Simon Mabon
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 4140871 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Simon Mabon |
| NOMBRES | Simon |
| APELLIDO | Mabon |
| FIRMA | MABON S |
| AFILIACIONES | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0689-9849 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 52 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 96 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 47 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 5 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2012 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Space, Security and Sovereign Power
Following the outbreak of protests across Bahrain in 2011, the ruling Al Khalifa family deployed a range of strategies to secure its survival. At the core of such strategies was the securitisation of protest and the construction of threats predicated on geopolitically charged sectarian affinity. While much has been written on the securitisation and sectarianisation of Bahrain’s Shi’a community, particular attention is paid here to the spatial dim…
Spatialising Security, Securitising Space
Situating Securitisation Theory (ST) in Security Studies and reflecting on several conundrums that have animated debates within ST, this Special Issue advances a critique of how integrating ‘space’ into ST enables empirically grounded modes of theorising and analysing ‘non-Western’/Global South contexts. Each contribution approaches security and space as always-becoming processes that shape, and are embedded in, relations. It is not only that rel…
Contesting Power-sharing
This introduction outlines an agenda for research on protest and power-sharing. Power-sharing scholarship has ignored grassroots contentious politics, viewing protest as a threat to the top-down model of consociationalism. Protest is thus seen as a destabilizing force, narrowing the ground needed for power-sharing elites to engage in moderative behaviour required for peace. This introductory article argues that citizen-led protest represents a br…
Sectarian Identities in Bahrain and Kuwait
Order and Region Making in the Middle East
Reflects on different ways of understanding order across the Middle East Critically reflects on different ways of understanding order Considers the implications of competing visions of order on regional politics Explores the evolving role of the US in the Middle East Discusses the Israeli destruction of Gaza At a time of widespread instability in the Middle East, this book reflects on the construction and contestation of order across the region. …
The Struggle for Supremacy in the Middle East
Since 1979, few rivalries have affected Middle Eastern politics as much as the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, too often the rivalry has been framed purely in terms of 'proxy wars', sectarian difference or the associated conflicts that have broken out in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen. In this book, Simon Mabon presents a more nuanced assessment of the rivalry, outlining its history and demonstrating its impact across th…
Fierce and accommodationist divided cities
Divided cities have attracted mounting scholarly attention. Yet, while the focus has largely been on how divisions are constructed, we examine the potentiality of waves of non-sectarian protest movements as urban peacebuilding actors. Towards this, we draw on comparative research on protests in two divided cities in the MENA region, Beirut (Lebanon) and Manama (Bahrain). These two cities, we argue, represent contrasting forms of divided city, mar…
The ties that bind South and West Asia
The resistance axis and regional order in the Middle East
A decade on from the Arab Uprisings, politics across the Middle East remains contested, both within and between states. As a mix of strategic alliance, security community, and ideational network, the Resistance Axis provides a compelling study into questions of regional order in the Middle East, given its long-standing counter-hegemonic outlook vis-à-vis the US and its regional allies. While comprised of a number of constituent parts, what holds …
Struggle for Supremacy in the Middle East
States of Exception or Exceptional States
This book explores the application of the work of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben to the post-Arab Uprisings in the Middle East, considering the evolution of regime-society relations that ultimately erupted in violence in the early months of 2011. Agamben’s ideas of the state of exception and bare life provide important intellectual tools to understand the nature of sovereignty and the regulation of life, which has largely been missing in the stu…
Surviving repression
Surviving repression tells the story of the Muslim Brotherhood after the 2013 coup. The movement quickly rose to power following the 2011 Arab uprisings, but its premature removal marked the beginning of the harshest repression of its troubled history. Forced into exile, the Brotherhood and its members are faced with the monumental task of having to rebuild a fragmented organisation. The book looks at this new era in the movement's history throug…
