Middle East Dilemma

Michael C. Hudson (ed.)

Tauris & Co. Ltd

1999

1. Arab Integration: An Overview
Michael C. Hudson

 

Arab integration? One does not have to be an Orientalist of the kind that Edward Said so deftly deconstructed to wonder whether this is an oxymoron. So pervasive today is the image of Arab disintegration that we tend to forget that the dream of Arab nationalists has always been of the far more robust term, unity. But decades of bitter experience, often maliciously exaggerated by hostile commentators, has turned even dedicated Arab nationalists into cynics, and the quest for unity to many has become a bad joke. How many times have we heard that famous aphorism about the Holy Roman Empire adapted to the "United Arab Republic" (between Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961), to wit, that it was neither united, nor Arab, nor a republic.

The quest for Arab unity has been a dominant theme of Arab politics in the twentieth century. Recent developments, however, have rendered this dream more elusive than ever, as the Arab world’s external dependence and internal fragmentation have increased. The weakening and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union as the patron of Arab nationalist regimes and the growing penetration of Israel and the United States into domestic Arab arenas clearly have dealt major setbacks to the pan–Arab project. Israel’s humiliation of Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1967 war was a body blow to Arabism. More recently the hollowness of Arab unity was devastatingly exposed when a U.S.–led international coalition that included several Arab states crushed Iraq, following Saddam Hussein’s ill–conceived effort to swallow Kuwait. On the internal level as well the fragmentation of political culture in many parts of the Arab world has tarnished the ideological claims of Arab nationalists concerning the viability—even the reality—of an Arab umma, or community, from the Atlantic to the Gulf. Yet at the same time, new possibilities for subregional and functional integration have arisen. Despite the manifest failure of Arab nationalist ideologies and structures to unify a "nation" now divided into some twenty sovereign states (some more sovereign than others), there have been repeated efforts, subregional in scope, to achieve a measure of integration or at least coordination. Some have failed outright, such as the UAR; others, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council, the United Arab Emirates, the Arab Maghrib Union, and unified Yemen have endured, albeit with varying degrees of success. Economic development and social modernization have created a "logic of integration." For example, the explosive growth of oil revenues generated a vast movement of labor and remittances across borders. The Egyptian political sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim observed that the volume of transnational social transactions in the 1970s and 1980s reached unprecedented levels (Ibrahim 1982, 154–59) even as—ironically—the ideological and structural manifestations of ’uruba (pan–Arabism) were decaying.

It is clear, therefore, that any serious assessment of the state of integration or disintegration in the Arab world today must take account of multiple, complex, and even contradictory trends. Only by doing so can one begin to unravel what I once called "the integration puzzle in Arab politics": despite failure after failure on the political level, the ideal of unity is still there (Hudson 1979, 81 ff). Indeed, the recent global and regional upheavals have if anything underlined the costs of disunity. The inability to mobilize the considerable collective human and material resources of a "nation" of more than 200 million people accounts in part for the powerlessness which Arab intellectuals like Edward Said (1996) see as the fundamental problem facing the Arabs today: "Whereas Israel can roll its tanks across borders, its air force can bomb civilians at will, its propagandists can fill the Western media with their lies about self–defense and the war against terrorism, the Arabs for their part can only bleat out squeaks of anger."

It is not our intention in this book to argue the political case for or against Arab unity. Instead, our interest is twofold: primarily, to assess as carefully as possible the state of regional integration and cooperation in the Arab world in light of the major developments of the past decades; and secondarily, to explain why integration in general, let alone unity, has proven so elusive a goal. I propose to begin by raising some conceptual and theoretical questions. How do we define integration, and what does international relations theory tell us about integration processes and the behavior of states in a complex, uncertain, and insecure environment? Integration theorists, structural realists, and liberal institutionalists offer different approaches. Then, turning from theory to behavior, I review the historical trajectory of the Arab unity movement, first in its ideological aspect through a summary of Arab nationalist thought and political activity, second in its formal institutional aspect through a discussion of the League of Arab States, and third with some comments on the meaning of the second Gulf war for Arab integration. I conclude with some provisional thoughts on why unity (defined as fusion) has failed but why other forms of integration may eventually succeed.

Theoretical Issues

What do we mean by "integration" in general and Arab integration in particular? Like most social concepts, this term has numerous definitions which are context–dependent. Within a given society and political order, such as the United States, we may speak of "racial integration" as a process through which a culturally distinctive subcommunity becomes accepted as a part of the larger community—subject on an equal basis to its various institutional rules and accessible to its rights. While a given minority does not necessarily lose its distinctive cultural character—the "melting pot" metaphor is perhaps misleading (Glazer and Moynihan, 1970)—it does partake, on a nondiscriminatory basis, of the rights and obligations of the citizenry, or the nation. Were the Arab world in fact a single society and political order the "integration problematic" would most likely center on gemeinschaft questions of Arab "identity" and on the problems of ethnic and sectarian discrimination. The research agenda would be similar in many ways to the study of racial integration in the U.S., with a focus on the legal system and on the nature of social divisions (see Horowitz 1985). To what extent are Kurds, Berbers, blacks, Christians, Jews, and non–Arabic–speakers integrated, or integratable, into this putative single "Arab nation"? This is undoubtedly one of the most fundamental problems in the politics of each of the twenty–two members of the League of Arab states. But, while it is ultimately germane to our concerns, inasmuch as the nature of "imagined communities" (Anderson 1983, 1991) within sovereign boundaries affect a state’s external policies, this is not the kind of integration that we are primarily addressing in this book.

The integration that we are concerned with is rooted in a different context: not one society or political order, but many. Our research question is the same as the Arab nationalists’ ideological quest: what are the factors promoting—and inhibiting, if not actually preventing—integration of some kind between these twenty–two separate states? E pluribus unum: is it possible? is it likely? Most readers of the chapters that follow will answer "no"—a single, fused, unified political order is, at best, highly improbable and extremely unlikely. Indeed, it is so unlikely that it makes an uninteresting research subject. But to define integration in such purist terms runs the risk of our missing, or misunderstanding, one of the main factors contributing to the chronic tension and instability in the Middle East region. However elusive ideal integration (i.e., unity through fusion) may be for the Arabs, the impulse to integrate has roiled regional politics ever since the beginnings of the modern Middle East state system after World War I. And it continues to do so, even though (as Malik Mufti 1996, recently has demonstrated) most fusion–style integration efforts have failed. These failures in turn may well have eroded the widespread but uninstitutionalized popular enthusiasm for unity that drove Arab ruling elites (sometimes against their better judgment (as Mufti, 87–98, argues) into fusionist projects. Yet if the domestic, gemeinschaft, "sociological" drives toward unity have flagged, the externally driven, rationalistic imperatives for Arab unity have never been stronger. In the Arab mashriq (east), Israel is the military and economic hegemon; to the north and farther east Turkey and Iran pose their own agendas. In the Arab maghrib (west) and all along the southern Mediterranean the divided Arab countries face the growing economic leverage of an increasingly unified European community. And overarching the entire Arab world, east and west, is the world’s only global power, the United States, pursuing policies that many (if not most) Arabs regard as hostile to their national, cultural, and material aspirations. Divisions create vulnerabilities which generate the contempt and ridicule so regularly heaped upon the Arabs at the dawn of the twenty–first century.

If integration defined as fusion is unrealizable, are there forms of integration short of that ideal that constitute a more attainable goal? The discipline of international relations has much to say on this point, providing us with a spectrum of inter–state relationships ranging from the austere images of realist theory—with its focus on the balance of power, insecurity, survival, and (the inevitability of) war—to the "softer" formulations of integration theorists, "regime" theorists, interdependency theorists, liberal institutionalists, and constructivists (see, among others, Waltz 1979, Haas 1964, Krasner 1983, Keohane and Nye 1975, and Lapid and Kratochwil 1996). I shall return to some of these applications at the end of this chapter to see if they throw any new light on the current disintegrated condition of the Arab regional system. Suffice it to point out here that the discipline provides us with some helpful varieties of "integration," some of which would seem to have considerable relevance to the Arab world.

