Overlapping contests and Middle East international relations: The return of the weak Arab state – pomeps.org

Interesting article examining the gaps in realist explanations of Middle Eastern international relations exposed by the Arab Spring.

“The popular uprisings intensified the interplay between the domestic and regional levels in the making of Middle East international relations. Security and ideational threats are intertwined as regimes scramble to defend both their geopolitical interests and their domestic political order from a mix of domestic, regional and transregional actors and ideologies. Whether this long enduring interplay has found itself into IR theory is another matter, however.”