Preface to the Fourth Edition

The first edition of Contemporary Politics in the Middle East was published in 1999 at a time when the region – like the rest of the world – was on the cusp of a new century and great change and development seemed increasingly likely. The second edition came in 2006 at a time when the region was in fact gripped by great uncertainty, conflict and turmoil. In addition, in 2011, as the third edition was just being published, the Middle East and North Africa were convulsed in a popular people's uprising against autocratic and corrupt rule, which became known as the Arab Spring. I remain deeply appreciative of the positive response that the publication of the previous editions of this book elicited from readers. This fourth revised, updated and expanded edition of the book is a response to such readers and a reflection of their appetite for the study of the politics of the Middle East.

This book aims at providing a general introduction to the contemporary politics of the Middle East and in the following chapters a number of major issues or themes are identified that have shaped and characterized the variety of political systems and social relations which exist across the region. For the purposes of this book, ‘the Middle East’ refers to nineteen states, from Morocco on the Atlantic seaboard to Iran on the Asian continent. This book is written explicitly with the non-specialist reader in mind. The themes that are examined, therefore, are broad, linked to particular cases or events and interwoven with the other topics under discussion to provide a comprehensive account of the factors which influence and shape the development of politics in the region.

The first and chronologically significant theme is the impact of colonialism on the region, particularly during the latter half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Chapter 1 outlines the relationship of domination and subordination established by the West (Britain and France in particular) over the Middle East. It looks at the nature of political rule and government and the prevailing economic motive behind this imperial and colonial relationship. It has been argued that the colonial experience has had a lasting impact on the region, and the role that the West played, as part of its colonial ambitions, in carving out the state system of the present-day Middle East has seriously disrupted political life in the region since this time. The colonial experience in the Middle East also raised a number of significant debates about the economic and social impact of such strategies, and the extent to which the experience has altered or disrupted pre-existing socio-economic relations and patterns. These debates have, in turn, informed academic analyses of modernization and associated theories of development. These theories and concepts have also led to a growing interest in the processes of state formation initiated by the West and the legacy for Arab attempts at state-building in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

One of the first indications of this impact is discussed in chapter 2, which charts the rise and development of Arab nationalist ideologies, such as Ba'thism and Nasserism, that characterized many populist regimes in the region in the 1950s and 1960s. The historical overview of this theme is put in context in relation to current theories of nationalism. The growth and popularization of nationalist ideologies in the Middle East are important in understanding the concomitant secularization of politics in the region and the impact of western-style political ideas such as nationalism and socialism on patterns of politics. In addition, recent debates about the historiography of Arab nationalism, particularly during the so-called era of independence and personified by figures like the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, will be addressed.

Ideologies aside, the importance of oil and associated issues of political economy, including the political and strategic competition for other scarce and valuable natural resources such as water, are addressed in chapter 3. The focus on political economy, and more specifically the politics of oil and the wealth this has generated in the area, resonates in relation to the nature of political systems within the region. As I shall argue, it is no coincidence that political life in wealthy Gulf States is governed by the same elites who own the wealth derived from the oil fields of Arabia. This chapter will also examine other issues of political economy vital to any understanding of the region, including the debate about rentier economies, policies of economic liberalization – or infitah (opening), as they are referred to locally – and the poor economic performance of the region as a whole in the global market. The immense wealth and patterns of distribution have altered relations within as well as outside the region and, as I explain in chapter 4, go some way to explain the nature of conflict that has characterized the Middle East in the contemporary era. While the Arab–Israeli conflict has dominated the region, other conflicts have played their part in undermining the stability of the area as a whole. Thus, sectarian, economic and territorial disputes, as well as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, are examined along with specific case studies that also invoke the increasing threat of terrorism that has marked the region in the past decade. The perspectives of conflict outlined in the chapter are by no means conclusive but they do highlight associated issues such as the role of international actors, the role of the military in politics and issues of internal legitimacy, and traditional state-to-state rivalries such as those between Iran and its Arab neighbours.

In many respects, the themes addressed in the next three chapters of the book – political Islam, women, and ethnicity and minorities – reflect the concerns of non-state actors and say more about the politics of ‘below’, or the politics of protest and discontent, than about the ruling regimes of the region. In chapter 5, the impact of political Islam is discussed at length. I argue that the manifestation of political Islam encompasses a far broader political spectrum than we are encouraged to believe in the West – indeed, that one is talking about many political Islams and dimensions of Muslim politics that incorporate debates about women, human rights, democracy, state and politics, liberalism and fundamentalism, and violence. Linked with the apparent resurgence of Islam as a political force, the debate addressed in chapter 6, on democratization, first outlines the initial emergence, fall and partial rebirth of democratic politics in the region. The chapter then focuses on recent debates about democratization that have been promoted from outside the Middle East as a means of combating tyranny within the region, particularly the perceived anti-democratic nature of political Islam. This section includes a review of current analyses of democratization and the argument forwarded by some theorists relating to the culture of receptivity to ideas about democracy which are largely western in inspiration and practice. The next two chapters of the book address issues which hitherto have remained on the margins of formal politics in the region – women, and ethnicity and minorities. For a number of decades, however, the role of these groups in the political life of the region has been an increasing focus of attention and debate. Largely, systems of governance have ignored, suppressed and even attempted to eliminate the politics raised by women or by ethnic groups such as the Kurds. I will, therefore, examine some of the recent literature that addresses the interpretation of the role of women and ethnicities and minorities in the Middle East. Such studies have paid more attention to the private than the public political arena: the politics of the family, issues of leadership in households, and debates about women's status and reproduction. They reflect studies in general, recognizing new methodologies that place greater emphasis on gender politics, and ethnic or ethno-nationalist ideologies. This in turn links back to the debate which currently rages in the Middle East: to what extent can primordial definitions of ethnicity, religion and tribe explain the relative resistance of Middle Eastern societies to the institutions and ideologies of the West?

The next chapter, on international – but primarily American – foreign policy in the Middle East, explores the deep and intimate relationship between the United States of America and the various states of the region in terms of American national interest and the wider ideological debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The chapter also examines the role of Europe, and more specifically the EU, in the Middle East, highlighting the important part this plays in the politics of the region. The re-ascendant role of Russia, particularly in Syria, is examined in this chapter. This highlights how global power balances impact the region. The final chapter is about the Arab Spring and the events which have unfolded from it since the first outbreak of protest in Tunisia in December 2010. It examines and provides analysis of the factors which drove protest, the nature of protest, and regime responses to a form of crisis which has afflicted large parts of the region. Since 2010, the region has been shaped by the politics of transition, authoritarian resilience, new conflicts and an era of uncertainty.

This book, then, paints a broad picture, not of a monolithic Middle East populated by the...