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Altered States The Remaking of the Political in the Arab World
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Building on Timothy Mitchell's seminal 1991 exploration of the "Limits of the State," this book brings together contributions on the state in the Arab world from the past and present in an edited volume.
Altered States views the state less as a matter of people and institutions and more as sets of practices, regimes of truth, and capabilities of power, and the effects they have on those under their control. Through analysing case studies - including Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, UAE, Rojova, and the Islamic State - the concept of the state is applied and questioned. This book examines the roots of policies that led to the uprisings, focusing on how the "authoritarian bargain", which helped define Arab politics, broke down with the rise of neoliberalism. It also assesses how boundaries between state and society have been redrawn, as various dynamics have brought state forces into more open conflict with citizens and each other.
The rapid pace of change in the Arab world has necessitated constant modification of themes and theoretical lens of analysis. This book will, therefore, be of interest to practitioners, graduate students and academics of the Arab world, statehood, and political science.
Introduction: The Remaking of the Political in the Arab World since 2010
Sune Haugbolle and Mark Levine
Chapter 1. State-crafting and Modes of Governance in the United Arab Emirates
Estella Carpi and Andrea Glioti
Chapter 2. Community Organizing and the Limits of Participatory Democracy in Lebanon
Sophie Chamas
Chapter 3. Archiving in an Age of (Counter)Revolutions
Leyla Dakhli
Chapter 4. Class Power, the State and Contentious Politics in the age of Globalization: The case of Egypt
Angela Joya
Chapter 5. Same Different? A Comparative Study of Kurdish-Led Rojava and Opposition-Held Syria
Andrea Glioti
Chapter 6. Postcolonial State-ness and the Case of Rawabi
Somdeep Sen
Chapter 7. Lebanon’s Wadi Khaled and Challenge of Sovereignty
Jamil Mouawad
Chapter 8. Egyptian State and Culture
Ted Swedenburg
Chapter 9. How Diplomatic Practices Make the Fuzzy State of Palestine Visible
Michelle Pace
Chapter 10. Daesh and the "Effect of the State"
Michael Degerald
Chapter 11. Conclusion: The Westphalian State Effect
Jillian Schwedler
Biography
Sune Haugbolle is Professor of Global Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark.
Mark LeVine is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of California, Irvine, USA.
"Haugbolle and LeVine have brought together various contributors in a pioneering edited volume that goes against the grain of debates on the state in the Middle East and North Africa. Its questioning of the apparent solidity of the state is a nuanced and refreshing intervention on the subject."
Mohammed Moussa, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University.
"This fascinating collection of essays provides excitingly fresh analyses of the state effect in the Middle East. By conceiving of the state as relational, dynamic, and constantly remade, and through a series of sensitive ethnographic and historical studies, this volume updates our understanding of how the Middle Eastern state still functions after the shattering uprisings of the last decade."
Laleh Khalili, Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary UL.
"Altered States makes an invaluable contribution to scholarship on "state-ness," that is, the means and policies that constitute governance, including various forms of reprisal and repression against those who challenge their states and/or are deemed dangers and threats. The contributors offer deeply theorized analyses grounded in empirical detail about state practices across the Middle East and the dynamical effects on societies and communities. This book's theoretical implications extend beyond one region and should appeal to scholars who work on states anywhere."
Lisa Hajjar, author of The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture.
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