In this EISMENA interview, Lyna Ouandjeli speaks with Barah Mikail about authoritarian restoration, the decline of pan-Arabism, the resurgence of national and communal identities, and the growing role of militias and non-state actors.
From Tunisia and Libya to Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen, the conversation asks whether the region is simply going through another political transition—or whether the very idea of the nation-state is being fundamentally reshaped.
Chapters
00:00 The MENA region after 2011
01:07 New state models or authoritarian stabilization?
08:08 Democracy and the legacy of the Arab uprisings
10:56 Is the revolutionary moment over?
18:49 Nationalism and the decline of pan-Arabism
28:08 Libya: failed state or competing political orders?
33:29 Sykes-Picot and the fragmentation of the nation-state
38:05 Communal identities and a changing regional order
41:09 October 7 and the transformation of regional dynamics
42:49 Militias and the future of non-state actors
53:13 Beyond the Westphalian state
59:03 What future for the Middle East and North Africa?