North Africa and Middle East
Analysis of changing dynamics in the North Africa/Middle East region, against a backdrop of increasing security crises and their political, economic and energy consequences.
Related Subjects
Multilateralisms: Survival or Revival?
The organized multilateralism born out of the Second World War and the Cold War, and revived in the 1990s with the dream of a world of peaceful “global governance,” has fizzled out. The erosion of the large universal frameworks (United Nations, World Trade Organization, arms control and disarmament, international criminal justice, and so on) did not give way to a void but to an excess: a multitude of agreements and schemes that bore witness to the accelerated rebuilding of international relationships. Will institutional anarchy and the open competition of interests visible in uninhibited struggles for power be able to organize themselves around common fundamental interests in the future?
Tuaregs' Relations to States: The Case of Algeria and Libya
The industrial revolution underwent by Europe in the 18th century has triggered the need for the major colonial powers to find new markets for their manufactured products. It is in this colonial competitive framework that European explorers delivered information about the different access roads, as well as the Tuareg tribes, notably the Kel Ajjer and the Kel Ahaggar.
Arabs and Tuaregs in Colonial and Malian Armed Forces: A Story in Trompe-l'Oeil
This contribution consists in analyzing the unifying or opposing relations between the central State-power and the southern part of central-Saharan populations, mainly Arabs and Tuaregs, within the relational framework of colonial and Malian armed forces. The French Colonial State and the Malian independent State (from the 1960 independence movement) are both considered by Arabs and Tuaregs as external entities, whatever the form of their relation, good or bad.
Trafficking in the Sahel-Saharan Zone: Features and Stakes
On November 5th 2009, a cocaine-loaded Boeing 727 aircraft arriving from Venezuela was discovered torched and emptied on a makeshift airstrip in the Malian desert (Gao region). The Sahel-Saharan area is clearly a contact zone between very distant worlds.
Morocco and its "New Border". A Critical Lecture of Morocco's Economic African Strategy
Since Mohammed VI came into power, Morocco’s African policy has undergone notable change in comparison to his predecessor’s period.
Controlling Trafficking or Losing the North : Notes on Trafficking in Mauritania
Our interest in this topic stems both from our annual visits to Mauritania which started fifteen years ago, and the tiny amount of research noticed on trafficking in this country.
From Moscow to Mecca: Russia's Saudi Arabian Diplomacy
Relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia have never been as friendly as they were in 2009. After years of tension over Saudi support for Islamist fundamentalism in the post-Soviet space and Russia's proximity to Iran and Iraq, Moscow and Riyadh have progressively moved closer to each other.
Russia's Greater Middle East Policy: Securing Economic Interests, Courting Islam
Russia's foreign policy toward the Greater Middle East is not an aggressive, anti-Western one, but a defensive policy aimed more at protecting Russian economic interests, working with virtually any government that opposes Sunni radicalism, and preventing Moscow from becoming a target of Muslim anger as occurred during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and Chechnya (since 1994).
Trafficking in the Sahel-Saharan Zone: Features and Stake
On November 5th 2009, a cocaine-loaded Boeing 727 aircraft arriving from Venezuela was discovered torched and emptied on a makeshift airstrip in the Malian desert (Gao region). The sahel-saharan area is clearly a contact zone between very distant worlds.
Arabs and Tuaregs in Colonial and Malian Armed Forces: A Story in Trompe-l'Oeil
This contribution consists in analyzing the unifying or opposing relations between the central State-power and the southern part of central-Saharan populations, mainly Arabs and Tuaregs, within the relational framework of colonial and Malian armed forces.
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Related centers and programs
Governing the Urban Transition in Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa's cities are experiencing the fastest growth rates in the world. By 2050, most of the countries in the region will have made an urban transition, meaning that more than 50% of their population will live in urban areas. Urban growth is often presented as a cornerstone of the continent's socio-economic development.
To assess these challenges Ifri’s Sub-Saharan Africa Center is launching, in May 2022, a research program looking into the major socio-economic and geopolitical challenges of urban dynamics on the continent.
The program deals with urban development in Africa through a sectoral and cross-cutting approach based on three key sectors:
- Land issues are the foundation of urban life. Each urban project triggers changes within the relationship between land and its inhabitants.
- Urban infrastructure is often presented as a solution to the challenges of demographic growth in cities. However, the lack of infrastructure and its financing remains a concern for specialists.
- The mobility of goods, people and financial flows is characteristic of urban life and drives the multiple links between cities and the countryside. Analyzing the urban-rural continuum is at the heart of this program's objectives.
Research will be conducted at the macro (continental), meso (country), and micro (city/neighborhood) levels and will be promoted through events and publications.
Turkey/Middle East Program
Ifri's Turkey/Middle East Program aims to provide expertise on the trends and developments in politics, societies and economies across the region.
The programme has the following objectives:
- Proposing a new approach towards the MENA region through an analysis of local, regional, and international dynamics with the potential to guide and influence new policies.
- Highlighting the role of foreign powers which have traditionally been present in the region and analyzing the new role taken on by emerging countries ;
- Anticipating new directions and outlooks in each country.
- Interpreting risks and potentials and putting forward new templates for analysis.
The programme has built a dense network of researchers and experts who provide expertise on the MENA region and working together on a range of crosscutting themes.