World Sociopolitical Studies

Regional trends strongly influence and are influenced by global power flows. For decades, international politics have been shaped and reshaped by a bipolar and, after the break down of the USSR, a unipolar world order. Both orders played a significant role in shaping and directing Middle Eastern politics. Yet the unipolar order is no longer at play. And since the global flow of power is ongoing, a new world order is being shaped in what seems to be a lengthy transitional period. This article focuses on the effects of the global transition of power in the Middle East and the region’s efforts and mechanisms to cope with it. I argue that the spill-over of international volatility into the Middle East creates a less stable regional politics, and that efforts for balancing are pursued by regional powers to increase their maneuverability as well as their coping capabilities in a volatile era by distancing their policies from global actors’ priorities and standoffs. The article is structured such that after an introduction, I delve into the meaning and nature of the global transition of power, which serves as the paper’s the conceptual framework. In the ensuing four sections, I discuss the imbalanced nature of regional politics as well as the way in which the region is interpreting and thereupon coping with the global change.

This article analyzes the transformation of Turkish foreign policy towards the Middle East during the turbulent years initiated with the Arab Spring. In due course, Turkish policy considerably shifted from proactive engagement with the region in the early 2000s to a bid to leading regional transformation, particularly in the initial years of the Arab Spring. However, the reversal of the Arab Spring increasingly presented a blowback for Türkiye’s regional engagements. The ensuing regional insecurity resulted in a realist turn in Turkish foreign policy, with frequent resort to military instruments and coercive diplomacy. Eventually, regional policies of Türkiye corresponded to the search for de-escalation and normalization within the emerging Middle Eastern order since 2020. The article argues that changing regional dynamics corresponding with domestic conditions influenced and shaped Türkiye’s policies towards the Middle East. Recently, under the impact of the regional-systemic pressures coupled with changing domestic conditions, recalibrating its regional engagement, Türkiye has prioritized the normalization agenda. It argues that while normalization agenda will remain an important objective for Türkiye’s regional policies, it will evolve in a partial manner, and case-by-case, conditional on the unfolding regional order and Ankara’s strategic priorities.

EU has developed a plethora of initiatives to deal with the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. From Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) and the so-called Barcelona Process to European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), different regional programs have been implemented in the Mediterranean region. The diversity and increasing number of countries involved have led to a feel of Mediterranean bazaar with diverging directions. Thus, one question appears to remain unanswered: In what ways have ideational foundations affected the EU initiatives in the Southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea? The research hypothesis states that differences in ideational foundations of the Mediterranean powers, namely, France, Italy and Spain, in moments of crisis have led to the multiplication of initiatives and brought in at times conflicting arrangements between the north and the south of the Mediterranean Sea. The research question was answered under the Constructivist Institutionalism using the qualitative methodology of content analysis.  Research findings reveal that when confronted with moments of self-doubt (crisis), each of the Mediterranean powers has effectuated an institutional change according to its established ideas and cognitive filters.

In the post-2020 security environment of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, marked by the easing of Iranian-Saudi tensions, intra-Sunni reconciliation, the resolution of the Qatar blockade, and the signing of the Abraham Accords, the European Union (EU) sought to capitalize on the détente to advance its strategic interests. Compared to the other members of the so-called Western camp, the EU, which appears particularly vulnerable to its neighbouring region's instability, responded poorly to the emerging challenges and opportunities. Which factors explain the inefficiency of the EU to benefit from a permissive strategic environment and become more impactful in its broader neighbourhood? This article attempts to promote our understanding of EU’s foreign policy towards the MENA region through a Neoclassical Realist theoretical approach. Structural changes alone cannot explain the EU's failure to have a more prominent role in the region. Intervening variables, such as the role of institutions, state-society relations, and strategic culture, can shed light on the lack of policy cohesiveness and the overall inability of the EU to promote its influence abroad.  

Transition in the Middle East has been one of the most visible characteristics of the Middle East since the end of the Cold War. Having been probably the most penetrated region of the world, the international and the regional orders have always been closely, although mostly asymmetrically related. Thus, the transition in the international arena has been deeply impacting the regional scene, which, along the development from the Cold War through the unipolar moment of the United States to the post-hegemonic/post-US, has resulted in a relatively more independent regional order in the making. The new Middle East is still in transition, with the US having become one among several external actors, old regional powers returning and new ones emerging. But this transition changes not only the actors shaping the new regional order, but also some of the underlying concepts thereof, e. g. that of the regional power.The present paper aims at presenting one of the most ancient regional powers of the Middle East, Egypt, by analysing how the interplay of internal, regional and external developments and the re-identification of the Egyptian state (and society) contributed to its re-emergence as a regional power.

Considering that the greatest threat to Iran in the past 400 years has emerged from the geography of Iraq (from the time of the Ottoman rule and onwards), it must be noted that Iraq is one of Iran's most important neighbors. Therefore, continuous examination of the shaping factors in Iran-Iraq relations is crucial. Although the history of Iran-Iraq relations spans over a century, this article seeks to explore, utilizing a historical-comparative method and an analytical approach, the shaping factors of Iran-Iraq relations from 2003 to 2022. The argument presented in this article suggests that while Iran managed to expand its regional influence in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and replaced the pattern of hostility and tension of the Ba'athist era with a pattern of interaction and cooperation, the element of cooperation and interaction in Iran-Iraq relations is gradually fading due to changes and developments at domestic, regional and international levels.