Ruth Hanau Santini
Biographic Data
| ID | 3086766 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ruth Hanau Santini |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ruth Hanau |
| FAMILY NAME | Santini |
| SIGNATURE | SANTINI R H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Naples - L'Orientale |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7537-2755 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Securitisation and De-securitisation in the Middle East and North Africa
Securitisation and, more recently, de-securitisation, have characterised and shaped the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional space. Examples of securitisation in the 2000s and 2010s include coercive policies adopted by Saudi and Emirati kingdoms against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Qatar, responding either to a sectarian (anti-Shia influence) or ideological (anti-political Islam) logic. In the post-2020 regional order, th…
Navigating the three circles
Italy’s foreign energy policy and the Mattei Plan
The Mattei Plan represents Italy’s latest attempt to frame its engagement in Africa, integrating economic cooperation with broader foreign policy goals such as development and energy security. The Plan testifies to the Meloni government’s balancing act between a moderate nationalism premised on status enhancing policies, staunch Atlanticism, and a degree of post-ideological Euro-realism. Boosting the country’s projection in Africa was identified …
The Evolution of the Gulf
This article explores the relationship between international‐relations theories and Cold War and post‐Cold War historical dynamics in the Middle East, in particular the Gulf. It first identifies the theoretical approaches that have been applied or that have failed to be applied to the region's changing geopolitics, then delves into Cold War history and its impact on the Middle East and the Gulf by examining the crucial changes to the Gulf securit…
Power mediators and the ‘illiberal peace’ momentum
The civil conflicts that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa as a consequence of the failure of the 2011 Arab uprisings show the limits of mediation as a tool for conflict resolution and of negotiated settlement based on power-sharing as a solution to conflict. The article examines mediation processes in Libya and Syria, problematising the role played by the nature of mediators as well as the broader ideational framework in which they hav…
Waiting for IR Godot? In search of transformative encounters between Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations
Within the Special Issue ‘Reaching for allies? The dialectics and overlaps between International Relations and Area Studies in the study of politics, security, and conflicts’, this article investigates the post-2011 changing relationship between International Relations (IR) and Middle Eastern Studies (MES). The article departs from the assumption that the reading and writing of security in, on and from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regi…
Applying Principal-Agent Theory to Security Force Assistance
This article applies the Principal-Agent model to Security Force Assistance (SFA) in Tunisia, problematising some of its assumptions and advancing complementary notions to capture evolving international and national security practices. By investigating how post-2015 SFA contributed to the reconfiguration and evolution of domestic actors, national strategies, and debates on security in the context of regime change, we argue that it epitomises a co…
Limited Statehood and Informal Governance in the Middle East and Africa
This chapter offers a micro-level analysis of hybrid security governance in a riot-prone African metropolis. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2015 and 2017 in the central Nigerian city of Jos, it examines complex patterns of interaction between state and non-state actors in engendering (in)security during episodes of deadly violence. Of particular interest are the multifarious interworkings of local populations, security forces…
Intended and Unintended Consequences of Security Assistance in Post-2011 Tunisia
In Tunisia, the notion and understanding of security, while no longer focused on regime security, remains a top-down, state-security understanding, rather than a societal one. Further, while the 2014 democratic Constitution devised significant checks and balances between the branches of government, even in the security field, external security assistance facilitated the centralization of security decision-making in the hands of the President of t…
The politics of security reform in post-2011 Tunisia
In post—2011 Tunisia, the reform of the security sector has proceeded haphazardly, hindering security efficiency and lowering the overall effectiveness in countering threats. Since 2015, the combination of three factors — external shocks, international actors' pressures and domestic configurations of political power — have paved the way for a progressive overhaul of the efficiency of security agencies. Following the 2015 terrorist attacks, that d…
Limited Statehood and its Security Implications on the Fragmentation Political Order in the Middle East and North Africa
The domestic dimension of sovereignty, or statehood, can take a number of shapes within a continuum punctuated by different degrees of state’s capacities. Stephen Krasner and Thomas Risse conceptualize statehood as the effective domestic dimension of sovereignty, thereby referring to the organization of public authority within a state and its level of effective control.At the opposite of consolidated statehood lies ‘limited’ statehood, which can …
Security Assistance in a Post-interventionist Era
Post-interventionist security assistance is premised on non-normative security understandings and flexible arrangements between external and local actors. In hybrid political regimes or areas of limited statehood, these forms of assistance, while strengthening specific aspects of a country’s security context, reinforce some domestic actors vis-à-vis others thanks to processes of selective borrowing by local political elites. This paper demonstrat…
A New Regional Cold War in the Middle East and North Africa
