ABSTRACT
The Near East–Middle Eastern World Political System primarily refers to the political interactions, inter- and intra-civilizational relations, and competition for system-wide hegemonic status between political units/entities/actors within the region that this given world political system encompasses. Possible explanations of post-unipolar developments are fourfold. First, the Near East–Middle Eastern System consistently displayed high numbers of centers of power, the centers of power were able to reestablish their capabilities after long periods of unipolar dominance. Second, unipoles displayed a very conscious effort to immediately confront possible revisionist actors, hence leaving no actors strong enough to fill in the power vacuum after unipolar epochs. Third, shirking was a constant pattern in this system, as many sub-system hegemons, even with the potential capabilities, chose to remain at the regional level. And four, since bipolar, tripolar, and multipolar structures have much shorter lifespans, this suggests that many of these arrangements were relatively unstable and difficult to maintain.
