Regional Security in the Middle East A Critical Perspective

In this new and fully revised edition Pinar Bilgin provides an accessible yet critical analysis of regional security in the Middle East, analysing the significant developments that have taken place in the past years. Drawing from a wide range of critical approaches to security, the book offers a comprehensive study of pasts, presents, and futures of security in the region. The book distinguishes itself from previous (critical) studies on regional security by opening up both ‘region’ and ‘security’. Different from those approaches that bracket one or the other, this study takes seriously the constitutive relationship between (inventing) regions, and (conceptions and practices of) security. There is not one Middle East but many, shaped by the insecurities of those who voice them. This book focuses on how present-day insecurities have their roots in practices that have, throughout history, been shaped by ‘geopolitical inventions of security’. In doing so, the book lays the contours of a framework for thinking critically about regional security in this part of the world. This second edition of Regional Security in the Middle East is a key resource for students and scholars interested in International Relations and Political Science, Security Studies, and Middle East Studies.

Preface and acknowledgmentsto the second edition Preface to the 2004 edition Introduction Part I: Pasts 1. Cold War pasts of security thinking 2. Cold War representations of the Middle East 3. Practices of security during the Cold War Part II: Presents 4. Post-Cold War presents of security thinking 5. Post-Cold War representations of the Middle East 6. Practices of security in the post-Cold War era Conclusion: futures of the Middle East

Pinar Bilgin isProfessor of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara. She is the author of The International in Security, Security in the International and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology and Asia in International Relations: Unlearning Imperial Power Relations.