The paper examines specific features of international relations in Western Asia and North Africa (WANA) in a broader context of transformation of the contemporary international relations system. The author approaches the issue of a new world order emergence within the framework of fundamental changes taking place in the public sphere. In the paper these processes are considered in terms of transition from postmodernity to neomodernity. On the basis of critical examination of postmodernist writings the author defines the phenomenon of neomodernity and outlines its key features. This approach provides a new perspective on the essence and possible contours of the emerging new world order. According to the author, its key characteristics are to include volatility, flexibility, and instability which, in their turn, will engender a multitude of collective identities and a multitude of foreign policy narratives, a growing role of ideological factors and an increasing securitization of international relations. The author demonstrates that these transformational changes have already taken place in the WANA region and the concept of neomodernity allows to identify two coexisting patterns of political self-identification and, correspondingly, two possible scenarios for the development of a regional IR system. The first pattern considers the WANA region in a traditional modernist sense as the Middle East, whereas the second one accentuates its premodern features and conceptualizes it as part of the Islamic world. The concepts of the Middle East and of the Islamic world present fundamentally different perspectives on the nature of actors, the role of political narratives, the attitude towards borders and sovereignty, and on the very foundations of the world order. And if the former is put to the test by postmodernist relativism in the WANA space and some of its basic elements are eroding, the latter, on the contrary, regains its relevance. The author emphasizes that within the framework of neomodernity these two concepts may evolve in parallel, transforming uncertainty and ambivalence of the regional IR subsystem into major feature of a new century.

The term Shiite Crescent, or Shiite Arc, is becoming increasingly popular in political and academic discourse as well as in the media. It is used to indicate a threat allegedly posed by an alliance of states and forces dependent on Iran. However, there is no consensus on who the exact members of the alliance are. Since the basic criteria of membership in the alliance are the allegiance to Iran and the commitment to Shia Islam it can be expanded to include Iraq, Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah, and sometimes the Shiite forces of Bahrain and even Yemen. The relevance of this agenda peaks with the outbursts of anti-Iranian rhetoric as it was the case in the spring and early summer of 2019. Meanwhile, is the author emphasizes that the concept of the Shiite Arc contains a number of fundamental errors in terms of both methodological premises and the logic of reasoning. Particularly, the author argues that since this concept is based on a dialectic method it cannot be regarded as an appropriate tool for assessing or forecasting the development of the regional processes. On the one hand, the application of this method may entail artificial extrapolation of foreign political culture and assessment criteria in regional realities. For example, the author stresses that Middle Eastern civilizational antinomies can hardly be understood within the framework of the Western political thought as they represent contraries but not contradictions. Ignoring this fact leads to artificial fueling of regional conflicts and controversies. On the other hand, the dialectic method tends to create new, and speculative, fault lines in the region. The author concludes that from the outset the concept of Shiite Arc is founded on an erroneous theoretical ground and therefore is methodologically untenable. Meanwhile, the author stresses that in the current international conditions this concept turned out to be a popular propaganda construct paradoxically suitable to Iran, as well as to its opponents. The concept of the Shiite Arc appears to be an enabling ideology for a new stage of military and political confrontation which may cause more suffering to peoples of the Middle East.

The paper aims to decode the logic in the revisions of Turkey’s regional policies during the 2000s and 2010s in respect to a wider context of the large-scale transformations in the Middle East and North Africa region. Methodologically the paper utilizes the concept of competitive multipolarity which allows to scrutinize the simultaneous manifestation, mutual entwinement and substantial opposition of the key trends in the development of the Middle East during the period under review. Against this background the paper examines the transformation processes in the Middle East on three interconnected levels — the global one, which reflects the alternations in the balance of power and the involvement patterns of the Global Powers in the Middle Eastern affairs; the regional one, which encompasses the relations between the main regional states; and the state level which allows to scrutinize the tangle interconnections between domestic and foreign policy imperatives of a particular Middle Eastern country. This analytical approach allowed to spotlight how both the relative decline of the American influence in the Middle East and the limited involvement in the regional developments of the EU, China and Russia contributed to the rising competitive interplay of the leading regional states with the regional leadership aspirations — namely Turkey, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, this multipolarity did not result in a sustainable balance of power in the region because the acute competitive activity of the above mentioned regional powers has primarily focused on the states in deep political crisis or the ones which are almost failed states. In this respect the case of Turkey is of a special interest for the following reasons. Ankara’s foreign policy in the 2000s and 2010s experienced large-scale transformations and pervasive changes. Partly abandoning its previous posture of a state deeply integrated in the Trans-Atlantic international relations and largely subordinated to the logic of these interrelations Turkey actively joined the struggle for the regional influence in the 2000s. Turkey’s impressive economic growth and a wide popular support both domestically and abroad facilitated the rise of Ankara’s foreign policy activities. The sound successes of Turkish business together with the large-scale internationalization of the Turkish capital have become the main drivers for Turkey’s expansion in the Middle East and North Africa. Initially other regional actors perceived the increasing role of Turkey in the regional affairs more or less favorably. However, the end of the 2010s witnessed a number of international contradictions as a result of Turkey’s rising ambitions for regional hegemony. Consequently, Turkey now is turning out to become yet another regional power which is amplifying rather than smoothing away the destructive competitiveness of the Middle Eastern multipolarity.

