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| 1 |
ID:
119450
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Libya's relationship with sub-Saharan Africa has been complex, troubled and misunderstood, both during the rule of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the conflict that culminated in his overthrow and death. The Libyan conflict of 2011 divided Africa, but nonetheless the African Union (AU) was able to agree on a political strategy aimed at achieving a negotiated settlement and power transition.
The AU's peace initiative was launched in March 2011 and, contrary to widespread perception that the AU sought to prop up Gaddafi, it offered a credible and balanced option of a negotiated solution. United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 expressed support for the initiative, but in the event France, Britain and the United States blocked its chances of success.
This article draws on evidence and analysis provided by the AU officials involved. It details the process whereby the AU adopted and implemented its decisions, and describes the AU's diplomatic engagement with Gaddafi and the National Transitional Council. The article also draws on information provided by Sudanese military and intelligence officials, providing an account, hitherto untold, of how the Sudanese government supported the Libyan opposition with military supplies, training and intelligence, in tacit cooperation with NATO countries.
The article concludes with reflections on how the Libyan conflict has had an impact on the doctrine of the 'responsibility to protect', on the AU, and on Libya's relations with Africa.
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| 2 |
ID:
119455
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In 2011, several months after a popular revolt overturned the Gaddafi regime in Libya, Libya's new National Transitional Council announced the discovery of what was later confirmed to be an undeclared stockpile of chemical weapons. This was a startling announcement to many observers, since Libya had publicly renounced its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes in 2003 and had apparently dismantled the programmes soon after.
Although the Libyan case had repeatedly been referred to as a positive 'model' for nonproliferation - an instance where a country had voluntarily and peacefully rolled back its WMD programs - this recent discovery forces us to wonder whether the Libyan 'model' really was as successful as initially described.
This article examines the successes, challenges and lessons that can be learned from the Libyan case of WMD renunciation and verification. As one model of cooperative verification, the Libyan case highlights not only the opportunities afforded by monitoring and verification regimes, but also some of the difficulties that any such regime will encounter in real-world circumstances, however positive.
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| 3 |
ID:
119449
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores the transition from revolutions to constitutions in Egypt. In order to understand the current transition, the article compares events since 2011 to the 1919 constitutional revolution and the 1952 Free Officers' Movement.
In comparing these three revolutionary periods and the constitutions they produced, the article makes two overarching claims: first, a constitution does not arise from the fiat of wise lawgivers or experts in the rule of law. Rather, it emerges from a contentious political process in which competing agents and institutions seek to promote their own interests. This competitive process, however, is actually beneficial to constitution-making, constitutional politics and political life more widely.
Second, the article highlights that while the political dynamics of constitution-making in Egypt reveal domestic politics, the process of constitution-making also demonstrates how such dynamics take place in a global political context. Together, these two claims point up that constitutionalism is just as much a political movement as a legal doctrine.
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| 4 |
ID:
119456
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article investigates the role that diplomacy - especially at the highest levels - can play in transforming adversarial relationships. Building on Martin Wight's exploration of these issues, in particular the question of how two adversaries can convince each other that they are serious negotiating partners, the article contends that achieving a significant de-escalation of a conflict depends upon the growth of trust.
In contrast to Wight's limited conception of what diplomacy could achieve in terms of ending conflicts, the argument made here is that particular types of communicative encounters between diplomats, and especially leaders, can build a level of trust at the interpersonal level which can lead policy-makers to make conciliatory frame-breaking moves. To make good on this claim, the article employs a case-study of the summitry between US president Ronald Reagan and his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev.
The key contention here is that the face-to-face encounters between Reagan and Gorbachev promoted a level of trust between them that made possible the fundamental de-escalation of the Cold War that took place in the second half of the 1980s. Rival explanations focusing on nuclear weapons and Soviet economic decline are analysed, but while these were enabling conditions in the transformation of relations, the article argues that it is necessary to recognize the critical role that interpersonal trust between US and Soviet leaders played in achieving this diplomatic transformation.
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| 5 |
ID:
119448
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Assessing the long-term fallout from the 2003 Iraq War from three perspectives - the state, regional and international - this article argues that the war generated a series of changes that have had a central impact on the political evolution and international relations of the Middle East, though not in the manner anticipated by either its supporters or critics.
