Middle East
Report: Middle East Instability and the Decline of the Westphalian System 
Westphalian System_ME
pdf 1.25 MB

The events in the Middle East put a number of questions regarding the existing political system of the world. A huge number of non-state actors including Islamic state which clearly falls out of the Westphalian system despite the self-designation as a “state”, are acting now in the region; sovereignty of several states in the Middle East is under the question, etc. Are these issues the problems of the region? If yes, then the question arises about the possibility of returning the region into the framework of the Westphalian system. Or is the question more global? If so, the problem arises not so much with the Middle East region, but with the political organization of the current world, and the Middle East would simply be the region where the crisis of the system is most acute.

Following authors, the main conclusion that can be drawn by analyzing the problems of the contemporary Middle East lies in the fact that this region was a concentration of manifestations of “perfect storm” of modern political organization. This means that the problem is much more complex and global than the problem of one region of the world.

About authors:

Marina Lebedeva, D.Sc. (Political Science), Professor, Head of the Department of World Politics, MGIMO–University Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation.

Raffaele Marchetti, Senior assistant professor in International Relations at the Department of Political Science and the School of Government of LUISS (Free International University for Social Studies “Guido Carli”), Italy.


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