Since the 2003 Iraq war, the Middle East and North Africa has entered into a New Regional Cold War, characterised by two competing logics: on the one hand, the politicisation of sectarianism opposing a Saudi-led Sunni bloc against an Iran-led Shia bloc and, on the other, an intra-Sunni cleavage around the mobilisation of political Islam, embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters vs its opponents. Blending Buzan and Weaver’s regional s…
Between hierarchy and heterarchy
Every actor who commands coercive resources plays a relevant role in the complex processes of state restructuring following regime change. The role of armies in the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings has been widely explored, but limited attention has been devoted to how different agents with coercive power have been involved in the restructuring of political order. This contribution presents the theoretical framework within which the remaining empirical c…
The Arab Spring and Europaralysis in the Levant and the Gulf
Europe has never had a comprehensive approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Arab Awakening has not significantly altered the calculations behind the existing policy fragmentation. Despite framing political and economic relations with MENA through collective diplomatic frameworks, either multilateral (such as the 1995 Barcelona process) or bilateral (as the European Neighbourhood Policy), the Union has never developed a f…
Power mediators and the ‘illiberal peace’ momentum
The civil conflicts that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa as a consequence of the failure of the 2011 Arab uprisings show the limits of mediation as a tool for conflict resolution and of negotiated settlement based on power-sharing as a solution to conflict. The article examines mediation processes in Libya and Syria, problematising the role played by the nature of mediators as well as the broader ideational framework in which they hav…
The politics of security reform in post-2011 Tunisia
In post—2011 Tunisia, the reform of the security sector has proceeded haphazardly, hindering security efficiency and lowering the overall effectiveness in countering threats. Since 2015, the combination of three factors — external shocks, international actors' pressures and domestic configurations of political power — have paved the way for a progressive overhaul of the efficiency of security agencies. Following the 2015 terrorist attacks, that d…
Applying Principal-Agent Theory to Security Force Assistance
This article applies the Principal-Agent model to Security Force Assistance (SFA) in Tunisia, problematising some of its assumptions and advancing complementary notions to capture evolving international and national security practices. By investigating how post-2015 SFA contributed to the reconfiguration and evolution of domestic actors, national strategies, and debates on security in the context of regime change, we argue that it epitomises a co…
Limited Statehood and its Security Implications on the Fragmentation Political Order in the Middle East and North Africa
The domestic dimension of sovereignty, or statehood, can take a number of shapes within a continuum punctuated by different degrees of state’s capacities. Stephen Krasner and Thomas Risse conceptualize statehood as the effective domestic dimension of sovereignty, thereby referring to the organization of public authority within a state and its level of effective control.At the opposite of consolidated statehood lies ‘limited’ statehood, which can …
Between hierarchy and heterarchy
Every actor who commands coercive resources plays a relevant role in the complex processes of state restructuring following regime change. The role of armies in the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings has been widely explored, but limited attention has been devoted to how different agents with coercive power have been involved in the restructuring of political order. This contribution presents the theoretical framework within which the remaining empirical c…
Navigating the three circles
The Evolution of the Gulf
This article explores the relationship between international‐relations theories and Cold War and post‐Cold War historical dynamics in the Middle East, in particular the Gulf. It first identifies the theoretical approaches that have been applied or that have failed to be applied to the region's changing geopolitics, then delves into Cold War history and its impact on the Middle East and the Gulf by examining the crucial changes to the Gulf securit…
Waiting for IR Godot? In search of transformative encounters between Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations
Within the Special Issue ‘Reaching for allies? The dialectics and overlaps between International Relations and Area Studies in the study of politics, security, and conflicts’, this article investigates the post-2011 changing relationship between International Relations (IR) and Middle Eastern Studies (MES). The article departs from the assumption that the reading and writing of security in, on and from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regi…
The Arab Spring and Europaralysis in the Levant and the Gulf
Europe has never had a comprehensive approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Arab Awakening has not significantly altered the calculations behind the existing policy fragmentation. Despite framing political and economic relations with MENA through collective diplomatic frameworks, either multilateral (such as the 1995 Barcelona process) or bilateral (as the European Neighbourhood Policy), the Union has never developed a f…
A New Regional Cold War in the Middle East and North Africa
Since the 2003 Iraq war, the Middle East and North Africa has entered into a New Regional Cold War, characterised by two competing logics: on the one hand, the politicisation of sectarianism opposing a Saudi-led Sunni bloc against an Iran-led Shia bloc and, on the other, an intra-Sunni cleavage around the mobilisation of political Islam, embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters vs its opponents. Blending Buzan and Weaver’s regional s…
Between hierarchy and heterarchy
