The 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.

Leila Simona Talani is full Professor of International Political Economy and Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Economy at King's College London, UK. She was previously a lecturer in European Politics at the University of Bath and a research fellow and then lecturer at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. In 2001 she spent a year as Associate Expert on migration issues at the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Cairo. Her current research interests focus on globalisation and the future of the Arab Spring as well as the political economy of migration flows from southern Mediterranean countries to the EU. She is the author of Globalization, Hegemony and the Future of the City of London (2011), Europe and the Financial Crisis (with Pompeo Della Posta, 2011), and Dirty Cities: Towards a Political Economy of the Underground in Global Cities (2013) among other titles.