The Middle East through English School Theory

Abstract

In Chapter 1 Fred Halliday has given his personal overview of the English school and its strengths and weaknesses as an approach to studying the Middle East. This chapter takes up the challenge of sketching out in detail the theoretical elements for applying social structural concepts from English school theory to the Middle East. The specific aim is to underpin a division of labour among the other chapters in this book to investigate whether or not significant, distinct, international social structures exist at the regional level represented by the Middle East in either or both of the forms identified by the English school: a society of states, or a ‘world’ society rooted in the peoples and non-state actors of the region. If such social structures do exist, how strong are they, and how distinct from the structures at the global level? How do such structures at the regional level interplay both with those at the global level and with other regional-level structures? Section 1 sets out the concepts and vocabulary as they will be used in this book. Section 2 reviews the theoretical issues raised by applying English school concepts at the regional level. Section 3 gives a brief portrait of the international and world society at the global level within which the Middle East is located. Section 4 sets out the logic of the rest of the chapters in relation to the concepts set out in section 1.