Comparative Political Geography in Central Europe and MENA: Territorial cleavages and political alignments

The goal of this research project is to examine the political translation of territorial cleavages in Central Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). By territorial cleavages we mean the opposition of the rural and urban worlds on the one hand, and of the center and the periphery on the other hand. The comparison of both regions is facilitated by the facts that they had late national construction, due to the presence of imperial structures, and that most of their countries had known a first democratic experience followed by single-state regimes. Then, the central-European experience could be useful to understand what is happening in MENA, and this experience could contribute in the European neighborhood policy.