The war and its consequences, which have become merged with developments surrounding the Arab Spring uprisings, which started at the end of 2010, have contributed over the long term to the acceleration of popular demands for the greater liberalization of politics, to shifts in the regional balance of power and to international realignments. Authoritarian regimes across the region have been increasingly challenged; there are new sectarian divides; Iran has been empowered by the demise of its old rival Saddam Hussein; new 'pivotal' states like Saudi Arabia and Turkey have emerged; and western powers have had to review their policy prescriptions and assumptions of regional predominance.
The new regional order is both fragile and contested. Taking a long view of the Iraq War on its tenth anniversary is important and relevant to understanding contemporary developments in the region - whether in Syria or elsewhere - and serves to highlight patterns of continuity as well as change. Given the continuing violence and bloodshed in Iraq itself, it also offers some important lessons to regional and external powers about the perils of intervention.
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| 6 |
ID:
119446
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In August 2009, in the aftermath of the popular protests that followed the highly controversial elections of that year, the Iranian authorities arrested hundreds of intellectuals/activists and charged them with sedition against the state.
What was more peculiar was the decision to accuse 'in absentia' a number of western intellectuals for their role in fomenting the crisis, not least the long deceased German sociologist Max Weber. Weber was publicly denounced for his analyses of patrimonialism and sultanism, and their capacity for change. In sum, Weber was being accused of providing the ideological blueprint for 'regime change'.
This article looks at the way in which the concept of 'regime change' has been increasingly used as a political tool to suppress dissent within Iran and argues that far from being seditious, Weber's ideas remain more relevant today in Iran than they ever were. The prospect of 'regime change' remains more a product of the paradoxes of sultanism, than any threat - real or imagined - from abroad.
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| 7 |
ID:
119454
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article provides an overview of the attempts to address a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)-free zone in the Middle East as mandated by the 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. The article outlines regional nuclear programmes in Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq and Syria, and the evolution of nuclear weapon-free zones and NPT politics.
The article further proposes a set of recommendations for what might constitute a nuclear weapon-free zone treaty, including interim measures that would support the establishment of the Middle East WMD-free zone, drawing on historical precedent from relevant cases.
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| 8 |
ID:
119452
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
While the immediate outcome of the Iraq War of 2003 was certainly to Israel's strategic advantage, the more immediate and indeed visceral challenge of the ongoing Al-Aqsa intifada has dominated the security horizons of most Israelis. The legacy of this conflict, with its strong Islamist overtones, has clearly had a bearing on how the Arab Awakening has come to be perceived by Israel.
Taking this experience as its starting point, this article examines the response by Tel Aviv to the Arab Awakening at an elite level and how, for the most part, Israeli perceptions of its Islamist essence, an essence that rejects popular accountability, continues to be viewed through a predominantly Realist prism. Such perceptions look set to endure, shaping Israel's immediate attitudes towards the Palestinians and the wider Arab world.
The authors argue that while Israeli concerns over the trajectory of the Arab Awakening do carry empirical weight, such concerns can be equally understood as part of a wider critique with regard to Israel's own emerging democratic deficit. This was seen most recently in a raft of legislative bills put before the Knesset between 2009 and 2012 designed to curb civil liberties in Israel; alongside its continued occupation of Palestinian lands and wider demographic shifts, such moves increasingly tarnish Israel's proud claim to be both Jewish and democratic.
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| 9 |
ID:
119447
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
As Obama begins his second presidential term, this article takes stock of his foreign policy approach towards the Middle East. It lays out four big arguments.
First, Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East has demonstrated more continuity with the past than real change. While shifting his approach significantly from Bush's, Obama has adopted a centrist-realist approach towards the region, consistent with the dominant US foreign policy orientation.
Second, from Palestinian-Israeli peace to Afghanistan, Obama's conduct testifies to the structural-institutional continuity of US foreign policy. More than in any other region in the world, presidential policy in the Middle East is hampered by institutional, bureaucratic and domestic politics. America's dysfunctional political culture has imposed severe constraints on Obama's ability to pursue an even-handed approach towards the enduring and preeminent Palestine question.
Third, despite Obama's lofty rhetoric about a new start in relations between the United States and Muslim countries, the Middle East does not rank very high on his agenda. Putting America's fiscal house in order and renewing its long-term economic strength have been Obama's priorities. From the outset, Obama has been shifting US foreign policy priorities away from the Middle East to the Pacific and Asia where he and his aides believe that America's future lies.
Finally, the article argues that the US finds itself in a similar position to that of Great Britain after the Second World War, at the beginning of the end of its hegemonic moment in the Middle East. The end of American hegemony in the region stems from internal and external causes, including an awakened public opinion in the Middle East, the emergence of geostrategic and geo-economic regional powers with assertive foreign policies, America's relative economic decline and the high costs of war, and the shift in US foreign policy priorities to the Asia-Pacific region.
