MENA Region Trends Revisited

Abstract

Introduction. The following article analyzes key development trends of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The authors provide a critical retrospective review of conclusions made in their previous works dedicated to the century-long development trends in the Middle East and neo-modernity as a new status of socio-political reality. Results. In the first part of the article, they detect a shift in some megatrends of global development that occurred as a result of the world order transformation in the 2020s. The authors conclude that such megatrends as universalization of political systems, Western-type modernization and globalization are becoming outdated. At the same time, an intensification of the anti-colonial discourse in the world politics and a revision of the colonialism phenomenon are in evidence. The second part of the article demonstrates how these trends and notions directly manifest themselves in the MENA region, impacing the specifics of political processes and complexity of socio-political systems and institutes, reinforcing the ideas of country-based nationalism, changing the nature of regional unity and strengthening the centrifugal tendencies in the regional development. In the third part, the authors point out that all these processes provide an endurance test of some sort for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as a unified region that emerged in the colonial era. Discussion and Conclusion. The weakening of ideological ties within the region, rise of country-based nationalism, economic and political differentiation of the region’s states, increasing division of the subregions call the future of the Middle Eastern unity into doubt. At the same time, a growing post-colonialism trend might theoretically become a new integrative basis for emerging values and ideas. In this context, the authors designate such development trends in the region that are considered by them most relevant and sustainable in mid-term perspective.