Morten Valbjørn

Aarhus University | AU · Department of Political Science

Hvis debatten om demokrati i Mellemøsten i metaforisk forstand betragtes som en ørkenvandring, kan denne åbningsartikel af dette temanummer af Politica be-tegnes som den form for pauser, man holder på en lang og vanskelig færd for at orientere sig om, hvor man kommer fra og nu befinder sig. Ærindet kan for at blive i metaforikken siges at være at k...

The Muslim Brotherhood: Ideology, History, Descendants , by Joas Wagemakers. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022. 334 pages. €39.95 paper, e-book.

Since the Arab uprisings, new dynamics of insecurity have cleaved the MENA, tugging at the conceptual premise in how this regional subsystem of interstate relations—that is, Middle East international relations (IR)—operates in an era of globalization. Interfacing with conventional IR theories, the chapter shows the retreat of American hegemony as a...

Studiet af mellemøstlig islamisme ti år efter de arabiske revolter.

Can International Relations (IR) as it is taught in the Arab world be said to be an “American social science” or is it taught differently in different places? The forum addresses this question through an exploration of what and how scholars at Arab universities are teaching IR and how institutional, historical, and linguistic, as well as political...

To what extent has the study of sectarianism in the Middle East made any progress in the first decade after the Arab uprisings? Based on an analysis of three aspects of the study of sectarianism – on how to conceptualize, grasp and explain sectarianism – the article shows that the sectarianism debate hardly has provided much certainty, agreement or...

Do identities matter for explaining the behavior of Islamist actors in war zones? If yes, then what is the relative importance of identities as opposed to the structural context? Is it necessary to pay attention to the "content" of identities or can different identities basically be treated as alike? To address these questions, it can be useful to...

Does a shared agreement about the importance of challenging sectarianism necessarily translate into much consensus as for how to go about it and do some of these efforts carry their own potential pitfalls, which deserve attention in discussions about how to promote inclusion and reconciliation in deeply divided societies?....

It is well known that the “sectarianization” of Middle Eastern politics during the last decade has had many negative effects. In that light, it should come as no surprise that most agree that sectarianism should be countered. However, it turns out that it is anything but clear what we are talking about, when we talk about anti/counter/post/trans/cr...

This meta‐study examines the nature of past and current theoretically informed debates on sectarian politics in the Middle East and identifies the biggest challenges and possible directions for the future study of sectarianism. Contrary to the conventional narrative about a “sectarian journey” torn between a flawed primordialist and instrumentalist...

The purpose of this Special Issue is to examine the nature, causes, and consequences of the Middle East's current sectarian surge. Specifically, how might sectarianism and regime formation/type be inter‐related? The evidence from this specific analysis will also address the broader concern of whether the Arab uprisings have given rise to a qualitat...

Shia/Sunni sectarianism figures prominently in post‐Arab uprising claims that the Middle East is witnessing a darker kind of authoritarianism drawing on exclusionary and xenophobic forms of identity politics. This article explores whether sectarianism per se is associated with a distinct form of identity politics or if authoritarian techniques invo...

The overall theme for this collection concerns the question about how changes in international structures at both the global and regional levels have and will affect Middle East international relations. One way to approach this question is by engaging in a discussion about whether the Middle East is in a transition from a post-Cold War ‘American or...

In this article, we are revisiting the classic debate on the durability and dynamics of Arab authoritarianism in light of the recent ‘sectarianization’ of Middle East politics.

Forestillingen om et sekterisk – eller “sekteriseret” – Mellemøsten, hvor en modsætning mellem shia- og sunnimuslimer – eller shia- og sunniislam – skulle udgøre en central konfliktlinje i regionens politiske liv, har figureret prominent i de seneste års debat om, hvad der vil kendetegne et såkaldt “nyt Mellemøsten”. Samtidig med – eller måske neto...

To what degree should the way IR scholars in the Arab region study and teach IR be shaped by their geopolitical location and relationship to IR in North American and Europe? On 21 and 22 June 2018, IR scholars from across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and North America met at a workshop in Beirut to debate these questions and ongoing effor...

The study of the current (re)emergence and evolution of sectarianism in the Middle East has given rise to much debate in academia, but maybe for the wrong reasons. While much energy has been spent bashing primordialist and instrumentalist approaches, in their ‘pure’ versions they appear far less prominent in the academic part of the debate than oft...

Post-uprisings Middle East politics is frequently described as a ‘regional cold war’ involving proxy warfare that emphasises the role of shared identities linking external and local actors. But does the ‘content’ of identities impact proxy war dynamics? This article considers the present ‘battle for Syria’, a local conflict that became a theatre fo...

Yemen constitutes in many ways a puzzling case in the broader debate on Shia/Sunni sectarianism in a 'new Middle East.' Contrary to what one might expect from its demography, it has historically not been a hotbed for sectarian conflicts, and against this background, it is surprising how sectarianism has become one - of many - dimensions in the Yeme...