Every actor who commands coercive resources plays a relevant role in the complex processes of state restructuring following regime change. The role of armies in the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings has been widely explored, but limited attention has been devoted to how different agents with coercive power have been involved in the restructuring of political order. This contribution presents the theoretical framework within which the remaining empirical c…
Limited Statehood and its Security Implications on the Fragmentation Political Order in the Middle East and North Africa
The domestic dimension of sovereignty, or statehood, can take a number of shapes within a continuum punctuated by different degrees of state’s capacities. Stephen Krasner and Thomas Risse conceptualize statehood as the effective domestic dimension of sovereignty, thereby referring to the organization of public authority within a state and its level of effective control.At the opposite of consolidated statehood lies ‘limited’ statehood, which can …
Security Assistance in a Post-interventionist Era
Post-interventionist security assistance is premised on non-normative security understandings and flexible arrangements between external and local actors. In hybrid political regimes or areas of limited statehood, these forms of assistance, while strengthening specific aspects of a country’s security context, reinforce some domestic actors vis-à-vis others thanks to processes of selective borrowing by local political elites. This paper demonstrat…
Intended and Unintended Consequences of Security Assistance in Post-2011 Tunisia
In Tunisia, the notion and understanding of security, while no longer focused on regime security, remains a top-down, state-security understanding, rather than a societal one. Further, while the 2014 democratic Constitution devised significant checks and balances between the branches of government, even in the security field, external security assistance facilitated the centralization of security decision-making in the hands of the President of t…
The politics of security reform in post-2011 Tunisia
In post—2011 Tunisia, the reform of the security sector has proceeded haphazardly, hindering security efficiency and lowering the overall effectiveness in countering threats. Since 2015, the combination of three factors — external shocks, international actors' pressures and domestic configurations of political power — have paved the way for a progressive overhaul of the efficiency of security agencies. Following the 2015 terrorist attacks, that d…
Limited Statehood and Informal Governance in the Middle East and Africa
This chapter offers a micro-level analysis of hybrid security governance in a riot-prone African metropolis. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2015 and 2017 in the central Nigerian city of Jos, it examines complex patterns of interaction between state and non-state actors in engendering (in)security during episodes of deadly violence. Of particular interest are the multifarious interworkings of local populations, security forces…
Applying Principal-Agent Theory to Security Force Assistance
This article applies the Principal-Agent model to Security Force Assistance (SFA) in Tunisia, problematising some of its assumptions and advancing complementary notions to capture evolving international and national security practices. By investigating how post-2015 SFA contributed to the reconfiguration and evolution of domestic actors, national strategies, and debates on security in the context of regime change, we argue that it epitomises a co…
Power mediators and the ‘illiberal peace’ momentum
The civil conflicts that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa as a consequence of the failure of the 2011 Arab uprisings show the limits of mediation as a tool for conflict resolution and of negotiated settlement based on power-sharing as a solution to conflict. The article examines mediation processes in Libya and Syria, problematising the role played by the nature of mediators as well as the broader ideational framework in which they hav…
Waiting for IR Godot? In search of transformative encounters between Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations
Within the Special Issue ‘Reaching for allies? The dialectics and overlaps between International Relations and Area Studies in the study of politics, security, and conflicts’, this article investigates the post-2011 changing relationship between International Relations (IR) and Middle Eastern Studies (MES). The article departs from the assumption that the reading and writing of security in, on and from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regi…
The Evolution of the Gulf
This article explores the relationship between international‐relations theories and Cold War and post‐Cold War historical dynamics in the Middle East, in particular the Gulf. It first identifies the theoretical approaches that have been applied or that have failed to be applied to the region's changing geopolitics, then delves into Cold War history and its impact on the Middle East and the Gulf by examining the crucial changes to the Gulf securit…
Navigating the three circles
Italy’s foreign energy policy and the Mattei Plan
The Mattei Plan represents Italy’s latest attempt to frame its engagement in Africa, integrating economic cooperation with broader foreign policy goals such as development and energy security. The Plan testifies to the Meloni government’s balancing act between a moderate nationalism premised on status enhancing policies, staunch Atlanticism, and a degree of post-ideological Euro-realism. Boosting the country’s projection in Africa was identified …
Securitisation and De-securitisation in the Middle East and North Africa
Securitisation and, more recently, de-securitisation, have characterised and shaped the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional space. Examples of securitisation in the 2000s and 2010s include coercive policies adopted by Saudi and Emirati kingdoms against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Qatar, responding either to a sectarian (anti-Shia influence) or ideological (anti-political Islam) logic. In the post-2020 regional order, th…
Political science (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Middle East (6 works)