Covering a century of Middle Eastern international relations, this book develops an original approach to understanding regional conflict and cooperation.

Global and Regional Strategies in the Middle East explores hegemony in the Middle East through understanding different dimensions of power politics and the consequences of the hegemonic ambitions of both global and regional powers. The book adds new aspects to the extensive literature on grand strategies in the Middle East by exploring and evaluating competing strategies from an "insider" perspective. First, it highlights the main determinants of Global powers' grand strategies, assesses the ones applied in the Middle East, and forecasts future strategies after the Ukraine war in alignment with other rival states' capabilities and goals. It then underlines regional dynamics and the hegemonic quest of regional powers and their power politics' determinants since the "War on terror," the Arab Spring, and, more recently, the Russian intervention in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflict. The book broadens readers' perspectives by clarifying the region's dynamics that shaped the global and regional power rivalries, where security concerns, economic interests, oil supplies, and hegemonic ambitions make it complicated for the US to keep influence and the total control it had during the late 20th century. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of the MENA region, International Relations and Strategic Studies.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an economically diverse region. Despite undertaking economic reforms in many countries, and having considerable success in avoiding crises and achieving macroeconomic stability, the region’s economic performance in the past 30 years has been below potential. This paper takes stock of the region’s relatively weak performance, explores the reasons for this out come, and proposes an agenda for urgent reforms.

Dr. Jon Alterman, Natasha Hall, and Will Todman examine the power, water, and sanitation sectors in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia and explore how environmentally sustainable public utilities could help bridge the trust deficit between citizens and their governments.

Complete set Since 1961 the Adelphi Papers have provided some of the most informed accounts of international and strategic relations. Produced by the world renowned International Institute of Strategic Studies, each paper provides a short account of a subject of topical interest by a leading military figure, policy maker or academic. The project reprints the first forty years of papers, arranged into thematic sets. The collection as a whole provides a rich and insightful account of international affairs during a period which spans the second half of the Cold War, the fall of the communist bloc and the emergence of a new regime with the United States as the sole superpower. There is a wealth of global coverage: Four volumes on east and southeast Asia as well as individual volumes on China, Japan and Korea Particular attention is given to the Middle East, with volumes addressing internal sources of instability; geo-politics and the role of the superpowers; the Israel-Palestine conflict; and the Iran-Iraq War and the first Gulf War. There is also a volume on oil and insecurity There are also two volumes on Africa, the site of most of the world's wars during the period. The IISS has obviously made a particular contribution to the understanding of military strategy, and this is reflected with material on topics such as urban and guerrilla warfare, nuclear deterrence and the role of information in modern warfare. Volumes on military strategy are complemented by approaches from other disciplines, such as defence economics. Key selling points: Early papers were only distributed by the IISS and will have achieved limited penetration of the academic market A host of major authors on a range of different subjects (eg Gerald Segal on China, Michael Leifer on Southeast Asia, Sir Lawrence Freidman on the revolution in military affairs, Raymond Vernon on multinationals and defence economics) Individual volumes will have a strong appeal to different markets (eg the volume on defence economics for economists, various volumes for Asian Studies etc)

Tehran’s ability to fight by, with and through third parties in foreign jurisdictions has become a valuable and effective sovereign capability that gives Iran strategic advantage in the region. Tehran has possessed a form of this capability since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but its potency and significance have risen sharply in the past decade, to the point where it has brought Iran more regional influence and status than either its nuclear or ballistic-missile programmes. The IISS Strategic Dossier Iran’s Networks of Influence provides an understanding of how Iran builds, operates and uses this capability. Based on original field research, open-source information and interviews with a range of sources, the dossier conducts an audit of Iran’s activities in the principal regional theatres of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and its reach into Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It includes an examination of Tehran’s nurturing of groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, the Badr Organisation in Iraq, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Shia militias in Syria, and details related to recruitment, weapons supply, logistics and command-and-control systems. Iran’s Networks of Influence is intended through objective, fact-based analysis to inform both policymakers and practitioners, and to stimulate debate on the wider significance of Iran’s use of third-party partners and the strategic depth they afford Tehran. The dossier also examines the advantages that Iran possesses through its recent experience of conflict, and its ability to mobilise and deploy sympathetic Shia communities across theatres. In a time of rising tension in the region, the dossier looks at how Iran might further develop the use of its partnership capability and the risks and constraints it might face.

This book examines some of the driving forces of change in the Middle East and aims to provide a regional outlook. The political and social events of the past years have significantly affected the regional structure across the Middle East, evident in socio-economic systems, security framework and the balance of power across the area. Each chapter focuses on one of the driving forces of change, including the Iran Nuclear Deal, the role of external powers, energy and its political and economic role in the region, the regional balance of power struggle amongst the key regional players and the socio-economic challenges across the region.

This book investigates the pervasive problem of corruption across the Middle East and North Africa. Drawing on the specifics of the local context, the book explores how corruption in the region is actuated through informal practices that coexist and work in parallel to formal institutions. When informal practices become vehicles for corruption, they can have negative ripple effects across many aspects of society, but on the other hand, informal practices could also have the potential to be leveraged to reinforce formal institutions to help fight corruption. Drawing on a range of cases including Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia or Israel the book first explores the mechanisms and dynamics of corruption and informal practices in the region, before looking at the successes and failures of anti-corruption initiatives. The final section focuses on gender perspectives on corruption, which are often overlooked in corruption literature, and the role of women in the Middle East. With insights drawn from a range of disciplines, this book will be of interest to researchers and students across political science, philosophy, socio-legal studies, public administration, and Middle Eastern studies, as well as to policy makers and practitioners working in the region.

The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.