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Middle East Politics and International Relations: Crisis Zone
The contemporary Middle East has been defined by political crises and conflict. The interplay of internal and external factors have set the region on a path of turmoil and crisis with devastating outcomes for its people. The absence of political accountability and representation, and policies pursued by the United States to keep US-friendly regimes in power have been two key factors that have contributed to the seemingly insoluble Middle East politics. This book provides a detailed exploration of the forces, internal and external, that have shaped today’s Middle East. The book follows a chronological order and provides context to major political milestones. Topics explored • Imperialism in the Middle East • The formation of the State of Israel • The Arab–Israeli wars • Palestinian politics and the failure of the ‘peace process’ • The Iranian Revolution and pan-Shi’ism • Superpowers in the Middle East • The US-led ‘War on Terror’ • The Arab uprisings • The Syrian War and the rise of the ‘Islamic State’ • US–Iran relations This study puts recent developments in historical context, and will serve as a core reference tool for students and researchers of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations.
238 pages, Hardcover
Published June 5, 2018
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May 29, 2022
Book: Middle East Politics and International Relations: Crisis Zone
Author: Shahram Akbarzadeh, Kylie Baxter (Contributor)
Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (5 June 2018)
Language: English
Paperback: 250 pages
Item Weight: 362 g
Dimensions: 15.6 x 1.45 x 23.39 cm
Price: 2805/-
Yours truly has been enormously propitious to have been blessed by saintly instructors from an exceedingly early age.
Almost no teacher of mine failed to mention that the Middle East has been defined by political catastrophes for the last 100 years.
In the political halls of power, the media, trendy culture and the educational institutions of Western countries, the term ‘Middle East’ invokes a confused metaphor of religion, resources, foreign interference and politics that can be tough to disentangle.
In the 20th century, the establishment of nation-states and the framework of the Cold War moderated not just the political environment of the region, but the lens through which outsiders came to understand events. For much of the century, authoritarian stability was the dominant form of politics in the Middle East.
As the Cold War receded, a new, disordered sagacity of globalization penetrated the region and this system of political organization began to weaken.
Despite these changes, few observers foresaw the scale of the shifts underway in this region.
For generations, the gap between the political elites and the people they ruled had grown not just in terms of economic opportunity, but in terms of political and social capital.
This led to a build-up of bitterness and dissatisfaction that had no lawful boulevard of expression.
Death came in flying numbers --- in came sorrows and wails and suffering.
The most depressing aspect about the crisis was that it dramatized an almost “no-exit” aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Wars would recur every four or five years, but they would never seem to resolve anything.
The Israelis pounded the Palestinians until they accepted a cease-fire, but it was provisional.
The emotional state of war would carry on.
Of all the books on the West Asian conflict read and reviewed by me, this one is one of the most comprehensive.
This book offers readers a comprehensive, contextualized examination of the forces, domestic and peripheral, that have shaped today’s Middle East. It graphs colonial interference, political and religious movements, state formation, divergences, international involvement and the role of global institutions.
Most prominently, it places the conflicts of the 21st century in their suitable historical, political and international milieu.
Foreign intrusion is a fact of history for most, if not all, parts of the world.
This book begins its study of the Middle East with a brief exploration of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the role of local elites and the impact of colonial interventions in the early 20th century. This is a vital undertaking for the contextualization of regional views of Western policy. This foundational history is this book’s starting point.
The remainder of this introductory chapter inspects the brunt of the competing identities that emerged in response to challenges with roots in foreign intervention.
The book then turns to a detailed exploration of Arab–Israeli politics, bringing in discussions of diverse issues such as Zionism, large-scale war, popular uprisings and self-determination.
Let’s give a bird’s eye view:
*Chapter 2 provides a version of Zionism, the movement which created the modern State of Israel. It also covers the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which made holy, this new state in the Muslim-majority Middle East.
*The analysis of Israel continues in Chapter 3, in which the book charts Israeli experiences through the main conflicts of the 20th and early 21st centuries – 1967, 1973, 1982 and 2006 – taking into account the experience of Palestinian refugees.
*To complete this section of the book, Chapter 4 fits into places openly with the Palestinian political experience, including the experience of occupation, civil conflict and the prevalence of HAMAS in the modern arena.
