Explaining China’s popularity in the Middle East and Africa

Abstract

China enjoys considerable popularity in the Middle East and Africa, not only among elites but also at street level. This article draws on international relations theories to explain this general pattern, as well as intra- and interregional variation. Every approach has something to contribute, but international political economy more so than realism. Constructivist theories are particularly useful in explaining China’s popularity in the Middle East and Africa.     

War and state formation in Lebanon: can Tilly be applied to the developing world?

State formation in the developing world can be explained as growing centralisation and institutionalisation. To understand why some states struggle with state formation, or the processes of centralisation, the model provided by Charles Tilly, in his analysis of state formation in Western Europe, is applied to Lebanon, starting at the onset of the 1975 civil war and concluding with an analysis of the post-Syrian occupation environment. With the appropriate conditions it is possible to use Tilly’s model of war making and the state to measure state formation, or the lack thereof, in the developing world. Conclusively, in the case of Lebanon, it is evident that progress towards strong state formation has been made because of processes of war that are similar to those Tilly outlines in his historical analysis of Western Europe.     

Energy security and Russia’s gas strategy: The symbiotic relationship between the state and firms

The way how Russia ignores the EU’s quest for liberalization and sustains a control over markets and supplies is directly related to her use of gas as leverage. Russia’s strategy affects many European and non-European countries during all stages: demand, supply and transit. It is not, however, possible to generalize a common statement that the EU’s position is based on a policy of market liberalization while Russia pursues an opposing strategy of increased state control. Russian energy strategy leads markets in Europe; sets tone for energy supplies at homeland and abroad, benefiting from a variety of means. This article shows how a symbiotic relationship between the Russian state and Russian energy companies emerge from a structure in which trade, markets and international politics have been embedded within the state interests and firm behavior. It identifies the economic and geopolitical trends with regard to recent developments of Russia’s strategy.     

Civil society in Mozambique: NGOs,religion, politics and witchcraft

Our aim is to problematise the dominant discourses and practices around civil society from a Southern perspective. We first examine critically, from a broadly Gramscian perspective, the way in which the concept of civil society has been deployed in development discourse. This highlights its highly normative and North-centric epistemology and perspectives. We also find it to be highly restrictive in a post-colonial Southern context insofar as it reads out much of the grassroots social interaction, deemed ‘uncivil’ and thus not part of duly recognised civil society. This is followed by a brief overview of some recent debates around civil society in Africa which emphasise the complexity of civil society and turn our attention to some of the broader issues surrounding state-society relations, democracy and representation in a Third World context, exemplified through our case study research in Mozambique, Inhassunge district (Zambézia Province). The privileging of Western-type Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as drivers of democracy and participatory development in Mozambique have considerable implications for current debates around good governance, civil society strengthening and social accountability programmes and strategies.     

School,sexuality and problematic girlhoods: reframing ‘empowerment’ discourse

This paper draws on ethnographic research with teenage schoolgirls in Tanzania to explore the impact of education on their experiences of sexual agency and empowerment. School-based education is frequently presented within international development as a route for empowering girls to exercise agency over their sexuality; yet school itself often constitutes a space in which the same restrictive gendered and sexual norms that exist outside the classroom are reproduced or go unchallenged by those working with girls. Despite the constraints to their agency from both outside and within school, girls themselves do resist the narratives of girlhood and sexuality imposed upon them. Recognising how these dynamics challenge our understanding of sexual empowerment is key to finding ways to support girls in navigating repressive norms beyond the classroom.     

Asymmetric alliances and high polarity: evaluating regional security complexes in the Middle East and Horn of Africa

Abstract

The Middle East and the Horn of Africa exist in two distinct regional security complexes (RSCs), groupings of states exhibiting intense security interdependence within a distinct region, but rarely between regions. Recent geopolitical changes and related analyses, however, point to either a subsuming or a joining of the two RSCs, potentially leading to a high degree of uncertainty in two conflict-prone regions. Given the importance of such developments, we question this theory of RSC expansion by offering a concise review of recent security interactions between the two RSCs as well as quantitatively and qualitatively measuring the material power capabilities of relevant states. Borrowing from and contributing to RSC theory, we also identify and analyse concepts and indicators such as threat perception and sub-regional alliances. Our findings demonstrate the Middle East RSC is not expanding to include that of the Horn of Africa. The two remain distinct and under internal consolidation, despite the current discourse. Rather, high polarity in the Middle East coupled with often-congruent interests in Horn of Africa states best explains the current pattern of their interaction, particularly as Middle East states pursue strategies that further their own security interests at the expense of rival states within their own RSC.     

Assembling security in a ‘weak state:’ the contentious politics of plural governance in Lebanon since 2005

Lebanon is most often depicted as a ‘weak state’ lacking territorial sovereignty and thus fostering the proliferation of violent non-state actors that generate political instability and regional insecurity. In contrast, this essay explores the dynamics of security politics in Lebanon since 2005 through the lens of hybrid sovereignty. It shows how an assemblage of state and non-state actors has been able to navigate between rival understandings of insecurity, producing at times shared, but still contested, understandings which have sustained a system of plural governance over security that has been able to respond to a shifting geography of threats.     

When ‘brothers and sisters’ become ‘foreigners’: Syrian refugees and the politics of healthcare in Jordan

Abstract

Does overseas development aid necessarily translate into more generous national policies for refugees? Evidence from Jordan suggests that this is not always the case. Since the arrival of an estimated 756,000 Syrian refugees, international funding has made Jordan one of the top seven recipients of foreign aid in the world. Despite sustained international financing, however, national policies towards refugees have become increasingly restrictive, especially when it comes to healthcare. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2019, this paper argues that Jordan’s healthcare policies towards Syrian refugees are not necessarily correlated to international financing, but are rather the product of political considerations aimed at maintaining domestic stability, increasing bargaining power in the global policymaking arena and resisting international pressures to integrate Syrian refugees. This paper contributes to filling a gap in the literature on the complex and interdependent factors which influence the evolution of national healthcare policies towards refugees in a country not only highly dependent on foreign aid, but also at the geopolitical crossroads of international interests in the Middle East.     

Migration diplomacy in the Global South: cooperation,coercion and issue linkage in Gaddafi’s Libya

Despite a recent resurgence in research on the politics of migration, foreign policy analysts have yet to approach cross-border population mobility as a distinct field of inquiry. Particularly within the Global South, scant work has theorised the interplay between migration and interstate bargaining. This article proposes the framework of migration diplomacy to examine how mobility features in states’ issue-linkage strategies, in both cooperative and coercive contexts. Drawing on Arabic, French and English primary sources, it empirically demonstrates the salience of its framework through an analysis of Libya’s migration diplomacy towards its Arab, African and European neighbours under Muammar Gaddafi.