Tribes and Tribalism in the Modern Middle East: Introduction

This roundtable is the product of a conference on tribalism in the Modern Middle East held at the University of Maryland in College Park in early May 2019. In two days of scholarly exchange, the participants addressed questions on the reality of tribal life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and its impact on politics and society. Most of the specialists who participated in the conference are also contributors in this forum. To keep the discussion concise, the case studies focus on the Arab East – Syria, Jordan, and Iraq – as well as Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Building on the findings and reflections shared in College Park, the contributors responded to the following prompt as a point of departure for their essays: For cultural, intellectual, political, and arguably even most social historians, tribes remain an enigma. As an ideal-type, the tribe seems to be all that the modern state is not: it defies positive law, rational administrative structures, equal citizenship based on individual rights and duties, and, still, in some cases, sovereignty based on fixed territorial boundaries. As a non-state, the tribe seems to be, on the other hand, the most enduring socio-political structure of human history. It is a kind of substrate, or a hetero-stratum of social organization at least in Middle Eastern societies. Its position as such seems even more pronounced in today's period of state disintegration and instability. What is the place of tribes in modern society, how do they relate to the modern state? How can what is seemingly an atavism of pre-modern times still have currency in today's world?The responses share the perception that tribes are not the antithesis of the modern state or of progress in the region. Researchers and politicians alike should take them into account in their analyses of modernization processes. They offer meaningful identities and forms of organization across the region and enjoy influence and power.