Lakshmi Priya
GCC countries have been at the receiving end of soft power projection by the external and extra-regional powers for a long time. However, with the depleting hydrocarbon resources and consequent focus on economic diversification, the countries are aiming to emerge as smart powers by blending hard and soft power. They have the required economic hard power owing to oil wealth and are gradually realising the significance of soft power. The article focuses on the fact that they are pro-actively engaged in soft power projection through cultural diplomacy. The article aims to understand the factors necessitating investment in cultural diplomacy while situating the GCC countries on the evolutionary graph of cultural diplomacy.
Lakshmi Priya is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.She has published a number of articles, papers and media pieces onWestAsian politics and has been associated with think tanks like MP-IDSAand ICWA. Dr. Lakshmi Priya is the corresponding author and her email address is lakshmipriya_f2002@yahoo.co.in
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Anass Gouyez Ben Allal
Relations between the United States and China transcend a simple partner–rival dichotomy. The intensification of economic interdependence and the proliferation of global and transnational challenges compel major powers to combine competition with cooperation. Within this evolving dynamic, the partners of these powers face increasing challenges in shaping their foreign-policy choices. As a strategic ally of the United States, Morocco’s equation consists of cooperating with China in areas where Washington and Beijing are not systemic rivals and which do not–either directly or indirectly–undermine U.S. hegemonic leadership, its capacity for influence, or the established international order. Should Morocco succeed in managing this delicate balance, it could emerge as a platform where the interests of the two global powers converge. Such a model could serve as a source of inspiration both for the major powers themselves and for their partners worldwide.
Anass Gouyez Ben Allal is a professor at Ibn Tofail University and Editor in Chief of the Journal International and Prospective Studies. His research focuses on International Relations, Military Strategies, Civil-Military Relations, and Foreign Policies, with a particular focus on the issues of nuclear proliferation and disarmament, conflicts, terrorism, Security in the Middle East, Asia and the Mediterranean.
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This paper examines public diplomacy sources of Türkiye in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) via utilization of Nicholas Cull’s public diplomacy framework. Türkiye paid heed to the views of MENA publics through embassies, Directorate of Communications and think tanks. Ankara advocated fight against Islamophobia, Palestinian cause and a fairer representation in the United Nations. Türkiye also undertook restoration work, promoted its language, touristic destinations and television series while carrying out educational exchanges and international broadcasting activities in the region.
Fatma Aslı Kelkitli works as a full professor in Political Science and Public Administration department at Istanbul Arel University. Her research interests encompass international politics, Turkish foreign policy and public diplomacy.
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Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat and Shafa Kalila Aryanti
This article analyzes soft power cooperation between Indonesia and North Africa as a reciprocal process shaped by education exchange, cultural diplomacy, religious networks, and shared anti colonial histories. It argues that these interactions build institutional ties and diplomatic goodwill, yet their broader societal impact remains limited due to structural constraints, language barriers, geographic distance, and modest program scale.
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat was a Research Professor at Busan University of Foreign Studies. He is currently the Director of the Indonesia-MENA Desk at the Centre for Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) in Jakarta and a Research Affiliate at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore.
Shafa Kalila Aryanti is a researcher at the Center of Economic and Law Studies, where she works with the Indonesia MENA Desk. She earned her undergraduate degree from Universitas Indonesia. Her research examines Indonesia’s political, economic, and policy engagement with Middle East and North Africa countries, with particular attention to energy transition, investment, and regional cooperation.
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Zahid Shahab Ahmed
This article examines how Saudi Arabia deploys religious diplomacy as an instrument of statecraft in its relations with Pakistan. It asks to what extent the Kingdom translates its custodianship of Islam’s holy sites into political influence and how effective this strategy is in shaping Pakistan’s alignments and policy preferences, focusing on the mechanisms and institutional channels of Saudi religious soft power.
Zahid Shahab Ahmed is an Associate Professor at the National Defence College in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He
is the lead author of Iran’s Soft Power in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).
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Melodena Stephens
This short article explains soft power and applies it to emerging markets like the Middle East. It explains what soft power is and what it is not. Further, it illustrates the patience required to build soft power, especially in a geopolitical, conflict-prone world where old skills of diplomacy are being lost. Many of the narratives come from the author's research and experience living in the region since 2004. Finally, it highlights the fact that soft power is dual-edged. Restraint and global citizenship should not be confused with a lack of hard power. This is not smart power, which is a combination of hard and soft power. It is a choice.
Melodena Stephens is a Professor of Innovation & Technology Governance at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, Dubai, UAE. She is an innovation policy and governance thought leader in crisis management, strategy, and frontier technologies such as AI, as well as international business and entrepreneurship. She works as an expert with entities such as IEEE SA, the Council of Europe, the World Economic Forum, the World Government Summit, Meta, TCS, and many governments. Melodena loves to write and blogs at www.melodena.com
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Luigi Narbone
Over the past decade, the MENA and Sahel regions have become key arenas for Russia’s expanding influence. While often associated with hard power, Moscow’s strategy also relies on hybrid warfare and soft power, including propaganda and disinformation campaigns, to shape narratives, influence public opinions and support preferred actors. These strategies are very effective in fragmented conflict countries but work less well in more stable political systems, where the scope for intervention is constrained. Consequently, in the latter countries Moscow relies primarily on traditional forms of interstate cooperation, with more limited results. This article examines how these hybrid strategies operate in Libya and Algeria, highlighting their differences and effectiveness.