If the Arab state "system" (and I use the term advisedly) is far from ready for fusion into a single unified nation–state, it is also quite far removed from a "pure" balance–of–power (or balance–of–threat) system (neorealists such as Walt 1987, to the contrary notwithstanding), characterized by states relating to each other essentially through the dark calculus of the security dilemma. Somewhere in the middle are relationships that may be characterized (at particular times and in particular places) by coordination of security and economic policies, indicative of a certain interdependency in policymaking; or by cooperation, in which governments, without encroaching on their sovereignty, engage in common pursuits, through treaties or alliances of varying duration.

Four decades ago the distinguished political scientist Karl W. Deutsch and a group of colleagues undertook an imaginative historical–comparative study of integration experiments in the North Atlantic area (Deutsch, et al, 1957). While their analysis focused on a region different in so many ways from the one under consideration here, their typology, I believe, can be fruitfully applied to the Arab world. Its two key components were integration and amalgamation. By integration was meant ". . . the attainment, within a territory, of a ‘sense of community’ and of institutions and practices strong enough and widespread enough to assure, for a ‘long’ time, dependable expectations of ‘peaceful change’ among its population" (Deutsch, 5). An "integrated" group of people within a given territory were said to form a "security–community." By amalgamation was meant "the formal merger of two or more previously independent units into a single larger unit, with some type of common government after amalgamation" (Deutsch, p. 6). The "common government" could be either unitary or federal. Dichotomizing these two variables yielded a four–fold typology (see Figure 1"e;1).

The "amalgamated security community" (Cell 2) encompasses the Arab nationalists’ dream. The current reality, of course, is quite different. There is no amalgamation in this agglomeration of twenty–two independent states—the Arab League, as we shall see, protects rather than erodes these sovereignties. For the same reason, Cell 4 ("amalgamated, but not a security–community") is also ruled out as a valid characterization of the region. Whether there is integration, with its attendant "sense of community," is a much more complicated question, and we immediately see the shortcomings of dichotomized variables and of "snapshot" as opposed to "trend" conceptualizations. Arguably, the myriad processes of societal interaction that have burgeoned across the region over the past several decades constitute a powerful (but under–studied) engine of regional integration. Driven by economic growth and the development of communications and transportation infrastructure, there may be a great deal more sociocultural integration than the naive Arab nationalists of the 1940s and 1950s ever imagined. So argues Saad Eddin Ibrahim (1982, 156): "the Arab world is more closely linked socioeconomically at present than at any time in its modern history." The problem is that interdependence does not lead directly to the growth of political community; and there are obviously many competing communal and public identities and loyalties across this far–flung region stretching from the Atlantic to the Gulf.

Figure 1.1 Deutsch's Typology of Political Communities

But the Arab region as a whole does not fit comfortably into Cell 3 ("not amalgamated, not a security–community") either: there are too many cultural and even structural commonalities to challenge the austere classical realist paradigm of states as atoms (albeit rational and security–conscious!) bouncing about in a medium of "anarchy." Cell 3 captures neither the warmth nor the heat of interstate relations in this complex, interpenetrated environment of ill–formed states and semi–realized community(ies). In the Arab world proximity and familiarity breed many things—not just contempt, but also common aspirations and almost paranoic rivalries. Can we then safely classify the Arab region in the only remaining Cell—1—the "pluralistic security–community," i.e., one that is "integrated" while maintaining the legal independence of separate governments? It would take a Procrustean effort to do so, considering that Deutsch and his colleagues suggest the relationship between Norway and Sweden or between the U.S. and Canada as examples (from the North Atlantic area) of the type. Anyone who has had the trying experience of crossing borders in the Arab world will not be reminded of such cases. Yet the differences may not be as vast as they first appear to be. Many Arab countries allow citizens from specified other Arab countries to enter without the need of a passport or visa—an identity card will do. The collective self–defense articles in the Arab League charter in theory indicate a "security community," although in practice these mechanisms have languished. The Arab League is no NATO, although it was intended to serve as such in the confrontation with Israel. One might observe, perhaps optimistically, that the Arab region is a potential pluralistic security–community, or a half–formed one. The difficulty, in terms of Deutsch’s concept, is that while there may indeed be "a sense of community," it is not buttressed by sufficiently strong institutions or practices (on either the domestic or regional levels) to assure over the long haul "dependable expectations of peaceful change." It is in this respect that the Arab world differs so markedly from the European community, as Tibi rightly argues in chapter 4 below.

It is worth noting, however, that the integration/amalgamation condition in certain parts of the Arab region is (at times, at least) more positive than for the Arab world as a whole. "Outbreaks of integration" (though almost never at the amalgamated security–community level) have occurred, some of them recently. The unification of the two Yemen states in 1990 (discussed below by Burrowes), though precarious, is a rare example of a fusion (Type 2) kind of integration. One might conceivably place the United Arab Emirates federation of 1971 (see Heard–Bey, chapter 6 below) in this category as well, although the seven emirates that federated had not been previously independent of British domination. The one Arab subregion that can make a reasonably robust claim to "pluralistic security–community" (Type 1) status, is the Gulf Cooperation Council, described by Abdalla in Ch. 7; despite its manifest weaknesses, especially in promoting collective security, the GCC has displayed a certain institutional durability underpinned by quite distinctive sociocultural integration. Other dyadic relationships have at times taken on Type 1 characteristics: for example, Egypt–Sudan, Egypt–Libya, Saudi Arabia–Yemen, Syria–Lebanon, and Jordan–Palestine. In all these cases, one observes to some degree what Keohane and Nye call "policy interdependence"—"the extent to which decisions taken by actors in one part of a system affect (intentionally or unintentionally) other actors’ policy decisions elsewhere in the system" (Keohane and Nye 1975, p. 371). Wahda (unity) in the traditional sense may be a chimera, but takamal (integration), tansiq (coordination), and ta’awun (cooperation) are not as scarce as the daily newspaper headlines might lead one to expect.

Decline of the Arab Unity Project

July 14, 1958—Jubilant crowds of young men are surging through the Hamidiyyah suk in Damascus. One of them explains breathlessly to an American student standing nearby that the Western puppet monarchy in neighboring Iraq has just been overthrown. Another obstacle to Arab unity has given way. Soon, he exults, Iraq will be added to the newly minted union between Syria and Egypt (just five months old), and it won’t be long before the traitor King in Jordan will go the way of his slaughtered cousins in Baghdad. And to the west in Lebanon it is only a matter of time before the (Arab) nationalists triumph in their civil war against the pro–Western regime in Beirut. Anyone introduced to Arab politics at that particular moment, as I was, carries a lasting image of nationalist enthusiasm that seemed destined to erase "artificial" borders and unify a national community too long and wrongly divided. But today Arab unity appears to have been consigned to the dustbin of history, and even unity’s poor relations—integration, coordination, and cooperation (as Bassam Tibi describes them in chapter 4 below)—seem at best fragile, limited, and cosmetic.

Arab nationalism has had two faces. One is overtly "political"—a movement replete with ideology, leaders, and parties. The other is "structural"—a number of formal institutions, of which the Arab League and the periodic summit meetings of Arab heads of state are preeminent—to organize the existing sovereign Arab governments for regional integration, collective security, and a unified position in global politics.

The Political Dimension

As a political movement, Arab nationalism’s ascendency coincided with the farthest extension and then the decline of European imperialism. Among its historical precursors (in the eyes of nationalist writers) were the development of a modern state in Egypt by Muhammad Ali, the rise of Wahhabism in Arabia, the Syrian and Lebanese literary nahda (renaissance), the Islamic modernist movement of Muhammad Abdu in Egypt, various pan–Arab conferences (1913, 1937, 1939), the Arab Revolt of 1915, and the Palestinian revolt of 1936"e;39 (Cecil Hourani, quoted in Salman 1986, p. 118). Primarily centered in the mashriq, the idea of Arab unity resonated most deeply after Britain and France filled the vacuum left by the defunct Ottoman Turkish empire after World War I. By the end of World War II, with the gradual retreat of Britain and France as imperialist powers, the idea had taken on concrete political form.