Saudi Arabia and Iran
Since 1979, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran - the two major powers in the Muslim world - has played a prominent role in shaping Middle Eastern politics. The rivalry, political in nature yet couched in Islamic rhetoric, reflects a desire to ensure regime security and legitimacy, whilst also increasing influence across the Middle East. Since the 2003 Iraq War, the rivalry has become increasingly vitriolic, resulting in the emergence of pr…
The labour movement in Lebanon
The labour movement in Lebanon narrates the history of the Lebanese labour movement from the early twentieth century to today. Trade unionism has largely been a failure, because of state interference, tactical co-optation and the strategic use of sectarianism by an oligarchic elite, together with the structural weakness of a service-based laissez-faire economy. The Lebanese case study holds wider significance for the Arab world and for comparativ…
The Gulf States and the Horn of Africa
The complexity of (super)complexes
Despite areas of synergy, international relations theory has typically considered South and West Asia as analytically distinct. Following the work of Barry Buzan, whose work on regional security complexes is formative in shaping the intellectual debate, the Gulf is considered a subregion of a larger Middle Eastern regional security complex, while South Asia is regarded as its own regional security complex. This article argues that the analytical …
De-securitisation and Pragmatism in the Persian Gulf
Since 1979, relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have oscillated between periods of overt hostility and apparent rapprochement, yet since 2003 the two have engaged in a vitriolic competition that has spread across regional affairs, to devastating effect in Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and Yemen. Central to much of this are efforts to securitise the other in the eyes of external audiences, discursively presenting the rivalry in the language of…
The Muslim Brotherhood Faultline in Saudi-Qatari Relations
The commentary argues the Saudi-Qatari tensions lie in conflicting perspectives about the role of political Islam within the fabric of both states and their actions regionally. Funda-mentally, the rivalry stems from contrasting relations between political and religious elites in each country which has taken on an increasing political importance in tensions between Riyadh and Doha. Central to much of this are questions about the role played by the…
Afterword
Sectarianisation, a conceptual approach proposed by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, has gained a great deal of traction in the study of sectarianism in the contemporary Middle East. Yet despite its popularity, little attention has been paid to the ways in which sectarianisation can operate beyond the Middle East, a peculiar point when considering that only 20% of the world’s 1.57 billion Muslims live in the region. This brief intervention explore…
Houses built on sand
Although this book has been four years in the making, its roots date back to my time as a philosophy undergraduate student where I encountered a paradox that articulates problems with defining vague predicates. As my journey into academia progressed, I later returned to the sorites paradox in an attempt to work through problems of borders, contestation and the limits of sovereign power in the Middle East where state power was becoming increasingl…
Dialogues in pandemic politics
Over the past decade, regional politics across the Persian Gulf - and within the GCC in particular - has increasingly been characterised by suspicion and mutual distrust. Predominantly appearing in the guise of tensions between the Arab side of the Gulf on the west and the Iranian side on the east - divisions which are exacerbated by ethnicity, religion, economics, geopolitics, demographics, and geography - are coupled with intra-Arab and intra-G…
Pandemic politics
Protest, Sects, and the Potential for Power‐Sharing in Bahrain
In this short intervention I explore the scope for power‐sharing as a means of resolving conflict between rulers and ruled across Bahrain. Unlike other states in the Middle East where power‐sharing has been posited as a solution to violence and division, conflict in Bahrain is structural, erupting in violence sporadically, yet framed around ways of ensuring the survival of the ruling Al Khalifa family. This, I argue, poses challenges to the appli…
Fatwas and politics in Bahrain
Religious discourse has a fundamental impact on sectarian violence, stability and sovereignty across the Gulf region. Amidst an increasingly volatile political and social situation, fatwas serve as a prominent factor in the behaviour and beliefs of individuals and groups across the Gulf. Fatwas have long been a source of great interest in religious studies and international law yet very little work has been undertaken in politics. This article ai…
Four Questions about De-sectarianization