Luigi Narbone is the Vice-president of the Mediterranean Platform, a Rome-based think and act non-profit organisation as well as a professor of MENA geopolitics at Luiss Guido Carli University. Before moving to academia, he had a long diplomatic career at the United Nations and the European Union. From 2008 to 2012 he was EU Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries.
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Patricia K. McCormick
Climate change is deepening water scarcity across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), threatening livelihoods, governance, and stability. This paper examines how drought, migration, and riparian basin conflicts interact with neoliberal agricultural and trade practices to intensify regional inequalities. It argues that the combined effects of heat, drought, and unsustainable water use have transformed scarcity into a catalyst for social unrest and displacement. The study concludes that only through regional cooperation, early-warning drought systems, and sustainable resource management can MENA states build resilience against cascading climate risks.
Patricia K. McCormick views the telecommunication and space sectors as integrated within a broader economic and political context at both the national and international levels. She is a member of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and presently serves as an Associate Professor at Wayne State University.
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Derek Lutterbeck
This article examines migration flows across the Mediterranean since the end of WW II, using the concepts of ‘barrier’ and ‘bridge’. Its main argument is that, overall, the Mediterranean has turned from being a migration bridge during the first decades after the end of WW II to being a migration barrier from the mid-1970s onwards, as large-scale recruitment of migrant workers from south to north has given way to increasingly strict migration policies adopted by European countries. However, most recent developments suggest a more complex picture where bridges and barriers coexist. While growing restrictions have been placed on some forms of trans-Mediterranean migration, mainly irregular migration and refugee flows, there has in recent years also been a notable opening of channels for legal migration from south to north.
Derek Lutterbeck is Deputy Director and Professor at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies at the University of Malta. His current research focuses mainly on migration and security issues in the Mediterranean region.
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Burak Şakir Şeker
This paper examines the Mediterranean’s transformation into a contested security space linking MENA and Europe. It argues that maritime security is shaped by the convergence of hard power rivalry, energy and infrastructure competition, cyber and environmental threats, and humanitarian crises. Through cases from naval militarization and energy corridors to migration governance and climate stress, the study contends that stability depends on shared resilience rather than unilateral control.
Burak Şakir Şeker is an Associate Professor at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, a retired Navy Lieutenant, and an industrial engineer. He previously served in the Turkish Naval Forces and the Turkish Armed Forces Headquarters in various roles, including operation officer, project officer, and commander. His academic focus spans global maritime geopolitics, the Middle East and Africa, the cyber environment and international politics, space security, global actors and great power competition, comparative politics and political regimes, and refugee and international issues.
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Ingy Higazy
This article examines patterns of real estate and urban development on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, interrogating the imaginaries of urban living, leisure, and Mediterranean space they produce. It analyzes how real estate projects demarcate property, mobility, and belonging in the Mediterranean amid Egypt’s debt crises and the refugee reception crisis. Drawing on longer spatial and racial histories of defining the Mediterranean, the article investigates ‘the Real Mediterranean’ as a spatial representation that encloses luxury spaces while recasting multiple existing Mediterraneans.
Ingy Higazy is the Research Manager at “Pathways Beyond Neoliberalism: Voices from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA),” based at the American University in Cairo (AUC). She holds a PhD in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Amine Ghoulidi and Rida Lyammouri
Amine Ghoulidi and Rida Lyammouri
The Western Mediterranean’s exposure to the Sahel is usually framed in terms of security spillovers and crisis management. This paper argues that this framing misreads how Sahelian access conditions now shape Mediterranean integration. Morocco’s Atlantic Initiative is a state-led corridor strategy combining Atlantic port infrastructure, inland transit routes, and energy systems to connect landlocked Sahelian economies to maritime access through Moroccan territory. Examining this initiative, the paper shows how Sahelian access conditions now shape routing decisions, risk pricing, and gateway hierarchies inside the Western Mediterranean itself. The Atlantic Initiative functions not as a development scheme or a basin institution, but as a corridor architecture designed to reduce the structural penalty of landlockedness and convert hinterland access into Mediterranean-relevant trade and energy flows. Its credibility rests on three elements: a scale-setting Atlantic gateway anchored at Dakhla, transit governance through Mauritania as a non-bypassable hinge, and demonstrable Sahel-side demand for diversified external access. Where these elements align, corridor reliability alters planning horizons and competitive dynamics well before trade volumes visibly rebase. The paper concludes that Mediterranean integration is increasingly produced through corridors that originate beyond the basin and re-enter it through gateway states.
