Introduction: North Africa and Britain

This special issue of International Affairs seeks to stimulate more debate and interest in Britain on North Africa. This relatively neglected area of British foreign policy has largely been funneled through the European Union (EU), where the focus of policy has been on preventive security, above all policing against illegal migration and the spread of radicalism and terrorism. The main driver for regional change and potential insecurity is now demographic, evident in the high levels of youth unemployment across North Africa. In facing the challenge of leadership successions over the next decade, it is in the interest of the EU, and in turn, Britain, to engage more closely with North Africa's younger generations to ensure the region's longer term security and stability. Britain has few strong bilateral links with North African societies, however, with the exception of private sector investments in the energy sector and security cooperation. New investment opportunities and a demand for English language and other forms of training for employment could put Britain at an advantage in responding to North African demands for diversified international relationships. A greater focus is also needed on local development opportunities to assist new actors to assume their own economic and political roles, as a better means of delivering security and jobs than relying on central states to deliver both. The articles in this special issue offer new insights into developments in the region, as well as analyses of European and American policy responses to the challenges identified. A common theme is that the region has been held back by a combined lack of institutional safeguards and political participation, with negative impacts on the spread of the economic benefits of higher growth rates and investment. Authoritarian leaderships have proved reliable partners for the EU and Britain in the past, but will they continue to do so in future?     

Political dynamics in North Africa

North Africa is notable for the remarkable stability of its political systems despite the increasingly hostile social and economic environment in which they operate. In part this results from their current security engagement with Europe but more important, perhaps, is the shared political culture that informs them despite the great differences between them and their failure to fulfill the principles upon which they were, for the most part, founded. This is, in part, typified by the very similar mechanisms they have each developed to ensure political continuity, based either on monarchical succession or dynastic republicanism. It is less clear, however, that they will be able to resist the most recent challenges arising from Islamist social movements, although the new political dispensations that might emerge may not be so very different from their predecessors.     

伊斯兰世界犹太人与阿拉伯人的交往

历史上的犹太人与阿拉伯人在种族上是近亲,在地理上是近邻,有着血脉相通的联系。远古时代,他们来往密切,并有着相互联姻的历史记载。第一圣殿被毁以后,流落在阿拉伯半岛的犹太人带来了犹太文化,并对伊斯兰思想的形成产生了很大的影响。公元7世纪之后,随着伊斯兰教对半岛上的反伊斯兰势力采取强硬政策,阿拉伯人与犹太人之间的关系逐渐疏远,并出现了宗教冲突。但当伊斯兰政权稳固之后,双方又出现了和睦相处的局面。特别是阿拔斯王朝时期,许多犹太人取得了很高的政治、军事地位,为王朝的发展做出了贡献。正是在阿拉伯人的宽容与监护下,西班牙等地的犹太社团才发挥了自身的创造力,形成了灿烂的文化。     

加世纪阿拉伯人和伊朗人的思想冲突

阿拉伯民族和波斯民族是20世纪存在较多摩擦的中东两大民族。思想上的冲突是阿拉伯人和波斯人产生纷争的一个重要原因。教派分属的差异、阿拉伯民族主义和伊朗民族主义的对立以及泛阿拉伯主义和泛伊斯兰主义的斗争,是阿拉伯人和波斯人思想冲突的主要原因和表现。     

British Courts Martial in North Africa, 1940-3

This article seeks to demonstrate that the exemplary aspectof military law was applied in courts martial cases in NorthAfrica between 1940 and 1943. It will show that there was aclear desire to make examples, which coincided with the preoccupationsof the High Command concerning the state of discipline and moralewithin the British Eighth Army. The article will reveal thatAuchinleck, Montgomery, and Alexander shared many common ideason discipline and morale, but that their concerns often overstatedthe scale of the supposed problem. These fears created an atmospherein which the details of individual cases were often overriddenin the name of discipline and military efficiency. Paradoxically,such an attitude only added to the High Command’s concerns,for by ensuring a high level of convictions, the outcomes ofcourts martial appeared to confirm the validity of its views.     

The secret of my succession: dynasty and crisis in Vandal North Africa

The system of royal succession in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa has long been regarded as idiosyncratic within the early medieval west, but its fullest implications have rarely been investigated closely. The present article examines the origins of succession by agnatic seniority under the strong rule of King Geiseric, and argues that it was one of several innovations intended to establish the emergent Hasding royal house against other aristocratic challenges. The article goes on to explore the consequences of this law in the two major dynastic crises of the Vandal kingdom: under Huneric in c.481 and under Hilderic in 530. In both cases, the standard narratives of events are challenged, and with them assumptions about the ‘constitutional’ status of Geiseric's law of succession.     

Poverty and Neo‐Liberal Bias in the Middle East and North Africa

This article examines the definition of poverty and the evidential base for the claims that the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has historically low levels of poverty and relatively good levels of income distribution. It argues that the dominant trend in the literature on poverty in the global south in general, and in MENA in particular, has a neo‐classical bias. Amongst other things, that bias fails to understand that poverty does not emerge because of exclusion but because of poor people's ‘differential incorporation’ into economic and political processes. It also raises the question: if the MENA has indeed had relatively low levels of poverty and good income distribution, does this complicate the issue of autocracy and the western drive to remove political ‘backwardness’ in the region? In particular, the characterization of autocracy and the west's attempt to promote political liberalization is likely to impact adversely on the social contract that autocratic rulers have enforced regarding the delivery of basic services.     

论北非文明交往与利比亚城市的历史变迁

本从明交往的角度对利比亚城市的发展进行了历史考察：分析了古典明的扩张对利比亚城市早期发展的影响,伊斯兰明的传播对利比亚伊斯兰城市的兴起以及西方工业明的入侵对利比亚城市现代化所产生的历史作用。利比亚作为世界上多种明的交叉之地,它的城市对于人类明的演进和交往做出了重要贡献。