This volume, first published in 1988, analyses the process of stabilisation amongst the Arab states, a process that has contradicted all predictions of impending disintegration and impending collapse. Although there were some cases of disintegration, there are evidently mechanisms at work that helped consolidate the majority of Arab states and the Arab state system. Revolutions, as in Iran or the Sudan, or political collapse and disintegration, as in Lebanon, have been highly visible but nevertheless exceptions. This collection, Volume Three in the Nation, State and Integration in the Arab World research project carried out by the Istituto Affari Internazionali, focuses on the problem of explaining the stability and persistence of the state in the Arab world.
Adeed Dawisha is distinguished professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio. His books include "Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century" (Princeton), "Syria and the Lebanese Crisis", and "Egypt in the Arab World".
I. William Zartman is an internationally known analyst and theoretician of the negotiation process. He is Professor Emeritus of Conflict Resolution at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University, member of the steering committee of the Processes of International Negotiation (PIN) Program at Clingendael (The Netherlands), member of the UN Academic Advisory Council on the Mediation Initiative, and advisor to the Secretary-General, and holds an honorary doctorate from Louvain University (Belgium) and a doctorate from Yale University. He is author and/or editor of two dozen books. Dr Zartman is associated with a number of key concepts in negotiation analysis, such as formula, ripeness and diagnosis. He has offered a new analytical framework for evaluating international regimes as recursive negotiations rather than as compliance.