The Routledge Handbook to the Middle East and North African State and States System.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of tables -- List of figures -- List of contributors -- PART I: Historical context, state-building and politics in MENA -- Chapter 1: State, revolution and war: conflict and resilience in MENA's states and states system -- The theme of the book -- Overview of the studies -- Part I: Historical context, state-building and politics in MENA -- Part II: State actors, societal context and popular activism -- Part III: Trans-state politics: The political economy and identity contexts -- Part IV: The international politics of MENA -- References -- Chapter 2: Historical context of state formation in the Middle East: structure and agency -- Structure: the historical inheritance of state-builders -- Agency: regime building after independence -- Structure and agency: the MENA states system and its evolution -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3: States and state-building in the Middle East -- Introduction -- What is a state? -- State formation in the Middle East -- Theorizing state-building: contexts and processes -- The internal-external nexus: vulnerability and the democracy deficit -- Regime-society relations: political change and continuity -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 4: Political regimes of the Middle East and North Africa -- Post-independence political unrest, state-building and regime formation -- Middle Eastern versions of authoritarianism -- Causes of authoritarian resilience in the Arab world -- The Middle Eastern political landscape after the 2011 uprisings -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 5: Authoritarian adaptability and the Arab Spring -- Post-colonial Arab authoritarianism -- Upgrading authoritarianism in the Arab world -- The Arab Uprisings: authoritarian collapse in the republics.

The resilience of monarchies during the Arab Spring -- After authoritarian breakdown: democratization or civil wars, and authoritarian restoration? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 6: The Arab Spring and the Gulf monarchies -- Evolving opposition -- Modernizing forces and authoritarian resilience -- Countering the Arab Spring: the wrong side of history? -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 7: Leadership and legitimacy in MENA -- Conceptualizing legitimacy -- Leadership, state and nation -- Forms of legitimacy -- Plausible legitimacy claims in the Middle East and North Africa -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- PART II: State actors, societal context and popular activism -- Chapter 8: The military in the Arab state -- "Path dependence?": the changing face of the military dimension in Arab politics -- The 2011 Uprisings and the return of the military to politics? -- The renewed wave of militarism after 2011 -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 9: Tribes in MENA politics: the Levant case -- Who are the Bedouin and what is the nature of their tribal society? -- The (Bedouin) tribes in the Levant (modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan) -- Accommodation at the turn of the twenty-first century -- The Bedouin and the Syrian Uprising -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 10: Political parties in the Middle East -- Introduction -- A note on political parties, proto-parties and relevance -- Categorizing political parties: the importance of the local environment -- The Arab Uprisings and political parties -- Slim winnings and the issues of trust and representation -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 11: Islam and Islamic movements and MENA politics -- Political Islam and state power -- Islamist oppositions -- Violent Islamism -- Islam and state politics beyond Islamism -- Islam and international politics.

Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 12: Civil society in the Middle East and North Africa -- Introduction -- Civil society and democracy -- The application of civil society to the Middle East -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 13: The Arab Spring is not lost: moral protest as the embodiment of a new politics -- Introduction -- Al-hirak: "peoplehood" in the Arab Spring -- Top-down vs. bottom-up change: the limits of state-centred analysis of the Arab Uprisings -- One hirak, divergent patterns -- Conclusions -- Note -- References -- Chapter 14: Tunisia's "civic parallelism": lessons for Arab democratization -- Introduction -- Foregrounding knowledge: democratization vs. "democratic learning" -- Background: Tunisia's political-historical lineage -- Tunisia's democratization: germination -- Civic/democratic parallelism -- Democratic learning: perceptions of Islamist parliamentarians -- Conclusion: toward a knowledge-centred approach -- Notes -- References -- PART III: Trans-state politics: the political economy and identity contexts -- Chapter 15: The Middle East and North Africa in the lens of Marxist International Relations theory -- Marxism, dependency and the Middle East -- The Iraq War of 2003 and the Middle East and North Africa in international relations -- UCD and the international relations of the Middle East -- Marxism, international relations and the Arab Uprisings of 2011 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 16: Oil and the rentier state in the Middle East -- Introduction -- Oil in the Middle East and North Africa -- The idea of the rentier state and its evolution as an analytical concept -- Other types of windfall gains -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 17: Divergent development in Egypt and the Gulf -- Weak economic co-operation and integration -- Regional transportation infrastructure.

Informal economic activity -- The economy of the ISIS phenomenon -- Ease of doing business -- Economic diversification into services -- Perceptions of well-being -- Poles of economic growth -- Egypt's economic performance -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 18: Studying identity politics in Middle East international relations: before and after the Arab uprisings -- Introduction -- Debating identity politics in Middle East international relations before the Arab Uprisings -- A new Middle East-a new kind of identity politics? -- Still dripping with identity politics . . . -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 19: Arab nationalism in Anglophone discourse: a conceptual and historical reassessment -- Introduction -- European Nationalism between culture and politics -- Whither the cultural and republican project of Arab nationalism? -- The search for political autonomy: roots in anti-colonialism -- After decolonization and Israel -- Syria, Islamist allies and relevance today -- Conclusion -- References -- PART IV: The international politics of MENA -- Chapter 20: Conflict in the Middle East -- Roots of conflict -- The Arab-Israeli conflict -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 21: Regionalism in the Middle East and North Africa -- What is regionalism and how to evaluate it? -- The Middle East as an outlier? -- History and development of regionalism in MENA -- Explaining regionalism in the Middle East -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 22: An exceptional context for a debate on international relations? Toward a synthetic approach to the study of the MENA's international politics -- Introduction -- The MENA and international relations: a penetrated system -- IR theory and the region: realism and its rivals -- Evolution of the regional system -- Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Chapter 23: US hegemony and MENA.

Historic US interests and strategies in MENA -- Militarization of US policy in MENA: the invasion of Iraq -- US retrenchment and the Arab Uprisings: policy under Obama -- Nuclear non-proliferation -- Israel -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 24: Alliances and the balance of power in the Middle East -- Explaining alliances -- Shifting alliances and the Middle East balance of power -- Conclusions -- References -- Chapter 25: War in the Middle East -- A war-prone region -- A Waltzian paradigm: levels of analysis -- Explaining War: quantitative distributions of war-proneness factors -- Toward understanding the interaction of man, the state and system: testing the lines of war causality -- Conclusions -- Appendix: Middle East wars (since 1945): an empirical survey -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 26: International relations of the Gulf: from stable rivalry to spreading instability -- Rise of the smaller GCC states -- Saudi Arabia in the maelstrom -- Crisis over Qatar -- Expansion of the Gulf security complex -- Conclusion -- References -- Index.

Providing comprehensive coverage of the history and role of the state in the Middle East and North African region, this handbook explores the main debates, theoretical approaches and accumulated empirical research to explain the remarkable resilience of MENA states despite continued conflict and instability.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.