In recent times, the question of borders in the Middle East has assumed an importance unknown since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In this fresh examination of the issue, Inga Brandell draws together a variety of disciplinary approaches, and takes the classic debates forward into the 21st century. From the Syrian-Lebanese border, which is ""straddled"" by a shifting business community, to the Greek-Turkish border in Cyprus, which has dramatically altered not only the geographical but also the social experience of living there.

President Vladimir Putin's consent after September 11th to the deployment of Western forces in Central Asia and to the US military's use of Central Asian airfields during the US-led operations in Afghanistan represented a dramatic turn in Russian Central Asian policy. How and why did Russian policy change? Was this in part due to Russia's decline in influence on the international arena? Lena Jonson examines Putin's policy from 1999 to 2004 towards Afghanistan and the four key states that surround it: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan and examines how Russia dealt with both...

Asa Lundgren explores Turkish policy towards northern Iraq from the beginning of the 1990s to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and draws important conclusions about the relation between nation-building and foreign policy. The author argues that there is a crucial interplay between the protection of state borders, foreign policy practice and the construction of national identity. Turkey's policy towards northern Iraq during the last decade can be described as a balancing act where the integrity of the Turkish-Iraqi border was firmly defended by Ankara, while at the same time it was...

Traders, bazaaris and shop-keepers constitute a very important social and economic category in the Middle East. Based upon extensive fieldwork carried out by Annika Rabo among the traders of Aleppo, it sheds new light on how this politically sensitive social group views itself and others in the prevalent atmosphere of economic liberalization and political reform following the death of Syrian President Hafez al-Asad of Syria. The author assesses the traders' views on commerce, elections and the Syrian political succession and places them within the local market context in Aleppo, the context...