Introduction: Narratives of (In)security and (In)stability in the Middle East

Abstract

The unrest that, after evolving below the surface for years, eventually burst visibly onto the streets, first in Tunisia in late 2010, and later in various locations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), re-focused attention on Middle Eastern security issues in the way that the 9/11 attack on New York had previously done. There was not only a shift in the way the global community viewed security in the Middle East (e.g. Isaac, 2014) but changes could also be witnessed in the perceptions of security within the region itself (e.g. Legrenzi and Calculli, 2012). This volume focuses on the shifts within the MENA region to examine some of the ways that the peoples of the Middle East perceive and react to threats to their security. The authors particularly focus on interpreting the extent of the effect of the Arab uprisings on the way narratives of security and threat are both constructed and instrumentalized at different levels among state and non-state actors and across national, transnational and regional networks. By focusing on narratives of security and threat beyond just those related to realist, hard power concerns (Bilgin, 2005, p. 39), the chapters take in an array of issues related to a broader and deeper understanding of human security in which the person not the state is at the centre of security concerns (Booth, 2005; Christou and Breslin, 2015).