The New Arab Cold War: rediscovering the Arab dimension of Middle East regional politics

This article provides a conceptual lens for and a thick interpretation of the emergent regional constellation in the Middle East in the first decade of the 21st century. It starts out by challenging two prevalent claims about regional politics in the context of the 2006 Lebanon and 2008–09 Gaza Wars: Firstly, that regional politics is marked by a fundamental break from the ‘old Middle East’ and secondly, that it has become ‘post-Arab’ in the sense that Arab politics has ceased being distinctly Arab. Against this background, the article develops the understanding of a New Arab Cold War which accentuates the still important, but widely neglected Arab dimension in regional politics. By rediscovering the Arab Cold War of the 1950–60s and by drawing attention to the transformation of Arab nationalism and the importance of new trans-Arab media, the New Arab Cold War perspective aims at supplementing rather that supplanting the prominent moderate-radical, sectarian and Realist-Westphalian narratives. By highlighting dimensions of both continuity and change it does moreover provide some critical nuances to the frequent claims about the ‘newness’ of the ‘New Middle East’. In addition to this more Middle East-specific contribution, the article carries lessons for a number of more general debates in International Relations theory concerning the importance of (Arab-Islamist) non-state actors and competing identities in regional politics as well as the interplay between different forms of sovereignty

Forestillinger om Edward Said og Orientalism’s (ikke helt så) store indflydelse på studiet af Mellemøsten

Mens Saids Orientalism selv er en kritisk meta-studie af ”vestlige forestillinger om Orienten”, har denne artikel til formål at problematisere og nuancere en fremherskende forestilling vedrørende dette værks indflydelse på studiet af Mellemøsten, nemlig at det skulle være svært at overdrive indflydelsen fra Orientalism på Mellemøststudierne (MØS), som nærmest skulle være blevet transformeret af den said’ianske Orientalism-kritik. Artiklens overordnede argument om Edward W. Said og Orientalism’s ikke helt så store indflydelse på studiet af Mellemøsten udvikles i tre skridt, hvor det første har til formål at vise, hvordan det snarere er uden for studiet af Mellemøsten, at Saids indflydelse har været størst. Et af de akademiske felter, hvor Said nærmest har været ignoreret, er derimod orientalistikken, som ellers tildeles størstedelen af bogens opmærksomhed. Hvad MØS angår, er det ganske vist muligt at spore en påvirkning fra Orientalism. Den er imidlertid ikke blot mindre end ofte hævdet, men varierer også betragteligt i både karakter og omfang. Det andet skridt har derfor til formål at identificere karakteren af den said’ianske indflydelse, der viser sig at være ganske kompleks og tvetydig. Det kan således være relevant at sondre mellem indflydelsen fra den said’ianske kritik af MØS og fra kritikken af de said-ianske MØS. Endvidere varierer omfanget af denne indflydelse inden for forskellige dele af MØS. Det tredje skridt består derfor af en sammenligning af den said’ianske påvirkning blandt mellemøstforskere med forskellig disciplinær baggrund og inden for forskellige kultur-institutionelle kontekster. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Morten Valbjørn: Conceptions about Edward Said and Orientalism’s (Less) Profound Impact on the Study of the Middle East While Edward Said’s Orientalism is a study of ”Western conceptions of the Orient”, the purpose of this article is to question one of the prevalent conceptions concerning Said’s influence on the study of the Middle East. This article examines the claim that it is hard to exaggerate the impact from Said on the field of Middle East Studies (MES), which is supposed to have been almost transformed by his Orientalism critique. The article concludes that this claim is much of an exaggeration itself. The impact of Orientalism appears more profound in academic fields which are not particularly concerned with the Middle East, and its influence within the study of the Middle East appears rather ambiguous. Thus, it is necessary not only to make a distinction between the impact of the Said’ian critique of MES and of the critique of the Said’ian MES, but also to distinguish between the uneven influence of Said among Middle East scholars with different disciplinary training and from different cultural-institutional contexts. Key words: Edward Said, Orientalism, Middle East, Middle East Studies, sociology of knowledge, European vs. American academia