Painful transformational processes taking place in the Middle East after the Arab Awakening pose not only new threats and challenges for regional actors, but also provide new opportunities for some of them to pursue their geopolitical ambitions and strengthen strategic positions, including through non-traditional methods and tools. In this regard, Turkey’s attempts to capitalize on the interest of some governments, which came to power on a wave of dissent, to learn from the Turkish experience in state building deserve independent consideration. These attempts were reflected in the concept of the so called Turkish model. In the early 2010s a particular interest in implementation of the Turkish model was shown by Egypt. The paper examines both the driving forces behind M. Mursi’s government special attention to Ankara’s example and the reasons that ultimately have led to the failure to operationalize the Turkish model in Egypt and the subsequent dramatic deterioration of bilateral relations. The first section of the paper identifies the key elements of the Turkish model. The author emphasizes that initially this model was aimed at identifying the optimal balance between religious and secular principles in public life. The second section explores M. Mursi’s government attempts to implement the Turkish model in Egypt in the first half of 2010s. The author shows that it was economic and political success of Turkey in the 1990s and 2000s including its rapid economic growth and the increase of foreign investments, as well as a successful inclusion of political Islam in the Western-style democratic institutions that primarily attracted the new Egyptian government. However, the author concludes that M. Mursi’s government failure to undertake profound economic, social and political reforms combined with a mixed attitude of the Muslim Brotherhood towards the Turkish model, growing popular discontent and a negative attitude of certain regional actors towards this proclaimed political course of the new Egyptian leaders have eventually led to the military coup and cessation of all attempts to learn from the Turkish experience. The third section outlines implications of the 2013 military coup in Egypt for the bilateral relations. The author concludes that the Egyptian case clearly demonstrates the limits of applicability of the Turkish model in the Middle East countries, as well as limitations of Turkey’s regional ambitions.

One major consequence of the conflict in Syria, giving it a truly international dimension, is an unprecedented refugee crisis. The 2015 refugee crisis in the European Union received particularly broad media coverage. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that the largest number of refugees from Syria streamed into neighboring countries, dramatically altering social, economic and political situation there. In this regard the case of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan deserves special attention. According to various estimates, Jordan hosted from 600 000 to over 1 300 000 Syrian refugees. At the same time, Jordan’s refugee policy has some peculiarities due to a complex structure of its society and, as a result, the need to maintain an intercommunity balance. The author shows how these circumstances influenced Jordanian legal framework on the issues of migration and asylum. The paper examines the evolution of the Jordan government approaches to the issue of Syrian refugees from 2011, when the country hosted first victims of the conflict, to the present days. In particular, the author emphasizes that if in 2011–2013 refugees could enter the Jordan territory almost without any obstacles, then in 2013–2014 Amman, facing a constantly growing number of refugees, tightened up its asylum policy considerably. However it soon became evident that restrictive measures could not, per se, improve the social and economic situation in the country and have led to criminalization of migrants. As a result, in 2016 the Jordan government took a more flexible stance. On the one hand, Jordan continued to restrict the inflow of refugees but, on the other hand, tried to capitalize on them by seeking additional funding from the United States, the European Union and international organizations in order to mitigate the adverse impacts of the Syrian crisis and to promote its own infrastructural and economic development. However, the author concludes that the prospects for the settlement of the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan remain unclear. They are wholly dependent on the process of conflict settlement in Syria and should it fail a fragile demographic and political balance in the kingdom will be irretrievably lost.

The contemporary political history of Algeria continues to draw attention of both Russian and foreign IR scholars. However, as a rule, they have focused primarily on internal political trends in Algeria in recent years or on the process of post-conflict reconstruction started in the country at the turn of the century. In contrast, the author stresses that in order to provide the correct understanding of dynamics of political processes in Algeria all these issues should not be viewed in isolation from each other. This paper examines the role of traumatic post-conflict experience in shaping modern Algerian political culture.

The author outlines four periods in the contemporary history of Algeria, each of them corresponding to different stages in post-conflict reconstruction of the country. In the first section the author examines initial steps taken by the Algerian government at the end of 1990s and in the mid-2000s in order to stop violence and re-establish the normal functioning of the authorities. The author emphasizes that the Algerian government combined measures directed at establishing a dialogue with the opposition and massive use of military force against radical Islamists. During the second stage of post-conflict reconstruction (the second half of the 2000s), the government had tried to consolidate the society while the third stage, which coincided with the Arab Awakening, was marked by governmental efforts to prevent a possible revolutionary outburst and new destabilization of political system. Finally, mass protests in Algeria in 2019 marked the beginning of the fourth stage of the process during which the national elites have made every effort to guarantee the maintenance of the constitutional order even in case of a rapid change of political regime. The author points out that a living memory of the civil conflict has played an important part in consolidating the Algerian society. On the one hand, this memory helped to keep protests on a peaceful, non-violent track. On the other hand, it pushed the elites towards a more flexible policy and search for a compromise with the opposition. One can notice that despite constant evolution of political situation in the country the legacy of the conflict has always had a considerable and continuous impact on the political process. This issue, even if it is not directly put on the agenda, is still guiding behavioral strategies of both the civil society and the elites.