Open research questions in Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
38 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 2,703 Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
Dr. Madhulika Mishra1 1 Head of Department and Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Women’s College, Samastipur (A Constituent College under LNMU) Abstract: The relationship between Iran and the United States is one of the most enduring and consequential rivalries in contemporary international politics. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, their bilateral dispute has evolved into a multidimensional confrontation encompassing nuclear diplomacy, economic sanctions, maritime security, proxy warfare, cyber operations, and competition for regional influence. The implications of this rivalry extend well beyond the Middle East, affecting global energy markets, strategic shipping routes, international financial stability, non‑proliferation regimes, and the broader calculations of major powers such as China, Russia, India, and the European Union. Recent episodes of military escalation have demonstrated how quickly local incidents in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz can generate worldwide economic and security turbulence through disrupted shipping, volatility in oil prices, and heightened geopolitical risk. Against this background, this paper examines the historical evolution of the Iran–U.S. conflict, identifies its principal strategic drivers, analyses its regional and global consequences, and evaluates plausible future scenarios. It argues that although deterrence and military power remain central to state behaviour, durable stability will depend far more on diplomatic engagement, confidence‑building measures, and sustained multilateral cooperation than on prolonged confrontation.
Iran–U.S. Conflict and Its Implications for the World Order: Geopolitical, Economic, Security, and Strategic Perspectives · 2026 · DOI74 Iran’s Dual Strategy in the Middle East: Proxy Warfare, Nuclear Ambitions, and Strategic RecalibrationVol: 22 Issue: 53 Habib BADAWI Several areas warrant further exploration: the internal dynamics of Iran’s regime, particularly the role of factional politics in shaping foreign policy decisions, remain underexplored. Iran’s recent membership in BRICS provides an alternative platform for economic and political engagement operating outside Western-dominated international institutions, though the practical implications of this membership remain uncertain given the still-evolving nature of BRICS economic coordination mechanisms. The events of 2023-2024 subjected this integrated framework to its most severe stress test, and the results were mixed: the strategy’s interdependency, which was its greatest strength, also proved to be a vulnerability when multiple nodes came under simultaneous pressure.
Iran’s Dual Strategy in the Middle East: Proxy Warfare, Nuclear Ambitions, and Strategic Recalibration · 2026 · DOIDrawing on discourse analysis, institutional history, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in state bureaucracies, I explore the critical, albeit under-researched, role of migration politics in political change from the 1991 Gulf crisis to the 2011 uprisings.
Migrants and monarchs: regime survival, state transformation and migration politics in Saudi Arabia · 2021 · DOIAlthough Western interference in this issue is also interested in establishing a regional secular order and secular succession regime, if nationalist religious extremism is limited to achieving the planned regional autonomy and independence of the outside world, tactically avoiding the skepticism of the outside world, then the expected political goal is planned.
One pivotal question that remains unexplored is whether conflicts fought over Islamist claims are more or less likely to be negotiated, and if so, why? This paper provides the first large-N study exploring the relationship between Islamist claims and negotiations in all intrastate armed conflicts for the time period 1975–2011.
As the final section underlines, while short-term goals, such as containing the USSR or maintain US access to oil in the Cold War, were achieved, they were achieved at costs which were not fully understood at the time.
The Middle East and the United States: History, Politics, and Ideologies [Fifth Edition] · 2017A state-of-knowledge review of the dated and geographically-limited literature conducted primarily by foreign social scientists covers national trends, the spatial distribution of Yemeni socioeconomic and political life (including tribes), non-tribal governance, and Yemen’s social research infrastructure.
This article reports back on the key preliminary findings and developing arguments of research which has been funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council in four politically and culturally significant countries of the Middle East: Lebanon, Iran, Turkey and Egypt (more limited research in this country).
Religion and Social Policy in the Middle East: The (Re)Constitution of an Old-New Partnership · 2010 · DOI</i> The group has played a significant but little known role in Saudi-Iranian relations since 1987 following its creation as a rival to the other Saudi Shi‘a opposition group, the Islamic Revolution Organization.
The study argues that traditional framing scholarship might not be applicable to analyzing al Jazeera and other satellite channels because it presumes the impact of political elites on the framing process, conceives of the media as hegemonic, is idiosyncratic to the American media and power arrangements, and does not account for new information communication technologies.
Such parallels are not explored in the book itself, but it is a notable fact that Britain, unlike the United States, has long experience of counter-insurgency campaigns in the Middle East, most notably in Iraq and Palestine during the inter-war period and in Cyprus and Aden after 1945.
Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in South Arabia 1962-1967 · 2005Although the US confrontation with Iran since 1979 and with Iraq since 1990 have focused the attention of Americans and the Western media on the area, the foreign policies of these states are still not well understood by outsiders.
