Researchers investigate ways to make the MENA region’s forecasted future come to pass
The MENARA (Middle East and North Africa Regional Architecture: Mapping Geopolitical Shifts, Regional Order and Domestic Transformations) project has spent the past three years analysing the drivers of change for regional order in the MENA region and the implications of this change for Europe. The recently-completed project outlines potential scenarios for 2025 and 2050 and identified opportunities to break with the past. Dr Eduard Soler, senior researcher at CIDOB and scientific coordinator of MENARA, discusses the opportunities presented by the project’s findings. Experts couldn’t predict recent events such as the Arab Spring and the growth of ISIS. What do you think are the main factors that led to such a level of unpredictability? MENARA depicts a situation in which regional conflicts proliferate and intersect, where different local, regional and global actors have a say and forge liquid alliances among them. Sudden one-off events can radically change the geopolitical landscape, so it is key to be attentive to those developments, to measure their impact and, if possible, to try and anticipate them. Whilst we may not be able to predict when a particular military action or a protest will occur and assess its impact, we can nonetheless identify some trends that are and will continue to shape the region. I’ll give you an example: Environmental degradation, combined with demographic growth and bad governance – particularly when it comes to corruption – sets the conditions for popular unrest and destabilisation. What was MENARA’s approach to identifying these trends? We needed to look simultaneously at three levels of analysis. At the domestic level, we need to understand how state-society relations evolve and which forces are driving conflict or cohesion. At the regional level, we want to understand the dynamics of regional conflicts and the priorities of the main regional powers. We also look at the processes that contribute to further fragmentation of the region – for instance the Maghreb is increasingly pivoting towards Africa – but also all the elements that contribute to maintaining or increasing the interconnectedness between different sub-regions and regional conflicts – see for instance the phenomenon of foreign fighters. Finally, we look at the global level. We have researched the role and strategies of global powers, the impact of a challenged global order in this particular region, how the region is embedded in global trends (energy, militarisation or climate change are very clear examples), but also how it risks becoming peripheral if its states and societies keep focusing on short-term risks instead of tackling long-term challenges, such as digitalisation. We believe that to understand where the region stands right now and how it may evolve, we need to integrate the three levels of analysis. What would you say are the project’s most important findings, especially with regards to likeliest future scenarios? When thinking about the likeliest scenario, the usual approach is to project current trends, and the result is quite worrying. This would imply increased levels of fragmentation and conflict, the greater effects of global rivalries and global trends such as climate change instead. But the role of foresight techniques is to explain that there are alternative futures. MENARA depicts this worrying scenario, but we also look at potential game-changers and spaces of opportunities. The fact that they may be less probable does not mean that they are impossible. The realisation that decarbonisation is unstoppable, for instance, could trigger the need to rethink economic, social and political models. Africa could be viewed as an opportunity, women’s empowerment is a reality and a hope all across the region, and we can also think of processes in which societies would transcend sectarian divides or international, regional and local actors to push an agenda of reconciliation. How can the EU best push these alternative scenarios? The first step is to understand that the future of the region will have a major impact on Europe, and vice versa. If the EU could overcome its current crises and divisions, it would be able to play a more constructive role. Unlike the US or China, Europe can’t disengage from the region because of its geographic proximity and social bonds. The second step relates to the identification of risks and vulnerabilities to go beyond a containment approach. Finally, the EU should understand that opportunities exist and can be seized. Foresight techniques could be of great help, particularly when they are combined with a good knowledge of social and political dynamics in the region. I believe that MENARA has some key messages that should be taken into account. For instance, we say that interpreting the region through the lenses of a sectarian divide is not only inaccurate but could lead to wrong and counterproductive policy prescriptions. We are also pointing at the need for the EU to better integrate the concerns of the populations. Based on our findings, authoritarianism is not seen as a solution but rather as a risk. This means that the EU should never renounce defending human rights and working with civil society, especially since it is the only major player who seems willing to do so. It should also work with states and societies to better tackle issues related to environmental degradation and technological transformations, as well as support the dynamics that could lead the region towards a more promising future: youth, women and dialogue are three elements that came to the fore in our research. Looking back, do you think the project’s approach could have helped the EU to better deal with important changes in the region over recent years? How so? I think so. Unlike policymakers, researchers are not hostages of institutional inertia, it is relatively easier for us to think long term and we may be more flexible in terms of contacting a variety of actors across the region. When I look back, I regret that most EU leaders only realised that the region mattered in 2015. Four years after the Arab Spring. Why 2015? Because they suffered the consequences of instability in the form of refugees or terrorist attacks and realised that this could destabilise their own governments and the European project itself. To make things worse, the reaction was then – and to some extent continues to be – to focus on short-term threats. This is how stabilisation became the mantra and some forces in the region and beyond tried to assimilate it with the frustration of change and the need for authoritarianism. Instead of planting the seeds of future discontent and conflict, we need to plant the seeds of reconciliation, transformation and hope.
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