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| 1 |
ID:
113363
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2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses Middle Eastern authoritarianism and the contemporary political transformations which have swept the region. It suggests that, given the uneven spread of reform and the selectiveness of international intervention, the prioritisation of Middle Eastern stability over democratic transformation, combined with local authoritarian regimes' ability to use excessive force against their own populations and insurgents, are responsible for the persistence of the Middle East's post-cold war authoritarianism. The recent uprisings and reform movements can be explained from the perspective of historical grievance, based on social inequality and ethnic, sectarian, tribal or sectional disparities, as well as by advancements in communications technology and economic globalisation that have undermined long-standing national authoritarianism in favour of Middle Eastern civil rights and civil society movements. A global democratic consciousness has played a decisive role in providing ideological cohesiveness and (uneven) global political support to safeguard the collective action of the new civil rights movements. Recognising that democracy itself may have characteristic regional forms with greater and lesser tinges of recurrent authoritarianism, Middle Eastern democratic transformation hinges on the ability of these burgeoning movements to achieve a civic state and overcome authoritarian counter-resistance and international suspicion and fear.
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| 2 |
ID:
061903
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| 3 |
ID:
080112
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2007.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the rising contention between a global foreign policy promoting liberal democracy in the Middle East and Islamist rejectionism. It provides a sociopolitical analysis of the phenomena of radical Islamist politics while focusing on the experience of Hezbollah in Lebanon. It associates the growth of Hezbollah, a political movement seen in various forms in several countries, with social class dynamics that have been antagonised by social inequality, opportunistic leadership, the importation of Western-ordered democracy and by perceived foreign intervention. By examining the root dynamic of Hezbollah in Lebanon, this article argues that poverty has provided the fertile ground for the growth of Islamic populism as a revolutionary movement and has represented a major reason for the rejection of democratisation and political reform. A global foreign policy that seeks to uproot extremism in favour of state-building and the advancement of democracy in the Middle East needs to be reoriented so as to help undermine class inequality and to strengthen government-sponsored public services programmes for the underclass
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| 4 |
ID:
137074
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This paper advances the proposition that post-Arab Spring politics are a product of globalisation’s economic and social liberalisation. The global market and privatisation have fundamentally deconstructed centralised autocratic rule over state and society, while facilitating corruption and selective development, culminating in public outrage. The political order of the Middle East and North Africa since the Arab Spring synthesises globalisation’s dialectic duality, in which economic integration has contributed to the demise of national authoritarianism, inciting communalism and political fragmentation. This paper analyses emerging political trends and challenges based on a comparative analysis of Egypt and Tunisia.
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| 5 |
ID:
191814
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This article explores potential power-sharing models for post-conflict Syria. It surveys the literature on the need for power-sharing as a conflict management tool for deeply divided societies and explores its suitability for Syria. Two particular power-sharing models are explored: the consociational and centripetal. Both arrangements are examined through a comparative research that assesses the success and failures of the Lebanese and Iraqi power-sharing experiences. The findings suggest that reform toward post-conflict reconstruction requires a multi-step political agreement that may be initiated in an agreement toward a transitional consociational power-sharing arrangement followed by the gradual attainment of centripetal-based power structure.
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| 6 |
ID:
110339
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article considers US-French collaboration on Lebanon, especially between 2004 and 2008. It examines the political background to such collaboration and its manifestations at the United Nations Security Council and in the two powers' relations with Lebanon, Syria, and other regional players. We argue that the changed political landscape in the Middle East following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq (particularly Syrian policy in Lebanon and towards Iraq) as well as developments in the Lebanese theater since the turn of the 21st century prompted such collaboration. After briefly discussing the insights of Realist and Liberal Internationalist theories of international relations, the article concludes that Daniel Deudney's Republican Security Theory offers the most plausible explanation for US-French collaboration on Lebanon.
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