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Open research questions in Middle East Politics and Society

134 gap statements mined from Middle East Politics and Society papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,403 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • The lack of understanding of the conditions under which formal governmental commitments fail to become enforceable arrangements on the ground.

    Lebanon between framework agreements and proxy instability: post-war resilience in a hybrid state · 2026 · DOI

  • By contrast, endogenous drivers of demobilization remain understudied, despite growing evidence on the role of microlevel dynamics in making and breaking revolutionary momentum.

    Revolutionary burnout: Subjective crisis responses and the demobilization of mass protest in Lebanon · 2025 · DOI

  • The application of federal principles within formally unitary states remains underexplored in the Lebanese context. There is a need for a theoretical basis for federal arrangements in Lebanon.

    Towards asymmetrical decentralisation as federal arrangement for Lebanon · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of how migrant women's precarity is produced and regulated by governance regimes. The analysis highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of the intersection of migration governance, labor laws, and social policies.

    Indispensable But Disposable? Migrant Women’s Struggle for Rights in Lebanon’s Informal Economy · 2026 · DOI

  • The complex experiences in a society characterized by religious and national pluralism are not well understood. The role of religion and nationalism in shaping the content of all constitutional systems and articles is not well studied.

    Religion and Nationalism in the Legal and Constitutional Models of State Authority in Syria and Greater Lebanon during the French Mandate 1920–1930 · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could explore the implications of binarism for other social and political issues in Lebanon. The study's findings could be used to inform strategies for promoting dialogue and reconciliation among different groups in Lebanon.

    Binarism within Polarity Dimensions in Lebanon: A Qualitative Interpretive Analysis of Competing Lebanese Perceptions toward the Resistance Movement in its Conflict with Israel · 2026 · DOI

  • The research highlights the need to consider the complex historical, social, and political context of the resistance movement.

    Binarism within Polarity Dimensions in Lebanon: A Qualitative Interpretive Analysis of Competing Lebanese Perceptions toward the Resistance Movement in its Conflict with Israel · 2026 · DOI

  • It notes that the concept of the public sphere has been largely detached from theories of space. The study highlights the need to explore the conditions that make a university 'public' and why this publicness matters in times of conflict and its aftermath.

    What makes a university public? Publicness in conflict at the Lebanese University, 1959–2019 · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper highlights the need to analyze the Islamic Republic's support for the Palestinian cause under different presidencies. The paper notes that the Islamic Republic's approach to the Palestinian cause is shaped by both ideological convictions and strategic considerations.

    Continuity and Change in the Islamic Republic’s Vision of Regional Order: The Palestinian Cause in Iranian Foreign Policy · 2026 · DOI

  • The author highlights the need to consider the role of contraband commerce in shaping the border. The paper suggests that existing approaches to understanding the border are limited and do not account for the complexities of contraband commerce.

    Kaçak Territorialization: The Syria-Turkey Border as a Palimpsest of Sovereignty · 2026 · DOI

  • It highlights the need to account for changes in the conditions under which a territory can be observed. The paper notes the challenge of reducing urban complexity to fixed spatial classifications.

    Reading Urban Territories Through Socio-Spatial Interfaces · 2026 · DOI

  • The Iranian diaspora opposition is divided and lacks unity and internal cohesion. Some factions of the opposition have lost faith in Iran's civil society and turned to foreign powers. The retrotopian tendency of some factions overlooks the possibility of a realistic and hopeful future for Iran.

    Woman, Life, Freedom Movement and the Pathology of Diaspora Opposition: Retrotopia, Co-optation, and Misrepresentation · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research should explore the complexities of the Iranian diaspora opposition in more depth. Future research should examine the implications of the paper's findings for the future of the WLF movement and its relationship with the diaspora opposition.

    Woman, Life, Freedom Movement and the Pathology of Diaspora Opposition: Retrotopia, Co-optation, and Misrepresentation · 2025 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the dominant framework for personhood in the study of displacement, which has long been the category of the refugee. It argues that legal binaries such as refugee versus citizen, and internal versus external displacement, have been further blurred.

    Death of the Gharīb : A Window towards a Regional Understanding of Displacement in the Middle East · 2025 · DOI

  • Other publics are more sympathetic, but the ability of ex-detainees to persuade them is limited by these audiences’ historicist presuppositions, particularly their expectations that detainees’ accounts rely on a linear chronology with a clear progression from past to present and that detention narratives provide evidence that can be critically compared and corroborated.