The rise of the Ba‘th (Arab Socialist Renaissance Party) in Syria, the Arab Nationalists’ Movement in Lebanon, and Nasserism in Egypt signaled the spread of the idea beyond the salon and the coffee house to the "street." If the Ba‘th and the ANM sought to mobilize the masses through semi–clandestine cells, Nasser used the mass media to project a heroic image of himself as the spearhead of Arab unity. For the Arabs, the trauma of the establishment of Israel lent further impetus to the unity project. The year 1958 perhaps marks its apogee. In February of that year Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic and a few weeks later the Kingdom of Yemen joined them to create the United Arab States. Scarcely was the ink dry on the UAR Unification Proclama–tion when Jordan and Iraq, each ruled by branches of the Hashemite family, created their own "Arab Union." In a book entitled Arab Unity: Hope and Fulfillment the Palestinian writer Fayez Sayegh saw the events of "the fateful month" of February 1958 as a dramatic step forward.

For the first time in centuries, Arab forces have now appeared on the stage of Arab life ready and able to remake Arab history...No longer is Arab society content with reciting a script written by someone else...At long last, the Arabs have now emerged, in their own homeland, as the makers of their own history...(Sayegh 1958, xiv–xv).

Unfortunately for Arab nationalists, the course was soon to turn downhill. Three years later the UAR split apart (see Al–Sayyid, chapter 5 below). Even though the Ba‘th was able to seize power in Syria and Iraq in the 1960s, the two leaderships fell quickly into bitter rivalry—an ironic twist on their ideology of unity. Ba‘thists fell out with Nasserists. Nasser and Nasserism were weakened by Egypt’s imbroglio in trying to sustain the republican revolution in Yemen, and then by Egypt’s catastrophic defeat at the hands of Israel in the 1967 Six–Day War. Monarchies (like Jordan and Saudi Arabia) that the unionists had labeled as reactionary, tribal, Western–dominated puppet regimes successfully resisted the unity wave. And by the mid–1970s it was becoming clear that the Soviet Union’s will and ability to back the Arab nationalist camp was declining. With the Ba‘th increasingly parochial, the ANM transformed into a left–wing Palestinian nationalist organization, and the deceased Nasser replaced by the pro–American, "Egypt first" leader Anwar Sadat, the unity project was but a shadow of its former self.

Egypt’s defection from the ranks of Arab solidarity at Camp David was followed just over a decade later by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and "Desert Storm," in which some Arab regimes joined the Western coalition against Iraq to the evident outrage of other regimes and a sizeable part of Arab public opinion. Then, after the United States cajoled the key Arab parties and Israel into a "comprehensive" conference at Madrid, inaugurating what would become known as "the peace process," the Arab parties who had solemnly pledged to pursue a common strategy soon fell apart. At Oslo the Palestinians defected, enticed by the possibility of a separate deal with Israel, and the Jordanians hastily followed suit. Syria was left on its own to negotiate with Israel. Once again the Arabs were divided. As hostile sentiment mounted across the Arab world at what some saw as a new era of foreign (U.S. and Israeli) domination, most of the old Arab nationalist constituency looked with disgust on the failed vehicles of their unity aspirations: neither the ideological programs nor the organizational capacities of the Ba‘thists, the Arab Nationalists, or the Nasserists had come close to achieving the goal of Arab unity. And so some began turning to Islamist symbols, leaders, and parties.

The Structural Dimension

The "structural" dimension of the contemporary Arab unity project has been embodied primarily in the League of Arab States and the "institution" of Arab summit meetings. But fusion–style unity is not the kind of integration that these structures were intended to promote. To be sure, the Alexandria Protocol of October 1944, which paved the way for the Arab League Pact several months later, envisaged consolidating the ties that bind the Arab countries and enhancing coordination and cooperation, but it also called for protecting the independence and sovereignty of the member states (text in Hurewitz 1979, 2, 732–34). The Arab League Pact of March 1945 further emphasized state sovereignty. According to one student, "whereas the Protocol had emphasized Arab unity and envisaged ultimate surrender of sovereignty, the Pact stressed the independence and sovereignty of member states" (Salman 1986, p. 115).

Created by the then seven sovereign Arab states (Syria, Trans–Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, and Yemen), the Arab League was intended to strengthen relations between the Arab states "upon a basis of respect for the independence and sovereignty of these states" (text in Macdonald 1965, 319–26). It was supposed to promote cooperation in economic and financial affairs, communications, cultural affairs, nationality, passports and extradition matters, social affairs, and health problems. Articles 5 and 6 of the Charter prohibited any resort to force for resolving disputes among member–states, and attacked member–states were given the right to appeal to the League Council to take measures—by unanimous decision (excluding the aggressor member–state)—to repulse the aggression. In 1950 the Arab League member–states signed a "joint defense and economic cooperation treaty" providing for collective security measures including a Joint Defense Council and a Permanent Military Commission (text in Macdonald, 327–33).

By 1974, as other Arab countries became independent of European control, membership in the League had risen to twenty–two, including Somalia and Mauritania as well as Palestine (despite its non–state status). With the unification of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1993, Arab League membership dropped by one, but with the improbable addition of the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoro Islands (between Mozambique and Madagascar) the same year it remains at twenty–two. Today the Arab League also is an umbrella organization for seventeen specialized agencies, dealing with functions such as maritime transport, civil aviation, economic and social development, educational, cultural, and scientific affairs, monetary policy, broadcasting, and telecommunications. There are also fifteen permanent committees for matters concerning (among other things) oil, human rights, and women (Salafy 1989, 4–15). But the League itself is a very small organization: it has only around 400 employees in its secretariat and offices around the world, and 200–300 local employees in the Cairo headquarters (Khaled Abdalla 1997). By comparison, the main organs of the European Union (in Brussels alone) employ over 20,000 people—quite a challenge for those who propose the EU as a model for future Arab institutional integration.

While the League’s specialized agencies and permanent committees have contributed to functional integration within the Arab world, the League itself has largely failed on the political level. Its efforts to foster economic integration have been generally ineffectual, and its military and collective security functions never materialized. It has been more successful in organizing a common Arab stand on international issues than it has been in regulating inter–Arab disputes. By far the most important of the former has been the question of Palestine and Israel. The League grew up, as it were, with the Palestine problem, and for many years it helped organize a solid consensus opposing Israel’s establishment and subsequent expansion. It organized and maintained the Arab Boycott Office and promoted the cause of the Palestinian refugees.

But, on the negative side of the ledger, it never succeeded in organizing any effective collective defense or deterrent against Israel, let alone a negotiated solution. And it was incapable of preventing Egypt’s defection from the common Arab stand after the Camp David negotiations in 1978 and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in 1979. Subsequently, it played no role in the U.S.–sponsored "peace process" that began at Madrid in 1991 and led eventually to bilateral Palestinian–Israeli and Jordanian–Israeli agreements and the development of contacts between Israel and several other Arab states. On the inter–Arab stage, the League was even more ineffectual. Arab League mediation was attempted in a number of crises, such as the Lebanese civil war of 1958, the Jordan–Palestinian crisis of 1970, the conflicts between North and South Yemen, and the early stage of the 1975–1989 Lebanese civil war (Hudson 1995, 130–34, 137–39). But in none of these cases was the mediation decisive in resolving the conflict. And in the greatest modern crisis in inter–Arab relations—the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990—the League was even less in evidence than it had been during the Iraq–Kuwait crisis at the time of Kuwait’s independence in 1962.

