Search

Begin New Search Topic Political stability Political Geography Middle East

1. Current Dynamics in Syria and the Way Forward

Author:
Khogir Wirya
Publication Date:
01-2025
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Middle East Research Institute (MERI)
Abstract:
Recent events in Syria represent a turning point in the history of the Middle East, where internal dynamics are intertwined with regional and international ones. Syria is not just a theater for local conflicts, but has become an arena for competition between major powers, which directly affects the nature of possible solutions. Within this complex landscape, the Kurdish issue stands out as one of the most sensitive and urgent priorities, with its reciprocal impact on the other components of the Syrian conflict and the country’s future.
Topic:
Political stability, Syrian War, and Kurds
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

2. Palestinian Elections: A Vital Step Toward a Stable Political Settlement

Author:
Ephraim Lavie
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
Abstract:
A political settlement to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians once Hamas is weakened, and after an intermediate stage in which a reconstituted Palestinian Authority is established with the promise of a real political horizon, is a vital Israeli interest. Achieving this goal requires the election of a pragmatic Palestinian leadership that is deemed legitimate by the Palestinian public and is therefore able to realize the vision of a viable Palestinian state and a stable political settlement that provides security for Israel. In order to prevent the election of extremists opposed to a political settlement, legitimate restrictions must be placed on the individuals and groups running for the post of president and for membership in the legislative council. These limitations will be based on the three conditions that the Quartet countries laid out for Hamas after its victory in the 2006 elections: abandoning the path of terrorism, recognizing Israel, and affirming the previous agreements it signed with the PLO. The elections must take place in the context of an advanced political process offering hope to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and increasing their support for a settlement approach. To that end, Israel will have to declare its commitment to a political process designed to result in a two-state solution, and adopt confidence-building measures that demonstrate its intent to reach a political settlement, including a halt of construction in the settlements. At the same time, the international community, led by the United States and the European Union, will have to guarantee their recognition of a Palestinian state. The United States will also help train the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatuses, contribute to the development of its economy, and promote reforms in government institutions. Israel and the international community must lay the groundwork for orderly, internationally supervised elections in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip that will ensure the election of a suitable national leadership for the Palestinian people. Having won the trust of the people, such a leadership will enjoy legitimacy and be able to promote a stable settlement with Israel. It will also contribute, over time, to strengthening the moderate elements in society and weakening extremist, religious, and nationalist opposition elements.
Topic:
Elections, Political stability, Negotiation, Peace, Palestinian Authority, and Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and West Bank

3. A Vision for Regional – International Partnership for Gaza Rebuilding and Palestinian Economic Leap

Author:
Yitzhak Gal and Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu
Publication Date:
05-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
Abstract:
The immense extent of destruction in the Gaza Strip caused by the 2023-2024 Gaza War, requires massive rebuilding. This paper sets a vision of a long-term economic rebuilding plan, which is aimed at ending the humanitarian crisis and creating a functioning and sustainable economy. The rebuilding of the Gazan economy, and the Palestinian economy at large, should be planned and designed as part of an international-regional political and economic vision of stabilizing, strengthening and improving Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab relations, in the broader context of strengthening stability and prosperity in the Middle East.
Topic:
Reconstruction, Political stability, Humanitarian Crisis, Armed Conflict, and 2023 Gaza War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

4. Geopolitics and Geography: A Realigned EU Strategy for Stability in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean

Author:
Bernard Siman
Publication Date:
10-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The new EU Commission should commence its geopolitical thinking by acknowledging that geography is not kind to those who ignore her. The new European Parliament has the unique opportunity to become perhaps the first geopolitical parliament through a similar process. States, political leaders and societies ignore their geographic realities at their peril. Perceptions of location, distance and neighbourhoods can be dangerously distorted when they drift too far off from actual geographic realities. Digital technology, ease of air travel (bypassing the unpleasant geographic realities on the ground), combined with over three decades of peace in Europe, and 50 years in the Middle East, have created the distorted perceptions that somehow Israel’s and Ukraine’s neighbourhood was liberal Europe. These collective perceptions, untethered from their geographic realities, eclipsed perhaps the fact that both have neighbours with whom they have been at differing degrees of long-simmering conflicts. In reality, however, Israel and its neighbours have not succeeded at resolving the conflicts on its very borders, betraying the perception of peace. It is as if those neighbours with whom Israel has been in conflict had disappeared.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, European Union, Geopolitics, Political stability, and Geography
Political Geography:
Europe and Middle East

