherent logic of the city in order to maintain/restore the community's social cohesion, mitigate the violence, affirm humanity, and claim the right to the city. This paper investigates the city-logic of civil resistance through examples drawn from the recent urbicidal experiences of Middle East cities such as Gaza, Aleppo, Mosul, and Sana'a. Theoretical insights from the conflict resolution literature, critical urban theory, and assemblage thinking inform the argument.

scholarly journals State Fragility, Social Contracts and the Role of Social Protection: Perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 447
Author(s):  
Markus Loewe ◽  
Tina Zintl
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Information Campaign ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
State Fragility ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Government Provision ◽  
Two Sides

Social contracts and state fragility represent two sides of one coin. The former concept highlights that governments need to deliver three “Ps”—protection, provision, and political participation—to be acceptable for societies, whereas the latter argues that states can fail due to lack of authority (inhibiting protection), capacity (inhibiting provision), or legitimacy. Defunct social contracts often lead to popular unrest. Using empirical evidence from the Middle East and North Africa, we demonstrate how different notions of state fragility lead to different kinds of grievances and how they can be remedied by measures of social protection. Social protection is always a key element of government provision and hence a cornerstone of all social contracts. It can most easily counteract grievances that were triggered by decreasing provision (e.g., after subsidy reforms in Iran and Morocco) but also partially substitute for deficient protection (e.g., by the Palestinian National Authority, in pre-2011 Yemen) or participation (information campaign accompanying Moroccan subsidy cut; participatory set-ups for cash-for-work programmes in Jordan). It can even help maintain a minimum of state–society relations in states defunct in all three Ps (e.g., Yemen). Hence, social protection can be a powerful instrument to reduce state fragility and mend social contracts. Yet, to be effective, it needs to address grievances in an inclusive, rule-based, and non-discriminatory way. In addition, to gain legitimacy, governments should assume responsibility over social protection instead of outsourcing it to foreign donors.

The Future is a Moving Target: Predicting Political Instability

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1405-1417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Bowlsby ◽  
Erica Chenoweth ◽  
Cullen Hendrix ◽  
Jonathan D. Moyer
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
State Level ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Over Time

AbstractPrevious research by Goldstone et al. (2010) generated a highly accurate predictive model of state-level political instability. Notably, this model identifies political institutions – and partial democracy with factionalism, specifically – as the most compelling factors explaining when and where instability events are likely to occur. This article reassesses the model’s explanatory power and makes three related points: (1) the model’s predictive power varies substantially over time; (2) its predictive power peaked in the period used for out-of-sample validation (1995–2004) in the original study and (3) the model performs relatively poorly in the more recent period. The authors find that this decline is not simply due to the Arab Uprisings, instability events that occurred in autocracies. Similar issues are found with attempts to predict nonviolent uprisings (Chenoweth and Ulfelder 2017) and armed conflict onset and continuation (Hegre et al. 2013). These results inform two conclusions: (1) the drivers of instability are not constant over time and (2) care must be exercised in interpreting prediction exercises as evidence in favor or dispositive of theoretical mechanisms.

II. THE PALMER REPORT AND THE LEGALITY OF ISRAEL'S NAVAL BLOCKADE OF GAZA

2012 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 264-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Buchan
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Special Forces ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Naval Blockade ◽  
High Seas

On 3 January 2009 Israel deployed a naval blockade against Gaza in order to prevent materials entering or leaving Gaza that could be used by Hamas in its ongoing armed conflict with Israel.1 With the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsening, on 31 May 2010 a flotilla of vessels carrying humanitarian aid expressed its intention to violate the naval blockade and deliver the aid to Gaza. Before violating the blockade and whilst still on the high seas, Israel sought to enforce its blockade and capture the vessels. This occurred largely without incident except in relation to the Mavi Marmara (a vessel sailing under the flag of the Comoros), which resisted capture by the Israeli special forces and continued to sail in the direction of Gaza. As Israel special forces boarded the Mavi violence ensued, with nine crew members of the Mavi being killed and dozens of others injured (principally Turkish nationals). Several members of Israel's special forces were also injured. Israel eventually assumed control of the ship and the crew members were detained and the vessel and its cargo confiscated.

scholarly journals China’s Energy Strategy in the MENA Region

2017 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 597-619
Author(s):  
Hany Besada ◽  
Justine Salam
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Energy Strategy ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Civil Unrest ◽  
Incremental Change ◽  
Beijing Consensus ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
Energy Diplomacy

China is in dire need of energy resources to sustain its economic growth. In recent years, China has been turning more to Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Middle East, as well as Sudan in North Africa, as trading partners to secure its energy supply. This article explores China’s energy strategy in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region through case studies of China’s energy diplomacy with Saudi Arabia and Iran. It argues that China’s energy strategy is very much driven by the “Beijing Consensus” that features respect for others’ sovereignty, emphasis on sustainability, equality, and quality-of-life, as well as incremental change to past institutions and practices. China has applied an equity ownership strategy to gain more control over oil flows as a shield against price fluctuations and to reduce the possibility of supply interruption; however, civil unrest and conflicts in the MENA region threaten to disrupt China’s energy supply channels, which implies that China should work harder for regional peace in order to achieve sustainable energy supply.

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