Reflecting on the current spate of protests across the Middle East, this article explores four key questions about the contestation of religious identities in political projects, more commonly referred to as de-sectarianization. Engaging with definitional questions, spatial dimensions, the agency of protesters, and the aims of de-sectarianization, the article argues that a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the contestation of religious…
T he B attle for B ahrain
Muting the trumpets of sabotage
In recent years, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become increasingly influential in shaping the nature of Middle Eastern politics, with the two exerting influence across the region in an attempt to increase their own power and to reduce that of the other. Amidst an increasingly fractious region, this article explores Saudi Arabia’s attempts to securitize Iran to actors in the US. The signing of the nuclear agreement and the failure …
The End of the Battle for Bahrain and the Securitization of Bahraini Shi'a
Since protests shook Bahrain in 2011, the Saudi-backed regime there has embarked on a series of strategic moves, crushing dissent both at home and abroad. This article explores the methods the regime used to ensure its survival. It argues that by framing Bahrain's Shi'i majority as a security threat within broader regional challenges, the regime was able to solidify its core bases of support
Desectarianization
Violent fragmentation in the Middle East has often been reduced to a consequence of “ancient hatreds” that pit Sunni against Shi’a. One of the more compelling arguments to understand the emergence of sectarian violence was proposed by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel who suggest that the politics of the Middle East has undergone a process of sectarianization. This article builds upon the work of Hashemi and Postel to consider potential mechanisms t…
Egypt’s unbreakable curse
This paper uses Giorgio Agamben’s State of Exception as a theoretical approach that allows us to see how emergency legislations operate in the region as mechanisms of control and dominant paradigms of governance. Relying on Egypt as a case study, this paper traces the significance of emergency rule throughout Mubarak’s era up until Al Sisi’s 2014 Constitution. It applies a four-stage analytical framework to investigate whether or not Egypt was in…
Kingdom in Crisis? The Arab Spring and Instability in Saudi Arabia
While the revolutions of the 2011 Arab Spring deposed and replaced previously embedded autocratic regimes, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remained largely trouble free. This article examines how the ruling Al Saud family was able to prevent the violent manifestation of tensions within Saudi Arabia. It is argued here that through the process of state-formation mechanisms were created to ensure the stability of the regime, a framework initially intend…
Nationalist Jāhiliyyah and the Flag of the Two Crusaders, or
This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extrem…
Four Questions about De-sectarianization
Reflecting on the current spate of protests across the Middle East, this article explores four key questions about the contestation of religious identities in political projects, more commonly referred to as de-sectarianization. Engaging with definitional questions, spatial dimensions, the agency of protesters, and the aims of de-sectarianization, the article argues that a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the contestation of religious…
People, sects and states
People, Sects and States: Interrogating Sectarianism in the Contemporary Middle EastIn late 2010, the self--immolation of the Tunisian street vendor Mohammad Bouazzizi triggered the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings, the ramifications of which shaped the nature of regional relations over the coming half--decade.His act, borne out of socio-economic frustrations triggered a spate of protests that dramatically altered the regional order and fragmenting…
Contested spaces and sectarian narratives in post-uprising Bahrain
In early February 2011, people took to the streets of Manama, Bahrain, protesting against the political system of the Al Khalifa monarchy. Although initially occurring along non-sectarian lines, the protests were quickly framed as such and, as a consequence, the nature of the protests changed. This article engages with this process of sectarianism, exploring how space became contested and how such sites took on political – and sectarian – meaning…
Sectarian Games
Amidst violent contestation across the Middle East leaving regimes facing – or fearing – popular protests, the regulation of political life became increasingly important. Across the past century, the development of political projects has been driven by regime efforts to maintain power, constructing regime-society relations in such a way to ensure their survival. As a consequence, security is not given; rather, it reflects the concerns of elites a…
Existential threats and regulating life
