Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T22:45:37.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does war make states? Rentierism and the formation of states in the Middle East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2011

Rolf Schwarz
Rolf Schwarz*
Affiliation:
Middle East Faculty, NATO Defense College, Via Giorgio Pelosi 1, Rome, Italy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The famous dictum that ‘war makes states’ has received renewed interest with the experience of state failure and state collapse in many parts of the Developing World. Historical studies have shown that the activity of war-making was an essential ingredient of the process of state-making in early modern Europe. The history of state-making in the Arab Middle East shows that rentier states defy the ‘war makes states’ theory. This article compares four states from the Arab world, two having been exposed to the experience of war-making (Iraq and Jordan) and two not (the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia). The comparison of these four states shows that rentierism serves as an obstacle to the formation of legitimate and institutionalized states. However, the availability of external rents also allows state institutions and patronage channels to continue providing general welfare. Thus, rentierism produces a twin phenomenon of state weakness and life support for potentially failed states. It is only when war-making is employed in rentier states as a strategy of state-making that states fail and break.

Keywords

warfailed statedevelopment
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , November 2011 , pp. 419 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al-Khafaji, I. (2000), ‘War as a vehicle for the rise and demise of a state-controlled society the case of Ba'thist Iraq’, in S. Heydemann (ed.), War, Institutions, and Social Change in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 258–291.Google Scholar
Al-Sayegh, F. (1998), ‘Merchants’ role in a changing society: the case of Dubai, 1900–90’, Middle Eastern Studies 34(1): 87–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amawi, A.M. (1993), ‘State and class in Transjordan: a study of state autonomy’, PhD thesis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Anderson, L. (1990), ‘Policy-making and theory building: American political science and the Islamic Middle East’, in H. Sharabi (ed.), Theory, Politics and the Arab World: Critical Responses, London: Routledge, pp. 52–80.Google Scholar
Ayubi, N.M. (1995), Overstating the Arab State. Politics and Society in the Middle East, London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Barnett, M. (1992), Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Barro, R.J. (2000), The Rule of Law, Democracy, and Economic Performance, Washington: Heritage Foundation.Google Scholar
Batatu, H. (1978), The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bennoune, M. (1988), The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1830–1987, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brand, L.A. (1992), ‘Economic and political liberalization in a rentier economy: the case of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’, in I. Harik and D.J. Sullivan (eds), Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 167–188.Google Scholar
Brand, L.A. (2001), ‘In search of budget security: a reexamination of Jordanian Foreign Policy’, in L. Carl Brown (ed.), Diplomacy in the Middle East: The International Relations of Regional and Outside Powers, New York: I.B. Tauris, pp. 139–158.Google Scholar
Brown, L.C. (1964), ‘Stages in the process of change’, in C.A. Micaud (ed.), Tunisia: The Politics of Modernization, New York: Praeger, pp. 3–66.Google Scholar
Brownlee, J. (2002), ‘…And yet they persist: explaining survival and transitions in neopatrimonial regimes’, Studies in Comparative International Development 37(3): 35–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brynen, R. (2000), A Very Political Economy. Peacebuilding and Foreign Aid in the West Bank and Gaza, Washington: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Centeno, M.A. (2002), Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Central Bank of Jordan (1999), Thirty-Fifth Annual Report, 1998, Amman: Department of Research and Studies.Google Scholar
Chaudhry, K.A. (1990), ‘Economic liberalization in oil-exporting countries: Iraq and Saudi Arabia’, in I. Harik and D.J. Sullivan (eds), Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 145–166.Google Scholar
Chaudhry, K.A. (1997), The Price of Wealth. Economies and Institutions in the Middle East, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Crystal, J. (1990), Oil and Politics in the Gulf. Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, T. (2002), ‘Bringing the bourgeoisie back in: globalization and the birth of liberal authoritarianism in the Middle East’, in T. Dodge and R. Higgott (eds), Globalization and the Middle East – Islam, Economy, Society and Politics, London: RIIA, pp. 169–187.Google Scholar
