About the Journal

New Middle Eastern Studies (NMES) is a refereed journal which brings together original research on the Middle East and North Africa region. The primary objective of NMES is to challenge Eurocentric and Orientalist attitudes still seen in a considerable portion of the scholarly literature on the Middle East and North Africa region. 

NMES was founded in 2011, growing out of a series of discussions in the graduate section of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). Between 2011 and 2018 the journal was hosted on the BRISMES website. In January 2018, NMES was relaunched as an independent open access journal hosted by University of Leicester Open Journals.

The focus of this journal is Middle East and North Africa (MENA) which refers to a wide region, extending from Morocco to Pakistan, including all the Mashreq and Maghreb countries. MENA, as used in this journal, is roughly synonymous with terms such as the Greater/Broader Middle East and WANA (West Asia and North Africa). Moreover we welcome contributions that examine the linkages between the MENA region and the wider world.

The journal seeks to shed light on the connectedness of polities and societies and thus takes an inter-disciplinary approach mainly focused on the following disciplines and fields: political science, anthropology, sociology, history, literature, international relations, political economy and religious studies. We welcome contributions on all aspects of the MENA region from the end of classical antiquity to the present day.

NMES publishes original research articles, review articles, "quick studies" and book reviews. Moreover we welcome unsolicited proposals from Guest Editors for special issues or shorter special sections.

Before submitting your manuscript to the journal, please refer to our Author Guidelines. 

Correspondence can be directed to Editor-in-Chief at [email protected].

ISSN: 2051-0861.

Peer Review Policy

NMES is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. NMES adheres to a double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties. Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the editorial team, it will then be peer-reviewed by at least two independent, anonymous expert referees. Response time is generally within two months.

The publication of articles in a refereed journal through authoritative reviews is highly significant in the development of a respectable and consistent information network, for this is an indicator to the quality of the authors’ researches and to the institutions supporting these authors. For this reason, it is considerably important that all actors involved in publication process, namely authors, editors and referees, should agree on certain ethical attitudes. Approval of an article sent to NMES for publication depends on the following ethical and legal conditions stated in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on good publication practice. 

Journal History

NMES was founded in 2011 and has published double-blind peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and quick studies ever since. It grew out of a series of discussions that started in 2004 in the graduate section of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) and between 2011 and 2018 the journal was hosted on the BRISMES website.

The founding General Editor was Andrew Patrick, then at the University of Manchester and now at Tennessee State University. He was assisted by a small group of founding editors: Alexander Key (Stanford University), James E. Baldwin (Royal Holloway, University of London), Edward Wastnidge (Open University), Sara Bazoobandi (Regent's University London), Will Smiley (Reed College), and Rick Oakes (University of Edinburgh).

In 2018, Oguzhan Goksel (Istanbul 29 Mayis University), Omer Tekdemir (University of Leicester) and Fabio Vicini (Istanbul 29 Mayis University) took over the editorship and relaunched the journal hosted by University of Leicester Open Journals until 2024.