Such impotence should hardly be surprising; the League lacks the legal and political authority to override the sovereign autonomy of the member–states. The Secretary–General’s powers are essentially managerial: he is appointed only at the level of Ambassador by a two–thirds vote of the League Council, and his only specifically designated authority is drafting the budget (Articles 13–14). Most important, the preamble of the League Charter makes it clear that the sovereignty and independence of the member–states is inviolable. Indeed, from the beginning, Lebanon and other small states insisted on the rule of unanimous decision, reflecting their apprehension at the possibility of being dominated, if not eventually swallowed, by larger states. These apprehensions proved to have some foundation, inasmuch as the largest one, Egypt, was consistently the driving force in the League, supplying its secretary–general, its site, and much of its bureaucracy over the ensuing half century years, with the exception of the post–Camp David period of Egyptian isolation. During the Nasser period in particular, many members saw the League as an instrument of Egyptian expansionism rather than as a neutral and evenhanded instrument for inter–Arab conflict resolution. The price of unanimity has been paralysis and irrelevance. Commenting on the League’s fiftieth anniversary ceremony in March 1995, a former Arab League official, Clovis Maksoud, observed sadly that only one Arab head of state—President Mubarak of Egypt—bothered to attend (Maksoud 1995, 589). On this occasion the League Council, recognizing the organization’s enfeebled condition, proposed a "pact for security and Arab cooperation" that would have created an Arab court of justice, greater powers for the secretary–general, and the creation of an "Arab peace–keeping force." The June 1996 Arab summit meeting in Cairo gave general approval and instructed the Arab League secretariat to develop the plan, but a year later the plan was still awaiting approval from the member governments.

Other than the Arab League, the main institutional approach to Arab integration has been the periodic summit meetings of Arab heads of state. The first Arab summit, convened by Nasser, was held in Cairo in January 1964 to discuss Israel’s plans to divert Jordan River waters; it also created the Palestine Liberation Organization. As of June 1996, there had been nineteen Arab summit meetings. Summitry had at least one advantage over the Arab League structure: the real powers were represented. But summit meetings, in general, could not erase the balance–of–power and ideological cleavages inherent in the Arab state system. While certain summits may have been useful to display a common (but often short–lived) unity in response to a particular crisis, such as the Khartoum summit of 1967 in which the Arab states articulated their rejection of Israel’s conquests in the Six–Day War, they also frequently highlighted inter–Arab divisions. Immediately following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, a hastily called summit in Cairo exposed the most bitter quarrel since the establishment of the Arab League, instead of healing it: just twelve of the twenty–one members voted for a resolution to condemn Iraq and to send troops to join the U.S.–led international coalition to liberate Kuwait. The others either rejected the resolution, abstained, expressed reservations, or were absent. So intense were the passions that members of the Iraqi delegation reportedly threw plates of food at the Kuwaitis, and the Kuwaiti foreign minister collapsed (Kifner 1990, 6). As Ghassan Salamé has observed, poor personal relations between Arab heads of state, who sometimes vilify each other in public, can seriously hinder the success of a summit (Salamé 1988, 274).

Instead of healing inter–Arab conflicts, summit meetings are more likely to be infected by them. It was impossible for the Arab heads of state to convene a summit between 1990 and 1996—a period of enormous change in the regional system. The very factors necessitating a meeting made it impossible to hold one: the damage from the Iraq–Kuwait crisis and the breakthroughs in the Arab–Israeli peace process—from Madrid to Oslo and beyond. It was only the election of a hard–line government in Israel that enabled Arab leaders to assemble once again in Cairo in June 1996 to voice a "unified" stand reminiscent of the Nasserite era. Instead of shaping a more coherent Arab order, the institution of the "Arab summit meeting" thus far has mainly reflected the security dilemmas, rivalries, and personal animosities characteristic of what a classical international relations theorist might describe as a quasi–anarchic "self–help" system (Waltz 1979, ch. 6), in which the "selfish" rationalism of state actors generally prevails over "collective rationality" despite the latter’s promise of greater benefits for each and all.

Lessons of the Second Gulf War

The Gulf crisis of 1990–91, in the eyes of many analysts, marks the final collapse of the Arab unity project. Apart from occasional raids and border skirmishes, inter–Arab warfare in the post–World War I era has been almost nonexistent. But in August 1990 Iraq launched a massive invasion of Kuwait, and the U.S.–led international coalition (including Arab members), which drove the Iraqis out and imposed on them punishing sanctions of long duration, was said by many observers at the time to have marked—once and for all—the end of Arabism. Certainly it was a historic setback for Arab integration, let alone unity. The regime in Baghdad, which had issued an "Arab National Charter" in 1980 proclaiming nonaggression as the governing principle of inter–Arab relations, tried its hand at forced "amalgamation" of its wealthy, diminutive, and difficult neighbor. The crisis and war that followed could hardly be said to be characteristic of a "pluralistic security–community," let alone an amalgamated one. The Arab regional system seemed rather to be playing by neorealist, balance–of–power rules. Both Iraq and the anti–Iraq coalition were driven by their respective conceptions of "vital national interest." Iraq of course asserted an "Arab unity" justification in terms of advancing the larger Arab struggle against Israel, but this certainly was not its primary driving force. In making the claim, however, Baghdad was seeking—and to a significant degree it succeeded in generating—widespread popular support across the Arab world.

But once the United States had demonstrated its determination to roll back the Iraqi invasion that support was not sufficient to prevent the formation of an Arab anti–Iraq coalition. The American intervention was crucial. Counter–factual speculation is always risky, but had Washington adopted a less decisive course (and it came close to doing so), one can imagine an outcome that would not have been so detrimental to a certain conception, at least, of Arab integration. An Arab–driven diplomatic process, instead of being nipped in the bud by American diplomacy, probably would have led to a negotiated solution between Iraq and Kuwait. Arab public opinion largely favored such a process, although Arab ruling elites must have feared the ramifications of a possible complete absorption of Kuwait. But there were no sufficiently capable Arab collective security institutions in place to challenge the Iraqi aggression militarily. Intervention by either Iran or Israel would have strengthened the Iraqi claim to be leading an all–Arab struggle. In the event, "Arab unity" was undoubtedly a casualty of the second Gulf War, but the primary lesson was that an exogenous agent—the United States—had both the determination and the capability to freeze the system of multiple sovereignties and to create a less unstable balance of power in the Gulf region. Had Iraq succeeded, its widespread popular support across the region probably would have increased further; it very likely would have become the hegemon of the Arab Mashriq, supported by Jordan, the Palestinians, and unified Yemen—able to bend Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states into "policy coordination" of various kinds, and to present Syria with a difficult diplomatic situation. Without active American and European backing, would a counter–coalition of Syria and Egypt (even with the problematic support of Iran and Israel) have had the ability and the will to roll back Iraq? Probably not, especially if Saddam Hussein had had the political sense to propose a compromise leaving Kuwait intact but diminished. The military triumph of "Desert Storm" has led most analysts to discount (once again) the Arab integrative impulse; but had Saddam Hussein’s gambit unfolded differently, we might now be trying to explain the emergence of Iraq as the Prussia of a unifiable Arab east. That said, there is no gainsaying the fact that the actual turn of events was a historic setback for Arab integration by any definition.

Why the Unity Project Failed

Even ardent Arab nationalists who believe that unity is still attainable would probably agree that the "Arab unity project" thus far has been a disappointment, to put it mildly. How can we explain this failure? Possible answers are numerous and complex; many are suggested explicitly or implicitly in the chapters to follow. But the historical record just sketched suggests that the obstacles to unity fall into four categories: indigenous sociopolitical factors; unsupportive economic interests; the structure of the Arab/Middle East state system; and exogenous strategic, economic, and cultural patterns.