Dodge, T. (2003), ‘US intervention and possible Iraqi futures’, Survival 45(3): 103–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doner, R.F., Ritchie, B.K. Slater, D. (2005), ‘Systemic vulnerability and the origins of developmental States: Northeast and Southeast Asia in comparative perspective’, International Organization 59: 327–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, B.M. (1992), The Military Revolution and Political Change. Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elsenhans, H. (1996), State, Class and Development, New Delhi: Radiant.Google Scholar
Ertman, T. (1997), Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fasano, U. (2003), Monetary Union among Member Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Washington: International Monetary Fund.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauvelle-Aymar, C. (1999), ‘The political and tax capacity of government in developing countries’, Kyklos 52(3): 391–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganev, V.I. (2005), ‘Post-communism as an episode of state building: a reversed Tillyan perspective’, Communist and Post-communist Studies 38: 425–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gause, G. (1994), Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States, New York: Council on Foreign Relations.Google Scholar
Gause, G. (2002), ‘Iraq's decision to go to war, 1980 and 1990’, Middle East Journal 56(1): 49–51.Google Scholar
Gongora, T. (1997), ‘War making and state power in the contemporary Middle East’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 29: 323–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagmann, T. Hoehne, M.V. (2009), ‘Failures of the state failure debate: evidence from the Somali Territories’, Journal of International Development 21: 42–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heard-Bey, F. (1996), From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates. A Society in Transition, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Herbst, J. (2000), States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hertog, S. (2008), ‘Two-level negotiations in a fragmented system: Saudi Arabia's WTO accession’, Review of International Political Economy 15(4): 650–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heydemann, S. (2000), ‘War, institutions, and social change in the Middle East’, in S. Heydemann (ed.), War, Institutions, and Social Change in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, C. (2003), ‘The tax state in the information age’, in T.V. Paul, G. John Ikenberry and J.A. Hall (eds.), The Nation-State in Question, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 213–227.Google Scholar
Jreisat, J.E. (1989), ‘Bureaucracy and development in Jordan’, Journal of Asian and African Studies 24(1–2): 94–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jung, D. (1997), ‘Das Kriegsgeschehen im Nahen Osten: 43 Kriege und ein Friedensprozeß [War in the Near East: 43 wars and one peace process]’, Orient 38(2): 337–351.Google Scholar
Karl, T.L. (1997), The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Boom and Petro States, Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilani, S. Sakijha, B. (2000), Towards Transparency in Jordan, Amman: Arab Archives Institute.Google Scholar
Knowles, W. (2005), Jordan since 1989: A Study in Political Economy, London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Krause, K. (1996), ‘Insecurity and state formation in the global military order: the Middle Eastern case’, European Journal of International Relations 2(3): 319–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leander, A. (2004), ‘Wars and the unmaking of States: taking Tilly seriously in the contemporary world’, in S. Guzzini and D. Jung (eds), Copenhagen Peace Research: Conceptual Innovations and Contemporary Security Analysis, London: Routledge, pp. 69–80.Google Scholar
Lowi, M.R. (2004), ‘Oil rents and political breakdown in patrimonial states: Algeria in comparative perspective’, Journal of North African Studies 9(3): 83–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luciani, G. (1988), ‘Economic foundations of democracy and authoritarianism: the Arab World in comparative perspective’, Arab Studies Quarterly 10(4): 457–475.Google Scholar
Luciani, G. (1990), ‘Allocation vs. production states: a theoretical framework’, in G. Luciani (ed.), The Arab State, London: Routledge, pp. 65–84.Google Scholar
Lustick, I. (1997), ‘The absence of Middle Eastern great powers: political “backwardness” in historical perspective’, International Organization 51(4): 653–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, M. (1993), The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massad, J.A. (2001), Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Migdal, J. (2001), State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migdal, J. (2004), ‘State-building and the non-nation-state’, Journal of International Affairs 58(1): 17–46.Google Scholar
Mishal, S. (1980), ‘Conflictual pressures and cooperative interests: observations on West Bank-Amman political relations, 1949–1967’, in J.S. Migdal (ed.), Palestinian Society and Politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 69–82.Google Scholar
Moore, P.W. (2004), Doing Business in the Middle East. Politics and Economic Crisis in Jordan and Kuwait, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niemann, M. (2007), ‘War making and state making in Central Africa’, Africa Today 53(3): 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D., Wallis, J.J. Weingast, B.R. (2009), Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peake, F.G. (1958), A History of Jordan and Its Tribes, Coral Gables: University of Miami Press.Google Scholar