Rida Lyammouri is a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS). He is also a senior West Africa and Lake Chad Basin researcher and advisor, with expertise in regional conflicts,
violent extremism, climate change, migration, and trafficking. His research activities focus on
geopolitics and international relations in the West African Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, regions he
has worked on for 14 years, including in the field.
Amine Ghoulidi is the Convenor of the MENA Research Group at King’s College London, where
he is completing a PhD in geopolitics and security. Previously, Mr Ghoulidi worked in the political
risk practice of a global consulting firm and advised leading international organizations on illicit
transnational networks.
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Amel Boubekeur
This article examines Euro-Mediterranean relations beyond the narrative of failed convergence. It argues that asymmetry has been stabilised into hierarchy through routine governance mechanisms. Drawing on observations of Euro-Mediterranean consultation arenas (2023–2025), it analyses administrative credibility, mobility governance, and energy cooperation as forms of stratified governance. The 2025 Pact for the Mediterranean is interpreted as a crystallisation of this long-term configuration rather than a policy rupture.
Amel Boubekeur is a sociologist and political scientist. She is Professor at Aix-Marseille University and Senior Fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative. Her research focuses on EuroMediterranean governance, political economy, mobility, and state–society relations in North Africa
and Europe.
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Jan Claudius Völkel and Benjamin Zyla
Germany’s image as a “civilian power” has come under pressure since the democratic peace model has started to lose its global attraction. This includes the MENA region where liberal approaches have been sidelined by an authoritarian conflict management and a return to great powerrivalry. This article discusses Germany’s security policy approaches and explores its (new) role in a changing world order in the MENA region. Its traditional self-understanding might lead it into a strategic offside.
Jan Claudius Völkel is DAAD seconded professor in German Studies and International Relations
at the University of Ottawa. His main research interests are Democratization in the MENA region
and Euro-Mediterranean relations.
Benjamin Zyla is full professor and teaches peace and conflict studies at the University of Ottawa
where he also directs the “Peacebuilding and Local Knowledge Network” (PLKN) and the “Fragile States Research Network” (FSRN) (co-director).
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Megan Elizabeth Gisclon
US President Donald Trump’s second term in office has been a watershed moment for the European security order and Germany’s and Turkey’s place in it. As the Trump administration has made clear that Europe needs to step up its own defences, European powers, most notably Germany, have turned to Turkey to enhance strategic cooperation. This article will highlight the current trajectory of cooperation between Ankara and Berlin as they work to reframe the European security order.
Megan Elizabeth Gisclon is the Managing Editor and Researcher at Istanbul Policy Center. Her research focuses on transatlantic security, international order, US-Turkey relations, and Turkish civil-military relations
Gawdat Bahgat
The Middle East is Europe’s backyard. Economic prosperity and political stability and security in Europe are, to a great extent, shaped by developments in the Middle East. This essay examines Germany’s policy toward the Middle East, particularly the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and Iran’s nuclear program as well as the growing economic and cultural ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council states. The analysis highlights the areas of cooperation and competition with other global powers and provides recommendation on promoting mutual understanding between Germany and the broad Middle East..
Gawdat Bahgat is a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University. He is the author of 11 books and more than 200 scholarly articles. His areas of expertise include the Middle East, political economy, energy transition, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and American foreign policy.
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Raluca Moldovan
This paper examines the evolution of German security policy through the lens of migration, with a specific focus on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Since the 2015 refugee crisis, migration has become both a security concern and a strategic priority for German policymakers. The analysis applies a blended theoretical framework combining securitization theory, realism, and human security to assess how migration has reshaped border control, counter-radicalization efforts, integration policies, and foreign relations. It argues that Germany’s approach reflects a dynamic and sometimes contradictory balancing act between humanitarian commitments and strategic interests. The paper explores how domestic and external policies are increasingly entangled, highlighting the trade-offs and normative tensions that define Germany’s migration-security nexus. The conclusion calls for a recalibration of German policy to better align security objectives with democratic values and human rights.
Raluca Moldovan is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations and German Studies of Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj Napoca, where she has been teaching since 2004 at graduate and undergraduate levels. She is a PhD in history with a thesis on the representation of the Holocaust on film. Her more recent research interests include immigration studies, mass media and the contemporary Middle East. She has published numerous scholarly articles on topics ranging from history to mass culture in many Romanian and international journals and collective volumes. She is a member of the European and Romanian Associations of American Studies and the Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, New York).
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Esra Ağralı
Germany has blended its civilian identity with normative power to lead the EU’s climate response, positioning itself as a driver in addressing the global climate crisis. MENA is central due to energy-related security risks and migration pressure. Germany’s policies show the securitization of climate change within its foreign policy identity. This study examines Germany’s climate security diplomacy in MENA since 2020, highlighting both rhetoric and practice.
Esra Ağralı is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul Medipol University, Türkiye, Received Ph.D degree in EU Politics and International Relations. Focus areas are the EU’s foreign, security and defence policies.
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