Alternative forms of government and statehood exist in the Middle East and North African regions. The chapters in this volume demonstrate this and explore the notion of power from a non-statist perspective, highlighting the limits of states and their governance. Using empirical evidence from Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, and Mali, the authors explore non-standard cases where power may be retained by a state but must be shared with a number of local actors, resulting in limited statehood and hybrid governance, which leads to competition and sharing of symbolic and political power within a state. This book is intended to prompt a critical reflection on the meaning of governance. It will illuminate informal structures which deserve attention when studying governance and power dynamics within a state or a region. This book was originally published as a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

Alternative forms of government and statehood exist in the Middle East and North African regions. The chapters in this volume demonstrate this and explore the notion of power from a non-statist perspective, highlighting the limits of states and their governance. Using empirical evidence from Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, and Mali, the authors explore non-standard cases where power may be retained by a state but must be shared with a number of local actors, resulting in limited statehood and hybrid governance, which leads to competition and sharing of symbolic and political power within a state. This book is intended to prompt a critical reflection on the meaning of governance. It will illuminate informal structures which deserve attention when studying governance and power dynamics within a state or a region. This book was originally published as a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

"The quest for an inclusive and independent state has been at the center of the Palestinian national struggle for a very long time. This book critically reexamines this quest by exploring the meaning of Palestinian statehood and the challenges that face alternative models to it today. Rethinking Statehood in Palestine gives prominence to a young set of diverse Palestinian scholars, both men and women, to show how notions of citizenship, sovereignty, and nationhood are being currently rethought within the broader context of decolonization. Bringing forth critical and multifacetted engagements with what Palestinian self-determination entails within a larger regional context, this groundbreaking book sets the terms of debate for the future of Palestine beyond partition"--

In the tumultuous aftermath of the Arab uprisings, Tunisia charted a unique path that has earned it praise as ‘a beacon of hope’ in a troubled region. Since the 2011 revolution, it has embraced a new culture of democracy, based on pluralism, civilian rule and the peaceful transfer of power. Equally noteworthy are the country’s burgeoning civil society, its various institutional reforms and its progressive new constitution, which upholds individual freedoms and champions women’s rights. But in spite of these achievements, daunting challenges remain. Although Tunisia has succeeded in defusing many crises, its transition has been uneasy; its democracy is fragile and its future continues to be uncertain. As the country emerges from decades of authoritarian rule, it faces enormous political, social, economic and security challenges, which are undermining its peaceful evolution. It is this state of fragility that A Fledgling Democracyseeks to capture. Focusing on the socio-political dynamics that have unfolded in this North African nation since the revolution, the contributors to this volume shed light on how Tunisia has navigated its first decade of democratic transition, and reflect on what the ongoing changes and challenges mean for the country today.

War, famine, poverty, organized crime, environmental catastrophes, refugees, epidemics and pandemics, modern slavery – all these affect people in the non-Western world to an increasingly disproportionate extent. It is also where wealthy governments wield economic leverage and military force to renegotiate existing norms of international relations. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to overestimate the importance and urgency of comprehending the mechanisms and motivations driving these phenomena. This book is the outcome of a decade-long effort to advance both theoretical and empirical understanding of what motivates non-Western governments’ decisions to cooperate/not cooperate regionally. It starts by acknowledging the Western-centrism of prevailing international relations theories, abandoning deeply entrenched assumptions regarding the nature and roles of states, and redefining state weakness. The inquiry continues by elaborating this new concept and applying it to Southeast Asian polities while positing that it creates governments vulnerable to internal and external threats, in line with Joel S. Migdal’s well-known findings on the topic. A set of regional cooperation strategies is then inferred, based on the survival needs of insecure governing elites and its empirical validity is tested against the experience of regional organizations in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The second part of the book provides an in-depth examination of how Southeast Asian governments’ shared security needs and interests shaped the emergence of the identified regional cooperation pattern and its evolution over 50 years of cooperation within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Overall, this book is a call to international relations scholars to do our part in understanding non-Western experiences and making a substantive contribution to addressing humanity’s most intractable security threats.

