This volume draws together a number of research papers presented at a conference titled “Security, Insecurity and Prospects for Peace in the Middle East and North Africa”, organised by Nottingham Trent University’s Middle East and North Africa Research cluster in April 2016. The conference focused on questions pertinent to what may be termed the ‘post-Arab Spring’ era, in which the Middle East is experiencing unprecedented national and transnational challenges. Conflict, instability, radicalisation and the mass displacement of people have become increasingly salient features of the political and economic landscape of the region. The contributions here analyse a range of political, economic, security and socio-cultural issues that the authors argue lie at the heart of the instability that the region is currently experiencing. Re-thinking issues of security and insecurity in the Middle East not only allows us to explain what might have led to current instability, but also allows us to posit possible solutions to these security issues. In doing so, this book goes beyond the concepts of security and insecurity as a standard account of perpetrator versus victim, in a state-centric and violence-centric manner, to a broader and more complex understanding of the underlying processes informing security and insecurity in the region. The contributors include scholars from around the world working in a variety of different fields, including Middle Eastern studies, international relations and international political economy, providing an eclectic discussion of the state of the region.

Routledge Handbook on Middle East Security provides the first comprehensive look at Middle East security issues that includes both traditional and emerging security threats. Taking a broad perspective on security, the volume offers both analysis grounded in the ‘hard’ military and state security discourse but also delves into the ‘soft’ aspects of security employing a human security perspective. As such the volume addresses imminent challenges to security, such as the ones relating directly to the war in Syria, but also the long-term challenges. The traditional security problems, which are deep-seated, are at risk of being exacerbated also by a lack of focus on emerging vulnerabilities in the region. While taking as a point of departure the prevalent security discourse, the volume also goes beyond the traditional focus on military or state security and consider non-traditional security challenges. This book provides a state-of-the-art review of research on the key challenges for security in the Middle East; it will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in Security Studies, International Relations, Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies.

‘Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa’ studies the political economy of agrarian transformation in the eponymous regions. Examining Egypt and Tunisia in detail as case studies, it critiques the dominant tropes of food security offered by the international financial institutions and promotes the importance of small-scale family farming in developing sustainable food sovereignty. Egypt and Tunisia are located in the context of the broader Middle East and broader processes of war, environmental transformation and economic reform. The book contributes to uncovering the historical backdrop and contemporary pressures in the Middle East and North Africa for the uprisings of 2010 and 2011. It also explores the continued failure of post-uprising counter-revolutionary governments to directly address issues of rural development that put the position and role of small farmers centre stage.

Increasingly the Middle East and its growing population face a highly complex and fragile security system. The book analyzes these emerging security challenges in a comprehensive and systematic manner. It draws national and regional security issues into both the global security and human security perspectives.

This text examines the causes and consequences of each of those dynamics, both individually and collectively, that have made this small waterway and its surrounding areas one of the most volatile and tension-filled regions in the world. This pervasive insecurity, the book argues, is largely a product of four interrelated developments.

Publisher Description

This study analyses both the historic trajectories of agricultural development in the Middle East, and how the globalisation of food production has impacted domestic food security and food sovereignty. The volume draws on original research conducted on the causes and consequences of food security in the Middle East at national and regional levels as well as household and individual levels.