The indigenous obstacles refer to conditions in the domestic or intra–state arena—what international relations theorists sometimes call the "second–image" level of analysis (Waltz 1959, chs. 4–5). These include the low levels of political legitimacy accruing to Arab regimes and even to Arab states. Certainly legitimacy is a difficult concept to measure, and it varies considerably among different regimes at different times; nevertheless, the patterns of protest, instability, and governmental repression in most Arab countries over several decades lends plausibility to the generalization. Greater regime legitimacy might have given regime leaders the security, confidence, and capability to take the risks and accept the costs of more integrative policies. A related matter is the general lack of democracy in Arab regimes. Related as well is the reckless or parochial leadership often displayed by Arab kings and presidents. Beneath the rhetoric of Arab brotherhood heard at Arab summits has been mutual suspicion, ideological conflict, and, sometimes, personal animosity that tends to divide rather than unite. How can heads of state agree to cooperation involving some degree of mutual dependency (even shared sovereignty), especially in the military field, when their mukhabarats are busily trying to subvert one another?

On the level of political elites, it is hardly surprising that the "ruling circles" with a vested interest in maintaining their influence within individual states would be less than supportive of unification or integration projects that might diminish their privileged positions. On the popular level too there are problems arising from the low levels of education: the enthusiasm of the "masses" for various unity ideologies has been too easily manipulated and too susceptible to dissipation to provide a constant anchor in public opinion for integration. Finally, one might argue that the Arab nationalists have failed to produce a sufficiently compelling philosophy (let alone ideology) of unity. An American analyst perhaps will be pardoned for observing that there is no Arab equivalent of The Federalist Papers—a closely reasoned document that appeals to pragmatic interests and universal moral principles more than to emotion–laden sentiments about imagined past glories.

The second category of obstacles revolves around economic structures and relations. As several of the chapters in part III of this book point out, the general lack of complementarity in the economies of the Arab countries provided no strong incentives for economic integration. This accounts for the extremely low level of inter–Arab trade—around five percent. To be sure, on a broader level it has been argued that the distribution of factors of production should be conducive to regional development. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries have capital; Egypt, Yemen, and the Levant have manpower; and the Sudan has land. In fact, however, only labor has flowed freely across the region; and as Nemat Shafik writes in chapter 13, the Middle East remains one of the least integrated regions of the world in terms of capital and trade flows. There are other economic problems as well. Until recently many of the economies were state–driven rather than market–driven, and in the Arab (nationalist) socialist regimes the prevailing ideologies favored central planning, a large public sector, inappropriate emphasis on heavy industry, and an autarkic rather than integrative orientation. National pride and insecurity thwarted attempts at regional economic planning, as Yusif Sayigh notes in chapter 11. But even now, as Arab economies slowly liberalize, it does not appear that emerging economic interest groups, such as chambers of commerce, are as interested in regional cooperation as they are in deepening bilateral commercial and investment relationships with the major industrialized economies. Moreover, technological dependency on the West continues to deepen (as A. B. Zahlan points out in chapter 12), a condition that impedes regional economic development.

The third set of obstacles involves the structure of the Middle East and Arab state system. This system, as Korany shows in the following chapter, generates serious impediments to integrative political activity. As noted above, the dynamics of a "self–help" international system (according to structural–realist theory) are driven by the quest of states for security; and in a turbulent region like the Middle East that quest can take on paranoic proportions. The Arab unity project, at least in its early ideological form, assumed that the established Arab states and their rulers would simply give way to the higher stage of unity. However persuasive the arguments about the illegitimacy of "lines in the sand" drawn by European diplomats might be, it did not necessarily follow that these lines could easily be erased–especially after the passage of time and the growth of "chauvinistic" interests. Defective as they may have been, the state–actors in the Middle East have so far proved more durable than their transnational movement competitors, be they the Muslim Brothers, Communists, or Ba‘thists.

Furthermore, since the death of Nasser and the subsequent decline of Egypt’s regional influence, there has been no "center" in the Arab political system around which smaller states might have opted to "bandwagon"—in Stephen Walt’s term (Walt 1987, ch. 2). Indeed, even in Nasser’s heyday, some small Arab states took advantage of the United States’ influence to "balance" against the Egyptian leader. But with the emergence of a more polycentric system in the 1970s, the security of individual states was enhanced by the absence of a potential regional hegemon: unification on the Prussian model was no longer a plausible scenario. Despite (or even because of) this development, Arab integrationists might have still hoped that the Arab League model of integration based on sovereign state–actors might finally become a reality. But insecurities, animosities, and suspicions have remained powerful disincentives to cooperation, as the second Gulf War amply illustrated. Furthermore, some Arab states in the 1980s and 1990s have begun seeking good relationships with non–Arab regional powers like Israel, Iran, and Turkey, raising the question whether an "Arab state system" really exists any longer.

Fourth, and in my view most important, are the obstacles that arise out of the global environment in which the Arab world finds itself ever more firmly embedded. External penetration is nowhere more important than in the economic realm. As Roger Owen explains in Chapter 10, the Arab world was incorporated into the world market in the nineteenth century and split into separate pieces. Except for certain brief periods since then, Western finance, investment, trade, and aid factors have constrained independent Arab decisionmaking in both domestic and external policy. Studies by dependency theorists such as Samir Amin (1982) and Abbas Alnasrawi (1991) have revealed the profound political implications of Arab economic dependency.

The global system also strongly penetrates and divides the Arab world in strategic terms. From the 1950s to the 1980s the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union was mirrored in what Malcolm Kerr (1971) dubbed "the Arab Cold War." Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States has been left as "the only remaining superpower" and finds itself playing a hegemonic role in the region analogous to that of Britain from the mid–nineteenth to the mid–twentieth century. To be sure, for purposes of its own Britain found it expedient to encourage limited types of Arab federation: it supported the idea of the Arab League; and it sought to build smaller federations in the Gulf and south Arabia. But the United States has generally been leery of Arab integration. Although Washington favored the establishment of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council in 1981 as a response to the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran (as Abdul Khaleq Abdulla describes in chapter 7) and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American government today is working to create a new Middle East regional order in which Israel will play a leading role. Washington, remaining wary of any kind of pan–Arab groupings that might conceivably threaten Israel or Saudi Arabia and its small Gulf neighbors, prefers to emphasize bilateral relationships.

Inasmuch as the new American hegemon deploys formidable global as well as regional influence, it poses a significant problem for Arab integrationists. U.S. policy successfully divided the Arabs in the second Gulf War and thwarted "an Arab solution" that sought to preempt a U.S.–led international military intervention. Having won that war, the U.S. government, in Abdalla’s opinion, has played a "unilateralist, imperialist, and militarist" role vis–à–vis the Arab GCC states (Abdulla 1996, 4). By declaring no fewer than four Arab states–Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Libya (along with non–Arab Iran)–as "rogues" or "supporters of terrorism," the Clinton Administration tries to separate "the good guys from the bad guys." While it offers mild support for coordination among the small and vulnerable "good guys" of the Gulf, its general preference is for small separate units over large amalgamated ones, both among the "good guys" but especially among the "rogues."

Finally, the cultural aspect of global penetration of the Arab world needs to be noted. Much of the Arab nationalist resistance to Western domination was fueled by the desire to protect indigenous cultural values and heritage from the objectionable aspects of a powerful alien culture. Today the struggle between Islamist movements across the Arab world and relatively secularized and Westernized ruling elites reflects the same concern. For Arabs the problem of coping with the Western cultural onslaught was (and still is) complicated by the desire to embrace some parts of it while rejecting other parts. The conflict is captured in the title of a recent book, Jihad vs. McWorld, by Benjamin Barber (1995). Global forces, including new communications and information technologies, are creating what some see as a "consumer culture," characterized by materialism and pragmatism. But the producers and protectors of indigenous culture are fighting back, sometimes utilizing the same technologies of their adversaries. While the long–term consequences of such a struggle could be integrative, the immediate effects in the Arab world have been divisive. Broadly speaking, the major political cleavage of the late twentieth century pits those who would unite or integrate the Arabs within the framework of an indigenous culture, steeped in Islam, against certain leaders, ruling elites, and (upper) social strata convinced that integration into a European–Mediterranean and/or American–Israeli regional state system is the proper future course. This cleavage cuts across geographical boundaries and national (state) sociopolitical arenas, further complicating the possibilities for integration.

