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E-book Making Sense of the Arab State

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Penilaian

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For scholars of the Arab world, the state remains an elusive, unsettled, and unsettling presence. Since mandatory and then independent states emerged in the Arab world in the aftermath of World War I, theorizing the Arab state has been a central preoccupation for generations of regional specialists. The gravitational pull of the state is not surprising. As a prod-uct of war, imperial collapse, and colonial impositions—intertwined with local political struggles and crudely grafted onto an international order in which norms of state sovereignty favored some pathways while fore-closing others—Arab states have long challenged received wisdom about what states are and how they form, develop, and become organized. They complicate understandings of how states relate to regimes and to societies. Their formal borders often fractured the boundaries of existing communal identities, while their internal demarcation from society often remained ambiguous. These features are not necessarily unique to Arab states, yet arguably Arab states manifest particular characteristics—strengths and weaknesses, presences and absences, effects and affects—that set them apart from states in other postcolonial regions.Thus, Arab states exhibit modes of governance, institutional forma-tions, and processes of adaptation and change that are common attributes of stateness, a term we define as an indicator of state capacity—the effec-iveness with which state institutions and actors deliver various forms of governance—as well as the symbolic, performative, and spatial attributes through which states manifest themselves in and through societies.1 Seen in these terms, Arab states stand as examples of what Meyer et al. define as a “worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes,” displaying high levels of isomorphism.2 Arab regimes certainly embrace such attributes as affirmations of their sovereignty and legitimacy. Yet Arab states often defy expectations of stateness that are widely held not only among social scientists but, as chapters in this volume show, among Arab societies as well. What is more, they do so in intriguing ways that dif-fer from the patterns observed in other postcolonial regions and areas of the Global South.Navigating the tensions between the peculiarities that mark Arab states and the criteria we routinely encounter as essential in defining stateness weighs heavily on scholars of the region. Its impact is especially evident, however, in the vernaculars of comparison that scholars of the Middle East deploy and in the idiosyncratic concerns that have animated succes-sive waves of research on the Arab state. This often means theories built around accounting for differences and explaining variation from what are presumed to be the modal experiences of non-Arab states—in other words, theories that explain the Arab state through what it lacks in comparison either to Western ideal types or to states in other postcolonial regions.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

320 AND m

Penerbit

USA : University of Michigan Press., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

309 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780472904617

Klasifikasi

320

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Political dan Government Science

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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