ETHNIC CONFLICT AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Contributors argue that ethnic conflicts are built into & even encouraged in the Middle East, with unavoidable international consequences. An entire section focuses on Turkey, the Kurds & Central Asia; sections also on Israel/Palestine, & Arab Nationalism.

"A timely book that deserves to be widely read. It deals with a globally contentious region by focusing, in a richly detailed and analytic fashion, on the internal and external aspects of nationalism, ethnicity, and religion of most of the states in the Middle East."—William Safran, University of Colorado

Leonard Binder and 14 other authors argue that ethnic conflicts are built into the regional system of the Middle East, frequently encouraged as an aspect of international strategy, and cannot be managed without changing the system itself. The book challenges two major assumptions of contemporary studies of ethnic conflict: first, that ethnicity is essentially psychological and irrational and, second, that ethnic politics are a domestic affair and have only indirect and unintended international consequences.

Contents

1. Introduction: The International Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict in the Middle East, by Leonard Binder
Part I
Arab Nationalism: Cooperation, Conflict, and Domination
2. Power, Legitimacy, and Peace-Making in Arab Coalitions: The New Arabism, by Shibley Telhami
3. The Assembled State: Communal Conflicts and Governmental Control in Iraq, by Adeed Dawisha
4. Syria: Creating a National Community, by Moshe Mahaoz
5. From Consociationalism to the Public Sphere: Recent Evidence from Lebanon, by Michael C. Hudson
6. Religious and Ethnic Conflict in Sudan: Can National Unity Survive? by Gabriel Warburg
Part II
Iran, Islam, and the Persian Gulf
7. Iran's Revolutionary Politics: Nationalism and Islamic Identity, by David Menashri
8. Ethnic Ties between Subordinate Ethnic Communities and Neighboring Regimes: Iran and the Shiaya of the Arab States of the Gulf, by Michael Herb
9. Toward a Social Analysis of Islamist Movements, by Gilles Kepel
Part III
Turkey, the Kurds, and Central Asia
10. Ethnic and Religious Strains in Turkey: Internal and External Implications, by Ian O. Lesser
11. Turkey's Restive Kurds: The Challenge of Multiethnicity, by Graham E. Fuller
12. New States and New Identities: Religion and State Building in Central Asia, by Martha Brill Olcott
Part IV
Jordan-Palestine-Israel
13. Al-Muhajirin w-al-Ansar: Hashemite Strategies for Managing Communal Identity in Jordan, by Laurie A. Brand
14. Hamas: Strategy and Tactics, by Muhammad Muslih
15. Hegemony and the Riddle of Nationalism, by Ian S. Lustick
16. Afterthoughts, by Leonard Binder

Leonard Binder, author of In a Moment of Enthusiasm and Islamic Liberalism, is International Studies and Overseas Programs Professor of Middle East Studies in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. He is a past president of the Middle East Studies Association.