A fifteen-year archival inquiry into Ahmed Benkirane revealing a discreet entrepreneurial class at the margins of the throne in post-independence Morocco years.
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The Times · Literature Review · 2026
An intellectual roadmap for understanding the transformations of our age
It has become commonplace to scoff at words such as "strategy" or "geopolitics," now that they have passed into common usage to the point of losing their meaning. Yet in an era in which crises intertwine and the pace of great transformations accelerates, geopolitical analysis is no longer an intellectual luxury but a methodological necessity for every researcher seeking to understand the world taking shape around them. And it is so even for every citizen who aspires to understand their world and to attempt to manage it. It is from this standpoint that "The Times" opens its pages, in this issue and in every issue, to survey new international publications that constitute, taken as a whole, an intellectual roadmap for a deeper understanding of the transformations of our age.
These publications, released during the first half of the current year, are distributed across five major axes that top the agenda of contemporary geopolitical research: energy and the energy transition, populism and the crisis of democracy, artificial intelligence as an arena of strategic rivalry, and the techno-economy as a new lexicon of international power. We have taken care to ensure that these selections reflect genuine geographic and academic diversity, in which the pens of scholars from the leading American, British, French, and Canadian universities stand side by side, and in which theoretical approaches are complemented by applied empirical analyses.
These publications take on a redoubled importance when read through a North African lens, for the region finds itself at the heart of all these issues at once: it encompasses energy-producing countries grappling with the imperatives of the green transition, societies renegotiating their social contracts amid the rise of populist discourse, and governments called upon to formulate sovereign strategies in the field of artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure. We hope that this page will serve as a useful reference for researchers and academics concerned with geopolitical affairs, and that it will open new horizons for a sober and rigorous scholarly dialogue around issues that bear upon the future of our region and its place in the shifting international order.
Click on a book to read the review
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Energy and the energy transition
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Populism and the crisis of democracy
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Artificial intelligence as an arena of rivalry
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The techno-economy as a lexicon of power
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The shifting international order
We hope that this page will serve as a reference for researchers concerned with geopolitical affairs, and that it will open horizons for a sober and rigorous scholarly dialogue around the future of our region in the shifting international order.
And until a forthcoming issue with new readings.
The Times · POLICY NETWORK FOR TRANSITIONS
