Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations
Author(s): F. Gregory Gause III
Source: International Studies Review , Spring, 1999, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 1131
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The International Studies Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3186364
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Systemic Approaches to
Middle East International Relations
F. Gregory Gause III
he idea that interstate relations in the Middle East comprise a system is no
revelation. It is a given that events like the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Iranian Revolution, and the Gulf War have important effects on the entire
region, not simply on the countries directly involved. The emphasis analysts
place on transnational ideologies like Arab nationalism and political Islameither their continued relevance or their "death"l-for regional politics assumes
an interconnection among the players in the Middle East game that is more than
simple geographic proximity. Characteristic of systems, events in one part of the
Middle East have had surprising and unintended consequences in other parts of
the region.2 In the words of one Arab diplomat, "In the Middle East everything is
related to everything else."3
In international relations theory debates, the systemic level of analysis has
had a privileged position at least since the publication of Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics.4 The importance of systemic-level analysis as the
starting point for inquiry is widely acknowledged, even by those who argue that
analysts have to move beyond systemic factors to explain most international outcomes.5 With the end of the Cold War, there is a new scholarly awareness that
1Fouad Ajami, "The End of Pan-Arabism?" Foreign Affairs 57, No. 2 (1978-79); and
Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1994).
2Robert Jervis, Systems Effects (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997),
pp. 17-21.
3Quoted in L. Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 16.
4Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979).
5Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power (Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 1989), pp. 61-62; Jervis, Systems Effects, p. 209; and Gideon Rose,
"Domestic Realism," World Politics 51, No. 1 (1998).
? 1999 International Studies Association
Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK.
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12 F. Gregory Gause III
geographic regions can be analyzed as systems i
as subordinate components of a global internati
These two widely held assumptions-that the
looking for answers to questions about state beh
and that the Middle East forms a "system"
underlain important works on the international
have been efforts by international relations sc
Middle Eastern expertise to test general hypot
John Mearsheimer on conventional deterrence
Benjamin Miller on great power crisis behavior.7
dents of the Middle East using systemic-lev
Middle Eastern outcomes: Shibley Telhami o
the absence of Middle Eastern great powers; an
politics.8
Given the prevalence of these two assumptions and the important work based
upon them, it is puzzling that more attention has not been paid to those books that
attempt to define precisely the elements of the Middle Eastern international sys-
tem, investigate the regularities generated by those elements, and identify
changes, if any, that have occurred in it. This essay examines four such efforts:
Barnett's constructivist account of inter-Arab politics; Walt's neorealist reading
of the same topic; Carl Brown's formulation of a Middle Eastern "diplomatic
culture"; and Gamil Matar and cAli al-Din Hilal's rendering of the Arab regional
system.9 Walt and Barnett are well-known international relations scholars, but
their work has not received the attention it deserves from Middle East regional
6Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell, eds., Regionalism in World Politics (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995); and David A. Lake and Patrick Morgan, eds., Regional
Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
7John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1983), Chap. 6; Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1987); and Benjamin Miller, When Opponents Cooperate: Great
Power Conflict and Collaboration in World Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
8Shibley Telhami, Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to
the Camp David Accords (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Ian S. Lustick,
"The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: Political 'Backwardness' in Historical
Perspective," International Organization 51, No. 4 (1997); and Michael N. Barnett,
Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
9Bamrnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics; Walt, Origins of Alliances; Brown, Interna-
tional Politics and the Middle East; and Gamil Matar and cAli al-Din Hilal [Disuqi],
al-nizam al- iqlimi al-carabi [The Arab regional order] (Beirut: Dar al-Mustaqbal
al-cArabi, 1983).
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 13
specialists. Brown is one of the founders of Middle East regional studies in the
United States. The Matar and Hilal book is the leading academic analysis in
Arabic of inter-Arab politics, and a popular text in universities throughout the
Arab world. These latter two works, by highly respected Middle East specialists,
have been largely ignored by international relations theorists using the Middle
East to test general theories.
This essay is an effort to bridge that gap. It critiques these important books
and, based on that critique, suggests an alternative way of conceptualizing the
Middle Eastern international system. This alternative view is aimed at overcom-
ing three serious problems in the analysis of Middle Eastern international
relations: (1) the lack of connection to mainstream international relations
debates, leading to the sui generis fallacy that characterizes much work on Middle Eastern international politics by regional specialists; (2) the imprecision in
identifying exactly what is unique about the interactions of the states in the
region; and (3) the ad hoc way most regional experts think about how the international politics of the Middle East have changed during the last fifty years.
