Review of “Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics,” ed. by Anouar Boukhars and Jacques Roussellier
Jacob Mundy
October 2014
Beware academic volumes that bear this disclaimer: “The views expressed are those of the authors alone.” Perspectives on Western Sahara, edited by Anouar Boukhars and Jacques Roussellier, contains several chapters in which this caveat is made. And for good reason: Perspectives on Western Sahara is primarily a political text, one backed by well-researched, if sometimes problematic, accounts of the conflict’s local, regional, and global dynamics. Most of the contributors have backgrounds in government, consulting, and think tanks; the others have formal academic positions. Several are well known for their defense of Morocco’s position on Western Sahara; others seem to have been recruited or shanghaied into the cause with little to no research or publication background on the issue. One of the chapters, an analysis of United States foreign policy towards the conflict, is even authored by two former US Foreign Service Officers who now work as lobbyists for Morocco, Edward Gabriel and Robert Holley. Boukhars and Roussellier’s collection also serves as a pro-Moroccan response to Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution, which this reviewer coauthored with Stephen Zunes in 2010. …read more
Citation: Jacob Mundy, “Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics ed. by Anouar Boukhars and Jacques Roussellier (review),” The Middle East Journal, 68(4), Autumn 2014, pp. 653-654 | 10.1353/mej.2014.0094