Perthes, V. (1995), The Political Economy of Syria under Assad, London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Perthes, V. (2000), ‘Si Vis Stabilitatem, Para Bellum. State building, national security, and war preparation in Syria’, in S. Heydemann (ed.), War, Institutions, and Social Change in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 149–173.Google Scholar
Rasler, K.A. Thompson, W.R. (1985), ‘War making and state making: governmental expenditures, tax revenues, and global wars’, American Political Science Review 79(2): 491–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasler, K.A. Thompson, W.R. (1989), War and State-Making: The Shaping of Global Powers, London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Razoux, P. (1999), La Guerre Israélo-Arabe d'Octobre 1973, Paris: Economica.Google Scholar
Robins, P. (2004), A History of Jordan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sadowski, Y. (1993), Scuds or Butter? The Political Economy of Arms Control in the Middle East, Washington: Brookings Institutions.Google Scholar
Schlumberger, O. (ed.) (2007), Debating Arab Authoritarianism. Dynamics and Duability in Non-democraric Regimes, Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwarz, R. (2008), ‘The political economy of state-formation in the Arab Middle East: rentier states, economic reform, and democratization’, Review of International Political Economy 15(4): 599–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shojai, S. Katz, B. (1992), The Oil Market in the 1980s. A Decade of Decline, New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1982), ‘Rentier state and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian revolution’, Theory and Society 11(3): 265–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, B. (2007), Hard Times in the Land of Plenty. Oil Politics in Iran and Indonesia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, J. (2010), ‘The state and violence. A discussion of violence and social orders: a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history’, Perspectives on Politics 8: 287–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Susser, A. (2000), Jordan. Case Study of a Pivotal State, Washington: The Washington Institute of Near East Policy.Google Scholar
Taylor, B.D. Botea, R. (2008), ‘Tilly Tally: war-making and state-making in the contemporary third world’, International Studies Review 10: 27–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tell, T. (2000), ‘The social origins of Hashemite rule: Bedouin, Fallah and State on the East Bank’, D.Phil. thesis. Oxford: Oxford University, Trinity College.Google Scholar
Thies, C.G. (2004), ‘State building, interstate and intrastate rivalry: a study of post-colonial developing country extractive efforts, 1975–2000’, International Studies Quarterly 48: 53–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C. (ed.) (1975), The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1985), ‘War making and state making as organized crime’, in P.B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State back in, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C. (1990), Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990–1990, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
UAE Central Bank (2002), Economic Bulletin.Google Scholar
UAE Central Bank (2004), Statistical Bulletin, April–June.Google Scholar
UNDP (2005), Arab Human Development Report 2004: Towards Freedom in the Arab World, New York: United Nations Development Program.Google Scholar
Vandewalle, D. (1998), Libya since Independence: Oil and State Building, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vatikiotis, P.J. (1967), Politics and the Military in Jordan. A Study of the Arab Legion, 1921–1957, London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Waterbury, J. (1991), ‘Twilight of the state bourgeoisie’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 23(1): 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waterbury, J. (1997), ‘From social contracts to extraction contracts: the political economy of authoritarianism and democracy’, in J. Entelis (ed.), Islam, Democracy, and the State in North Africa, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 141–176.Google Scholar
Waterbury, J. (1998), ‘The state and economic transition in the Middle East and North Africa’, in N. Shafik (ed.), Prospects for Middle Eastern and North African Economies: From Boom to Bust and Back?, Houndmills: Macmillan, pp. 159–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, A. (2003), ‘Why a world state is inevitable’, European Journal of International Relations 9(4): 491–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, A. Barnett, M. (1993), ‘Dependent state formation and Third World Militarization’, Review of International Studies 19(4): 321–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank (2003), Better Governance for Development in the Middle East and North Africa: Enhancing Inclusiveness and Accountability, Washington: World Bank.Google Scholar