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In 2006/2007 Turkey became a regional power in the Middle East, a status it has continued to maintain in the context of the Arab Spring. To understand why Turkey only became a regional power under the Muslim AKP government and why this happened at the specific point in time that it did, the paper highlights the self-reinforcing dynamics between Turkey's domestic political-economic transformation in the first decade of this century and the advantageous regional developments in the Middle East at the same time. It concludes that this specific linkage -the "Ankara Moment" -and its regional resonance in the neighboring Middle East carries more transformative potential than the "Washington Consensus" or the "Beijing Consensus" so prominently discussed in current Global South politics.

The public subsidization of food is an important element of North African welfare states, guaranteeing access to affordable nutrition and maintaining food security even in times of economic downturns. Since the 1970s, universal food subsidy schemes have come under growing international pressure, and North African countries have selectively adopted policy recommendations and adjusted their subsidy schemes. Comparing the empirical cases of Egypt and Tunisia before and after the 2010/11 uprisings, we analyze the linkages between international organizations, national governments and local welfare demands and explain what kinds of reform alliances emerge between these actors. We find that until 2010, internationalized social policy reform was structured by governments' brokerage of international and domestic pressure and adaptation of reform aims. Since then, two modes have unfolded: in militarized Egypt, coercive closure secured an alliance and the respective subsidy reforms, whereas in Tunisia, polarization disconnected domestic and international policy goals.

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The paper explores governmental perceptions and reactions to “social questions” in British colonial Africa, c. 1880-1950. By comparing three different political entities, Egypt, South Africa and Uganda, we find that authorities across cases have been acutely aware of potentially destabilising social change. Some social problems actually resulted from colonial projects themselves, giving rise to rather contradictory interpretations and policies. However, the intensity of political reactions to social questions varied widely, ranging from a largely passive approach in Egypt to the introduction of modern welfare in South Africa. We argue that perceptions and responses to social dislocation had a long-term impact on patterns of state formation and social policy development.