ABSTRACT

More than 190 states are now occupying the international space, with over a dozen new ones having burst on the scene just in the years since the end of the Cold War in 1989. It seems hardly the time, therefore, to be discussing the tensions globalization has generated for the nation-states of the Middle East. Yet this does seem to be the correct starting point for my discussion of the politics of globalization in the MENA region. In this region we are far from an ‘eclipse’ of the state, even though there a number of weak and vulnerable states operating on its terrain.