Statehood in the Middle East: The Future Which Started Yesterday

The crisis of statehood in the Middle East was caused by factors not uncommon for the contemporary international developments, but specifically refracted in the context of the original cultures of the peoples and countries of the region. The protests in the Arab States, signifying the pain of gaining civic self-esteem and dignity; crisis of secularism; attempts to repel imposed identities and a search for the cultural roots can be attributed to the mainstream global trends, but in the forms corresponding to the specific organization of Arab societies. The formation of modern Arab States experienced the powerful impact of the Western nationalism, but the adoption of Western ideologies went hand in hand with rejection of Western models of social inclusion. A special place in the region is taken by Israel built in compliance with the Western political model, although, also partially revised under the influence of ethnopolitical considerations and security challenges. The coexistence of tradition and modernity not only in the social structure of Middle Eastern societies, but also in the minds of citizens and their behavioral patterns are correlated with the level of development of modern institutions, which are either weak or nonexistent in a number of Arab States. The prospects of nation building that would respond to the public expectations, based on the synthesis of modernist and postmodernist discourses, of modernity and archaism are not yet clear. An appeal to religion and its politicization may be an important but not necessarily uncontested element of searching for new models of statehood in the region.

1. Avineri Sh. (1989). Osnovnye napravleniia v evreiskoi politicheskoi mysli [Main Directions in the Jewish Political Thought]. Tel-Aviv: Biblioteka-Aliia. 320 p.

2. Bogaturov A.D., Vinogradov A.V. (2002). Anklavno-konglomeratnyi tip razvitiia. Opyt transsistemnoi teorii [Development Type Based on Enclaves and Conglomerates. The Record of Trans-Systemic Theory]. In Vostok–Zapad–Rossiia. Sbornik statei. K 70-letiiu akademika N.A. Simonii. Moscow: ProgressTraditsiia. P. 109-128.

3. Dawisha A. (2013). The Second Arab Awakening: Revolution, Democracy, and the Islamist Challenge from Tunis to Damascus. N.Y., L.: W.W. Norton & Company. 288 p.

4. Eisenstadt S.N. (2000). Multiple Modernities. Daedalus. Vol.129. No. 1. P. 1-29.

5. Gellner E. (1991). Natsii i natsionalizm [Nations and Nationalism]. Moscow: Progress. 319 p.

6. Ibn Khaldun. (2008). Al-Mukaddima. In Istoriko-filosofskij ezhegodnik 2007. Moscow: Nauka. P. 187-217.

7. Kosolapov N. (2005). Rossiia: territoriya v prostranstvakh globaliziruiushchegosya mira [Russia: Territory in the Spaces of Globalizing World]. Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya. No. 7. P. 3-14.

8. Naumkin V. (2016). Nuzhno li prisoediniat' Rossiiu k soglasheniiu Saiksa-Piko? [Is it Necessary to Associate Russia with the Sykes-Picot Agreement]. Rossiiskii sovet po mezhdunarodnym delam. URL: http://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/analytics/nuzhno-li-prisoedinyat-rossiyu-ksoglasheniyu-sayksa-piko/

9. Naumkin V.V. (2008). Politicheskie protsessy v stranakh Vostoka [Political Processes in the Countries of the Orient]. Istoriia Vostoka. Vostok v noveishii period (1945-2000 gg.). T.VI. Moscow: Vostochnaia literature, RAN. P.12.

10. Rabinovich I. (2014). The End of Sykes-Picot? Reflections on the Prospects of the Arab State System.

11. Middle East memo. Saban Center at Brookings. #32. February 2014. URL: https://www.brookings. edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Sykes_Picot_Rabinovich.pdf

12. Razhbadinov M.Z. (2013). Anatomiia egipetskoi revoliutsii – 2011: Egipet nakanune i posle politicheskogo krizisa v yanvare-fevrale 2011 g. [Anatomy of the Egyptian Revolution – 2011: Egypt in Advance and after the Political Crisis in January-February 2011]. Moscow: Institut vostokovedeniia RAN. 424 p.

13. Sapronova M.V. (2015). Stanovlenie novoi gosudarstvennosti na arabskom Vostoke [Emergence of New Statehood in the Middle East]. Mezhdunarodnye protsessy. Vol. 13. No 3. P. 26-39.

14. Serebrov S.N. (2014). Yemen: natsional'nyi dialog i problema separatizma iuga [Yemen: National Dialogue and Problems of Southern Separatism]. Otsenki i idei: Biulleten' IV RAN. 2014. Vol. 1. No. 5. 19 p.

15. Truevtsev K.M., Bulaev O.O. (2016). Liviya: raspavsheesya gosudarstvo i ochag regional'noi nestabil'nosti. [Libya: Disintegrated State and the Hotbed of Regional Instability]. Otsenki i idei: Biulleten' IV RAN. Vol. 1. No. 9. URL: https://book.ivran.ru/f/bull-9-maj-2016.pdf

16. Walberg E. (2013). From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-emerging Islamic Civilization. Atlanta: Clarity Press: 2013. 368 p.