This article applies the concept of securitization to the Middle East with a focus upon the securitization of the Shi’a other. Such processes occur across time and space and are not restricted to state borders, escaping the Westphalian straitjacket. As a consequence, one must consider the construction of space and political structures across the region in order to understand the traction that such moves can find. It appears then, that in seeking …
Sovereignty, bare life and the Arab uprisings
Five years after people took to the streets in protest at political organisation across the Middle East, the consequences of these actions remain. As the protests gained traction, states began to fragment and regimes sought to retain power, whatever the cost. While a great deal of focus has been upon what happened, very little attention has been paid to the role of agency within the context of the fragmenting sovereignty and political change. Thi…
Fierce and accommodationist divided cities
Divided cities have attracted mounting scholarly attention. Yet, while the focus has largely been on how divisions are constructed, we examine the potentiality of waves of non-sectarian protest movements as urban peacebuilding actors. Towards this, we draw on comparative research on protests in two divided cities in the MENA region, Beirut (Lebanon) and Manama (Bahrain). These two cities, we argue, represent contrasting forms of divided city, mar…
The resistance axis and regional order in the Middle East
A decade on from the Arab Uprisings, politics across the Middle East remains contested, both within and between states. As a mix of strategic alliance, security community, and ideational network, the Resistance Axis provides a compelling study into questions of regional order in the Middle East, given its long-standing counter-hegemonic outlook vis-à-vis the US and its regional allies. While comprised of a number of constituent parts, what holds …
The Copenhagen School goes global
Acharya and Barry Buzan (2017) refer to as "the American and Western dominance of [International Relations]."Acharya and Buzan's (2017) contention is that whereas International Relations (IR) continues to refer to Western theoretical approaches and history, the world is moving into a phase in which Western dominance is on the decline, suggesting that it is time for IR to incorporate not just non-Western ideas and histories, but also a more holist…
Fundamentalism
We focus on the divergent approaches of John Gray and Slavoj Žižek, arguing that the former upholds a comprehensive form of liberalism, while the latter upholds a political form popular among policy makers who endorse a 'fundamentalism'/'extremism' dichotomy. We argue that the latter fails to recognise that 'philosophical' unreasonableness often translates into political unreasonableness. Examining these non-liberal approaches not only indicates …
The Circle of Bare Life
This article explores the emergence of Hizballah, the Party of God, and the development of its ideas of resistance at a local and regional level. It begins by considering the emergence of Hizballah and the Lebanese context through the lens of Giorgio Agamben’s work on bare life. It suggests that these conditions existed in Lebanon—amidst the Shi’a community—and asks how people came together to reject the condition of ‘being thus’. Conventional ap…
Afterword
Sectarianisation, a conceptual approach proposed by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, has gained a great deal of traction in the study of sectarianism in the contemporary Middle East. Yet despite its popularity, little attention has been paid to the ways in which sectarianisation can operate beyond the Middle East, a peculiar point when considering that only 20% of the world’s 1.57 billion Muslims live in the region. This brief intervention explore…
Transnational religious networks and geopolitics in the Muslim World
Debates around the sectarianisation of politics across the Middle East and Muslim world more broadly have opened new spaces of enquiry into the interrelationship between religion and geopolitics. The nature of links between Iran and Saudi Arabia and various groups in the Muslim world differs across time and space, shaped by a range of context specific factors. Networks are shaped by the interaction of their constituent parts and the organisation …
The world is a garden
Traditional approaches to questions about nomos in IR typically focus upon either its establishment and the formal structures that emerge through interaction within a clearly delineated spatial area, or an exploration of US hegemony in the post-2003 world. In this article I posit a different approach, building on the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, which grounds nomos as a spatialisation of the exception within conditions of neoliberal modernity. I sug…
Kingdom in Crisis? The Arab Spring and Instability in Saudi Arabia
