Essential Readings: The Arab State (by Lisa Anderson)

Essential Readings: The Arab State (by Lisa Anderson)

Essential Readings: The Arab State (by Lisa Anderson)

By : Lisa Anderson and the Middle East Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI)

[The Essential Readings series is curated by the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) team at the Arab Studies Institute. MESPI invites scholars to contribute to our Essential Readings modules by submitting an “Essential Readings” list on a topic/theme pertinent to their research/specialization in Middle East studies. Authors are asked to keep the selection relatively short while providing as much representation/diversity as possible. This difficult task may ultimately leave out numerous works which merit inclusion from different vantage points. Each topic may eventually be addressed by more than one author.Articles such as this will appear permanently on www.MESPI.org and www.Jadaliyya.com. Email us at info@MESPI.org for any inquiries.]

The high watermark of studies of the state in the Arab world coincided with the period of greatest state authority in the region, sandwiched between the heyday of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 60s and the rise of political Islam in the 1990s.  Just as Arab nationalism presented an alternative to the state system in the region—in both theory and, briefly, fact (see, for example, the short-lived United Arab Republic)—so, too, has political Islam focused both scholarly and popular attention on alternative sectarian identities and communities, from Hamas to Hezbollah, al-Qaida to the Islamic State (ISIS), that appear to be rivals of the contemporary states.

We have not completely given up on the state, however; its analytical (and perhaps actual) centrality in the Arab world is eloquently, if inadvertently, conveyed in the widespread characterization of the alternatives as “non-state actors.”  The state still defines the terrain, supported by an international system of international organizations and neo-liberal markets that continue to need “recognized and responsible parties”—that is, sovereign governments—for signing treaties and contracts.  

The development of literature on the state in the Arab world also reflects the reappearance (and subsequent eclipse) of “the state” in American political science, announced by the well-known Bringing the State Back In, published in 1985.[1]  Although this volume—like nearly all general comparative politics texts—did not include any discussion of the Middle East or North Africa, it did both reflect and spur important research agendas in the study of the region.

The state of the art at that time is summarized in my survey article, “The State in the Middle East and North Africa” (Comparative Politics October 1987).  This essay examines how scholars addressed the history of modern state formation in the region, the nature of the state bureaucracies (including the military), the state’s role in the economy, from extraction to distribution, and the variability of state capacity in the region. Each of these issues would represent robust research directions for the next several decades.

Among the most influential—and still worthwhile—of that era’s books focused on the state itself were a series of volumes on “State, Nation and Integration in the Arab World” (Croom Helm, 1987). Of particular interest were The Foundations of the Arab Stateedited by Ghassan Salame, which examined the origins and contradictions of state formation driven by European imperial pressures, and The Rentier State, edited by Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani, which spawned an apparently limitless debate on whether mineral resources and other sources of rents are a blessing or a curse, a literature that deserves a post of its own.

Joel Migdal’s contemporaneous Strong Societies and Weak States (Princeton University Press, 1988) examined British imperial policy to argue that variations in imperial approaches defined which post-colonial states were, or were not, effective at managing their citizens and delivering services; its case studies—Sierra Leone, Israel and Egypt—ensured a wide audience although the argument reflects the idiosyncrasies of the cases.  A similar historical approach was reflected in my own The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya (Princeton University Press 1986) but I focused on how both precolonial and colonial state formation shaped the social formations of post-independence North Africa through comparison of Ottoman, Italian and French imperial policy towards the region’s pastoralists and peasants.

Nazih N. Ayubi’s magisterial Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East (IB Tauris, 1995) assessed much of this research and looked at how the overdevelopment of the state in the region in the post-World War II period actually weakened it. This remains the best single work on the Arab state, among its many merits is its contribution of the notion of the “fierce state”—one reliant on coercion rather than provision to secure acquiescence.

Taking seriously the European experience of political conflict as a prod to state formation, War, Institutions and Social Change in the Middle East, edited by Steven Heydemann, (University of California Press, 2000) treated the role of conflict, particularly the World Wars, in shaping the states of the region, seeming to enhance their fierceness while weakening their capabilities.  Beatrice Hibou’s The Force of Obedience: The Political Economy of Repression in Tunisia (Polity 2011) is a brilliant, if underappreciated, dissection of just how an apparently benevolent but really quite fierce state actually works.

By the turn of the century, and particularly after the attacks of September 11th drew attention to the dangers of “ungoverned spaces,” concern turned to the fragility of the fierce states of the region.  My “Antiquated Before They Can Ossify: States That Fail Before They Form” (Journal of International Affairs 58:1 Fall 2004) argued that modern state formation in the region was historically specific, regionally varied—and hardly inevitable.  This shortly became a truism, not least because of the failure to reconstitute Iraq after the US invasion of 2003, but it proved to be a useful starting point to examination of the surprising feebleness that many of the Arab states exhibited in the uprisings of 2011.

And indeed, within a decade, two new literatures had been spawned, shaped if not prompted by those uprisings: that on “failed states”—Ariel I. Ahram & Ellen Lust (2016) “The Decline and Fall of the Arab State,” (Survival, 58:2, 2016) provides a useful review—and on various kinds of “non-state actors,” most of which is beyond the scope of this review.  Nonetheless, the provocative volume edited by Roel Meijer and Nils Butenschon, The Crisis of Citizenship in the Arab world (Brill 2017) provides an illuminating examination of the relationships among the great variety of state and non-state identities.    

