Description
This presentation, in the belief that solving empirical puzzles in the so-called ‘MENA region’ calls for theoretical pluralism, will mainly draw on theoretical developments of regional studies in recent years, with a particular emphasis on departing from markedly Eurocentric and institutionalist approaches, and focusing our attention on theories applied to the Global South, namely the African continent, such as the concept of 'regime-boosting regionalism' and the different logics of bottom-up and top-down regionalization. Comparative regionalism is part of the decolonial agenda, with the aim of building together a truly global discipline of international relations. Thus, beyond exceptionalizing positivist analyses that focus on insufficient regional integration in the Arab world as a whole, the research will assess how different– state and non-state – actors have made use of both formal and informal regionalizing mechanisms, both domestically and beyond its borders, at the regional and global level. Regionalism becomes what Edward Said called a ‘travelling theory’; consequently, the presentation will also attempt at identifying the specific contours of regionalizing discursive practices in the Arab world, in a continuous dialectical process that puts in conversation both cooperative and conflictive regional dynamics.