    Acting historians: Historicism, memory, and performance among Lebanese former detainees from Syria · 2019 · DOI

  • Pluralistic societies are generally characterised by weak national cohesiveness, increasing the risk of political tension and violent conflict; for communities from diverse religious or ethnic backgrounds, peaceful coexistence alone is insufficient to build the social cohesion needed for sustainable development and lasting peace.

    The implication of school culture on building a cohesive pluralistic society: Evidence from Lebanon · 2018 · DOI

  • In the four years since the uprising of January 25, 2011, Egypt has undergone many changes—but exactly what kind of changes? Although January 25, 2011, is marked as the beginning of a revolution, its precise meaning remains unclear regarding how to analyze its outcomes related to transformative social change.

    From State Exclusionary Politics to Youth Inclusionary Practices: The Tahrir Square Experience · 2015 · DOI

  • Little is known about the views of the youth, roughly half the country’s population, who have witnessed the enthusiasm and sense of national consciousness sparked by the Cedar Revolution of 2005.

    Youthful Voices in Post-War Lebanon · 2009 · DOI

  • The archive is institutionally vulnerable due to political centralization and limited municipal autonomy. The study seeks to identify the broader urban vision embedded in the municipal material. The analysis of the archive requires a nuanced understanding of the municipal urbanism and its interruption.

    Aleppo After War: The Municipal Vision Before 2011 and Why Urban Recovery Should Not Start from Scratch · 2026 · DOI

  • This study is exploratory and interpretive in scope. It does not seek statistical generalisation, - It does not treat municipal presentations as transparent evidence of full implementation. Some projects are described in considerable detail, while others remain at the conceptual, strategic packaging, or projected intervention level.

    Aleppo After War: The Municipal Vision Before 2011 and Why Urban Recovery Should Not Start from Scratch · 2026 · DOI

  • Policy models often fail to address the long-term systemic marginality of refugee camps. Refugee camps are treated as transitional or exceptional enclaves, leading to fragmented interventions. The condition of exception is sustained by an interlocking nexus of legal exclusion, fragmented governance, systemic spatial violence, and humanitarian substitution.

    Refugee Camps as Co-Produced Urban Systems: Governance, Spatial Violence, and Grassroots Agency in Protracted Displacement · 2026 · DOI

  • In the continuation and afterward of the demonstrations that started right after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in Lebanon in 2005, a broad social consensus ground could not be established.

    Lübnan’da Ortak Kimliğin Oluşumunda Sedir Devrimi’nin Rolü · 2021 · DOI

  • The Lebanese state lacked a unified and widely accepted coercive instrument, - The institution designated to enforce the agreement lacked the cohesion, legitimacy, and operational reach required for that task, - The operational details of the Annex are not fully reproduced in the public…

    Lebanon between framework agreements and proxy instability: post-war resilience in a hybrid state · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the understanding of hybrid actors and their resilience, - It highlights the need for a more nuanced approach to security that takes into account the cumulative logic of hybrid…

    Israeli Security Strategies and Hezbollah: The Resilience of Hybrid Actors against Military Superiority · 2026 · DOI

  • Further research could explore the application of the socio-spatial interface framework to other urban territories - Additional studies could investigate the impact of institutional arrangements on socio-spatial interfaces - Research could also examine the role of material configurations in shaping socio-spatial…

    Reading Urban Territories Through Socio-Spatial Interfaces · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Middle East Politics and Society

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) The lack of understanding of the conditions under which formal governmental commitments fail to become enforceable arrangements on the ground (“Lebanon between framework agreements and proxy instability: post-war resilience…”, 2026); (2) The application of federal principles within formally unitary states remains underexplored in the Lebanese context (“Towards asymmetrical decentralisation as federal arrangement for Lebanon”, 2026); (3) The complex experiences in a society characterized by religious and national pluralism are not well understood (“Religion and Nationalism in the Legal and Constitutional Models of State…”, 2026); (4) Future research could explore the implications of binarism for other social and political issues in Lebanon (“Binarism within Polarity Dimensions in Lebanon: A Qualitative Interpretive…”, 2026); (5) By contrast, endogenous drivers of demobilization remain understudied, despite growing evidence on the role of microlevel dynamics in making and breaking revolutionary momentum (“Revolutionary burnout: Subjective crisis responses and the demobilization of…”, 2025). 134 gap statements have been mined from Middle East Politics and Society papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,403 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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