*Chapter 5 looks at the brunt of broader identities in the region as we focus on the role of pan-Arab nationalism and the articulation of political Islam. This chapter is essential to understanding the transnational affiliations, such as the Salafi-jihadist movement, which were mobilized throughout the 20th century, often as a challenge to the developing political elites.
*Chapter 6 shifts the spotlight to the Iranian milieu with an examination of the influential 1979 revolution. This chapter charts the events of that year and investigates the outcomes of this cataclysm on Iran and the region as a whole. It also begins to flesh out the effects of Shia mobilization in the late 20th century.
*Chapter 7 functions as a capstone to the investigation of the 20th century, considering the role of superpowers in the region all through that century and beyond.
*In Chapter 8, the book begins its investigation of the modern Middle East, with special focus on understanding the effects of political decision-making, foreign interference and poor governance as detailed through the earlier chapters. This chapter discovers the break point moment of 9/11 and the launching of the ‘War on Terror’, with its devastating occupation of Iraq. This provides the frame for understanding the events of the Arab uprisings of 2011. This series of unified, yet dissimilar, political disorders are explored across the next two chapters.
*Chapter 9 explores the events of the revolutionary, and counter-revolutionary, period in Egypt, Libya and Bahrain.
*The destruction of the Syrian conflict – and the ascend of the ISIS militia – is etailed in Chapter 10.
*The key outcome of the post-2003 period is the resurgence of Iran as a regional heavyweight, and this is investigated in Chapter 11, which focuses on the Iranian–US relationship and the important emergent dynamic of Iranian–Saudi rivalry which underlines the existing regional political scene.
*In conclusion, Chapter 12 offers a summary of the book with an appraisal on the political experiences, inter-state tensions and major challenges facing the modern Middle East.
This book provides a contextualized insight into nearly 100 years of political turmoil in the Middle East.
The chapters are designed as stand-alone insights into particular places or aspects of the Middle East. However, the interlocking nature of regional politics means the chapters build upon each other to provide a comprehensive picture of the political terrain.
To this end, it is helpful to provide a concise account of the early 20th century and the colonial machinations of the Great Powers.
Three major documents – the Husayn–McMahon Correspondence of 1915, the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 – are key to understanding the region.
A most recommended book for students and teachers of International Politics, alike.
Author: Shahram Akbarzadeh, Kylie Baxter (Contributor)
Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (5 June 2018)
Language: English
Paperback: 250 pages
Item Weight: 362 g
Dimensions: 15.6 x 1.45 x 23.39 cm
Price: 2805/-
Yours truly has been enormously propitious to have been blessed by saintly instructors from an exceedingly early age.
Almost no teacher of mine failed to mention that the Middle East has been defined by political catastrophes for the last 100 years.
In the political halls of power, the media, trendy culture and the educational institutions of Western countries, the term ‘Middle East’ invokes a confused metaphor of religion, resources, foreign interference and politics that can be tough to disentangle.
In the 20th century, the establishment of nation-states and the framework of the Cold War moderated not just the political environment of the region, but the lens through which outsiders came to understand events. For much of the century, authoritarian stability was the dominant form of politics in the Middle East.
As the Cold War receded, a new, disordered sagacity of globalization penetrated the region and this system of political organization began to weaken.
Despite these changes, few observers foresaw the scale of the shifts underway in this region.
For generations, the gap between the political elites and the people they ruled had grown not just in terms of economic opportunity, but in terms of political and social capital.
This led to a build-up of bitterness and dissatisfaction that had no lawful boulevard of expression.
Death came in flying numbers --- in came sorrows and wails and suffering.
The most depressing aspect about the crisis was that it dramatized an almost “no-exit” aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Wars would recur every four or five years, but they would never seem to resolve anything.
The Israelis pounded the Palestinians until they accepted a cease-fire, but it was provisional.
The emotional state of war would carry on.
Of all the books on the West Asian conflict read and reviewed by me, this one is one of the most comprehensive.
This book offers readers a comprehensive, contextualized examination of the forces, domestic and peripheral, that have shaped today’s Middle East. It graphs colonial interference, political and religious movements, state formation, divergences, international involvement and the role of global institutions.
Most prominently, it places the conflicts of the 21st century in their suitable historical, political and international milieu.
