The on-going conflict in Syria presents a great challenge to proponents of human rights: a consensual strategy must be found that saves lives and prevents an escalation of violence

Many world leaders agree that something has to be done to stop the bloodshed in Syria, but the country sits on a faultline of instability which could be made worse by intervening parties. Katerina Delacoura argues that the UK and other key powers must decide the path that best reduces the loss of lives and minimises the risk of a protracted, violent fall-out

Book review: political Islam in Tunisia the history of Ennahda

Political Islam in Tunisia: the history of Ennahda, by Anne Wolf, London, Hurst & Co, 2017, 269 pp., (hardback) ISBN 978019067075

Dalacoura on Addi, 'Radical Arab nationalism and political Islam'

Lahouari Addi. Radical Arab Nationalism and Political Islam. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017. 288 pp. $34.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-62616-450-5

Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East: power projection and post-ideological politics

Power projection, security, pragmatic considerations and a disparate mix of national interests and narrower party-political objectives have driven the foreign policy of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Middle East since it came to power in 2002. Ideological concerns, consisting of a fluid blend of Islamist, neo-Ottoman and ‘civilizationalist’ ideas, mingled with a hefty dose of Turkish nationalism, have played a variable, auxiliary but none the less significant role. The Arab uprisings of 2011 opened up opportunities for the AKP to pursue its ideological objectives and they became more central to its policies, if only in some areas or clusters of relationships. However, they receded after 2015, when a confluence of domestic and regional factors caused the onset of a transactional, ‘post-ideological’ phase. The article places the Middle East in the wider context of Turkish foreign policy, both historically and in comparison with other regions, arguing in the process that categories of ‘East’ and ‘West’ are of limited value for its proper understanding and interpretation. It then divides it into four sub-regions, distinct in geographical and issue terms: Syria and Iraq (the ‘near abroad’), the wider Arab world, Israel–Palestine, and Iran. It analyses Turkish foreign policy towards them in sequence, illustrating the ways in which power-political considerations have predominated in all, albeit in different ways and to varying degrees, over the past five years

Coup d’etat or liberation? US-Egypt relations after the fall of Mohamed Morsi

In response to the political convulsions in Egypt, Barack Obama stated from Dar el Salaam that the United States is committed to the democratic process in that country and urged the Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, to work towards the building of consensus. Following Morsi’s overthrow by the army on 3 July, the United States urged a speedy return to civilian rule. Obama’s reaction to the crisis is typical of the cautiousness and realism that has characterised his policy towards the Middle East over the past few years. Western critics of the US president castigate this as ‘lack of strategy’; his supporters, pointing to the disasters spelt by imperialist over-extension under the Bush administration, applaud it for keeping a balance between foreign policy ends and means

The Muslim Brotherhood as product of a secular age

Referring to the Muslim Brotherhood as at least partly secular may seem strange. Islamist organisations, after all, want Islam to permeate public and private life. Yet the Brotherhood only emerged in a rapidly modernising sovereign Egypt in which functional differentiation of state institutions had occurred. Drawing on this understanding of secularity as proposed by Charles Taylor, Katerina Dalacoura presents the Muslim Brotherhood as a secular phenomenon

Dr Katerina Dalacoura workshops on contemporary Turkish discourses on culture in IR

In the context of her British Academy project on ‘Alternative Universalisms? Contemporary Turkish Discourses on Culture in International Relations’, Dr Katerina Dalacoura co-organised two workshops, one in Ankara, Turkey, and the other in Washington DC. Both were funded by the International Relations Department of LSE

Democratic transitions in the Levant: prospects for restoring a regional order

The 2011 Arab uprisings exacerbated conflict and turmoil in the Levant, with the civil war in Syria constituting the dominant event in the region since that point in time and drawing the surrounding countries into its destructive vortex. The changes wrought by the uprisings have intermingled with the pre-existing conflicts in the Levant and with new local and pan-Middle Eastern confrontations in pernicious ways. Among the outcomes of this crisis are that Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine —whose current political situations will be addressed in this paper— are experiencing a rise in authoritarianism. However, this paper argues that the Levant will not overcome its current disorder and regain a degree of order —in the sense either of stability or of recognized rules governing relations between regional actors— unless Levantine states undergo a degree of democratization, meaning they adopt some degree of accountability, pluralism and respect for basic freedoms and good governance. Democracy is closely linked to the emergence of peace and security but is also a condition for them to endure