In 2025, Security in Context (SiC) continued its wide coverage of global issues, with cutting-edge knowledge production and evidence-based publications alongside workshops and interviews with scholars and activists. In total we have published over a dozen articles between our original research policy papers and research reports, the Insecurity Monitor flagship print and electronic publication, and our Global Insecurity blog. We also hosted six in-person workshops and events with our SiC network partners and other organizations focusing on the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
This year in review will focus on the main research outputs and policy dialogues produced over the past year. SiC featured a range of additional interviews, videos, and articles that you can find on our Global Insecurity blog and Youtube channel.
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Middle East
Palestine
Given the seismic changes in the Middle East, we paid special attention to conflict in the region, in particular examining multiple dimensions of the Israeli genocide in Palestine. Our coverage was headlined by the publication of our flagship Insecurity Monitor magazine, an online and print journal highlighting key themes of SiC’s knowledge production. This year the theme was “Palestine and the Global Order.” The Insecurity Monitor contained articles and interviews by Zayne Abudaka, Amahl Bishara, Alvin Camba, Roosbelinda Cárdenas, Omar Dahi, Tariq Dana, Haidar Eid, George Fourlas, Neve Gordon, Sam Heller, Sami Hermez, Ahmed Sh. Ibrahim, R. Isa, Richard Jackson, Raja Khalidi, Janaina Maldonado, Collin J. Meisel, Zahra Moloo, Mouin Rabbani, Francisco Rodríguez, Stephen Semler, Obada Shtaya, Malaka Shwaikh, Mayssoun Sukarieh, Saul J. Takahashi, and Mandy Turner.
A crucial aspect of the Israeli war on Palestine revolves around US support and how pro-Israeli knowledge production in the United States whitewashes Israeli actions and US actions in support of Israel. To get an in-depth grasp of this issue, our Senior Researcher Mandy Turner published a 40,000-word, deeply researched report titled: “Hegemony factories or independent thinkers? Western think tanks on Israel and Palestine after October 7.” The report serves as the only systemic analysis of highly influential Western think tanks – the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Cato Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), and Chatham House – and their knowledge production during the genocide in Gaza. Specifically, Turner analyzed coverage related to Israel and Palestine by seven leading Western think tanks in the period from October 7, 2023 to June 6, 2024.
Turner also published a number of other pieces related to Israeli-Palestinian issues. These include the articles “In Britain, the solidarity campaign for Palestinian rights clashes directly with empire mythology,” published on April 21, and “Western governments are lying to their people about Israel’s attack on Iran. This is a war to ‘remake’ the Middle East,” published on June 19.
On November 3, her next research paper, “‘Give Peace a Chance’ Is a Smokescreen. We Must Keep Up the Pressure on Israel and Western States Until Palestinian Self-Determination Is Achieved,” was released. Turner argues that calls by Israel and Western allies for “ceasefire” or “peace” are attempts to silence Palestinian demands for self-determination and accountability rather than genuine attempts to stop violence in Gaza.
We further explored the international dimensions of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, with a focus on the European Union’s complete ethical and policy failure. Coralie Pison Hindawi contributed “From the Ashes of Europe to the Ashes of Gaza: Searching for the EU in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” published on September 4 which the European Union’s role in the conflict over Palestine, situating Europe’s actions after the genocide in the context of its modern relations with Israel and the Palestinians. It documents European leaders’ lack of willingness and ability to act in accordance with the international legal order propagated by the EU itself. This includes calling out Germany and Italy as key arms dealers for Israel’s military, as well as the EU’s larger role in suppressing discussion from anti-genocide groups. The paper thoroughly explains the historical context of the EU’s decision-making, their motives, and how it makes them essentially partnered with Israel in their genocide.
In addition to individual publications, one of our two SiC reports published last year also dug into the contemporary issues surrounding Israel’s actions in Gaza. The report, “International Solidarity with Palestinians. Turning Advocacy into Action,” consisted of four articles curated by Mandy Turner based on verbal contributions from scholars speaking at the “International Solidarity: Turning Advocacy into Action” panel at the international conference “Naming Genocide: The Global Responsibility for Gaza” held on February 22, 2025 in Russell Square, London in the UK. Contributions came from Nadia Naser-Najjab, Mira Naseer, Grazia Careccia, and Nuvpreet Kalra. Pieces are about solidarity, both within Gaza and globally, with a focus on anti-colonial resistance, advocacy work in Western countries, analysis of Israel’s actions since October 7, 2023, and how feminist lenses can help us understand the continued attacks against solidarity with the Palestinian people.
SiC also hosted the online event “Voices from Gaza: Faculty and Student Reflections,” on February 14. This international webinar co-hosted by the Orfalea Center's Initiative on Global Migration and Inequality highlighted the experiences of three faculty members and three students from Gaza universities, displaced within Gaza or refugees in other countries. They discussed the effects of the war on their employment and studies following Israel’s destruction of all 12 Gaza university campuses. The event bolstered voices in Gaza from the ground, emphasizing the horrific, dangerous toll Israel’s genocide has had on the region.
