For decades, US foreign policy in the Middle East has been on autopilot: Seek Arab-Israeli peace, fight terrorism, and urge regimes to respect human rights. Every US administration puts its own spin on these initiatives, but none has successfully resolved the region’s fundamental problems. In Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East? a bipartisan group of leading experts representing several academic and policy disciplines unravel the core causes of instability in the Middle East and North Africa. Why have some countries been immune to the Arab Spring? Which governments enjoy the most legitimacy and why? With more than half the region under 30 years of age, why does education and innovation lag? How do resource economies, crony capitalism, and inequality drive conflict? Are ethnic and sectarian fault lines the key factor, or are these more products of political and economic instability? And what are the wellsprings of extremism that threaten not only the United States but, more profoundly, the people of the region? The answers to these questions should help policymakers and students of the region understand the Middle East on its own terms, rather than just through a partisan or diplomatic lens. Understanding the pillars of instability in the region can allow the United States and its allies to rethink their own priorities, adjust policy, recalibrate their programs, and finally begin to chip away at core challenges facing the Middle East. Contributors: Thanassis Cambanis Michael A. Fahy Florence Gaub Danielle Pletka Bilal Wahab A. Kadir Yildirim

Middle Eastern instability is manifest externally in many ways: by crises afflicting governing regimes, the rise of political Islam, terrorism, revolution, civil war, increased migration, and the collapse of many states. This book examines the roots of this instability using a theoretically original and empirically supported historical sociological comparative analysis. Up till now interpretations of the development of the post-colonial Middle East have been dominated by two opposing theses. The first views the region as backward, unchanging and rigid, the second as undergoing excessively rapid transformation. This book offers an alternative perspective focusing on the highly uneven and unsynchronised pace of change in individual dimensions of Middle Eastern modernisation. What we are seeing is (1) rapid socio-demographic change (a sharp increase in the population and the proportion of young people, rapid urbanisation, and the expansion of the media and education), (2) slower and unstable economic change (dependency on oil exports, high unemployment), and (3) slow or regressive political change (erosion of the capacity to govern, the absence of democratisation and liberalisation). The theoretical model employed emerged from a critical reading of theories of modernisation and a concept of multiple modernities that also allows for an interrogation of the broader cultural, religious and international political context of uneven modernisation in the Middle East. This model is then tested empirically using the time series (1960–2010) of dozens of indicators covering the demographic, social, economic and political dimensions of the modernisation process. In general the book does not concentrate on externally monitorable political actors and their rivalries, as so often is the case. Instead, it focuses on the political rivalries of deep, long-term cumulative demographic, social and economic change taking place beneath the surface. It looks at changes that are not simply taking place in individual countries of the Middle East, but since the end of the Second World War have affected the entire region and are responsible for the emergence of a Middle East completely different to that to which we were accustomed for many decades.

The present book is about instability and conflict in the Middle East at a time when many still believe that peace between the Arabs and Israel will bring an end to all problems in the region. Maybe that is due to the fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict has dominated much of the discussions about the area over the past fifty years. Insufficient attention has therefore been devoted to other important issues that may not be quite as eye-catching or newsworthy. This is exactly what the book is aiming to offer.

Turmoil in the Middle East highlights the impact of imperialism, war, and political turmoil in the Middle East throughout the course of the twentieth-century—from the devastation of the First World War through the many crises and conflicts that have led to cycles of war, uprisings, coups, revolts, and revolutions. It focuses on the internal contradictions of Middle Eastern states driven by the dynamics of class conflict and class struggle in various realms of society and social relations. Berberoglu examines the political economy of long-embedded conflicts and crises in the Middle East, paying special attention to the role of powerful, external forces stemming from Western imperialism and led by Britain, France, and later the United States.

Oil has been central to regime survival for oil states across the Arabian Peninsula and has been at the heart of their attempts to defuse the wave of Arab revolutions. However, in 2011 revolution hit Libya, the most oil dependent regime in the Middle East. The political storm winds that have swept this region have thrown into doubt the resilience of Arab rentier states, and highlight how the political effects of oil vary across the oil producing countries. Oil States in the New Middle East brings together leading experts to critically assess the centrality of oil and the relevance of Rentier State Theory in light of the post-2011 upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa. It combines overall reflections on the political dynamics in oil states with focused case investigations of individual countries. Taking as its starting point the centrality of oil in explanations of regime survival, the book analyses how the oil states have responded to and fared throughout the Arab popular upheavals, resulting in a critical assessment of the continued relevance of Rentier State Theory. While observers have asked how the uprisings varied between oil and non-oil states, this book turns the comparative focus inward, arguing for a more fine-grained understanding of the political effects of oil in different oil producing countries. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Studies, Oil and Politics, as well as Comparative Politics and International Political Economy.

This book discusses the role of political narratives in shaping perceptions of instability and conceptions of order in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The authors illustrate how, in times of socio-political turmoil and outbursts of discontent such as the Arab Spring, political entrepreneurs explain and justify their political agendas by complementing hard power solutions with attractive ideas and discursive constructions that appeal to domestic constituencies and geopolitical allies. The book is divided into two parts. The first focuses on non-state actors, such as confessional communities and ideological movements, who aim to develop narratives that are convincing to their respective polities. It also studies regional powers that seek to determine their positions in a competitive environment via distinctive narrations of order. In part two, the authors investigate the narratives of global players that aim to explain and justify their role in an evolving international order.

This book offers a realist critique of US foreign policy towards the Middle East in the past decade. It critically examines four core foundations of contemporary US Middle East policy: US relations with Saudi Arabia after the Arab Spring; US diplomacy towards Iran and the Obama administration’s policy of engagement; the road to, and aftermath of, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq; and US policy towards nuclear-armed Israel. Because of a closely guarded bipartisan consensus, these four core foundations of contemporary US Middle East policy have largely evaded public criticism and scrutiny. This book argues that US strategy towards the Middle East has rarely been guided by order, stability and the national interest. Rather, successive administrations have created a house of cards built on a series of deceptions and constructed perceptions or myths. Combined, these four aspects of US Middle East policy have ushered in a decade of political violence, instability, sectarian divisions and an imbalance of power which has culminated in the territorial disintegration of Iraq and countries in the Levant as well as the rise of ISIS. Moving forward requires a rational pursuit of the national interest based on realist principles. This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general.