ROBERT OLSONThe Goat and the Butcher: Nationalism and State Formation in Kurdistan-Iraq Since the Iraqi War (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2005). Pp. 278. $45.00 cloth. GARETH R. V. STANSFIELDIraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy, Routledge Advances in Middle East and Islamic Studies (London: Routledge, 2003). Pp. 261. £80.00 cloth.

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 672-676
Author(s):  
MARTIN VAN BRUINESSEN
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Iraqi War

The State in the Pulpit: State Incorporation of Religious Institutions in the Middle East

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birol Baskan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Political Development ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Development Literature ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractPolitical development literature held that the process of secularization is conflict-ridden between the state and religious institutions. Later state building literature left state-religion relations outside its theoretical scope and left a puzzle in our understanding of state building. How did state-religion relations really change in the course of modern state formation? This article argues that the relationship between state builders and religious institutions was not necessarily conflictual. Rather, there were potential areas of cooperation between the two. However, whether any cooperation was realized was historically contingent. Depending on the type of relationship established, state-religion relations took different institutional shapes. This article makes two observations. First, if the religious institutions have a fairly hierarchical internal organization, then the state and religious institutions part their ways. This is the picture classical political development literature paints. Second, in cases where the state faces a disunited body of religious institutions, the state incorporates religious institutions into its apparatus, its extent depending on the institutional capacity of the state. As the institutional capacity of the state increased, its control over religious institutions also increased. The article then illustrates these observations through major cases from the Middle East.

scholarly journals Challenges to Democracy in the Middle East

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-128
Author(s):  
Kamran Asghar Bokhari
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
French Mandate ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

Many scholars have attempted to tackle the question of why democracy has seemingly failed to take root in the Islamic milieu, in general, and the pre dominantlyArab Middle East, in particular, while the rest of the world has witnessed the fall of"pax-authoritaria" especially in the wake of the demercratic revolution triggered by the failure of communism. Some view this resistance to the Third Wave, as being rooted in the Islamic cultural dynamics of the region, whereas others will ascribe it to the level of political development (or the lack thereof). An anthology of essays, Challenges to Democracy in the Middle East furnishes the reader with five historical casestudies that seek to explain the arrested socio politico-economic development of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the resulting undemercratic political culture that domjnates the overall political landscape of the Middle East. The first composition in this omnibus is "The Crisis of Democracy in Twentieth Century Syria and Lebanon," authored by Bill Harris, senior lecturer of political studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Haris compares and contrasts the political development of Syria and Lebanon during the French mandate period and under the various regimes since then. He examines how the two competing forms of national­ism, i.e., Lebanonism and Arabism, along with sectarianism, are the main factors that have contributed to the consolidation of one-party rule in Syria, and the I 6-year internecine conflict in Lebanon. After a brief overview of the early history of both countries, the author spends a great deal oftime dis­cussing the relatively more recent political developments: Syria from 1970 onwards, and Lebanon from I 975 to the I 990s. Harris expresses deep pes­simism regarding the future of democratic politics in both countries, which in his opinion is largely due to the deep sectarian cleavages in both states. The next treatise is "Re-inventing Nationalism in B􀀥thi Iraq 1968- 1994: SupraTerritorial Identities and What Lies Below," by Amatzia Baram, professor of Middle East History at the University of Haifa. Baram surveys the Ba·th's second stint in power (1968-present) in lraq. Baram's opinion is that a shift has occurred in B􀀥thist ideology from an integrative Pan-Arab program to an Iraqi-centered Arab nationalism. She attributes this to Saddam's romance with the past, on the one hand, which is the reason for the incorporation of themes from both the ancient Mesopotamian civiliza­tion and the medieval Abbasid caliphal era, and, on the other hand, to Islam and tribalism, that inform the pragmatic concerns of the Ba'thist ideological configuration ...