While the revolutions of the 2011 Arab Spring deposed and replaced previously embedded autocratic regimes, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remained largely trouble free. This article examines how the ruling Al Saud family was able to prevent the violent manifestation of tensions within Saudi Arabia. It is argued here that through the process of state-formation mechanisms were created to ensure the stability of the regime, a framework initially intend…
T he B attle for B ahrain
Ethnic Identity and the State in Iran
Alam Saleh's first monograph, Ethnic Identity and the State in Iran (published recently by Palgrave Macmillan), offers a fascinating insight into the inner workings of Iran, challenging many of the
Aiding Revolution? Wikileaks, communication and the ‘Arab Spring’ in Egypt
This article explores the role of external actors in facilitating the uprisings in Egypt that have become known as the Arab Spring. It analyses several of the diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks organisation that possess an Egypt focus. The article suggests that while the cables did not make surprising revelations to Egyptians, the release of this information offered a source of external legitimacy for the protesters by detailing a histor…
Terrorism and Political Violence
This book introduces you to the key issues in contemporary studies on Terrorism. Its interdisciplinary approach provides a unique intellectual rigour which introduces readers to cutting-edge research. Bringing together chapters contributed by members of the Terrorism and Political Violence Association network, it offers an insight into a variety of traditional and critical perspectives. It also equips Undergraduate and Postgraduate students with …
Hezbollah
This detailed analysis follows the rise and evolution of Hezbollah from an Islamic resistance movement to its role as a governing force in Lebanon, exploring the group's impact on the security and power dynamics in the Middle East. This is the first book of its kind to offer a comprehensive study of Hezbollah, providing an overview of the organization's key personalities, events, and structures over the past three decades. Inspired by the latest …
People, sects and states
People, Sects and States: Interrogating Sectarianism in the Contemporary Middle EastIn late 2010, the self--immolation of the Tunisian street vendor Mohammad Bouazzizi triggered the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings, the ramifications of which shaped the nature of regional relations over the coming half--decade.His act, borne out of socio-economic frustrations triggered a spate of protests that dramatically altered the regional order and fragmenting…
Contested spaces and sectarian narratives in post-uprising Bahrain
In early February 2011, people took to the streets of Manama, Bahrain, protesting against the political system of the Al Khalifa monarchy. Although initially occurring along non-sectarian lines, the protests were quickly framed as such and, as a consequence, the nature of the protests changed. This article engages with this process of sectarianism, exploring how space became contested and how such sites took on political – and sectarian – meaning…
Nationalist Jāhiliyyah and the Flag of the Two Crusaders, or
This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extrem…
The Origins of Isis
The rapid expansion of ISIS and its swathe of territorial gains across the Middle East have been headline news since 2013. Yet much media attention and analysis has been focussed upon the military exploits, brutal tactics and radicalisation methods employed by the group. While ISIS remains a relatively new phenomenon, it is important to consider the historical and local dynamics that have shaped the emergence of the group in the past decade. In t…
Saudi Arabia and Iran
In recent years, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become increasingly important in shaping the nature of Middle Eastern security. The execution of the Shiʿi cleric Nimr al-Nimr resulted in the storming of the Saudi embassy and the severing of diplomatic relations between the two states. Nimr's execution was the latest in a long line of incidents that increased tensions between the two, dating back to the time of the Shah. A growing l…
The Circle of Bare Life
This article explores the emergence of Hizballah, the Party of God, and the development of its ideas of resistance at a local and regional level. It begins by considering the emergence of Hizballah and the Lebanese context through the lens of Giorgio Agamben’s work on bare life. It suggests that these conditions existed in Lebanon—amidst the Shi’a community—and asks how people came together to reject the condition of ‘being thus’. Conventional ap…
Muting the trumpets of sabotage
In recent years, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become increasingly influential in shaping the nature of Middle Eastern politics, with the two exerting influence across the region in an attempt to increase their own power and to reduce that of the other. Amidst an increasingly fractious region, this article explores Saudi Arabia’s attempts to securitize Iran to actors in the US. The signing of the nuclear agreement and the failure …
Sovereignty, bare life and the Arab uprisings
