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Prolegomena to the Comparative Study of Middle East Governments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Leonard Binder
Leonard Binder
Affiliation:
University of California (Los Angeles)
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Extract

Only the cold war has overshadowed the second most striking political phenomenon of the post World War II scene. The demise of imperial power over vast Asian and Middle Eastern territories and the rise of new independent states is in part the result of the transfer of power from Europe to the United States and the Soviet Union, and in part a distinct phenomenon. The politics of these new states have an increasing interest, partly because of their possible subversion to Communist allegiance, and partly because of the desire to assess the possibilities of successfully transplanting democracy. Emphasis on the danger of subversion intensifies interest in the political processes in these non-western countries; but the context of these politics, i.e., that which may be subverted, is the primary concern of the discipline of comparative government.

Political scientists have been among the last to extend the area of their research to non-western countries. They have been preceded by travelling diarists, students of comparative religion, archaeologists, historians, and latterly, anthropologists. From these sources much material, though of varied and uneven quality, exists to start with. A few political histories, fewer studies of various aspects of non-western politics, and still fewer studies of the contitutional development of these areas supplement these resources. Materials are scantiest for the Middle East.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1957 , pp. 651 - 668
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1957

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References

1 Patai, R., “The Middle East as a Culture Area,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 6 (Winter, 1952), pp. 1–21Google Scholar.

2 Even this influence was not uniform; see Gibb, H. A. R. and Bowen, H., Islamic Society and the West (London, 1950), Vol. 1, Part I, p. 20Google Scholar.

3 The Middle East has been, and remains, an ambiguous term. For the purposes of this essay the applicability of the comparative method ia the only limitation. Islam as a political ideology therefore provides a preliminary criterion of limitation. If this looseness is unacceptable, the “American” Near East plus the “British” Middle East may be substituted. These two usages include all the countries from Libya to Pakistan. While the State of Israel lies within these geographic limits, the comparability of its political institutions with those of its neighbors is at least enough in doubt to warrant its exclusion from the present discussion.

4 By fundamentalism is meant a reforming movement emanating from the romanticization of early Islam, but insisting upon strict adherence to Islamic law. Another variety of fundamentalism is the Wahhabi and related Sanusi types, which are of earlier origin and were mostly directed against mystic and primitivistic accretions to Islam.

5 I.e., that of the “ulama,” representing the whole of the accumulated legal and social tradition of Islam and stressing the related function of the ulama as a religious institution. The ulama “know” the law, hence are clergy.

6 See Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Middle East: A Political and Economic Survey (London, 2d ed., 1954), p. 104Google Scholar.

7 For a short period Iran was without a Shah, and throughout 1924–5 Riza was undecided whether to become President or Shah of Iran.

8 Rustow, D., Politics and Westernization in the Near East, Center of International Studies (Princeton, 1956), p. 14Google Scholar.

9 Constitution of the Republic of Syria (September 5, 1950), Preamble and Chapter I, Article 3, (1) and (2).

10 Shi'ite legists competent to interpret the law of Islam.

11 The Iranian parliament.

12 Islamic Law.

13 See Gibb, H. A. R., “Some Considerations of the Sunni Theory of the Caliphate,” Archives d'Histoire du Droit Orientale, Tome III (Wetteren, 1948), p. 405Google Scholar.

14 Civil decree without religious sanction.

15 I.e., peripheral to the historical Islamic empire: Afghanistan, the Yemen, Morocco, even Arabia.

16 A council of notables, with floating membership.

17 Laqueur, W. Z., Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East (New York, 1956), p. 167Google Scholar.

18 E.g., suppression of opposition newspapers.

19 This view differs from that of Laqueur, op. cit., p. 6.

20 See Lewis, B., “Islamic Revival in Turkey,” International Affairs, Vol. 28 (January, 1952), pp. 38–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas, L. V., “Recent Developments in Turkish Islam,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 6 (Winter, 1952), pp. 22–40Google Scholar; and Marmorstein, E., “Religious Opposition to Nationalism in the Middle East,” International Affairs, Vol. 28 (July, 1952), pp. 344–349CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Gibb and Bowen, op. cit., p. 200.

22 Communist influences, though growing in the Middle East, seem most likely to manifest themselves within the framework of the nation-state. It may be assumed that the United States will actively resist the subversion of any of the “Northern Tier” states bordering on the USSR, i.e., those most likely to imitate communist forms in such an eventuality.

23 See Deutsch, K. W., The Political Community at the International Level, Doubleday Short Studies (New York, 1954), p. 44Google Scholar.

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