5. Oil and Political Economy in the International Relations of the Middle East

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-131
Author(s):  
Giacomo Luciani
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Rentier States

This chapter looks at the role of oil in the political economy and the international relations of the Middle East. Oil is commonly considered a political commodity. Because of its pivotal importance as a primary source of energy, governments are concerned with its continued availability and seek to minimize import dependence. Historically, interest in oil — especially in the United Kingdom and the United States — strongly influenced attitudes towards the Middle East and the formation of the state system in the region, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Oil also affects the power balance within the region. The polarization in the region between oil-rich and oil-poor states is thus an essential tool of analysis. The parallel distinction between rentier and non-rentier states helps to explain how oil affects the domestic political development of the oil-rich states and influences their regional relations.

Ottoman Women

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma Zecevic
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

The emergence of women’s studies in the 1970s and 1980s significantly broadened the scope of sources and methods in the study of the socio-economic, cultural, and legal history of Ottoman women. Basing their research on multigenre documents from Ottoman courts of law, historians began to shed light on the active role of Ottoman women in the economic, religious, and social lives of their communities. From the mid-1980s, much of the scholarship on Ottoman women has espoused methods and theories that emerged in feminist, gender, cultural and postcolonial studies. Critical analyses of 18th- and 19th-century Orientalist texts and images provided ample evidence that the representations of Ottoman women as powerless, idle, and perpetually subjected to sexual exploitation played a key role in the European colonialist and imperialist discourses of alterity. In dismantling such misconceptions, scholars focused on a wide range of documents from Imperial and local archives to demonstrate the agency and power of Ottoman women, and their ability to undermine gendered laws of marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Studies that focused on Ottoman women’s management of property convincingly argued that women made strategic investments to participate in the economic and political sectors of Ottoman societies. In the 1990s and early 2000s, scholars increasingly relied on feminist methodologies in their investigations of the female perspectives on patriarchy, seclusion, and female sexuality. In particular, analyses of women’s magazines, novels, autobiographies and polemics produced by late 19th- and early 20th-century Ottoman women have offered important insights into the female perspective on the “women question” that was on top of the agenda of all male reformers of the late Ottoman Empire. Contemporary scholarship on Ottoman women goes beyond adding women to Ottoman history and refuting the Orientalist clichés. Modern works that destabilize the dichotomies of public/private, male/female, and visible/invisible to address the complexities of Ottoman women’s experiences display a great deal of theoretical and methodological sophistication. In addition, modern-day scholarship on Ottoman women take important steps toward a comparative investigation of the condition of women across the boundaries of ethnic and/or religious affiliation. However, like earlier scholarly works on Ottoman women, modern-day studies are limited by availability of source material. Consequently, much of the history of Ottoman women of modest means, and women who inhabited rural areas of the Empire, remains undocumented and therefore unexamined. This article presents an overview of scholarly works that focus on various aspects of the history of Ottoman women. With the exception of three works, all works are written and/or available in English. Those who are interested in more general topics on Muslim women in the Ottoman Middle East should consult the Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies article “Women in Islam.” Important works on gender and sexuality in the Ottoman Middle East can be found in the Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies article “Gender and Sexuality.”

scholarly journals Job Ads Don’t Add Up: Arabic + Middle East + Texts ≠ Islam

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Faculty Positions ◽  
Job Advertisements ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Job Ads ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Job advertisements for Islamic studies faculty positions provide material and significant insight into the construction and reification of a normative Islam. These ads serve to further entrench inaccurate notions of “authentic” Islam. Quantitative and qualitative data demonstrate how religious studies colleagues craft job calls that replicate stereotypes about Islam and Muslims, how the study of Islam functions, and an Arab and Arabic-centric emphasis. Such ads prefer specific regions (the Middle East), languages (Arabic), and subjects (texts). Ironically, this archive shows that ads for jobs in the field of Islamic studies frequently instantiate biases and stereotypes that Islamic studies scholars dedicate their careers to dismantling. Stated hiring preferences, including teaching obligations, entrench an “essence” of Islam or Islamic studies at odds with scholarly discourse about Islam, Islamic studies, and religious studies that may be summarized as a simple, troubling equation: Islam = Middle East + Arabic + texts.

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