Making Sense of the Arab State
Contributor(s)
Heydemann, Steven (editor)
Lynch, Marc (editor)
Language
EnglishAbstract
No region in the world has been more hostile to democracy, more dominated by military and security institutions, or weaker on economic development and inclusive governance than the Middle East. Why have Arab states been so oppressively strong in some areas but so devastatingly weak in others? How do those patterns affect politics, economics, and society across the region? The state stands at the center of the analysis of politics in the Middle East, but has rarely been the primary focus of systematic theoretical analysis.
Making Sense of the Arab State brings together top scholars from diverse theoretical orientations to address some of the most critically important questions facing the region today. The authors grapple with enduring questions such as the uneven development of state capacity, the failures of developmentalism and governance, the centrality of regime security and survival concerns, the excesses of surveillance and control, and the increasing personalization of power. Making Sense of the Arab State will be a must-read for scholars of the Middle East and of comparative politics more broadly.
Keywords
Middle East, Arab, state, state capacity, economic development, authoritarianism, military regimes, monarchies, governance, legibility, citizenship, oil, Egypt, Gulf states, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, LebanonDOI
10.3998/mpub.12839265ISBN
9780472076987, 9780472056989, 9780472904617Publisher
University of Michigan PressPublisher website
https://www.press.umich.edu/Publication date and place
2024Series
Emerging Democracies,Classification
Politics and government
Comparative politics