Remaking the Middle East: The Prospects for Democracy and Stability

1992 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 163-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World Order ◽  
World War ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Local Traditions

This essay is an exploration of the ramifications for the Middle East of the profound transformations in global politics implied in the end of the Cold War and the birth of a new, American-dominated world order. In doing so, Anderson takes up an issue posed since the birth of many of today's Middle Eastern states after World War I: the influence of great-power politics in the Middle East and within the individual states of the region which, added to local traditions, result in an explosive mix. She concludes with the prospects for Middle East democracy in the new world order.

WORLD WAR I AND THE PARADOX OF WILSONIANISM

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Lloyd E. Ambrosius
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
New World Order ◽  
World War ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

One hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into the First World War. Four days earlier, in his war message to Congress, he gave his rationale for declaring war against Imperial Germany and for creating a new world order. He now viewed German submarine attacks against neutral as well as belligerent shipping as a threat to the whole world, not just the United States. “The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind,” he claimed. “It is a war against all nations.” He now believed that Germany had violated the moral standards that “citizens of civilized states” should uphold. The president explained: “We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.” He focused on protecting democracy against the German regime of Kaiser Wilhelm II. “A steadfast concert for peace,” he said, “can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants.” Wilson called on Congress to vote for war not just because Imperial Germany had sunk three American ships, but for the larger purpose of a new world order. He affirmed: “We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty.”

“NATIONALISM” AND KURDISH NOTABLES IN THE LATE OTTOMAN–EARLY REPUBLICAN ERA

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hakan Özoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World War ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
Hard Data ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Late Ottoman

The era culminating in World War I saw a transition from multinational empires to nation-states. Large empires such as the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman searched for ways to cope with the decline of their political control, while peoples in these empires shifted their political loyalties to nation-states. The Ottoman Empire offers a favorable canvas for studying new nationalisms that resulted in many successful and unsuccessful attempts to form nation-states. As an example of successful attempts, Arab nationalism has received the attention that it deserves in the field of Middle Eastern studies.1 Students have engaged in many complex debates on different aspects of Arab nationalism, enjoying a wealth of hard data. Studies on Kurdish nationalism, however, are still in their infancy. Only a very few scholars have addressed the issue in a scholarly manner.2 We still have an inadequate understanding of the nature of early Kurdish nationalism and its consequences for the Middle East in general and Turkish studies in particular. Partly because of the subject's political sensitivity, many scholars shy away from it. However, a consideration of Kurdish nationalism as an example of unsuccessful attempts to form a nation-state can contribute greatly to the study of nationalism in the Middle East.

Middle East Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manochehr Dorraj
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Core ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Cold War

The scholarly literature on Middle Eastern foreign policies has long treated the region as a pawn in the larger game of the great powers’ international rivalry for global supremacy. During the Cold War, Middle Eastern foreign policies were seen in terms of East-West confrontation, or as a replica of Western foreign policies. Over time, more sophisticated theories of Middle Eastern foreign policy have emerged. Two of the earliest theories that were applied to the study of Middle Eastern foreign policies were diplomatic political history and psychological approaches. Some scholars argue that the behavior of Middle Eastern states is reflective of some of the basic premises of the realist theory. Others, adopting a neorealist structural approach, contend that while Middle Eastern states may use the language of Islam and Pan-Arabism, power politics still lies at the core of their foreign policy. These scholars consider the shift in the regional and the global balance of power as the major explanatory factors for understanding foreign policy changes in the Middle East. Then there are those who conceptualize Middle Eastern foreign policies primarily in terms of dependency theory, the core-periphery power relations, and a struggle for the control of the region's oil and energy. Two other approaches to the study of Middle Eastern foreign policies are international political economy and bureaucratic politics. The Palestinian–Israeli conflict has been a major polarizing issue responsible for radicalization of regional politics and foreign policies in the Middle East.

