| Summary/Abstract |
Discussion of the contemporary Arab state system overlooks the engagement of the nascent League of Arab States with the debates about world politics and the purposes of the UN system emerging from World War II. The early experience of that body did not articulate a full expression of universalism, and the integrative cooperation of the Arab League was confined to a limited security policy framework. It did not subsequently seek lastingly to influence the nature of those ideas and institutions that would come to shape the United Nations. The Arab League was also never wedded to a Global Southern logic. Yet the UN has seldom been disavowed in the League’s diplomatic processes, which have been used by member states tactically as a conduit to maximise regional interpretations of the challenges from global order and as a forum for advancing the sub-region’s provincial interests.
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