Governance beyond the center

After the fall of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Qadafi, the Arab World faces multiple challenges with regard to political transformation and governance. The diverse experiences highlighted the vital role of seemingly marginal actors. Although the political landscape of the region changed within months, such developments were rooted in long-term transformations of governance structures.

In a new edited volume, Local Politics and Contemporary Transformations in the Arab World, the authors examine the questions of how politics and the state in the region is shaped and challenged beyond the center. Together they develop a novel perspective in Middle Eastern studies by linking anthropologically inspired analytical concepts and ethnographic in-depth case studies from the Arab world.
In his chapter, ‘Contemporary governscapes: sovereign practice and hybrid orders “beyond the center”’, DIIS researcher Finn Stepputat contributes to the analytical framing of the volume and to debates on politics from below, informal institutions, non-elite actors, and the dynamic relationship between state and society.