DEFINING THE MIDDLE EASTERN REGIONAL SYSTEM
None of the works under consideration provides satisfactory criteria for id
ing the boundaries of the Middle East regional system. Walt simply li
that define his system; Israel and extraregional great powers are in, but Ira
key, and the North African states are out. Barnett, Brown, and Matar
offer explicit criteria for system membership, but in doing so, raise m
lems than they resolve. Brown includes all the states whose territory
under Ottoman control, plus the great powers, because his explanation
workings of the system lies in an "Ottoman political culture" inherited
states. Thus Turkey and Israel are in the system, but Iran and Morocco
for to include them would "stretch too far an already broadly conceived
The other two works limit system membership to Arab states. Barnett
includes only the founding members of the Arab League (Egypt, Leban
Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia), along with the Palestine Liberation O
tion, on the grounds that they "were at the forefront of and defined t
about regional order."" Matar and Hilal include all Arab states in their
of the system, and explicitly exclude all other states, regional or gre
Their purpose is clearly normative; they believe that Arab states s
themselves as constituting a system, and assert that they do: "The prim
forming the basis of the Arab system is the element of nationalism."'12
'oBrown, International Politics and the Middle East, pp. 7-11. Quote on p.
"Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, p. 16.
12Matar and Hilal, al-nizam al-'iqlimi al-~carabi, p. 57.
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14 F. Gregory Gause III
These bases for establishing system membership
they ignore conflict. As Raymond Aron pointed out
makes no sense to define an international syst
engaged in war with each other are not members.
point in defining a regional security system as a s
one transborder but local security externality.14 The
for the most part, against non-Arabs: Israel, Iran
ing Iran and Israel from the Middle East, because
share in an Ottoman diplomatic culture, hardly h
ized patterns of relations among regional states, or e
policy behavior of states like Iraq, Syria, and Egy
definitions of the regional system. Matar and Hila
sion that the Arab system has seen increasing "in
system and from the "peripheral states" of Iran
sneaks Israel and the great powers in through th
states' relations with them as two of the three m
agenda of Arab politics.16
Defining the boundaries of the Middle Eastern
academic issue. It has become part of the political
complicating efforts to use the concept of "system"
in Arab-Israeli peace talks in the mid-1990s, a
Shimon Peres's The New Middle East, generated m
intellectuals, arguing that Peres' s notion of an econo
simply a new variant on Israeli plans to dominat
scholars who have publicly endorsed the peace proc
13Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of Inte
Praeger, 1967), p. 94.
'4David Lake, "Regional Security Complexes: A Sy
Morgan, Regional Orders, pp. 48-49.
15Matar and Hilal, al-nizam al- "iqlimi al-~carabi, pp.
16Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, p. 6. Avraham
investigating the development of the "Arab states system
Arab-Israeli conflict. Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Is
versity of New York Press, 1998).
17Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: H
vides a summary of this debate, in Dialogues in Arab
18For example, CAbd al-Muncim al-Sacid cAli is one o
gen Group, an organization of Arab and Israeli intelle
peace process. Yet he wrote a scathing analysis of Per
grated region. "al-takammul al-'iqtisadi al-carabi wa a
integration and "Middle Easternism"], al-mustaqbal
214 (1996): pp. 7-16.
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 15
Mustafa Mursi's al-carab fi muftariq al-turuq [The Arabs at the crossroads] is
representative of the more reasoned arguments of the "sharq awsatiyya" ["Middle
Easternism"] debate. Although not rejecting either the idea of peace with Israel or
greater economic cooperation in a "new Middle East," and admitting that there
have been exaggerations in Arab reactions to Peres's book, he argues forcefully
that plans for such cooperation seem to assign to Israel the leading regional role,
keeping Arabs states tied to a dominant Israeli economy. He sees serious risks to
Arab national identity in such plans, not the least of which is the dissolution or
absorption of existing Arab institutions into larger "Middle Eastern" groupings.19
The normative aspects of the definition of system membership cannot be
ignored by analysts of the region, but they should not override empirical concerns in constructing systemic arguments. Identity issues help define how states
spend their foreign policy resources, and toward whom they direct their policies,
but such issues hardly exhaust the scope of their foreign policies. Certainly, in
the Middle East, membership in formal international organizations like the Arab
League and the Gulf Cooperation Council is not an adequate basis for defining
the regional system.20 Conflict is equally, if not more, important in explaining
international conduct and outcomes as is the desire for greater integration. Any
definition of system membership that ignores important conflict dyads is simply
not a useful basis upon which to proceed to more substantive analytical issues. In
the conclusion, I suggest a definition of the Middle Eastern regional system that
is both theoretically based and analytically practical.