Foreign intrusion is a fact of history for most, if not all, parts of the world.
This book begins its study of the Middle East with a brief exploration of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the role of local elites and the impact of colonial interventions in the early 20th century. This is a vital undertaking for the contextualization of regional views of Western policy. This foundational history is this book’s starting point.
The remainder of this introductory chapter inspects the brunt of the competing identities that emerged in response to challenges with roots in foreign intervention.
The book then turns to a detailed exploration of Arab–Israeli politics, bringing in discussions of diverse issues such as Zionism, large-scale war, popular uprisings and self-determination.
Let’s give a bird’s eye view:
*Chapter 2 provides a version of Zionism, the movement which created the modern State of Israel. It also covers the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which made holy, this new state in the Muslim-majority Middle East.
*The analysis of Israel continues in Chapter 3, in which the book charts Israeli experiences through the main conflicts of the 20th and early 21st centuries – 1967, 1973, 1982 and 2006 – taking into account the experience of Palestinian refugees.
*To complete this section of the book, Chapter 4 fits into places openly with the Palestinian political experience, including the experience of occupation, civil conflict and the prevalence of HAMAS in the modern arena.
*Chapter 5 looks at the brunt of broader identities in the region as we focus on the role of pan-Arab nationalism and the articulation of political Islam. This chapter is essential to understanding the transnational affiliations, such as the Salafi-jihadist movement, which were mobilized throughout the 20th century, often as a challenge to the developing political elites.
*Chapter 6 shifts the spotlight to the Iranian milieu with an examination of the influential 1979 revolution. This chapter charts the events of that year and investigates the outcomes of this cataclysm on Iran and the region as a whole. It also begins to flesh out the effects of Shia mobilization in the late 20th century.
*Chapter 7 functions as a capstone to the investigation of the 20th century, considering the role of superpowers in the region all through that century and beyond.
*In Chapter 8, the book begins its investigation of the modern Middle East, with special focus on understanding the effects of political decision-making, foreign interference and poor governance as detailed through the earlier chapters. This chapter discovers the break point moment of 9/11 and the launching of the ‘War on Terror’, with its devastating occupation of Iraq. This provides the frame for understanding the events of the Arab uprisings of 2011. This series of unified, yet dissimilar, political disorders are explored across the next two chapters.
*Chapter 9 explores the events of the revolutionary, and counter-revolutionary, period in Egypt, Libya and Bahrain.
*The destruction of the Syrian conflict – and the ascend of the ISIS militia – is etailed in Chapter 10.
*The key outcome of the post-2003 period is the resurgence of Iran as a regional heavyweight, and this is investigated in Chapter 11, which focuses on the Iranian–US relationship and the important emergent dynamic of Iranian–Saudi rivalry which underlines the existing regional political scene.
*In conclusion, Chapter 12 offers a summary of the book with an appraisal on the political experiences, inter-state tensions and major challenges facing the modern Middle East.
This book provides a contextualized insight into nearly 100 years of political turmoil in the Middle East.
The chapters are designed as stand-alone insights into particular places or aspects of the Middle East. However, the interlocking nature of regional politics means the chapters build upon each other to provide a comprehensive picture of the political terrain.
To this end, it is helpful to provide a concise account of the early 20th century and the colonial machinations of the Great Powers.
Three major documents – the Husayn–McMahon Correspondence of 1915, the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 – are key to understanding the region.
A most recommended book for students and teachers of International Politics, alike.
October 29, 2023
A relatively short book that does an excellent job in conveying the extremely messy and complex situations in the Middle East. Starting from the colonialism of the British and French, and till when the book was published in 2018, the authors were able to do an incredible job and conveying the important milestones marking the tragic periods in the region.
Highly recommended especially for those who are new or have a rudimentary understanding of politics in the Middle East. I came into the book being somewhat familiar with some of the subjects (eg. roles of the superpowers in the region, along with that of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel), and the book helped me by connecting my understanding of these different but very much inter-related issues.
Highly recommended especially for those who are new or have a rudimentary understanding of politics in the Middle East. I came into the book being somewhat familiar with some of the subjects (eg. roles of the superpowers in the region, along with that of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel), and the book helped me by connecting my understanding of these different but very much inter-related issues.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews