Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Rather than making North Africa safer, securitizing borders has raised the risk of instability along the region’s frontiers, where communities depend on smuggling.
The importance of radical ideology in the Sahel and Maghreb stems from its instrumental value and normative commitments. For rebel leaders, radical ideology helps their groups recruit and stand out from the rest of the pack.
Russia is regaining influence in North Africa thanks to weapons, energy, and trade.
The short renewal of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) indicates Russia’s increasing influence on the conflict.
It has long been an axiom among the rulers of each Maghrebi country to brandish their rhetorical commitment to regional integration while often-shamelessly suffocating the principles and prospects of unity.
Please join Carnegie for a conference on the changing political, socioeconomic, and security dynamics within the Maghreb-Sahel region.
Although Maghreb states have tended to pursue border security unilaterally, increased transnational coordination at the local level offers a more sustainable approach.
The Maghreb continues to see a rise in discontent and militancy due to governmental indifference towards marginalized border regions.
Although Morocco is aiming to diversify its trade relations into West Africa, political and social opposition within ECOWAS raises questions about its real intentions.
Nearly a decade after the Arab uprisings, tempers in the outlying regions of the Maghreb are on the boil. Scarred by a history of states’ neglect, with poverty rates often more than triple that of urban areas, these frontiers of discontent are being transformed into incubators of instability.
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