CLARITY OF CONCEPTS: DEPENDENT VARIABLES
Among the works under consideration, Walt's is the clearest about wha
it wants to explain-alliance or alignment behavior. He wants to test
states are more likely to balance against states that pose a threat or to b
with those threatening states.21 The Middle East is a "hard case" for t
realist theory of balancing, for he discerns numerous bandwagoning i
in the region related to transnational ideologies and identities. If b
behavior predominates even in the Middle East, then the neorealist
received strong confirmation.
We can argue with how Walt codes his cases of balancing an
wagoning, but he is very precise about his definitions of the concepts.22
19Mustafa Mursi, al-carab fi muftariq al-turuq [The Arabs at the crossroad
Maktab al-Shuruq, 1995), pp. 138-141, 150-160.
20Charles Tripp, "Regional Organizations in the Arab Middle East," in Fawc
Hurrell, Regionalism in World Politics.
21Walt, Origins ofAlliances, p. 3.
22Ibid., pp. 18-21.
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16 F. Gregory Gause III
Walt gains in precision in his dependent variabl
tory ambition. The other authors seek to expla
Eastern state behavior, but in doing so make it
their dependent variables, and therefore to test th
system.
Barnett wants to explain the "normative fragmentation" of Arab politics.23
He contends that Arab states at different times have been constrained in their
dealings with the West, Israel, and one another by normative guidelines derived
from their shared (though never completely shared) understanding of Arab iden-
tity. The failure of Arab unity schemes, the more direct and open assertions of
state interest in Arab foreign policy, peace with Israel, and open alignment with
the United States all result from (and also help to cause) a fraying of that shared
understanding. These tangible political changes in the Arab world are evidence
of the "normative fragmentation" that Barnett seeks to explain.
Barnett provides relatively clear guidelines for how to operationalize "normative fragmentation." Changed behavior on Arab unity (less interest in it),
policy toward Israel (willingness to make peace), and alignment with Western
powers (more open acceptance) is easy to identify. The problem for Barnett is in
measurement. In every period, some Arab states were willing to ignore the dominant normative understandings of Arabism he identifies. In the 1950s, when
Barnett contends that the widely shared understanding of Arabism prohibited
open alignment with Western powers, Iraq joined the Baghdad Pact, Saudi Ara-
bia supported the Eisenhower Doctrine, and Lebanon and Jordan invited
American and British forces into their countries. The question of how many
exceptions would constitute a challenge to his classification of some periods as
characterized by strong normative consensus, and others by normative fragmentation, remains unanswered.
The other two works are less self-conscious about, and much too vague in,
their specification and operationalization of dependent variables. For Brown, the
object of explanation is what he calls "the rules of the Eastern Question game,"
both a style of diplomacy and the outcome of such diplomacy. The style of Middle East diplomacy that he discerns includes frequent shifts in alliances, heavy
penetration of the system by outside great powers, a preference for fait accompli
in bargaining, emphasis on "reactive politics or diplomatic counterpunching,"
and a prevalence of a "zero-sum mentality" in the players' outlooks. Brown
terms the outcome of this diplomatic style "homeostasis," an inability of any one
actor to impose its will on the region because of the countervailing reactions of
the other players.24
23Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, pp. 49-52.
24Brown, International Politics and the Middle East, pp. 16-18.
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 17
Matar and Hilal are the least precise in defining their dependent variable(s).
