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By Hamza Meddeb (Future note n.5) Libya suffers from an interlinked political, security and economic crisis that is proving to be particularly destabilising for its neighboring Tunisia. The emerging conflict economy across the Tunisia–Libya border, the proliferation of non-state armed groups along with support from external actors and the backlash of increasing securitization of the […]

This background paper on material factors in the MENA region selects key datasets for understanding past and present demographic, environmental, energy, economic and military transformations. It introduces the key literature relating to each factor and it identifies the most appropriate databases to assess the conditions in the MENA region. Using these databases, the ways in […]

By Nizar Messari This paper evaluates the importance of ideas, norms and identities in the MENA region. The basic assumption is that ideas, norms and identities matter in world politics in general, and in the MENA region in particular. After presenting an overview of the debate on these concepts in the field of international relations, […]

Sabiha Senyücel Gündoğar and Aybars Görgülü This Future Note* prepared within the scope of the MENARA project aims to provide a brief outlook to the energy relations between Israel and Turkey. Following a six years of rupture in bilateral relations, Turkey and Israel signed a reconciliation agreement on June 2016 in order to normalize relations. Several developments have […]

A New MENARA Future notes By Robert Springborg. The US presidential elections of 8 November 2016 will see two different visions of America’s future confronting one another. While most of the presidential debates have focussed on domestic issues, including the economy, trade issues and societal polarisation, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has typically […]

To look at the Middle East region through narrow lenses, such as failure and success, change and continuity, security and chaos prevents us to have a better understanding of other wider and important issues. We need to deconstruct the terminologies that we have been using for a long time, to get a better grasp of what the […]