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The EU, Resilience and the MENA Region

Author: Abdullah Baabood, Andrea Dessi, Eman Ragab, Jamil Mouwad, László ANDOR, Mohamed Kerrou, Nathalie Tocci, Ranj Alaaldin, Silvia Colombo, Sinan Ülgen, Vassilis Ntousas

Fostering state and societal resilience in an era characterized by conflictual multipolarity and resurgent nationalisms is no easy task. Emerging as the central organizing principle of the 2016 EU Global Strategy, the goal of fostering state and societal resilience is framed both as a means to enhance prevention and early warning and as a long-term investment in good governance, stability and prosperity. In parallel with high-level discussions taking place at the EU level on the best ways to operationalize and implement this objective, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) have launched a one-year research project examining challenges and opportunities to foster state and societal resilience in six Middle East and North African countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Qatar).

This book collects the results of this research project, exploring different understandings of resilience on the basis of the six MENA state and societal contexts, mapping out the challenges but also positive reform actors and dynamics within them as a first step towards operationalizing the concept of resilience.

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