The closest they come to specifying a dependent variable is the concept of system transformation, which seems to be similar to Barnett's "normative
fragmentation," but not as clearly delineated:
Transformation in the system [al-tahawwul fi al-nizam] means more than a
change or a group of changes in the policies of members of the system or the
system as a whole. What is meant by transformation is a fundamental shift in the
power capabilities in the system, or in the types of dominant ideologies, especially its major doctrine [caqidatu al-ra'isiyya], or in the forms of alliances in
such a way that leads to a disturbance of the balance of power in it and the for-
mation of new axes on ideological or economic bases .... Likewise, the system
is transformed if its major interactions are merged into the interactions of a
higher or a more-encompassing system, or if foreign powers penetrate the network of regional interactions and succeed in reducing them or redirecting them
to fields far from the goals of the system.25
It is hard to identify from Brown's discussion just what kinds of diplomatic
behavior would qualify as "reactive politics" or fait accompli, and also how the
"Eastern Question game" can be characterized by both seemingly contradictory
traits. Brown's idea of homeostasis-the inability of a single power to achieve
hegemony in the region-is more easily operationalized. The concept of "transformation" is even murkier. Matar and Hilal provide no guidance for identifying
just what kinds of changes in the distribution of regional power are "fundamental," when alliance changes become the "formation of new axes on ideological or
economic bases," or when an ideology becomes a "major doctrine." Falsification
of such concepts is impossible.
Brown and Matar and Hilal fall into the common regionalist trap of piling up
dependent variables rather than clearly operationalizing a few important ones.
They ignore the key point that effects are as important analytically as causes, and
need to be as specified as those causes. Systemic approaches can be sweeping,
but they should not be mushy.
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES AND CAUSATION
The core of systemic arguments has to be about what makes the system wor
what explains the outcomes it produces. Here the works under consideratio
fer profoundly in what they see as the motor of systemic outcomes
independent variable(s) in the Middle East regional system, and their
links to the dependent variables already discussed.
Walt, following Waltz, identifies anarchy and multipolarity as the key
temic forces driving alliance behavior in the Middle East. Under the
25Matar and Hilal, al-nizam al-'iqlimi al-carabi, p. 59.
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18 F. Gregory Gause III
conditions, each state is constrained to dev
threats to its existence and independence. Count
and Islamic solidarity do not lead to a signif
behavior; rather, they contribute to threat per
We can question Walt's definition and operatio
theoretical innovation and a topic discussed later
tory framework is admirable. The relationsh
dependent variables is clear and direct: multipol
leads to balancing against that threat.
Brown's independent variable is equally cle
ture" inherited by the successor states from th
acknowledges that the multiplicity of actors, both
side powers, is an important constitutive
international system, it is this distinctive cultu
elements that creates the rules of the Eastern
simple: Ottoman political culture creates the Ea
Barnett identifies three driving forces in the Ar
are constants. The first constant is sovereignty
state system inherited from European colonialis
documents of the Arab League.28 Sovereignt
look like international politics elsewhere. The se
ers to remain in power, which makes them bo
constraints and extremely sensitive to the dem
ing foreign policy issues, demands largely drive
Arabism.29 The third, which is variable and be
explaining "normative fragmentation," is Arab
tity provides the best explanation for Middle Ea
the 1940s through the 1960s. The "decline of un
tities" explains the decline of unionist progr
Israel, and open alignment with the West from
changing notions of Arabism drive changes
behavior.
Matar and Hilal identify three independent variables: the distribution of
power and capabilities (including what they call "the dominant ordering of values," presumably referring to the relative strength of ideologies), patterns of
26Ibid., Chaps. 5-6.
27Brown, International Politics and the Middle East, p. 14.
28Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, pp. 29-31, 239.
29Ibid., pp. 34-37, 270.
30Ibid., p. 50.
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 19
policies, and patterns of alliances.3' They also see the latter two as dependent
variables at other points in their work-that systemic transformation has led to
different kinds of policies and different axes of alignment. Their periodization of
change in the Arab regional system gives a better indication of what they see as
the most important independent variables affecting system transformation. They
see system transformations in the mid-1950s, as the period when anticolonialism
ends and when Naseerist and Bacthist Pan-Arabism begins; in the early 1970s,
with the oil revolution, the declining influence of Pan-Arabism and the new
American involvement in the region; and from the late 1970s, with the solidification of state-interest diplomacy and the rise of Islamic movements.32 Changes in
both the distribution of power and in the dominant ideology of the system
(which, when captured by a particular state or leader, becomes a power resource
in itself) drive change in the system. For Matar and Hilal, the explanatory equation is murkier than for the other authors: distribution of power + ideological
change + outside power interference = system transformation, although none of
the three independent variables is necessary, and any one of the three is sufficient, for system transformation.