Unity Downsized: Toward a Status Report on Arab Integration

As the papers in this volume make clear, the historical Arab unity project is but a shadow of its former self, whether one views it from political or structural standpoints. Fundamental changes in the global political and economic order, as well as profound social and cultural trends inside the Arab world, have created an environment vastly more complex than that perceived by the fathers of Arab nationalist ideologies or the architects of a regional order anchored by an Arab League. But the papers also show that the impulse for integration of some kind, at some level is very much alive. The idea of unity by fusion has largely given way, as Bassam Tibi notes in chapter 4, to goals of cooperation or coordination within a state–system framework. The idea of subregional integration, as exemplified by the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab Maghrib Union, has gained ground over the older notion of a pan–Arab community from the Atlantic to the Gulf. Many analysts feel that essentially apolitical functional integration through specialized transnational nongovernmental organizations—from sports leagues to women’s organizations—is about the best that can be expected. And there are those who expect that the revolution in information technologies—direct satellite television, cellular telephony, and the Internet—may intensify the sense of Arab community to such an extent that there will be political consequences. In an article describing the "sad torpor" that pervades the Arab League, The Economist (1991) concluded: "In the meantime, another institution may be more effective at maintaining the dream of Arab unity. For millions of listeners the BBC’s Arabic service continues to provide a sense of something worth belonging to."

In Part I, "The Changing Arab Regional System," we begin our inventory with three papers that consider the present state of integration across the Arab world as a whole and how it has been affected by changing global conditions. Bahgat Korany (chapter 2) brings a structural–realist approach to the subject and rightly reminds us of the continuing relevance of the balance of power in understanding Arab world dynamics. He concludes, however, that what the Arabs have displayed since the end of the second Gulf War is a "balance of weakness." While he considers the possibilities of a new and stable arrangement based on "interdependence" he warns that attempts to bypass "the Arab core" of the Middle East could lead to new friction. Paul Noble (chapter 3), in a comprehensive survey of the regional scene, presents a sympathetic yet deeply skeptical analysis of the prospects for Arab cooperation. Of the multiple challenges buffeting the Arab countries, the most serious ones are internal—notably what he sees as the erosion of intersocietal relations. Bassam Tibi, in chapter 4, "From Pan–Arabism to the Community of Sovereign Arab States," traces the decline of the Arab "imagined community" and the rise, however shaky, of the Arab state system. He calls unequivocally for a community of states "based on mutual respect" and recommends a close study of the European integration experiment. He also insists that the Arab should no longer be defined as an ethnic category but instead "as a citizen of a democratic state." Again, the European experience offers a model in terms of the democratic behavior of states in a regional system and the democratic contestation of interests within states and between them.

With the decline of the pan–Arab project, the focus of integrative activity has shifted to the subregional level. Here the record of success has been mixed. Part II, Experiments in Political Integration, offers five case studies which explore in detail the forces behind these projects and the obstacles that they have faced. It is appropriate to be begin with Mustafa Kamil Al–Sayyid’s analysis (chapter 5) of the short–lived (1958–1961) "United Arab Republic" of Egypt and Syria because it was a product of the larger Arab unity impulse. Its progenitors thought of it as a stepping stone to a larger unification process, not as a subregional end in itself. Al–Sayyid shows how regional and international considerations interacted with specific domestic pressure groups and public opinion first to establish and later to bring down the UAR.

In sharp and instructive contrast, the process of unification of the seven Gulf shaykhdoms that became the United Arab Emirates, was long, leisurely, traditional, and incremental. In chapter 6 Frauke Heard–Bey cites good leadership, an attitude of tolerance, and the unhurried practice of traditional etiquette and protocol as important factors in explaining what is arguably one of the only integrative success stories in the Arab world, and certainly the most long–lived—a quarter–century. Can such a strategy lead to a more inclusive political community in the Gulf area? Chapter 7, by Abdul Khaleq Abdulla analyzes the Gulf Cooperation Council, in which the UAE is one of the six member–states. While the "cultural glue" that holds the GCC together is similar, the circumstances are more difficult, the scope much larger, and the results, so far, less impressive. Abdulla notes the remarkable haste with which the GCC was established, shortly after and largely in response to the Iranian revolution. He details the conflicting ideas that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman held about its functions and shows how considerations of local sovereignty remain powerful obstacles to effective military integration, in particular. According to the author, the GCC’s detachment from social realities and lack of popular base seem not to have adversely affected its durability. Although it has fallen far short of its goals, the GCC is often cited as the most successful of the subregional integration experiments.

North Africa (the Maghrib), according to I. William Zartman (chapter 8), displays a tangible regional identity despite the unevenness of state formation among its constituent parts (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania) and recurrent quarrels among them. His chapter traces "the ups and downs" of efforts since the 1960s to promote integration among them, culminating in the establishment of the Arab Maghrib Union in 1989. But integration has never advanced beyond the diplomatic level: economic integration is still minuscule and the prospects for political integration "have been met with understandable incredulity from the Maghribis themselves." The post–independence impetus for regional cooperation based on the nationalist struggles has given way in the 1990s to a European focus under the "Mediterannean" rubric. Maghribis, however, are not blind to the advantages of a common stand in negotiating with the European Community.

The final subregional case is the most recent one: the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990. Like the Arab Gulf states and perhaps the Maghrib the two Yemens possessed a distinctive and common political subculture. Yemeni nationalists and progressives on both side of the old British–drawn border had long called for unification. In chapter 9 Robert D. Burrowes narrates the chain of events that led two authoritarian single–party regimes unexpectedly to submerge their deeply rooted mutual suspicions in a fusion of two states that had periodically gone to war against each other. The surprise was compounded by a decision to move toward multiparty democracy as a way of organizing politics in the unified country. As of 1998, Yemen’s unification had lasted twice as long as the UAR and had the distinction of being the only viable example in the Arab world of full (fusion) unity. That said, the union did have an unsteady beginning and could not avoid a brief but bloody civil war in 1994 to become—perhaps—cemented. The immediate cost, however, was a shrinkage of the democratic space, and one must wonder, recalling Tibi’s essay, whether in the long run fruitful integration is possible without an open democratic political order.

The emergence and occasional modest success of Arab subregional groupings should not obscure the fact that the Arab homeland is littered with similar failed projects. One thinks, for example, of the aborted Federation of Arab Republics (Egypt, Syria, and Libya, 1971–73), and the Arab Cooperation Council (Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and North Yemen, 1989–90). It is not obvious from our case studies and examples such as these that subregional unification is in itself a successful strategy of integration: the results clearly are mixed. Nor is there any compelling evidence that they comprise an intermediate step on the road to eventual full Arab unification. Advocates of pan–Arabism are doubtful: at a seminar in 1996 an Arab League ambassador (Armazani 1996) insisted that if the Arab League did not exist it would have to be invented, and that the proof of this was that subregional groupings like the GCC and the AMU had failed.

Economic integration is the focus of Part III. We begin in chapter 10 with Roger Owen’s analysis of inter–Arab economic relations in the twentieth century. Owen reviews the historical explanations for the low level of Arab economic integration, which emphasize the distorting effects of the colonial period and global economic forces. He questions some of these arguments and along the way draws our attention to a now largely forgotten period of intraregional trade growth during World War II when the United States and Britain organized the Middle East Supply Center. He reviews the efforts to organize an Arab common market and the negative effects on integration of import–substitution industrialization development strategies. Today Arab economic policymakers need to consider the merits and demerits of two externally driven rival approaches to regional development: the Euro–Mediterranean free trade area plan and the American–Israeli plan for a region–wide free trade area growing out of the Arab–Israeli "peace process."