Five years after people took to the streets in protest at political organisation across the Middle East, the consequences of these actions remain. As the protests gained traction, states began to fragment and regimes sought to retain power, whatever the cost. While a great deal of focus has been upon what happened, very little attention has been paid to the role of agency within the context of the fragmenting sovereignty and political change. Thi…
Securitisation in the Non-West
It’s a Family Affair
Over the past year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has experienced a period of rapid transformation under the direction of a new Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the current King. Domestically, Bin Salman has overseen political reform in the upper echelons of the al-Saud ruling family, whilst embarking on a more pro-actively anti-Iranian foreign policy. This article looks at the actions of the new crown prince to explore the impact of B…
Existential threats and regulating life
This article applies the concept of securitization to the Middle East with a focus upon the securitization of the Shi’a other. Such processes occur across time and space and are not restricted to state borders, escaping the Westphalian straitjacket. As a consequence, one must consider the construction of space and political structures across the region in order to understand the traction that such moves can find. It appears then, that in seeking …
Sovereign implications of securitization work
This is a reply to:Gledhill, J. 2018. “Securitization, mafias and violence in Brazil and Mexico.” Global Discourse 8 (1): 139–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2017.1406679
The Copenhagen School goes global
Acharya and Barry Buzan (2017) refer to as "the American and Western dominance of [International Relations]."Acharya and Buzan's (2017) contention is that whereas International Relations (IR) continues to refer to Western theoretical approaches and history, the world is moving into a phase in which Western dominance is on the decline, suggesting that it is time for IR to incorporate not just non-Western ideas and histories, but also a more holist…
Kings and Presidents
On the way back from perhaps the most important conference of the Second World War, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman al Saud on the deck of the USS Quincy
Fundamentalism
We focus on the divergent approaches of John Gray and Slavoj Žižek, arguing that the former upholds a comprehensive form of liberalism, while the latter upholds a political form popular among policy makers who endorse a 'fundamentalism'/'extremism' dichotomy. We argue that the latter fails to recognise that 'philosophical' unreasonableness often translates into political unreasonableness. Examining these non-liberal approaches not only indicates …
Transnational religious networks and geopolitics in the Muslim World
Debates around the sectarianisation of politics across the Middle East and Muslim world more broadly have opened new spaces of enquiry into the interrelationship between religion and geopolitics. The nature of links between Iran and Saudi Arabia and various groups in the Muslim world differs across time and space, shaped by a range of context specific factors. Networks are shaped by the interaction of their constituent parts and the organisation …
Egypt’s unbreakable curse
This paper uses Giorgio Agamben’s State of Exception as a theoretical approach that allows us to see how emergency legislations operate in the region as mechanisms of control and dominant paradigms of governance. Relying on Egypt as a case study, this paper traces the significance of emergency rule throughout Mubarak’s era up until Al Sisi’s 2014 Constitution. It applies a four-stage analytical framework to investigate whether or not Egypt was in…
The End of the Battle for Bahrain and the Securitization of Bahraini Shi'a
Since protests shook Bahrain in 2011, the Saudi-backed regime there has embarked on a series of strategic moves, crushing dissent both at home and abroad. This article explores the methods the regime used to ensure its survival. It argues that by framing Bahrain's Shi'i majority as a security threat within broader regional challenges, the regime was able to solidify its core bases of support
The world is a garden
Traditional approaches to questions about nomos in IR typically focus upon either its establishment and the formal structures that emerge through interaction within a clearly delineated spatial area, or an exploration of US hegemony in the post-2003 world. In this article I posit a different approach, building on the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, which grounds nomos as a spatialisation of the exception within conditions of neoliberal modernity. I sug…
Political science (44 obras) · Law (40 obras) · Politics (38 obras) · Sociology (37 obras) · Political economy (27 obras) · Law (25 obras) · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts (21 obras) · Economics (17 obras) · Islamic Studies and History (17 obras) · Middle East (17 obras)