All these works run into problems in operationalizing their independent vari-
ables and in establishing their causal links to dependent variables. For Walt, the
difficulty is in determining how states prioritize among threats. He lists four possi-
ble sources of threat: aggregate power, geographic proximity, offensive power,
and aggressive intentions.33 He fails to recognize that in a multipolar system like
the Middle East states can face multiple threats from different countries and of different types at any one time. What he identifies as balancing of a particular threat
could just as easily be coded as bandwagoning with another threat. For example,
when Saudi Arabia aligned with Iraq against Iran in 1980, was it balancing the Ira-
nian revolutionary ideological threat (as Walt codes it) or bandwagoning with an
Iraq that seemed to be emerging as the Gulf's dominant military power? Likewise,
was Jordan's decision to join the 1967 Arab alignment against Israel a case of bal-
ancing the Israeli military threat, or bandwagoning with a politically dominant
Egypt (Walt's choice)? By failing to provide criteria for determining threat predominance, Walt calls into question the usefulness of "threat" as an independent
variable in determining alliance behavior. By folding very different elements of
threat into a single definition, Walt has taken the quest for parsimony too far.
Brown is explicit about the link between Ottoman diplomatic culture and the
rules of the "Eastern Question game," but unpacking his concept of culture raises
doubts about just how "cultural" Ottoman diplomatic culture is. Multipolarity is
31Matar and Hilal, al-nizam al-'iqlimi al-carabi, p. 58.
32Ibid., pp. 60-61.
33Walt, Origins ofAlliances, pp. 21-26.
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20 F. Gregory Gause III
hardly a cultural element of Middle East intern
of great powers in the region is governed less b
definitions of great power interest--be it in th
Has the (no doubt temporary) end of great powe
region, with the end of the Cold War, changed
East? If so, that change results not from cultural
change in the distribution of power globally. If cu
category, it has to be more than a compendium of
erations. Brown fails to establish "Ottoman dip
distinct from other, more generalizable variab
much less "cultural" when examined closely.
Matar and Hilal tend to conflate their indepen
making it difficult to establish just what is their
privilege ideology in their explanatory framewo
important distinctions. First, they must disting
conceptions of power, or at least explicitly est
between the power of ideas and the power of gu
show how the power of ideas translates into sp
straints on decisionmakers. The role of money
incentives and constraints is clear. Ideas can be
calculations about foreign policy decisionmak
present a clear case for that importance.
Barnett's causal explanation avoids the pitfal
Unlike Walt, Barnett is clear that Arabism is n
together material power, ideational power, and
not confuse a distinct Middle Eastern cultural tr
power. Unlike Matar and Hilal, he clarifies pre
power of ideas and policy outcomes: Arab leader
thus must placate publics whose interest in Ara
ertheless, in this concentration on identity and
questions of when norms matter for policymak
Barnett has trouble accounting for state acti
constraints of Arabism operative in various pe
states openly aligned with Western powers (as m
argues that the norm against such behavior
supporting Arab unity had weakened, which B
Egypt, Syria, and Libya declared a unity progr
the same in 1973, and Syria and Iraq did so in 1
Kuwait in 1990 on unionist grounds. None of th
but, then again, neither did the Hashemite un
34Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, p. 162.
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 21
nor the 1963 Egyptian-Syrian-Iraqi unity plan, when the norm of unity was much
stronger. Sadat made peace with Israel when the norm against that was strong
enough to rally almost every other Arab state against Egypt. Barnett recognizes
these anomalies, explaining them in terms of regime interests in political survival.35 That same regime interest in survival is also his explanation for why the
norms of Arabism are translated into state policy in other instances. It is not clear
from Barnett's account when states will be constrained by the norms of Arabism
and when they will ignore them.
For Barnett, changes in the understanding of the norm of Arabism explain the
changes in Arab state foreign policies on the issues of unity, Israel, and the West.
He accounts for those changes in Arabism through two causal mechanisms. The
first is the behavior of the Arab states themselves. The failures of Arab unity
plans, the assertions of state interest over Arab obligation, dealings with Israel
and the West-these violations of the norm of Arabism changed the norm itself:
"How Arab leaders played the game of Arab politics led to the widely observed
fragmentation."36 Barnett is quite comfortable with this circularity; the
constructivist approach is posited on the idea that beliefs cause actions and
actions cause beliefs in an interactive way.37 To some extent this is common
sense. Yet the admission that everything affects everything else does not solve
the problem of establishing causal sequences that can be falsified and therefore
tested, or explain how actions prohibited by a norm not only occur but can also
change that norm.