Studiet af demokratiets (ir)relevans i et (u)almindeligt Mellemøsten – om ørkenvandringer, fatamorganaer, ørkenblomster og om at vandre i cirkler

Hvis debatten om demokrati i Mellemøsten i metaforisk forstand betragtes som en ørkenvandring, kan denne åbningsartikel af dette temanummer af Politica be-tegnes som den form for pauser, man holder på en lang og vanskelig færd for at orientere sig om, hvor man kommer fra og nu befinder sig. Ærindet kan for at blive i metaforikken siges at være at kortlægge hidtidige rejseruter og identificere rejsefæller såvel som vildveje og faldgruber for i den fremtidige færd at være bedre rustet mod at komme til at vandre i cirkler eller at se fatamorganaer, således som det hidtil ofte har været tilfældet. Dette sker gennem en undersøgelse af, hvordan spørgsmålet om demokratiets (ir)relevans i et (u)almindeligt Mellemøsten har været diskuteret i den generelle demokrati-litteratur, mellemøststudierne og orientali-stikken, og hvordan denne problematik er relateret til det klassiske spørgsmål om, hvorvidt den mellemøstlige region skal opfattes som exceptionel, og hvilke implikationer dette bør have for studiet af mellemøstlig politik

Jordansk lokalvalg med nationale implikationer

Intet resum

Jordan: Variationer over velkendte temaer

Intet resum

Changing warscapes, changing Islamists?: religion, organization, strategic context and new approaches to armed Islamist insurgencies

This framing essay to the Special Issue on Islamists in Warscapes argues for the value of engaging with the concept of warscapes, developed primarily by anthropologists of violence in Africa, for theorizing about armed Islamist groups in protracted conflict situations. The warscapes concept better captures the nature of many of the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and beyond by focusing on its protracted but intermittent nature, temporal and spatial variability, international and transnational dimensions, and production of wartime orders. Within this framework, this article and Special Issue focus on armed Islamist groups, asking whether and why they perform differently than non-Islamist groups and how they evolve through embeddedness in warscapes. The article reviews literature on protracted conflict and warscapes, armed Islamist groups and jihadists, and the study of religion in conflict. It concludes by arguing that the warscapes literature can significantly add to our understanding of armed Islamist groups, and that focusing on armed Islamist groups can enrich the study of warscapes

Ein Jahr nach dem Gazakrieg: ist der Nahe Osten noch arabisch?

Der 27. Dezember 2009 markiert den ersten Jahrestag des Beginns des Gazakriegs. Der bis dato letzte Akt im israelisch-palästinensischen Gewaltkonflikt verdeutlicht eine Entwicklung, die weit über den kleinen Küstenstreifen am Mittelmeer hinausgeht. Regionalpolitisch verdeutlicht er vor allem die gestiegene Bedeutung von arabisch-islamistischen Organisationen wie Hamas und Hisbollah und untermauert die generelle Kräfteverschiebung der nahöstlichen Ordnung zulasten traditioneller Akteure wie Ägypten und Saudi-Arabien. (GIGA

Genpolitisering og postdemokratisering: Studiet af mellemøstlig politik i lyset af de arabiske revolter

A prominent theme in the current debate on the implications of the Arab Revolts revolves around the questions about whether we are witnessing the emergence of a truly new Middle East in a ‘transition to de- mocracy’, or whether the region is still stuck in a ‘transition to nowhere’ similar to past decades. Based on a critique of both of these views, the article suggests that the Arab world should instead be perceived as being in a ‘transition to somewhere’ marked by a multi-level repoliticization. Against this background, we explore how this ‘return of politics’ in Arab societies is re ected above, below and beyond the level of the regime and how this can be grasped by an ‘upgraded’ version of the postdemocratization approach to Arab politics.&nbsp