Introduction: The Politics of Power Amidst the Uprisings of Hope

Abstract

Since the Arab Uprisings of 2011, popularly known as the “Arab Spring,” the Middle East—with its rapidly changing political setting—has been a key center of attention for media and academia. It has become commonplace to refer to this increasingly turbulent region as the “new Middle East” or the “postrevolutionary Middle East,” though uncertainties stemming from the indeterminate future of regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt as well as the civil wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Iraq continue. In recent years, Turkey, a country that used to remain in the fringes of the region with its noninterventionist stance, has been heavily involved in the affairs of the Middle East. This has been reflected on the highly interventionist policies of the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party) administration toward the 2011 and 2013 uprisings in Egypt, the ongoing civil war in Syria, Iran’s controversial nuclear program, the region-wide tensions between Sunni and Shi’a groups, the rise of the ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Daesh in Arabic), and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.