Abstract
The Middle East has long been an area of conflict, to the extent that its name now typically evokes thoughts of Arab-Israeli wars, coups d’état, ethnic conflicts, militant Islam, ‘terrorism’, and so forth. To avoid such conflict when studying the region would be to risk becoming irrelevant: aversion to a phenomenon should not, of course, preclude studying it thoroughly and rigorously in an attempt to cope effectively with it.
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Notes
Walter Lippman, US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943) p. 51, as cited in
Mohammed Ayoob, ‘Security in the Third World’, International Affairs, 60, 1 (Winter 1983–84) pp. 41–51.
Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1962) p. 150.
Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986) pp. 3–4.
John Garnett, ‘Strategic Studies and its Assumptions’, in John Baylis et al., Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Concepts, 2nd edn (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1987) pp. 3–39.
P. Edward Haley, ‘Strategic Studies and the Middle East: Periodical Literature in the United States 1980–1990’, in Earl L. Sullivan and Jacqueline Ismael (eds.), The Contemporary Study of the Arab World (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1991) pp. 206–20.
Roger Epp and David Haglund, ‘La géopolitique et le réalisme’, in Charles David et al., Les Etudes Stratégiques: Approches et Concepts (Quebec and Paris: Centre Québécois des Relations Internationales et Fondation pour les Études de Défense Nationales, 1989) pp. 105–30; also Charles David, ‘Les paradigmes en Crise’, in this same volume, pp. 69–81.
Gerard Chaliand and Jean-Pierre Rageau, Atlas Stratégique (Paris: Fayard, 1988) p. 25.
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Michael J. Smith, Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana University Press, 1986) pp. 4–22.
For a straightforward synthesis of Hobbes’ political ideas, see Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (eds), History of Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) pp. 396–420.
Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du libéralisme (Paris: C. Levy, 1987), especially ch. 2, on ‘Hobbes et le nouvel art politique’, pp. 51–88.
Raymond Aron, Paix et Guerre entre les Nations, 2nd edn (Paris: C. Levy, 1984) p. 19. The subtitle of the English translation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966) is ‘A Theory of International Relations’.
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Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979).
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John Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983).
James Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).
Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1977).
‘Neo-realists’ such as Stephen Krasner have realized this limitation and opened the discussion on the state and its role; see, for instance, his ‘Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics’, Comparative Politics, 16, 2 (January 1984) pp. 223–46. Another reminder emphasizing the ‘state variable’ is the collection by Peter Evans, Dietrich Reuschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge University Press, 1985).
For some of our attempts to deal with the international bases or consequences of the specific pattern of the Arab state, see Rex Brynen, ‘Palestine and the Arab State System: Permeability, State Consolidation and the Intifada’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 24, 3 (September 1991); and
Bahgat Korany, ‘Alien and Besieged Yet Here to Stay: The Contradictions of the Arab Territorial State’, in Ghassan Salamé (ed.), The Foundations of the Arab State (London: Croom Helm, 1987) pp. 47–74. This volume is part of a four-volume study on the different aspects of the Arab state, all published by Croom Helm. Another important collective project is that of the Centre for Arab Unity Studies (Beirut) that produced four volumes (most available at present only in Arabic) that deal with the Egyptian state (by N. Ayoubi); the Fertile Crescent (by Ghassan Salamé); the Gulf countries (by Khaldoun El-Naquib); and the Maghreb (by Elbaki Hermassi). A fifth volume, by Saad Ed-Din Ibrahim — in collaboration with the above authors — admirably synthesizes the findings and advances the analysis still further. See The Future of State and Society in the Arab World [in Arabic] (Amman: Arab Thought Forum, 1988).
For a useful overview, see Lisa Anderson, ‘The State in the Middle East and North Africa’, Comparative Politics, 20, 1 (October 1987) pp. 1–18.
