Elsevier

Political Geography

Volume 80, June 2020, 102178
Political Geography

State atrophy and the reconfiguration of borderlands in Syria and Iraq: Post-2011 dynamics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102178Get rights and content
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Abstract

Circumstances in the MENA region invite us to redirect our attention to geographic areas that emerged as primary sites of power-contest. This paper looks into emerging trends in the unraveling of bounded sovereign territoriality in borderlands by examining the contest over military, economic, and socio-political spaces in the wake of the devolution of the monopoly of violence and the rise of a multitude of new and old actors to local prominence. Since 2011, borderlands in the MENA region transformed into considerable sites of contested power by a plethora of actors. The paper points out emergent patterns of deterritorialization and reterritorialization of power in its various forms and manifestations in borderlands. The dynamics of ‘place and performance’ in the borderlands of Syria and Iraq showcase the variety of ways borders were instrumentalized under circumstances of state atrophy and their destructive tendencies for borderlands.

Keywords

Borderlands
Borders
State atrophy
MENA
Armed conflict
Syria
Iraq

Cited by (0)

1

Present Address: Portland State University, Middle East Studies Centre, KMC 615 SW Harrison St, Portland, OR 97201.