Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization

Raquel Ojeda-García is Senior Lecturer in Political and Administrative Science at the University of Granada, Spain.Irene Fernández-Molina is Lecturer in the Politics Department at the University of Exeter, UK.Victoria Veguilla is Lecturer in Political and Administrative Science at the Pablo de Olavide University, Spain.

• 1. Introduction: Towards a Multilevel Analysis of the Western Sahara Conflict and the Effects of its Protractedness .- 2. The United Nations’ Change in Approach to Resolving the Western Sahara Conflict since the Turn of the 21st Century .- 3. The Geopolitical Functions of the Western Sahara Conflict: US Hegemony, Moroccan Stability and Sahrawi Strategies of Resistance .- 4. The EU’s Reluctant Engagement with the Western Sahara Conflict: Between Humanitarian Aid and Parliamentary Involvement .- 5. Western Sahara and the Arab Spring .- 6. Algerian Foreign Policy towards Western Sahara .- 7. Beyond Western Sahara, the Sahel-Maghreb Axis Looms Large .- 8. The Role of Sahrawis and the Polisario Front in Maghreb-Sahel Regional Security .- 9. Western Sahara in the Framework of the New Moroccan Advanced Regionalization Reform .- 10. The Western Saharan Members of the Moroccan Parliament: Diplomacy and Perceptions of Identity .- 11. Changes in Moroccan Public Policies in Western Sahara and International Law: Adjustments to a New Social Context in Dakhla .- 12. Memory and Resistance: A Historical Account of the First “Intifadas” and Civil Organizations in the Territory of Western Sahara .- 13. Western Saharan and Southern Moroccan Sahrawis: National Identity and Mobilization .- 14. The View from Tindouf: Western Saharan Women and the Calculation of Autochthony .- 15. “For us, Parliament is a Tool for Liberation”: Elections as an Opportunity for a Transterritorial Sahrawi Population .- 16. Conclusion.

“[This] volume … adeptly illustrates how the conflict’s oft-noted intractability entails not only continuity over time, but also the emergence of new dynamics. … Leaving aside causal arguments at a time when conflict resolution appears as distant as ever allows the volume’s contributors to consider emergent developments in the Western Sahara from a wide range of perspectives. This is nowhere more evident than in the series of studies and contributions that engage with identity, subjectivity and lived experience. … This study reflects—or perhaps, even, is a step ahead of—developments in the field by showcasing the burgeoning literature on Western Sahara that engages with lived experience. … This volume represents a major contribution in bringing together contributors from Spain, the UK, France, Mexico and the United States, to break language-based silos that too often inhibit crossfertilization … .” (Mark Drury, The Journal of North African Studies, September 16, 2017)