Iran-US Relations
On June 22, 2025, the US bombed multiple locations in Iran, and through late 2025 and early 2026, the US continues to threaten Iran with further bombing. To understand the context of US-Iran relations, Negar Razavi convened a roundtable, “(Mis) Understanding Iran's Foreign Policy from Washington.” This publication, co-authored by Razavi, Reza H. Akbari, Niki Akhavan, Peyman Jafari, and Daniel Tavana, was convened after the “12-day war,” an attack launched by Israel against Iran in June 2025 with direct military support from the United States.
But how did this war play out for those in power in Tehran? How did the war align with or undermine the Iranian government’s foreign policy objectives over the past decade? How has the war shifted the Iranian government's geopolitical and domestic political calculations? What role – if any – did ordinary Iranians living inside and outside the country play in shaping these policies?
Too often, analysts in Washington and various European capitals fail to attend to the broader historical, geopolitical, and political conditions that shape the policies of regional actors – particularly those, like the Islamic Republic, that they deem as adversaries. Our project aims to address this gap in knowledge.
In July 2025, we hosted an interview with Professor Vali Nasr on his latest book which attempts to assess Iran’s foreign policy in its own historical and geopolitical context. The (Mis)Understanding Iran roundtable expands on that discussion by inviting a group of scholars and researchers, who not only have studied different aspects of Iran’s foreign policy through a historical, media, and political lens but also have a deeper understanding of how Washington represents – and often misrepresents – Iran’s foreign policy.
Syria Joint Research Initiative
The fall of the Asad regime in December 2024 marked a major turning point in modern Middle East history. SiC has joined three other organizations (Syrian Center for Policy Research, Badael Organization, and The Day After Organization) in a major initiative to create a space for alternative knowledge production about Syria. The goal of the initiative “Space for Transformation” is to create a civic space for transition and reconstruction that empowers Syrians through participatory research, inclusive dialogue, and policy advocacy centered on justice, accountability, and sustainability. This reflects a commitment to local agency and the belief that co-produced research can catalyze collective healing and transformation. The initiative will create a number of key reports and research outputs as well as provide a space for dialogue and public engagement and discussion over the key challenges confronting Syrian society.
Throughout the year, SiC has been holding public and closed door workshops to discuss the changes taking place in Syria. On January 29, SiC hosted the online event, “Syria in Transition: The First 45 Days.” The event was coordinated by SiC in conjunction with Jadaliyya and the Syrian Center for Policy Research. The virtual seminar saw speakers analyze the initial 45 days after the collapse of the Syrian regime on December 8, 2024, highlighting the crisis in its early days by providing commentary on how the collapse transpired and the multifaceted issues that followed. The event saw open discussion of oft-underrepresented subjects in the crisis, including those of sectarianism, media, and gender.
On September 1, senior researcher Leila Hilal published her research paper, “Syria’s Interim Authorities Risk Sovereignty in Talks with Israel.” The paper analyzes the negotiations between Syria’s interim authorities and Israel as mediated by the United States following December 2024’s regime collapse. Hilal highlights the dangerous nature of Syria’s negotiations with Israel through the US, and argues that rather than enter into discussions where they are clearly the weaker party, interim authorities should commit to an inclusive transitional process and strengthen the domestic front. Doing so would position Syria toward a foreign policy approach that promotes greater independence and accountability. The paper emphasizes the importance of these talks in Syria’s development from the perspective of their maintaining autonomy on the world stage and engaging with other global South countries rather than placing Syria’s fate in the hands of a heavily pro-Israel US administration.
Exploring the domestic implications of Syria’s transition on April 15, the Arab Council for the Social Sciences hosted the webinar “Syria in Transition: Academic Perspectives,” where SiC Director Omar Dahi served as convener and moderator. The event brought together a team of global researchers – Katty Alhayek, Rabie Nasser, and Salam Said – to discuss Syria post-crisis, elevating academic perspectives through a roundtable discussion. The conversation was hosted in Arabic.
Multilateralism From the Margins
A key dilemma facing the Global South in the shifting global order is the question of multilateralism. While never given equal voice in the Bretton Woods multilateral institutions, these still served as important platforms for collective voices, pushing back on Northern hegemony, and setting an alternative South agenda. Is there a role for multilateralism at a time when the whole edifice of liberal internationalism is being undermined by the US? We discussed these and other questions in an output titled “Multilateralism from the Margins: Mapping Challenges, Contestations, and Prospects for Cooperation and Solidarity in Global Interactions - Conversations from a Roundtable in October 2024,” released on April 24. Edited and written by Mandy Turner, the paper serves as a narrative highlight of SiC’s scholarly roundtable held at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar (#IAS_NUQ) in Doha on October 6-7, 2024. The interdisciplinary event brought a variety of people together from a multitude of professions: geographers, sociologists, area specialists, economists, IR scholars, historians, and anthropologists. The group gathered to discuss and critique predominant narratives – as well as explore alternate paradigms – across a variety of global security topics: “political economy and international economic relations, climate change and natural resources, conflict and militarism, the ‘global war on terror’ and international law, and social movements and activism.” The two-day event featured a multifaceted assessment and challenging of existing securitization narratives, driven by broad questions about global stratagem for these issues. This included poignant discussion on marginalized groups and making policies more inclusive of “the margins,” a term defined through discussion between participants. The event highlighted the need for securitization discussions to consider underrepresented and oftentimes unconsidered persons and issues when crafting long-term solutions.