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| 10 |
ID:
119453
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Qatar has become an Arab country with a high international profile and an ambitious foreign policy, particularly as a result of its role in the Arab Spring. It has cultivated a reputation as a political mediator and a key source of foreign aid. Following the Libyan uprising, Qatar demonstrated further political adaptability in leading regional action against the Gaddafi regime.
However, this foreign policy does not appear to be built on long-term planning, but rather seems centred on opportunism and promiscuity as Qatar engages with multiple, often clashing, actors and plays the role of political maverick in the Middle East. This article assesses the key components of Qatari foreign policy, as well as public diplomacy, highlighting the potential implications of the lack of a coherent foreign strategy for the country, both on the domestic and external fronts.
Domestically, Qatar faces increasing pressure for reform and the prospect of instability, both catalyzed by high centralization of decision-making with regard to Qatari policy. Externally, it risks overextending its network of political partners to involve potentially volatile actors, losing the credibility of its public diplomacy messages, and subsequently, international scepticism towards its foreign policy motives.
Those domestic and external factors highlight the limits of relying on pragmatism in Qatari foreign policy and the need for long-term strategy if Qatar is to maintain its leadership role in the Middle East.
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| 11 |
ID:
119444
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the rise of a new authoritarianism in Iraq ten years after the invasion that removed Saddam Hussein. It traces the centralization of political and coercive power in the hands of Iraq's Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki. From his appointment in 2006, Maliki successfully moved to constrain the power of parliament and the independent agencies set up by the American-led occupation to oversee the state. He removed key politicians and civil servants who stood in his way. This authoritarian centralization reached its peak with Maliki's control of Iraq's special forces, its army and its intelligence services.
The article analyses the civilian institutions of the state, concluding that political corruption has greatly hindered their reconstruction. The result is an Iraqi state with an over-developed armed forces, very weak civilian institutions and a dominant prime minister. Against this background, the sustainability of Iraqi democracy is in question. The article concludes by assessing the ramifications of Iraq's postwar trajectory for military interventions more generally.
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| 12 |
ID:
119451
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In November 2012 it was ten years since the Justice and Development Party became the party of government in Turkey. During that time, it has raised its profile abroad and sought to project its influence. In particular, it has tried to increase its impact on the European Union and the Middle East - the primary regions to which Turkey lies adjacent. This approach has been parcelled up in the name of turning Turkey from a state of marginal importance into a 'centre' country.
The relationship to the EU got off to a good start; Turkey adopted liberal EU norms wholesale, before relations soured over Cyprus and membership in general. By 2006, ties were moribund.
Links with the Middle East also started well. Turkey avoided the worst effects of the 2003 Iraq war; and its stature was at its zenith in the early months of the 'Arab Spring', when it raised the slogan 'let the people decide'. But this was hubris. By the summer of 2011, it had become clear that Turkey had miscalculated both with regard to the timing of regime change in Syria and its own leverage, whether on the ground or with NATO.
Rather than a new, transregional power house, Turkey looked tentative, frequently inert and increasingly dependent on NATO. Turkey remains a country subject to the highly contrasting twin gravities of the EU and the Middle East in spite of its leadership aspirations and its will to accomplish more.
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| 13 |
ID:
119445
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Ten years after regime change in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region has emerged as a transformative force in the international affairs of the Middle East. The Kurds have moved to being architects of the new Iraqi state, but have thereby forced an ideational contest between them - as visionaries of a decentralized Iraq - and successive Iraqi governments that favour a centralized authority structure.
In addition to this first set of developments, the prominence of the Kurds is also explained by two additional sets of issues. The second concerns the interplay of federalism in Iraq and the management of the country's oil and gas reserves. Kurdistan's expansion of its hydrocarbons industry has been met with opposition from Baghdad that has furthered the polarization and enmity between the two sides.
The third issue, which serves to make concrete the gains made by the Kurds, concerns regional geopolitical developments. For the first time in a century, the nationalist interests of the Kurds in Iraq are compatible with the sectarian interests of Turkey and Sunni Arab states.
These three issues (domestic development, economic advancement and regional geopolitics) come together to explain the Kurdistan Region's agency in a rapidly transforming regional complex and raise the possibility of an independent Republic of Kurdistan emerging in the near future as an idea that is no longer regarded as impossible.
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