The Middle Eastern Regional Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Perthes ◽  
Hanns W. Maull
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World War ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Old Order ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Arab States ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Us Intervention

The Middle East has long been dominated by conflict interactions, both among Arab states and with the non-Arab regional powers Israel and Iran. Yet despite much violence and wars the old order in the Middle East—established at the end of World War I—was remarkably stable until 2011, when it disintegrated as a result of the “Arab spring.” The principal cause for this has been the weakness of the Arab states. Outside powers have been invited into the region to compensate for those weaknesses, but they have also exploited them. The disastrous US intervention in Iraq 2003 for a while dampened the willingness of outside powers to intervene, but since the intervention in Libya 2011 there has been a return to interventionism. None of these has been able, however, to overcome the principal dilemma of the region: the weakness of the Arab states.

The Troubled Course of Secularism in the Modern Middle East

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Salem
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
World War ◽  
The Future ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines the troubled evolution of secularism in the modern Middle East, focusing mainly on the Arab world but subsuming elements of the Turkish, Iranian, and Israeli experiences. It looks at secularism as a purposeful ideology and movement but also at secularization as a sociohistorical process that accompanied modernization, urbanization, and the consolidation of Middle Eastern states. The chapter describes a period of secularizing activism that can be seen among many Middle Eastern states from the end of World War I through the 1960s, then describes a period of secularist retreat and the resurgence of Islamism from the late 1970s to the 2010s. The present moment is one of uncertainty, in which Islamism has lost its luster in many contexts but secularism also is not part of a well-articulated or compelling vision of the future.

scholarly journals Cooperation in Israeli-Saudi Relations: Impact on Iran in the Middle East

2020 ◽  
Vol V (II) ◽  
pp. 394-400
Author(s):  
Sumeera Imran ◽  
Sarim Akram Bacha ◽  
Zafar Khan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The Us ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Immense Potential ◽  
The Relationship

The study explores the transformation in great power politics and factors affecting the dynamics of the Middle Eastern political landscape, such as the relationships between ideological arch-rivals of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Israel. The closing up of the relationship between KSA and Israel is a historic transformation, holding immense potential embodying change in the strategic landscape of the Middle East. The article argues that the changing dynamics of global power politics has polarised the political dynamics of the Middle Eastern region along opposite poles. The US, China and Russian involvement in the Middle Eastern region have pushed the ideological arch-rival of KSA to the US and Israel, pushing Iran to tilt towards Russia and China in the region. Therefore, the significance of the study lies in the changing nature of international structure and the way this shift has impacted the inter-dynamics of Saudi-Israeli cooperation in the Middle East.

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

After Victory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do states that win wars do with their newfound power, and how do they use it to build order? This book examines postwar settlements in modern history, arguing that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power. The book explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions—both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power—has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit “constitutional” characteristics. Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today.

A Tower of Tangled Histories: The Upper Silesia Tower in Poznań and the Making of an Unromantic Poland, 1911–1955

Slavic Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-590
Author(s):  
Patryk Babiracki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Material Structure ◽  
World War ◽  
Upper Silesia ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Engaging with regional, international, and spatial histories, this article proposes a new reading of the twentieth-century Polish past by exploring the vicissitudes of a building known as the Upper Silesia Tower. Renowned German architect Hans Poelzig designed the Tower for the 1911 Ostdeutsche Ausstellung in Posen, an ethnically Polish city under Prussian rule. After Poland regained its independence following World War I, the pavilion, standing centrally on the grounds of Poznań’s International Trade Fair, became the fair's symbol, and over time, also evolved into visual shorthand for the city itself. I argue that the Tower's significance extends beyond Posen/Poznań, however. As an embodiment of the conflicts and contradictions of Polish-German historical entanglements, the building, in its changing forms, also concretized various efforts to redefine the dominant Polish national identity away from Romantic ideals toward values such as order, industriousness, and hard work. I also suggest that eventually, as a material structure harnessed into the service of socialism, the Tower, with its complicated past, also brings into relief questions about the regional dimensions of the clashes over the meaning of modernity during the Cold War.

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