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Regional Insecurity After the Arab Uprisings pp 58–81Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Sub-regions and Security in the Arab Middle East: “hierarchical interdependence” in Gulf-Levant Relations

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Part of the book series: New Security Challenges Series ((NSECH))

Abstract

The Middle East is usually considered a war-prone region akin to a Hobbesian state of nature, with insecurity and fragmentation being its dominant features. However, by looking at the region as a whole, we witness that the level of insecurity is not homogenously spread, for within the Middle East we can observe pockets of relatively high security control over time. These stable areas are not entirely immune to or detached from the wider geopolitical and security dynamics of the region, but they appear significantly more impermeable to insecurity. This has become even more evident after the 2011 uprisings; indeed, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have maintained a much higher level of domestic security control compared to other countries, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Iraq. Some other states, like Jordan and Morocco, have been surprisingly successful in containing both endogenous and exogenous turmoil; while Yemen, despite its proximity to the GCC space, has been witnessing a significant deterioration of its internal stability. The purpose of this study is to map and understand the geography of security and the geography of insecurity in the Arab Middle East. More specifically, it seeks to capture how some states or groups of states are secure, while some others are not.

The author wishes to thank Gjovalin Macaj for his valuable comments, advice and endless support.

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Authors
  1. Marina Calculli
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Warwick, UK

    Elizabeth Monier

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© 2015 Marina Calculli

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Calculli, M. (2015). Sub-regions and Security in the Arab Middle East: “hierarchical interdependence” in Gulf-Levant Relations. In: Monier, E. (eds) Regional Insecurity After the Arab Uprisings. New Security Challenges Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137503978_4

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