Hybrid forms of governance – where the central state authority does not possess a monopoly of violence and fails to exercise control – are not only an epiphenomena, but a reality likely to persist. This book explores this phenomenon drawing on examples from the Middle East and Africa. It considers the different sorts of actors – state and non-state, public and private, national and transnational – which possess power, examines the dynamics of the relationships between central authorities and other actors, and reviews the varying outcomes. The book provides an alternative view of the way in which governance has been constructed and lived, puts forward a conceptualisation of various forms of governance which have hitherto been regarded as exceptions, and argues for such forms of governance to be regarded as part of the norm.

Development as a concept is notoriously imprecise, vague and presumptuous. Struggles over the meaning of this fiercely contested term have had profound implications on the destinies of people and places across the globe. Rethinking Development Geographies offers a stimulating and critical introduction to the study of geography and development. In doing so, it sets out to explore the spatiality of development thinking and practices. The book highlights the geopolitical nature of development and its origins in Empire and the Cold War. It also reflects critically on the historical engagement of geographers with 'the Tropics', the 'Third World' and the 'South'. The dominant economic and political philosophies that shape the policies and perspectives of major institutions are discussed. The interconnections between globalization and development are highlighted through an examination of local, national and transnational resistance to various forms of development. The text provides an accessible introduction to the complex and confusing world of contemporary global development. Informative diagrams, cartoons and case studies are used throughout. While exploring global geographies of economic and political change Rethinking Development Geographies is also grounded in a concern with people and places, the 'view from below', the views of women and the view from the 'South'.

Nineteenth-century Europe turned the political status of its Jewish communities into the “Jewish Question,” as both Christianity and rising forms of nationalism viewed Jews as the ultimate other. With the onset of Zionism, this “question” migrated to Palestine and intensified under British colonial rule and in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Zionism’s attempt to solve the “Jewish Question” created what came to be known as the “Arab Question,” which concerned the presence and rights of the Arab population in Palestine. For the most part, however, Jewish settlers denied or dismissed the question they created, to the detriment of both Arabs and Jews in Palestine and elsewhere. This book brings together leading scholars to consider how these two questions are entangled historically and in the present day. It offers critical analyses of Arab engagements with the question of Jewish rights alongside Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish considerations of Palestinian identity and political rights. Together, the essays show that the Arab and Jewish questions, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which they have become subsumed, belong to the same thorny history. Despite their major differences, the historical Jewish and Arab questions are about the political rights of oppressed groups and their inclusion within exclusionary political communities—a question that continues to foment tensions in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Shedding new light on the intricate relationships among Orientalism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, colonialism, and the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book reveals the inseparability of Arab and Jewish struggles for self-determination and political equality. Contributors include Gil Anidjar, Brian Klug, Amal Ghazal, Ella Shohat, Hakem Al-Rustom, Hillel Cohen, Yuval Evri, Derek Penslar, Jacqueline Rose, Moshe Behar, Maram Masarwi, and the editors, Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. The leadership and legacy of al-Haq, from its origins in Palestine to its international impact Established in Ramallah in 1979, al-Haq was the first Palestinian human rights organization and one of the first such organizations in the Arab world. This inside history explores how al-Haq initiated methodologies in law and practice that were ahead of its time and that proved foundational for many strands of today’s human rights work in Palestine and elsewhere. Lynn Welchman looks at both al-Haq’s history and legacy to explore such questions as: Why would one set up a human rights organization under military occupation? How would one go about promoting the rule of law in a Palestinian society deleteriously served by the law and with every reason to distrust those charged with implementing its protections? How would one work to educate overseas allies and activate international law in defense of Palestinian rights? This revelatory story speaks to the practice of local human rights organizations and their impact on international groups.