Stabilising the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: Regional Actors and New Approaches

340 Pages·2020·4.047 MB·English

by  Victor Gervais, Saskia van Genugten

MIDDLE EAST TODAY
Stabilising the
Contemporary Middle
East and North Africa
Regional Actors and New Approaches
Edited by
Victor Gervais · Saskia van Genugten
Middle East Today
Series Editors
Fawaz A. Gerges
Department of International Relations
London School of Economics
London, UK
Nader Hashemi
Center for Middle East Studies
Josef Korbel School of International Studies
University of Denver
Denver, CO, USA
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and
the US invasion and occupation of Iraq have dramatically altered the
geopolitical landscape of the contemporary Middle East. The Arab
Spring uprisings have complicated this picture. This series puts forward
a critical body of first-rate scholarship that reflects the current political
and social realities of the region, focusing on original research about
contentious politics and social movements; political institutions; the role
played by non-governmental organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah,
and the Muslim Brotherhood; and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Other
themes of interest include Iran and Turkey as emerging pre-eminent
powers in the region, the former an ‘Islamic Republic’ and the latter an
emerging democracy currently governed by a party with Islamic roots;
the Gulf monarchies, their petrol economies and regional ambitions;
potential problems of nuclear proliferation in the region; and the chal-
lenges confronting the United States, Europe, and the United Nations in
the greater Middle East. The focus of the series is on general topics such
as social turmoil, war and revolution, international relations, occupation,
radicalism, democracy, human rights, and Islam as a political force in the
context of the modern Middle East.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14803
Victor Gervais · Saskia van Genugten
Editors
Stabilising
the Contemporary
Middle East
and North Africa
Regional Actors and New Approaches
Editors
Victor Gervais Saskia van Genugten
Emirates Diplomatic Academy Ministry of Defence
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates The Hague, The Netherlands
Middle East Today
ISBN 978-3-030-25228-1 ISBN 978-3-030-25229-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25229-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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C
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Victor Gervais and Saskia van Genugten
Part I Changing Contexts
2 The Evolution of the Regional Security Complex
in the MENA Region 19
Christian Koch
3 Global Tipping Point? Stabilisation in Afghanistan
Since 2001 41
Mark Sedra
4 A Diplomatic Perspective on Stabilisation 67
Bernardino León Gross
5 Non-state Armed Actors: Lessons from Peace
Processes and Implications for Stabilisation 95
Ed Marques and Sylvia Rognvik
v
vi CONTENTS
Part II New Actors
6 GCC Approaches to Stabilisation:
Compatible or Competing? 121
Timo Behr
7 Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey: The Political
Drivers of ‘Stabilisation’ 139
Neil Quilliam
8 Beyond Daesh: The UAE’s Approach and Contribution
to International Stabilisation and Reconstruction
Efforts in Iraq 163
Victor Gervais
9 Economic Stabilisation of the MENA Region:
‘Old’ vs. ‘New’ Actors 185
Saskia van Genugten, with Neil Quilliam
Part III Emerging Issues
10 Urban Warfare: Stabilisation of Cities 207
Virginia Comolli
11 Redrawing the Lines in the Sand? Quests
for Decentralisation, Regional Autonomy
and Independence Among Syrian Kurds
and South Yemeni Separatists 233
Leo Kwarten
12 Egypt and Turkey: Identity as a Source of Instability 259
Steven A. Cook
13 Distributing Justice: Transitional Justice
and Stabilisation in North Africa 281
Zinaida Miller
CONTENTS vii
14 The Soldier and the Curator: The Challenges
of Defending Cultural Property in Conflict Areas 307
Jean-Gabriel Leturcq and Jean-Loup Samaan
Index 331
n C
otes on ontributors
Timo Behr is co-founder of Westphalia Global Advisory, a diplomatic
services consultancy. He served as an advisor with the Policy Planning
Department of the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2013–2018.
He previously held positions with the Finnish Institute of International
Affairs, Jacques Delors Institute, Global Public Policy Institute and EU
Institute for Security Studies. He holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins
University (SAIS).
Virginia Comolli is a Senior Fellow at The International Institute for
Strategic Studies. She heads the Conflict, Security and Development
Programme which studies armed conflict in its multiple forms and its
inter-relationship with socio-economic development. Prior experience
includes a secondment to the UK Ministry of Justice and working for a
private security firm and a strategic intelligence company.
Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East
and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an
expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as US-Middle East policy.
Cook is the author of False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the
New Middle East; The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square,
which won the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s gold medal
in 2012; and Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political
Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey.
ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Victor Gervais is a Senior Research Fellow at the Emirates Diplomatic
Academy (EDA) in Abu Dhabi, where he leads the MENA Peace and
Security programme. Victor specialises in Middle Eastern regional secu-
rity affairs, with a particular focus on Iraq, Iran and the Arab Gulf States.
He previously held positions with the Institute of International and Civil
Security in Abu Dhabi and the Kuwait Program at Sciences Po Paris. He
holds a Ph.D. in political science from Sciences Po Paris.
Christian Koch is a Senior Advisor at the Bussola Institute in Brussels.
His work focuses on the various international and foreign relations
issues of the GCC states with a particular interest in GCC-EU Relations.
Prior to his current assignment, Dr. Koch served as Director of the Gulf
Research Center (GRC) Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland.
Leo Kwarten is an Arabist and Anthropologist (Leiden University, The
Netherlands). He is a lecturer with the Clingendael Institute in The
Hague, which is a think tank and diplomatic academy acting for the ben-
efit of the Dutch government, international working professionals and
general public. Being an analyst of Middle Eastern politics, he is profes-
sionally consulted by both private and public organisations and spends
long periods in the region for writing and research.
Bernardino León Gross is Director General of the Emirates Diplomatic
Academy in Abu Dhabi and lectures in universities in Europe and
the United States. He previously served as United Nations Special
Representative-Head of the UN Mission in Libya. He was the European
Union Special Representative for the Southern Mediterranean 2011–2014;
Secretary-General at the Spanish Prime Minister Office 2008–2011;
and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Spanish government
2004–2008. From 1998 to 2001, he was a senior member of EU Middle
East Peace Process ad hoc team. He has participated in several civil society
peace and human rights initiatives.
Jean-Gabriel Leturcq art historian, is advisor at Louvre Expertise,
Musée du Louvre, where he works on international cooperation and pro-
jects related to endangered heritage. He coordinated cultural heritage
preservation and museums projects in the Middle East and Africa (Egypt,
Sudan, Libya, Ethiopia, Lebanon, and United Arab Emirates) over the
last decade. Between 2014 and 2018, he worked at the Agence France-
Muséums leading on opening operations of the Louvre Abu Dhabi.