Political Islam in the Post-Cold War era : a Mediterranean perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to gauge the extent to which Political Islam is a determining factor in post-Cold War international relations. The focus of the study is on the Mediterranean basin conceived as possessing geo-strategic cohesion due to the regional interdependence generated by the socio-economic variables that link the two littorals together. Consequently there exist no isolated political phenomenon in the Mediterranean since any instance of political crisis exerts a spill over effect that transcends the traditional boundaries of the nation-state. The rise of Political Islam in the Arab Mediterranean littoral is therefore no exception to the rule especially due to its contingent impact on Mediterranean security issues such as migratory flows into Europe. The Mediterranean perspective on resurgent Political Islam requires a theoretical focus, which is not beset with obsolete Cold War ideological nuances. Amongst varying theoretical contenders, the civilisation paradigm as expounded by Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington provides the best analytical tools for discerning the evolving fault lines of conflict within such a regional crossroads of civilisations as the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean provides the geo-political context within which evolving post-Cold War international relations come to the fore. The post-Cold War Mediterranean heralds a political pattern construed upon religious and cultural criteria of belonging to often antagonistic groupings of states huddled together due to their shared historical legacies. The resurgence of Political Islam in the Mediterranean infuses a set of new geopolitical contours contrived upon a number of contentious issues that poison relations between the affluent northern European littoral and the southern Islamic Mediterranean littoral. The riparian Mediterranean is therefore the scene of a nascent potential conflict caused by the asymmetric economic development between the two littorals causing relative deprivation besides migration. Couple with the economic agenda, political friction over issues of democratic discourse and practice in the North African states as well as lack of respect for human rights top the list of pending contentious questions nourishing this fledgling clash of civilisations within the Mediterranean reinforced by centuries of embittered Christian/European and Islamic/ Arab relations in the region.