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GSWO
The Global South and World Order (GSWO) project is a two-year initiative based at University of California Irvine, led by Samar Al-Bulushi, Muneira Hoballah, and Mandy Turner. The key objective of the GSWO project is to understand what multipolarity looks like from different regions of the Global South as understood by these societies themselves. The main questions underpinning GSWO’s investigations are: How do elites, policymakers, and civil society leaders in different parts of the Global South view the emerging multipolar order? How do these differ from each other and from those in the West? What issues do they prioritize and what do they believe needs to change? Underpinning the project is the desire to de-center Western-centric narratives about the nature of current shifts in global order and re-center Global South perspectives.
In 2025, GSWO held three in-person expert workshops.
From June 12-13, 2025, they held “The Middle East: Sub-Imperialism and Emerging Multipolarities” workshop at the University of Vienna, Austria. Initially, the event was supposed to be held in Beirut, changing location because of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Lebanon. Over two days, 20 leading researchers (academics, think tank experts, and activists) working on the Middle East and North Africa came together for closed discussions. These sessions placed the majority Arabic-speaking region at the center of wider debates about the “Global South” and examined how it both shapes and is shaped by an emerging multipolar order. Participants emphasized that the region should not be seen merely as an object of external influence but as a site of active reordering, highlighting the complex local dynamics, resistance movements, and the limitations and sometimes contradictory effects of external interventions. Discussions questioned the adequacy of “great power competition” as a frame, highlighting instead the dynamic interplay of regional, sub-imperial, and transnational forces.
On July 17-18, 2025 a “Red Sea Workshop” in Mombasa, Kenya was held, which brought together 12 leading researchers whose work critiques prevailing narratives and explores alternative paradigms in our understanding of the Red Sea region. In light of growing scrutiny of the region in the context of a recent Houthi blockade of shipments, participants sought to make sense of the growing geopolitical significance of the Red Sea beyond alarmist narratives of impending crisis and instability. The discussions were interdisciplinary, including anthropologists, geographers, political scientists, think tank experts, and activists – a cross-section of experts whose work is focused on different topics, such as logistics infrastructure, history, climate, and politics. Participants examined the Red Sea arena as a connected geopolitical space and sphere of competition, noting that ports and large-scale infrastructure projects are increasingly at the heart of competing claims to power and influence within and beyond the region. Each session sought to explore in what ways intellectuals, activists, and policymakers in the region are interpreting and responding to these dynamics.
Through September 4–5, 2025, GSWO held the “Latin America and the Global South: Resistance, Sovereignty, and New Horizons” roundtable at the COPPEAD Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil. It brought together 25 researchers, activists, and policymakers from across Latin America to interrogate the region’s distinct contributions to the reconfiguration of global orders in an age of fragmentation, extraction, and resurgent authoritarianism. The discussions situated Latin America not as a peripheral observer but as a central site of theorization and practice within the shifting multipolar landscape. Participants emphasized how the region’s experiences of dependency, resistance, and innovation offer crucial insights into global transformations often framed through Euro-Atlantic lenses. From the geopolitics of BRICS+ and the rearticulation of South-South cooperation to the political ecologies of extraction and the moral economies of resistance, the roundtable approached Latin America as both an analytical vantage point and a laboratory of global reordering.
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Latin America
We continued our coverage of Latin American development, militarism, and social movements with a major publication on Latin America, our SiC Report, “Beyond Militarism: Reimagining Security and Resistance in Contemporary Latin America,” published on May 28. It consists of five analytical research papers written by Simone da Silva Ribeiro Gomes, Flávio A. Combat, Carolina Silva Pedroso, Rodrigo Facundo Videla, and Manuela Trindade Viana. The Report analyzes violence in Latin American countries from perspectives of anti-militarism and anti-authoritarianism. Each piece uses a different lens to view violence in various Latin American countries, including how governments, militarized systems, and the use of a concept called “repressivization” makes violence strategic in nature. The unique analysis of violence in Latin American countries exposes why so much violence transpires across the region, while providing accounts of how everyday people deal with such destructive forces to their lives on a day-to-day basis.
This SiC Report came on the heels of Sin Miedo: Autonomous Securities Across The Global South, a workshop held from November 25-27, 2024 by SiC’s Class, Race, Gender, and (in)Security Research Track. The proceedings from this workshop are forthcoming publications for Review of Radical Philosophy.
On December 3, SiC joined the OU Center for Peace and Development and the Centro de Estudios China-Mexico at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico to co-host “The China Effect - Rethinking Development In Latin America And The Caribbean.” This International Seminar featured a conversational examination of the global power dynamics between China and Latin America, especially as they gain more power in the region. This uniquely multifaceted analysis also ropes in US-China relations, examining intensifying relations between the pair, while also emphasizing how Latin American and Caribbean power developments impact the Global South. All the powerpoint presentations from the conference, containing a rich array of empirical data and analysis can be found on our website.
