Arab Spring in the Global Political Economy

The present book studies the impact of globalization on regionalization and the crisis of the Nation State from a distinct International Political Economy perspective, with particular attention to the dynamics of the MENA area, especially Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Although it is still early for an established academic account of the motivations behind the dramatic events in the Arab world in 2010/11, Leila Simona Talani believes that it is about time to try and place this issue into the broader picture of the latest changes in the global political economy. It seems indeed inappropriate to emphasize the sudden nature of the 'Arab Spring' when so many of the latest events in the MENA region were already pointing towards a soon-to-come crisis. These events, in turn, cannot be disentangled from the wider contexts of the global political economy and globalization, where the political economy origins of the Arab Spring need to be sought. The theoretical aim of the book is, first, to understand the problem of regionalization, both political and economic, in the context of globalization; and, second, to assess the relation between globalization, marginalization and the local more or less violent responses to the loss of power by the state to address economic vulnerabilities and threats of exclusion from the Global Political Economy.