This workshop draws on the fresh empirical research of the EU-LISTCO project and aims to take stock of how limited statehood and contestation have affected forms of governance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The Arab uprisings in 2011 gave a voice to local actors, but their hopes have not been realized. In some countries, protests sparked violent conflicts that drew in regional and international actors, while remaining unsolved. In others, regimes reasserted their grip on power, coercing or co-opting local actors. The workshop will consider how local, national and international actors have interacted in forms of hybrid governance to address a political, social, and economic landscape that remains deeply unsettled more than eight years after protests first shook the region. It will address the issue of limited statehood in the Arab world and the extent to which governance – defined as the provision of collectively binding rules and of common goods – has been provided by actors other than the state, both at the international and at the local level. The overall goal is to identify different ways in which constellation of actors can provide governance, in order to improve understandings of the MENA region, and help situate the region’s experiences in comparative terms.

Organisers:

Federica Bicchi | European University Institute

Matteo Capasso | European University Institute

Register here