Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order. - Review - book review

Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Wntr, 2000 by Malak Ansour

Michael N. Barnett. Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Xiii 376 pages. Hardcover $40.00, paper $17.50;.

VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN on the state of inter-Arab relations, let alone the premises upon which these relations have been conducted throughout most of this century. Most accounts that approach the topic, seem to focus on inter-Arab conflicts as the sole manifestation of Arab politics and very rarely does someone, like Albert Hourani, write a distinctly scholarly and insightful piece that would come to define scholarship of Arab history and politics. Professor Michael N. Barnett's book sets out to offer a meticulously woven and scholarly alternative to the mass of literature on Arab politics, which is preoccupied with military conflict, by presenting an account grounded in the observation of the gradual construction of norms that shape the course of inter-Arab relations.

Using a mixture of established theoretical approaches and novel tools, Professor Barnett has written a well argued and thoroughly researched scholarly piece. Acknowledging the theoretical grounding of his work, namely Constructivism, he has carefully built-up an interpretation of inter-Arab politics which is meant to stand in opposition to Realist interpretations. To boost his methodological arsenal, Professor Barnett also creates a tool he calls 'dialogues', which he defines as moments 'when an event triggers an intensified discussion among the members of the group about the norms that are to guide their relation' (p. 25). The study of these dialogues offers the primary tool the book uses to describe the collective of dynamics that emerges on the Arab political scene. By examining a selection of the 'dialogues' that have occurred throughout the past eight decades among Arab states, he establishes a consistent method to treat such interactions.

The book is organized along a largely chronological structure with opening and concluding theoretical chapters. Dividing the post 1920 history of the Arab world into five different eras, which correspond to five different chapters constituting the bulk of the book, Professor Barnett tries to shed a particular trait on each of these time intervals. In turn, these traits revolve around what he identifies as the two main contending thrusts of Arab politics since 1920, namely Arabism and Statism, which have defined the nature of the prevailing order among the different Arab entities. The progression of the book crudely corresponds with the argument that the recent history of the politics of the Arab world and the nature of the ensuing order have progressed from thoughts of Arab nationalism to absorption into statist concerns from the formative years of the Arab state system in 1920-1945 and the early notions that shaped inter-Arab relations, to the post-Gulf War of 1990-1991, and the fundamental challenges posed by the New World Order and peace with Israel to inter-Arab relations.

Thus it is from the prominence of independence from the West, thoughts of

Arab unification, and the derivatives of the Arab-Israeli conflict--all of which being attempts at the realization of a certain consensus about Arabism and supplanting particular Arab governments' interests--, that Professor Barnett uses the progression of his book to point to the gradual reduction of Arab politics into the emergence or promotion of "statist identities, a centrist definition of Arab nationalism [ldots] acceptance of sovereignty as the basis for regional order"(p. 22), and of "political Islam" (p. 23).

The theoretical chapters of the book raise the most interesting avenues for debate. Opening with two chapters that define his approach, and ending with a chapter combining observations and conclusions about the state of inter-Arab politics as well as Constructivist thought Professor Barnett's book is not an exercise in appeasement. A book of this kind will inevitably attract attention and possibly criticism for its conceptual approaches. First, the choices Professor Barnett makes about the parameters of his discussion of the state of Arab affairs will inevitably face questioning. The foundation of the analysis in a post-1920 environment robs the discussion of many of the fundamental tenets that informed later Arabist thinking. The 'story' of Arabism in its broader sense is lacking, and the bases that informed the norms of Arabism throughout the twentieth century, particularly on the populist level, are largely absent. For instance, language, the thread of common heritage, and even the late 19th century, anti -Ottoman rumblings that were carried into the 20th century, pass with very little treatment. The choice Barnett makes in restricting his discussion to Arab politics in a state system may offer a partial answer, but it still does not answer many of the grievances, created by the initial fragmentation of the Arab world into these states, and which dictated many of the subsequent dialogues within that system. The same debate about choices will arise concerning the treatment of Islam, particularly in view of Barnett's admitted cursory treatment of Islam because 'Islam's principal challenge has been to domestic governance rather than regional governance' (pp. 22-23). Since Arabism was not studied because of its challenge to regional order, the confinement of the treatment of Islam to such a dimension requires further elaboration.