Part of the symposium "Problematizing Global Challenges: Recalibrating the “Inter” in IR-Theory" edited by Gunther Hellmann & Morten Valbjørn.

Strategies for Reviving the International Relations/Middle East Nexus after the Arab Uprisings - Volume 50 Issue 3 - Morten Valbjørn

http://web.apsanet.org/mena/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/12/APSA-MENA-Newsletter-3-Final.pdf

https://pomeps.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/POMEPS_Studies_28_NewAnalysis_Web.pdf

http://pomeps.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/POMEPS_Studies_16_IR_Web.pdf

The Arab uprisings have not only impacted large parts of the Arab world. They have also left their mark on scholarship about Arab politics. Following the unexpected events, scholars have been engaged in a self-reflective debate on whether their assumptions and theoretical approaches to Arab politics have proven inadequate and their reasoning flawed...

This article focuses on the new English School and its revitalized research program with main attention paid to its five revisions: 1) a new take on world society with focus on non-states actors; 2) the revision of the relationship between pluralism and solidarism; 3) the differentiation of international society into two dimensions: the global and...

In this rejoinder we appreciate Ben Rosamond and Alex Warleigh-Lack’s addition to our typology of dialogues, yet restate our main reasons to remain sceptical about the outcome of a dialogue between European Studies and New Regionalism.

This contribution to the roundtable considers the evolution of the debate about democratization and post-democratization before 2011 and examines three different ways of revisiting this debate after the Arab uprisings.

The following series of short analyses seeks to engage critically with the issue of how to think about Arab politics after the Arab uprisings in the light of past debates on this theme. What are we to make today of previous approaches to the region that emphasized historical sociology, Arabism, regionalism, Islamism, revolution and (post-)democrati...

The question about whether "Arab politics is still Arab" as Jerrold Green once put it, constitutes a classic issue in Middle East scholarship. The question has often been framed in terms of whether the idea of a special bond existing between Arabic-speaking peoples is a spent force or not. Most recently, it has been debated whether the Arab Uprisin...

This article engages in the debate on (the study of) regionalism in providing an overview of the nexus between European Studies (ES) and (New) Regionalism (NR). While the immediate purpose for doing so is to set the stage for the future debate on regional dynamics, this exploration can also be perceived as a case study into (the plurality of forms...

A prominent theme in the current debate on the implications of the Arab Revolts revolves around the questions about whether we are witnessing the emergence of a truly new Middle East in a ‘transition to de- mocracy’, or whether the region is still stuck in a ‘transition to nowhere’ similar to past decades. Based on a critique of both of these views...

This article provides a conceptual lens for and a thick interpretation of the emergent regional constellation in the Middle East in the first decade of the 21st century. It starts out by challenging two prevalent claims about regional politics in the context of the 2006 Lebanon and 2008–09 Gaza Wars: Firstly, that regional politics is marked by a f...

To those living in the Middle East the Eastern Question became a “Western Question” – how to deal with intrusive Europe while coping with the everpresent perils and prospect within the region itself … should we Middle Easterners seek to gain needed strength by adopting Western ways that have produced powerful states in Europe and North America? Or...

Mens Saids Orientalism selv er en kritisk meta-studie af ”vestlige forestillinger om Orienten”, har denne artikel til formål at problematisere og nuancere en fremherskende forestilling vedrørende dette værks indflydelse på studiet af Mellemøsten, nemlig at det skulle være svært at overdrive indflydelsen fra Orientalism på Mellemøststudierne (MØS),...

During the summer of 2006, the Palestine conflict once again turned ‘hot’ when intense fighting erupted across the Israeli/Lebanese border. Besides 34 days of violent clashes with Israeli forces, Hizbullah was also engaged in a more symbolic, or ‘cold’, collision with the Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian leaders denouncing in public the Shi’i-...

This article, which is part of a broader attempt to construct a ‘Baedeker’ to IR's cultural journey, contributes to the contested debated on the (ir)relevance of cultural diversity to the study of international relations by providing a picture of where we come from, of where we are now situated and of some of the suggestions as to where we should b...

The July and August 2006 intense fighting between Hizballah and Israel has pointed among others to an emerging Sunni-Shi'i divide. Three Sunni Arab states namely, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, criticized Hizballah for being nothing but a pawn of Shi'i, Persian Iran and its "quasi-Shi'i" Syrian ally. In general, these developments sketched the out...

The question of disciplinarity in the study of the international relations of the Middle East, in the past, present and future, is the subject of this article, which begins with the observation that contrary to intuitive expectations, the borderland between 'the River of International Relations (IR)' and 'the River of Middle Eastern Studies (MES)'...

After a long and remarkable absence, the concept of culture has in recent years become a theme of discussion within the discipline of International Relations (IR).2 Beyond being the site for the formulation of theoretical concepts, IR itself must also be considered an important producer of images that have implications for the perception of Middle...