Chair: Prof. Raquel Ojeda García

Co-Chair: Dr. Victoria Veguilla

Discussants: Dr. Juan Montabes

When MENA countries reached the political independence, processes of creation and consolidation of the state were fostered, while democratization processes were postponed. Later, changes in governments followed this trend: the consolidation and security of the State prevailed over the implementation of transforming political reforms.In some cases, the borders of the MENA countries were not clearly defined in the independence afterward. Nowadays, frontiers consolidation is still a pending issue. Moreover, time has worsened the humanitarian and political problems involved within this subject matter, influencing negatively in the democratization process.Both realities attracted the attention of this panel. The aim is to identify and discuss the factors that avoided both realities were solved, focusing on the institutional responses to the threats presented by these conflictive issues. This panel offers a compendium of works set off from theoretical approaches used by either political science or international relations. Both comparative and case studies are followed as methodological strategies. Different analytical units are targeted: institutions, actors and policies. Summarizing, the studies of this panel are all concerned by a common research question: is there any new trend in the political management and perspectives on the territorial and democratizing conflicts existing in MENA countries by the policy makers, institutions, national and international actors involved?

Before the 17^th October you can submit an abstract for this panel on the IPSA website: http://www.ipsa.org/events/congress/madrid2012/submit-abstractpaper-proposal

Please do not hesitate to contact the panel chairs if you have questions or doubts.

Kind regards,

Raquel Ojeda (rojeda@ujaen.es)

Victoria Veguilla (veguilla@ujaen.es)