Finally, the role of the changing international system in the growing differentiation of the states of the Arab world began to draw more attention as globalization became more intrusive and more divisive around the world.  The ensuing dilemmas in the region are well illustrated in The Arab State and Neo-Liberal Globalization, edited by Laura Guazzone and Daniela Pioppi ( Ithaca Press, 2009) and the growing  disentanglement of international sovereignty and domestic “stateness” is instructively examined in two useful books: Ahmed Kanna’s Dubai: The City as Corporation (University of Minnesota, 2011) and miriam cooke’s Tribal Modern: Branding New Nations in the Arab Gulf (University of California Press 2014).  Taken together, they suggest that after centuries of intimate association, sovereignty is becoming unglued from statehood, perhaps to be reattached to monarchs, princely families, perhaps even firms.  That may be a disconcerting prospect politically but it is certainly a fruitful research agenda.



[1] Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpoleds. Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge University Press, 1985)

Education in the Time of Virality

Widespread access to the internet has facilitated means of acquiring news and information at rates unseen in earlier eras. As individuals, we have the ability to post and spread political information, social commentary, and other thoughts at will. This has caused an information overload for users of social networking sites. In a fight for views, reposts, and clicks, creators, both corporate and not, have been forced to develop new tactics to inform their audiences. This response to a new mode of information consumption also forces a reconsideration of how we understand knowledge production. Much of the information put forth into the world is absorbed passively, such as through characters’ storylines in books, films, and television - and this information accumulates over a lifetime. What, then, happens when knowledge is actively consumed (as is done when reading, watching, or listening to news stories), but the manner through which the information is presented still conforms to the brevity generally associated with more passive knowledge intake?

Pew Research estimates that over 70% of Americans use their phone to read the news. This is nearly a 25% increase since 2013. The constant barrage of advertisements in online articles does not make consuming news easy to do on a phone, thereby forcing media outlets and their competitors to change and adopt new tactics. Applications such as Flipboard have tried to mitigate these frustrations by simply providing the full article without the ads on their own platform, but many people still turn to sources like The Skimm. In attempting to distill a day’s worth of news coverage on domestic affairs, foreign affairs, pop culture, and sports into a few quips, undeniably both texture and nuance are lost. To compete with these services, CNN, the New York Times, and other mainstream news sources are doing the same and producing articles that give the, “Top 5 News Moments to Start Your Day,” or a, “Daily Brief.” Of course, looking at the language differences between the New York Times daily summary versus The Skimm’s, one can tell which is a more comprehensive news source. Even so, slashing the word count still takes a toll on clearly informing the public. The question then becomes, after quickly skimming through these summaries, are people doing more readings to cover what was lost? Or has “the brief” become the new standard for knowledge production and awareness?

It is more than likely that a significant portion of The Skimm’s subscribers do go on to read the full article linked in the email, but the growing popularity of similarly quick and fast news sources has had an impact on how much information viewers and readers actually understand. Between 2011 and 2014, The Skimm was founded, along with AJ+, Now This, Upworthy, and BuzzFeed News’ more serious journalism section. Undeniably, all of these sources produce and publish very important information, and make this information accessible to a larger audience. However, their production and marketing strategies hinge upon condensing very nuanced topics into videos that are, on average, only seven minutes long, as well as optimizing their materials for social media audiences. Now, it is ridiculous to expect highly textured and complicated issues to be thoroughly represented in these videos or posts. Even research based texts do not touch upon all of the complexities of a topic. The problems arise when looking at how viewers perceive themselves and their level of knowledge after actively searching out the products of, for example, AJ+ and Buzzfeed, for information. Carefully refining their materials to fit the shortened attention span of people scrolling through Facebook, social media news organizations have found their niche audience. Their products provide a simple way to deliver information to those who want gather knowledge on the “hot topics of today,” but do not what to do the leg work to be truly informed. These videos are spread throughout Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms in a manner that says, “Watch this, and you will know what is going on in the world.”

Understanding how information is being pushed out into the world is almost as important as the content of the information. None of these outlets claim to provide comprehensive knowledge, but in being popular sites for information, the question becomes: do they have a responsibility to encourage their viewers to continue to inform themselves about these issues? Having a well-informed society is phenomenal, but if in informing society we are also forever altering how we consume knowledge to favor brevity over nuance, what consequences could come with this change? We must ensure that the consumption of these videos does not become a license for people to see themselves as truly informed and thus appropriate for them to take the microphones at protests and speak over those who have a solid and textured understanding of the issues. Information content is incredibly important, as is spreading knowledge, and AJ+, Now This, and the like have become important role models in showing how issues should be accessible to everyone and not clouted in jargon. But we must simultaneously consider the unintended side effects that these styles of videos have on knowledge production. Ultimately, it is a mutual effort. Just as producers must be watchful of their content and method of dissemination, we as consumers must be mindful of how we digest and understand the news we take in.


[This article was published originally Tadween`s Al-Diwan blog by Diwan`s editor, Mekarem Eljamal.]