Edward Azar, Paul Jureidini and Ron McLaurin, ‘Protracted Conflicts in the Middle East’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 8, 1 (Autumn 1978) pp. 41–69;
Edward Azar and Chung in Moon (eds), National Security in the Third World (Aldershot: Elgar, 1988).
The basic source in this respect is still Charles Tilly (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975). But see also:
John Keate (ed.), Civil Society and the State (London: Verso, 1988);
Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1979);
Martin Carnoy, The State and Political Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
For a detailed comparison between the two patterns, see Bernard Badie, Les Deux États: Pouvoir et Société en Occident et en terre d’Islam (Paris: Fayard, 1986);
John Hall (ed.), States in History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986);
Ali Kazancigil (ed.), The State in Global Perspective (London: Gower, 1986). Concerning more specifically the Arab countries, and in addition to the sources cited principally in footnotes 30 and 31,
see Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State-Formation in the Middle East (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1990);
Gabriel Ben-Dor, State and Conflict in the Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1983);
Elbaki Hermassi, Leadership and National Development in North Africa: A Comparative Study (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972);
John Davis, Libyan Politics: Tribe and Revolution (London: I.B. Tauris, 1987);
Maurice Flory, Bahgat Korany et al., Régimes politiques arabes (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1990). For more conceptually-oriented discussions of state-formation, state-society relations and social theory,
see: Myron Weiner and Samuel Huntington (eds), Understanding Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987); and especially
Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
The specific reference here is to Clifford Geertz, ‘The Integration Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States’, in Clifford Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States (New York: The Free Press, 1963).
For contrasting perspectives, see Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1985);
Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981);
Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge University Press, 1981);
Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976).
In the Middle East context, see Milton Esman and Itamar Rabinovich (eds), Ethnicity, Pluralism and the State in the Middle East (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988).
Of the above-mentioned sources, Horowitz, Rothschild, Smith, Young, and Esman and Rabinovich are of this view. An early pioneering analysis in this respect is Walker Connor, ‘Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying’, World Politics, 14, 3 (April 1972).
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968) pp. 192–264.
Udo Steinbach, Sources of Third World Conflict, Adelphi Papers 166 (London: IISS, Summer 1981) pp. 20–8.
Ekkart Zimmermann, Political Violence, Crises and Revolutions (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1983).
Michael Haas, International Conflict (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974);
Jonathan Wilkenfeld (ed.), Conflict Behaviour and Linkage Politics (New York: McKay, 1973).
Fawzi H. Rizk, ‘The Importance of Inter-Arab Coordination to Face the Problem of Food Security’, al-Mustaqbal al-‘Arabi 147 (May 1991) pp. 68–93 (in Arabic).
Indicative in this respect is the complete file presented by International Politics (April 1991) (the quarterly of the well-established al-Ahram Center of Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo) entitled, ‘The Water Problem in the Middle East and Africa’. The nine pieces published include a detailed analysis of the subject by Dr Boutros Ghali, then Egypt’s Vice-Premier for External Affairs. See also John Waterbury, Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1979);
Christian Gischler, Water Resources in the Arab Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge: Middle East and North African Studies Press, 1979) (originally a UNESCO working document SC.761 CASTARAB/3);
and Thomas Naff and Ruth Matson (eds), Water in the Middle East: Conflict or Cooperation? (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1984).
Reginald Green and Stephany G. Jones, ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’s External Debt Crises’, Third World Affairs 1986 (London: Third World Foundation, 1986) pp. 17–32.
Aldo Ferrer, ‘Argentina’s Foreign Debt Crisis’, Third World Affairs 1985 (London: Third World Foundation, 1985) pp. 10–33.
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© 1993 Bahgat Korany, Paul Noble and Rex Brynen
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Korany, B., Brynen, R., Noble, P. (1993). The Analysis of National Security in the Arab Context: Restating the State of the Art. In: Korany, B., Noble, P., Brynen, R. (eds) The Many Faces of National Security in the Arab World. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22568-2_1
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