5. Proxy battles: Iraq, Iran, and the turmoil in the Middle East

Author:
Hamzeh Hadad
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
The war in Gaza has deepened the Middle East’s fault lines. Iran and its proxies and the US and Israel have engaged in a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks across the region, with the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria and Iran’s direct retaliation against Israel threatening to escalate into a regional war. Iraqi paramilitaries operating as part of Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ have also attacked US forces in Iraq, who responded with reprisals of their own. This, and the increasing risk of a wider war, imperils the relative stability Iraq has enjoyed over the past few years and the country’s fledgling role as a regional mediator. Iran’s influence in Iraq increased following the US invasion of 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein – but their relationship is far from being a simple agent-proxy arrangement. Iran’s strongest influence is through its paramilitaries’ presence in Iraq’s security apparatus, but Iraq has also exhibited some political independence from its neighbour and maintains financial leverage over Iran. Europeans can help increase Iraq’s autonomy. In the economic sector, they should strengthen its financial institutions through global integration and digitisation. European countries can also work alongside Gulf states to broaden their ties with Iraq, including in foreign investment and a shift from a development or humanitarian aid framework towards normal bilateral ties. However, for any European policy to be successful in Iraq, it must be designed within a broader framework of ending the war in Gaza and resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – without which the dangerous escalation across the Middle East may continue.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Political stability, Proxy Groups, Regional Politics, and Axis of Resistance
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, and Middle East

6. Landscape of Change: Syria and the Middle East after the Assad Regime's Fall

Author:
Sara Nowacka, Aleksandra Maria Spancerska, and Michał Wojnarowicz
Publication Date:
12-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
A successful offensive by Syrian rebels in December this year led to the fall of one of the most brutal modern regimes. Most Syrians have welcomed the end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule, although divisions within the opposition forces pose a risk to Syria’s potential stability after 13 years of civil war. To reduce them, international assistance is needed to rebuild Syrian institutions and to help hold accountable those regime members responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Topic:
Regime Change, Political stability, Syrian War, Accountability, Institutions, Bashar al-Assad, Post-Conflict, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

7. From shock and awe to stability and flaws: Iraq’s post-invasion journey

Author:
Hamzeh Hadad
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
In the 20 years since the US-led invasion, Iraq’s political order and elite have proven surprisingly resilient in the face of numerous challenges, including terrorism, civil war, threats of secession, and mass protests. The informal consociational system, party politics, patronage networks, and competing paramilitaries are enduring features of Iraqi governance that have maintained stability even as they present many long-term problems. Despite the system’s resilience, Iraq remains deeply challenged by corruption, a lack of economic diversity and development, climate vulnerability, and some persistent security deficits. Europeans should acknowledge the realities of Iraqi governance and work within them to achieve shared European-Iraqi interests rather than seeking to impose their own ideals or solutions. Europeans could, for example, help Iraqis to manage their youth bulge problem, digitise the economy, and prepare for and adapt to climate change.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Political stability, Iraq War, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Iraq, Europe, and Middle East

8. The Syrian Civil War Twelve Years On: Can There Be a Constructive Role for Greece?

Author:
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis and Loukas I. Papavasileiou
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
Abstract:
Continual and ever-growing foreign involvement led to the internationalization of the armed conflict and turned Syria into a battleground for the strategic competition of several powers. The Kremlin has long viewed Hafez and Bashar al-Assad as indispensable partners in the Middle East and has repeatedly offered its diplomatic and military support in an attempt to achieve its own strategic objectives. Given the destabilizing effects the unending Syrian crisis has had on Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean security, Greece maintains a profound interest in the resolution of the conflict. Greece appointed a Special Envoy for Syria in May 2020 with a view to reinvigorating its policy vis-à-vis the Syrian crisis. Greece’s successful re-engagement with key Arab countries and improved relations with other regional actors could pave the way for a more prominent Greek role in Syria. This could entail reinforcing its diplomatic cooperation with the EU Delegation to Syria, leading the EU humanitarian relief effort following the devastating earthquakes that hit Syria on 6 February 2023, and formulating a realistic and forward-looking strategy for the future of the Syrian people, including provisions for the voluntary repatriation of refugees and the protection of minority rights.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Refugees, Political stability, Syrian War, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East, Greece, and Syria