Yusif A. Sayigh, who has played a leading role over the years advising Arab governments on economic policy, was involved in efforts to harness new Arab oil wealth in the 1970s and 1980s for sustainable, integrated regional development. While there was considerable progress in the 1970s, the 1980s, he writes in chapter 11, yielded only a "poor harvest." His paper is at once an authoritative history and a blunt critique of the Joint Arab Economic Action project. Among other things, he discusses the effects of subregional groupings on Arab region–wide planning, particularly the problems of cooperation between the GCC and countries in the Mashriq and the Maghrib. Economic factors alone, he writes, cannot account for the disappointing record of the 1980s.

The next two papers examine the impact on integration of key economic sectors. Antoine B. Zahlan examines technology as a disintegrative factor (chapter 12). He observes that the Arab–Islamic world until the sixteenth century was unified by "a unique system of trade and transport." This system was gradually fragmented by European penetration, beginning with the Portuguese. European industrialization and colonization accelerated the breakdown. Even the recent achievement of political independence has not been accompanied by socioeconomic or technological integration. Although the Arabs today have the potential for indigenous technological capacity, they devote relatively small percentages of their resources (compared to other world regions) toward developing it and remain almost totally dependent for technology and technology training on the industrialized societies.

The economic factor that has made the most positive contribution to regional integration is labor. According to Nemat Shafik (chapter 13), labor mobility and its associated capital flows has been the most important mechanism through which the benefits of the oil windfall have been spread to the poorer states of the region. She reviews the history of efforts to promote Arab economic integration and then examines recent trade and capital flows before turning to labor. Unlike other parts of the world in which trade in goods drives regional integration, in the Arab world the "engine" has been labor flows and associated remittances. This is due in part to "extreme differences in factor endowments across the region" and also to outward–oriented trading policies, as well as various political factors. After examining the pros and cons, she concludes guardedly that labor migration is probably a stepping stone toward regional integration rather than a substitute for it, but that it may not be the most desirable one.

The final paper in this section, by Atif A. Kubursi (chapter 14), takes a critical look at the prospects for Arab economic integration after the Oslo accords in the Arab–Israeli "peace process." Noting recent assessments of the Arabs’ political deficiencies and their "abysmal" economic growth, he asks whether peace with Israel will bring prosperity or domination of the Arab economic future? After analyzing the uneven record of Arab past economic cooperation efforts and a discussion of regional cooperation projects in other parts of the world (notably the European Community and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), he turns his attention to the "new Middle East" envisioned by Israeli and American politicians. If the Israeli–Palestinian relationship is representative of this new order, then (in his opinion) it places the Arabs at a significant disadvantage. Suggesting that there is an "Arab disease" analogous to the "Dutch disease" well–known to development economists, Kubursi sees the heavy dependence on oil rents as a structural weakness from which many other serious problems flow. This dependency "has reduced Arab incentives to diversify their economies, develop alternative manufacturing capacities, promote export–oriented industries, encourage domestic savings, and anchor income on solid productivity grounds." For Israel, he concludes, the "peace dividend" will be massive while for Palestinians and Arabs they are precarious and illusive.

Arab Integration: The Next Phase

In 1988 the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut, a leading think tank, published a massive study on "The Future of the Arab Nation," the product of around 100 intellectuals and researchers and some six years of work (CAUS 1991). It proposed three prospective scenarios: the "scenario of division" (basically a continuation of present parochial country–based patterns); the "scenario of coordination and cooperation" (which envisioned gradual reforms, limited cooperation, and subregional organizations for the Arabian peninsula, the Fertile Crescent, the Nile Valley, and North Africa); and the "scenario of Arab federal unity" (an admittedly "radical transformation" involving "a federal state comprising most of the principal Arab countries...impl[ying] a single foreign policy, a single army, a single currency, and a single education system, as the minimum"). This scenario assumed that pluralism and respect for diversity would be present at all levels (CAUS 1991, 391). While the authors were cautious about making predictions, they did imply that the scenario of division probably would not last because country political systems were failing to deal with growing economic and political problems. External pressures were mainly reponsible for holding these divisions in place. They held out some optimism for the second scenario but admitted that the third was a long way off, although they discerned that "the first steps" were being taken toward a "new project for Arab revival." The writers called upon "alternative elites" from "the heart of the modern middle class" to learn from the mistakes of the eras of liberalism (which neglected social problems and the nationalist cause) and socialist nationalism (which neglected democracy, human rights, and the "cultural [Islamic?] heritage"). These elites would face the task of formulating "a composite outlook that harmonizes all the popular demands that have been conceived in the collective mind and conscience of the Arab nation during the last 100 years" (CAUS, 1991 490). It should be noted that the project began at a favorable moment—with high oil prices and ambitious development hopes (see Sayigh, Ch. 11 below)—but ended with collapsed oil prices, costly years of Iraq–Iran warfare, and the Palestinian intifada. And worse was just to come: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the second Gulf War. With all its methodological drawbacks and perhaps naive recommendations, the CAUS report is significant both for what it is—one of a number of serious intellectual efforts to explicate complex realities instead of retreating toward ideological slogans—and for what it says—especially its focus on the groups and institutions of civil society and its attention to pluralistic and federal mechanisms for ensuring equity, legitimacy, and diversity in the development of all–Arab coordination and cooperation—or even federal (or confederal) unity. But viewed a decade later, the report seems to understate the problems (or blame them excessively on exogenous forces). Certainly its tone is brighter than that of most of the studies in this book.

Generally, the studies presented here paint a gloomy picture of the prospects for Arab integration. Indeed, they might seem to suggest that there are far more factors promoting—even "over–determining" a permanent condition of Arab disintegration. At the minimum, they raise many tough questions for proponents of integration. Is the idea of an Arab political and economic community in the broadest sense any longer viable, in light of the rise of a global economy and an external political order that penetrate "the Arab world" in so many ways? Is regional coordination or cooperation forever hostage to domestic authoritarianism and instability? Are the lessons of previous integration experiments so dismal as to erode future integration impulses, or is it possible that Arab politicians might learn from past experiences? Does integration by various definitions (unification, coordination, etc.) make any sense any more, and if so to whom? Is Arabism dead, after all?

If by Arabism we mean the fusionist romanticism of the Ba‘th, or the Prussian model of Nasserist Egypt or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, then we should summon the coroner, not the paramedics. But if we are imagining an Arabism based on cooperation and coordination, with respect for existing (but diminished) sovereignties, then I think we should call for the obstetrician. Arabism of this kind, I believe, has a future.

The prevailing pessimism is derived to some extent from neorealist international relations theory. To the extent that the Arab Middle East and North Africa fit the classical model of insecure states trying to survive in an anarchic environment, there is no reason to expect much in the way of structured cooperation. But Walt’s (1987) elegant exposition of a neorealist interpretation is unsatisfactory because it does not comprehend the sociological and cultural elements that make the Arab state system uniquely porous. The neorealist paradigm has been significantly challenged, however, by institutionalist and constructivist approaches (Keohane 1989, Lapid and Kratochwil 1996) which seek to bring political structures, culture, and domestic politics into the explanatory equation. Barnett (1993, 1995), for example, goes so far as to posit that pan–Arabism is an "informal institution" of the Arab state system. But, he argues, its integrative momentum is stymied by role conflicts within Arab elites, torn by commitments (mainly interest–driven) to new and shaky "sovereignties," and sentiment toward the greater Arab nation. Telhami (1994) writes that "one important commodity of competition in Arab politics has not been military power (which explains why Walt abandoned that scheme), but instruments of legitimacy...[L]egitimacy, posited in ways that are compatible with a minimalist neo–realist paradigm, can help explain not only individual foreign policy decisions, but also patterns of interstate relations in the Middle East that were not sufficiently accounted for by the distribution of power alone." Gause (1993) also criticizes Walt for underestimating "what is unique to the international relations of the Middle East—the challenge that transnational ideological identifications pose for the state system inherited from European colonialism." Brynen (1993) argues persuasively for "closely integrating the contemporary approaches of scholars of Middle East domestic politics into foreign policy analysis."

