The Politics of Identity in Middle Eastern International Relations

Week Nine: International Politics

This Week

This Week

1. Key Concepts in Identity Politics

2. Tensions in Middle Eastern Identity

Key Concepts in Identity Politics

The Formulation of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’

The Formation of Identity

Think about what underpins your own identity

“Identity is two-sided. Because it presupposes an ‘other’ against which the self defines itself and its construction ‘excludes’ others, when identity differences correspond to struggles over scarce material resources, notably land, the result is

protracted conflict” (Hinnebusch, p.148)

Identity often constructed by contrast

Identity in I.R. Theory

So what type of approach incorporates the value of identity? Constructivist

I.R. dominated by materialist/structuralistapproaches, which took the state as a uniform unit – all the same…

Value of both material and ideational factors, as well as the interplay between them…

This is described as a culture blind approach (p.149)

Identity in Middle Eastern I.R.

Tensions Between Territory and Identity

State Identity in Middle Eastern I.R.

• Does contain elements which promote nationbuilding – 84% of states have a dominantethno-linguistic majority.

• Only Turkey, Israel and Iran approximate theWestern nation-state model: much moretransient and fluid identity elsewhere.

Limited Value of the State IdentityWhy is the state identity of less value in Middle Eastern nations than, for example, the U.S?

- Imported Westernised Statehood: State boundaries are arbitrarily imposed by external groups, incongruent with the identities of the populace. This causes conflict!

- Nomadism: Region composed of trading hubs and tribes – tendency to identify with city, tribe or religion. States often short-lived…

Fractured Communities

• Imposed boundaries cut across communities, excluding individuals from state membership: the separatist Kurdish identity causes conflict with Turkish/Iraqi ‘host’ states (Iranian support for Kurds furthers the problem in Iraq; Syria supported Kurds in an attempt to leverage access to Turkish water)

• Sudan created by British destruction of indigenous Mahdist government – subsequent interventions by Libya and Egypt to protect Nile access

• Iraq created artificially, throwing together groups with a history of animosity: material potential (land/oil) –but no shared identity

Fractured Communities

‘Iraq’s wars are ultimately explicable in terms of its artificial character, arbitrary boundaries and intractable nation-building imperatives’ (p.159)

So What Factors Are Important?

• Autonomy from perceived Western domination– Reaction against the ‘dismemberment’ (p.152) of territory. – 72% of Arab world views America as a threat; only 11% feared Iran– States held in place externally

• Anti-imperialism, even at a cost• Shared experience & imagined community (Pan-Arabism)

– Invocation of unity between Arab nation: shared victories and defeats– ‘…invoking shared threats, interests, and grievances against the other

– the non-Arab state and imperialism – and it was always contested by alternative identities corresponding to different interests’ (p.152)

– Facilitated by the availability of radio and the easy dissemination of information (mass movement)

– Frequent cross-border migration (problematic for oil producing nations)

So How to Refer to These Territories?

‘…use of the term nation state to describe theArab state is problematic… Kienle… calls themterritorial states, since they do not correspond tocommunities with distinct and exclusiveidentities’ (p.152)

State does remain relevant however, outlasting other influences; ‘identifications with the state (39%) and with Islam (33%) now exceed Arab identity per se (28%)’ (p.154)

So How Has ‘the State Survived’?

• Socialisation of state identity, drawing of mass media in the promotion of state-centric identity

• The exploitation of geographical uniqueness or conflict to portray other Arab nations as the Other and promote the sameness of the Self.

• The ‘Statization’ of non-state identity, eg. Islamism, as an official state identity.

Rulers pull apart, but surveys shows that citizensstill afford more weight to non-state identity than tothe interests of the state.

Identity and Foreign Policy

Identity and Foreign PolicyDoes identity shape perceptions of foreign policy-making or is it an instrument in the pursuit of such interests? ‘The answer must be both’ (p.159)

Supra-state factors drive involvement in regional politics: used to both justify and constraint action‘If identity shapes what states want to do… material possibilities and constraints determine what… they can actually accomplish’ (p.160)

Identity and Foreign Policy

State foreign policy is caught between normal obligation to the state, and to the wider imagined community of the supra-state and its needs and interests.

State legitimacy may hinge on its participation in the supra-state and involvement in wider ‘Arab’ identity

Requirement to balance the rhetoric of revolution and difference with the need for participation/material resources

‘when identity mobilizes mass opinion, it can force leaders into decisions that they would not normally take’ (p. 161)

Formation of Arab League

• Designed for collective defence of Arab interests: common policy and action

• Counter formation of ‘Pan-Arab’ regime by Egypt between 1956 and 1967

• Sheltered by bi-polarity of the Cold War

• No means of collective enforcement/policy– Difference between agreement and action

– Requires unanimity: lowest levels of change

– Dependant on powerful leaders

Conclusion: On the one hand…

‘…the embedding of the Arab states system in a supra-state community has built and enduring tension into it, trapping foreign policy makers between the logic of sovereignty, in which each regime, insecure both at home and amidst the anarchy of the state system, pursues its own interests and security, often against its Arab neighbours…’

Conclusion: And on the other hand…

‘…the counter norm held by their publics, which conditioned the legitimacy of the individual states on their acting together in the defence of the shared identity’ (p.168)

States are shaped by identity: the existence or lack of a shared history, language and/or faith…

This identity may be satisfied – normalised and accepted – or frustrated – incompatible and imposed…

Next Week

Some additional resources…

Next Week

Bobbitt, P. (2009) Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century (London: Penguin)

- Introduction: Plagues in the Time of Feast

Der Derian, J (2009) Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (London: Routledge)

- Chapter Ten: After 9-11

To Finish

The collision between war and entertainment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_h7nDlz6Mw&noredirect=1

See you next week!