9. Restoring Competitive Politics: Electoral Contestation and the Future in Turkey and India, and Iran and Russia

Author:
Hugh Sandeman
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
The institutions and practices necessary for open and fair competition for political power are eroding across the world. In some countries, such as Turkey and India, the democratic dividend of electoral competition has been steadily undermined by majoritarian autocrats who have proved adept in campaigning for office and winning elections. In others, such as Russia and Iran, political leaders have marginalised or suppressed electoral processes, reducing them to closely managed performances that seek to demonstrate public consent. At least some traces of the mechanisms of electoral competition often remain in place, however, even where genuine public consent has been almost extinguished. This leaves open the possibility that the trend away from competitive electoral politics could be at least partially reversed in future, in the context of political succession or the electoral defeat of incumbents. In June 2023, LSE IDEAS brought together experts from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and other institutions to examine the potential for restoring the democratic dividend of competitive politics in four major countries. Turkey and India were selected for their timeliness—national parliamentary and presidential elections were held in Turkey in May 2023, and national parliamentary elections are due in India in April 2024—and for their similarities: both political systems are characterised by powerful elected leaders with a strong record of performance in national elections, each backed by large political parties based on an appeal to national and religious identity. Iran and Russia were chosen as examples of two states where competitive electoral politics had been temporarily enabled by significant political change—respectively, an impasse in Iran’s theocracy in the 1990s, and the end of the Soviet Union—only to be undermined by the reassertion of autocratic power. Two assumptions underlay the planning of this discussion on ‘Restoring Competitive Politics: Electoral Contestation and the Future’. The first is that the characterisation of political systems as either democratic or autocratic provides an insufficient basis for explaining many differences in the workings of political institutions, or for guiding policy. The second assumption is that while certain institutions and practices appear to be essential to maintaining open competition for political power—including for example, freedom and diversity of comment in major channels of communication like broadcast television, radio, newspapers, and social media—there is no useful empirical example or theoretical formulation of an ideal or perfect democratic political system. The exclusion from the discussion of countries with longer established forms of competitive politics, such as the United States or the United Kingdom, was not intended to suggest an implicit comparison with ideal types of functioning democracies. On the contrary, there are grounds for concern about the maintenance of open competition for political power in every country professing to be a democracy. As David Runciman has said of the future of democratic practices: ‘The question for the twenty-first century is how long we can persist with institutional arrangements we have grown so used to trusting, that we no longer notice when they have ceased to work.’ He warns that ‘democracy could fail while remaining intact’.
Topic:
Elections, Political stability, Autocracy, and Competition
Political Geography:
Russia, Iran, Eurasia, Turkey, Middle East, India, and Asia

10. Shifting Dynamics in the Middle East: Implications for Pakistan

Author:
Zosha Noor, Muhammad Javed, and Shakeel Ahmed
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
China's resurgence as a global actor has significantly altered international relations, particularly in the Middle East, particularly with Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan's unique geographical location and complex international interactions present an intriguing situation due to these changes. Pakistan's close relations with China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, along with its shared border and cultural ties with Iran, influence its security concerns, domestic politics, economy imperative, and foreign policy. China's growing relationship with Saudi Arabia is driven by its oil needs, global influence, and regional stability. Iran offers China a valuable counterbalance and potential ally in the Middle East due to its geostrategic position and abundant natural resources. The United States' long-standing hegemony in the Middle East has been put to the challenge by China's growing influence and strategic alliances in the region. This qualitative study investigates the issues relating to Middle East with an objective to evaluate the role of great powers‘ politics in the region. The Middle East's shifting geopolitical environment could be advantageous for projects like the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Chabahar Port Development, and Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline.
Topic:
International Relations, Political stability, Rapprochement, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Pakistan, China, Iran, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America