Western Sahara: Anatomy of a Stalemate?, 2nd edition
  • 2011/181 pages

Western Sahara:

Anatomy of a Stalemate?, 2nd edition

Erik Jensen
Hardcover: $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-58826-829-7
Paperback: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-58826-807-5
Responding to the changes that have swept across North Africa since the first edition of this book was published, Erik Jensen sheds new light on the enduring dispute over Western Sahara.

Jensen reviews the history of the dispute, beginning with its colonial roots, and explains how and why attempts made by the OAU and, more persistently, the UN failed to achieve a formula for resolution acceptable to both Morocco and Western Sahara's Polisario Front. Then bringing the story up to 2011, he describes the new interest in a political compromise.

The conflict remains the single most important obstacle to developing the regional Maghreb Union, which has the potential to change the lot of the region's many unemployed and underemployed. That, Jensen suggests, coupled with such unexpected developments as plans for constitutional reform in Morocco, may offer hope for resolving the stalemate.
Erik Jensen served in 1994-1998 as head of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). More recently, he has been Warburg Professor of International Relations at Simmons College and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His recent publications include Collective Security, Posse, or Global Cop: The US and Global Security at the Turn of the Century.