1. Arab Armed Forces: State Makers or State Breakers?
- Author:
- Robert Springborg
- Publication Date:
- 07-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Middle East Institute (MEI)
- Abstract:
- Proliferation and intensification of coercive force in the Arab world since 2011, combined with apparent decay of Arab states, seems at first glance to run counter to the implicit predictions of two relevant bodies of literature. The modernization school, which emerged as Arab states were becoming independent in the 1950s, held that Arab militaries were state builders—mobilizing, integrating, and organizing their societies to face development challenges, including that of inter-state war. More or less simultaneously, European-focused historical sociology, led by Charles Tilly, made the case that war making, requiring as it does increased domestic extraction coupled with subordination to central authority of internal rivals, was the engine of state making. And indeed, the historical trajectory of the Arab world for some half a century up until 2011 seemed to substantiate both views, as militaries and states grew in tandem under the ever present threat of war.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Democracy, State, and Monarchy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Arab Countries