The Foreign Policy of the United Arab Emirates · 1996Customs officials are abundantly attested for Chaldia (Trebizond) and occasionally for Attaleia and Cyprus, but they are scarce for Antioch and non-existent for Melitene, two other major points of overland connection with the Islamicate world: K.
Imperial landscapes and client management on the Roman–Fatimid frontier in eleventh-century Syria · 2026 · DOIFinally, this research contributes to an already scarce literature on the history of Yazidi sufferings and documents the stories of a marginalised community.
Yazidi Stories: A Case Study of Resistance, Resilience and Political Erasure in Mesopotamia · 2026 · DOIAlthough important roles in peacebuilding are attributed to civil society (CS), few studies have so far analysed how CS actors fare amid ongoing war.
our aim is to bring attention to under-studied governance practices so as to analyze the otherwise opaque relations between welfare provision, military success, and civilian agency during Syria's civil war.
The current dismal situation--in which facts on the ground continue to remain unknown to the international community and thousands remain internally displaced from their homes--was not a result of a lack of will or of ignorance, but rather of strained resources.
The Forgotten State: Rifts in Post-Revolutionary Libya · 2014Despite the research by some authors on the Syrian Arab Republic and its stand in the Middle East Region, little is known about the perspective of the Syrian military, unofficially called the "elder statesman", who rules this country.
Ideological Tensions in the Ranks of Syrian Officers:the Trigger of Military Circles Transformation in the Country? · 2012 · DOIBesides the difference in the value perception of ''colored revolutions'', among theorists there is no agreement even on issues of their target orientation and of their relationship to democracy, social reasonableness, and especially of compatibility of goals and the methods for their realizations.
The temptation of doctrinal social engineering may exist, but the actual impact Islamists will have will he limited by the kind of society they inhabit, the resources they have to work from, and the choices forced upon them.
The Many Faces of Islamist Politicking · 2012But just what the Arab Spring will bring for Palestine remains to be seen: the Arab Spring may herald a new trend of non-violence on the tentative path toward peace; just as likely, it may portend a summer of resurgent violence and misery.
Trouble in Palestine; the Implications of the Arab Spring · 2011Because of the book's shortness and the wide and varied range of issues it covers, inevitably the analysis of various subjects is insufficient and sometimes even simplistic.
Despite the Bush administration's admirable rhetorical commitment, it remains to be seen whether the United States can help to midwife the birth of a democratic Arab future or whether, if the transformation occurs, America will be a mere spectator.
The Promise of Arab Liberalism · 2004Now that the war has ended, it remains unclear-except for a few general policy announcements, such as the 29 January 1991 joint U.
The study of Shi'ism in the Gulf has advanced so little that even a basic chronology and overview of institutional developments are lacking for all but the most recent decades.
Most-cited papers in Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
- Organized violence, 1989–2019 · Journal of Peace Research · 2020 · 265 citations
- Ties to the Rest: Autocratic Linkages and Regime Survival · Comparative Political Studies · 2016 · 61 citations
- The System of Dependent Capitalism in Pre- And Post- Revolutionary Iran · International Journal Middle East Studies · 1982 · 45 citations
- Multiple geographies of the Arab Internet · Area · 2007 · 32 citations
- The war and the economy: the gradual destruction of Libya · Review of African Political Economy · 2020 · 31 citations
- Al Jazeera · International Communication Gazette · 2007 · 27 citations
- Group Differences in Early Support for Military Action in the Gulf · American Politics Quarterly · 1993 · 26 citations
- Civil society during war: the case of Yemen · Peacebuilding · 2019 · 26 citations
- Power mediators and the ‘illiberal peace’ momentum: ending wars in Libya and Syria · Third World Quarterly · 2021 · 25 citations
- Internal efficiency of Higher education system in armed conflict-affected countries-Yemen case · International Journal of Educational Development · 2021 · 25 citations
Most recent work
- Trump’s Gulf War · New left review · 2026
- The War Against Iran · Survival · 2026
- Britain and Oman, c.1945-1980 The Silent Relationship · The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History · 2026
- MASS MEDIA IN QATAR'S FOREIGN POLICY · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- Rethinking ‘new wars’: Continuity and hybrid warfare in Yemen’s 2014 civil war · Global Change, Peace & Security · 2026
- The Next Phase Of GCC Deterrence · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- How to Navigate US Policy in a Failed Libya · World Affairs · 2026
- The vanguard of the Islamic Republic of Iran: mutual resource dependence between the state and the IRGC · Asian Journal of Political Science · 2026
- James Al-Shamma and Amir Al-Azraki. Editors. Theatre of Iraq under Occupation, 2003–2011: Lamentation, Homeland, Identity · Arab Studies Quarterly · 2026
- Post-1979 Iranian Revolution’s Reign of Terror and State Violence: Kurdistan as a Centerpiece · Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies · 2026
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