We must tread carefully here for several reasons. First, as Korany (chapter 2) reminds us, the neorealist perspective clearly retains a great deal of validity even if it fails to tell the whole story, particularly as Arab states have grown (bureaucratically, at least) and aged. Second, we certainly need to avoid lurching back to the naive cultural essentialism that drove Arab unity efforts (and some analyses) at least through the 1960s. Third, while what Waltz (1959) once called the "second–image" model (in which "domestic" state and societal level dynamics shape "external" behavior) may have special relevance to the Arab state system, those dynamics do not all point in the direction of regional integration—an important point discussed by Noble in chapter 3. The paradoxical (not to say self–contradictory) behavior of domestic elites over Arab unity has been well–described in the work of Kerr (1971), Seale (1965) and Mufti (1996) and is also illustrated in our case studies in Part II, especially Al–Sayyid’s on the UAR and Abdalla’s on the GCC: they want it but they also fear it; they exploit it for tactical purposes (outbidding an opponent), but it is almost nobody’s first priority. Fourth, we need to exercise similar caution in ascertaining what Gourevitch (1978) has called "second–image reversed" effects (in which domestic outcomes are significantly shaped by exogenous forces): the political economy of "globalization" may promote integrative economic liberalization in the Arab world, but it also encourages vertical "north–south" bilateralism. If Washington, the global hegemon, prefers a "New Middle East" (with Israel in a leading role), it can exert powerful effects on the ruling elites of twenty–two weak and divided Arab League member–states.

That said, one can still argue that prospects for phased cooperative, sovereignty–based integration are not as bleak as a cursory reading of the following chapters might imply. Why? First, as just noted, institutionalist, constructivist, and reflective international relations theory offers a perspective that is less deterministic than neorealist "billiard–ball" or economistic approaches and more amenable to the possibilities of human agency, institution–building, and culture. In the second place, we are talking about a kind of integration very different from the fusionist unity project whose dismal history I sketched in the preceding pages. The four obstacles to that kind of unity that I identified—indigenous sociopolitical factors, mercantilist economic orientations, the structure of the state system, and exogenous patterns—are not necessarily (or not entirely) inimical to this more modestly defined integration.

1. Sociopolitical trends at the domestic level are perhaps the most important. The spread of mass media and information technologies; the physical mobility of labor, professional elites, and tourists; intraregion development assistance; and mass education are among the factors constructing a more widely and deeply imagined Arab community. Also on the indigenous level is the complex transformation of the Arab state. Most observers now believe that it is "there to stay." Some stress its growth and capabilities, a development that may be generating sufficient confidence within ruling elites to consider "policy coordination" or even modest shared sovereignty with neighbors. Others contend that it is actually getting weaker relative to other social formations, such as the liberalizing economy, which implies the rise as well of civil society and a middle class with an interest in regional cooperation. Since the 1980s there has been some indication that Arab states have been developing more open and elaborate forms of political participation, raising the possibility of of more representative and less capricious governments—capable of integrative "policy coordination" with their neighbors. The evidence for such a trend is, to say the least, mixed, and perhaps not as persuasive as it was a decade ago (see Hudson 1987, 1991, 1994, and Norton 1995), but it cannot be dismissed (see Civil Society, passim).

2. The slow but inexorable liberalization of statist economic systems is creating a climate in which intraregion enterprise is becoming easier and a "common market" project is once again being broached. During the "easy" phase of the Arab–Israeli "peace process," (1993–95) when optimism was high, many Arab analysts forecasted and endorsed the emergence of a new regional order (Peres’s "New Middle East") that would transform the region "from geopolitics to geoeconomics" (Said Aly 1996): the Arab states, the Palestinians, Israel, and (eventually) Iran and Iraq would cooperate together in trade, development, water issues, arms control, and a range of other areas. But with the Arab–Israeli peace process (with all its inequities) virtually comatose since early 1996 the question of an Arab regional economy as opposed to a "new Middle East" is again on the agenda (Kubursi, chapter 14). Should the "peace process" miraculously produce a mutually legitimate political agreement, it would make "geoeconomic" sense for Israel to be included, perhaps as an "associate member" in Arab regional economic arrangements. Generally, to the extent that globalization fosters a more integrated world economy—and society—the Arabs may have some new opportunities and incentives for regional cooperation.

3. If the Arab state system has (for neorealist reasons) been a deterrent to fusionist integration, it may be less inhospitable to coordination or even broader alliances that do not threaten country sovereignty. Rationality, not just common culture, suggests that for a weak and divided Arab world collective security and economic development require some degree of integration. This is all the more true to the extent that the powerful non–Arab neighbors—Israel especially—remain hostile not just to state interests but Arab national concerns as well. Arab solidarity also takes on greater value in the negotiation of economic relationships with the European Union, the U.S., and other regional blocs. Inter–Arab relations are not just confined to state–driven security issues: indeed, while states’ sovereignty is eroded by issues that transcend borders, there is reason to think that transnational sociocultural linkages are multiplying (as Saad Eddin Ibrahim argued) and that through functional NGOs, the ideas of Arab identity and community are being reimagined and deepened. This process needs empirical investigation.

4. It must be said, however, that exogenous conditions are generally as inhospitable to Arab sovereignty–based integration as they were to unionist integration. While the disappearance of the Soviet Union has brought an end to "the Arab cold war" the emergence of the U.S. as the only remaining superpower constitutes a formidable obstacle. Inasmuch as U.S. policies today are formulated in coordination with Israel, Washington can only oppose any collective Arab institution–building. And it has the means to do so inasmuch as it wields significant military–security and economic instruments. Europe offers a more sympathetic political attitude but lacks the power to be played as a counterweight to the U.S.; moreover, European protectionist attitudes also pose problems. By the same token, however, these very problems would seem to call for an institutionalized, collective Arab regional response. Should the Arabs’ relations with the outside world—especially the U.S.—continue to worsen, we cannot exclude the possibility of a kind of xenophobic "defensive integration" gaining ground. In such a case some Arab regimes will find the "rationality" of their privileged relations with Washington colliding with a transnational, culturally driven movement to resist Western encroachment—a revival of nativist anti–imperialism.

What all this means, I believe, is not that a new phase in Arab integration—sovereignty based cooperation with pluralist institutional underpinnings—is about to dawn but only that such a thing is more possible than most observers think. There is also a distinct possibility, however, of a very different scenario that we might call "praetorian–based radicalism." If socioeconomic conditions across the region continue to worsen, and if the main region–wide threat to stability—the Arab–Israeli conflict—continues to fester, then domestic tensions that feed radical ideological projects could lead to an era of both intra– and inter–Arab turmoil reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s—only this time the coloration will be Islamist–nationalist instead of secular–national–unionist.

The scenario that emerges will depend on a multiplicity of developments at different levels—domestic, regional, global—and in different domains—economic, political, social. My guess is that the next phase will be shaped most decisively by domestic political factors. To the extent that there is a trend toward civil society, pluralist institutions, and liberalization, then the possibilities for an interest–based integrative process buttressed (along the European model) by multilayered linkages, elaborate but effective structures, and legitimate decisonmaking procedures are brighter than with an array of authoritarian, "fierce," but not very capable states and regimes. These Arab states will be more capable of cooperative integration with their neighbors (through enhanced legitimacy) if they also undertake decentralization at home, in order to give distinctive ethnic, sectarian and regional subcommunities a sense of security and well–being in the national political order. Finally, if we may assume (as I do) that intellectuals and decisionmakers in the Arab world are learning from the extensive integrative and unionist activity of the past century, then there is a rich body of experiences (not all of them negative—cf. Heard–Bey, chapter 6, and Burrowes, chapter 9) from which to draw lessons for the future.

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