The second causal mechanism Barnett identifies in explaining changes in the
norm of Arabism is popular opinion. While he grants that leaders may have inter-
nalized Arabism's norms,38 he assumes that Arab leaders are political
entrepreneurs interested in maintaining power, and that therefore they are very
sensitive to public opinion. The constraints Arabism places on leaders' behavior
are instantiated through riots, coups, demonstrations, and other manifestations of
displeasure with ruling regimes.39 Therefore, when Arab publics' understanding
of Arabism changes, the constraints on state behavior are loosened. Barnett says
that "Arab societies had grown weary of these staged unity talks and moribund
decrees" in explaining the decline of Arab unity efforts since the mid-1960s.40
Sadat was able to go to Camp David because "Egyptian society was drifting
35Ibid., p. 9.
36Ibid., p. 210. See also pp. 13-14, 51, 237.
37Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter Katzenstein, "Norms, Identity,
and Culture in National Security," in Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National
Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 53, 63-64.
38Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, pp. 253-254.
39Ibid., pp. 44-45.
40Ibid., p. 162.
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22 F. Gregory Gause III
toward a more Egypt-centered view of Arab polit
the changed mood of Arab publics echoes that of
think is basically correct.42 Still, it remains simp
The difficulties in sampling Arab public opinion
must be given to investigating and proving the
perceptions of Arabism if those perceptions are t
that they do for Barnett.
WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS UNIQUE ABO
M/IIDDLE EAST?
According to both Barnett and Matar and Hilal,
clear: Arabism. This transnational ideological ch
organizing principle of the Middle Eastern state sy
unique, in degree if not in kind, about the inter
Matar and Hilal attribute to Arabism what they
behavioral characteristic of the Arab system:
The ease with which any party can interfere in th
because of the family and tribal ties across geograp
availability of the nationalist and unionist incentiv
weakness of feelings of attachment to the state, a
Arab system, and the lack of sanctity of those polit
goes back only recently and which were seen from
point as inheritances from the colonial period.43
Matar and Hilal fail to develop the systemic co
characteristic of Middle East international relatio
logical factors under the general rubric of power
resource in the regional distribution of power. Em
is like having a large army or an overflowing tre
way. Arabism becomes a reductionist (characterist
fail to give ideology its due as a systemic factor
Middle East international politics. Barnett rec
Arabism is equally important as sovereignty in co
tem.44 Its normative constraints explain Arab st
41Ibid., p. 198.
42See, for example, Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace
theon Books, 1998); and Ibrahim Karawan, "Arab D
Taboos and Searching for Signposts," Middle East Jou
43Matar and Hilal, al-nizam al- iqlimi al-carabi, p. 62
44Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, p. 239.
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 23
time periods, that cannot be explained by realism and is unique when compared
with other regional systems: the contemporaneous emphasis on unity and reality
of conflict among Arab states, their unwillingness (until recently) to see Israel as
a legitimate member of the system and a possible alliance partner, open interference in the domestic affairs of other states.45
The centrality of Arabism to both Barnett's and Matar and Hilal's understandings of the regional system is clear in their discussions of how the system
has changed over time. Both mark systemic change by changes in the salience
and/or interpretation of Arabism by the players in the Middle East game.46 For
Barnett, changes in the content of Arabism are the sole factor accounting for sys-
temic change in the region. Matar and Hilal recognize that shifts in the
distribution of power also contribute to systemic change, but give pride of place
to ideological change in their account of the course of Arab politics.
Walt contends that there is nothing unique about the Middle East regional
system. Though there are reasons why we would think that alliance behavior in
this region would be different from that in other areas, in fact Middle Eastern
states adhere to neorealist hypotheses-they balance instead of bandwagon.
Walt did find that Arabism plays a role in Middle East alliance behavior, but
more as an element leading to divisiveness, reinforcing balancing proclivities.47
He subsumes ideology under his general rubric of threat as a sign of "aggressive
intentions." He also recognizes that ideological barriers prevent many alliances
that a neorealist analyst would expect to see forming, such as open alliances
between Israel and weaker Arab states against stronger Arab states.48 But he contends that, with some exceptions (the 1967 war, a very serious exception), such
anti-Israeli solidarity "rarely required more than symbolic gestures."49
These kinds of anomalous results, from a neorealist perspective, do not
receive the attention they deserve from Walt, because he limits his examination
of the importance of ideology to the proposition that ideological similarity leads
to alignment.50 This narrow understanding of ideology limits his ability to appre-
ciate the unique element identified by Barnett and Matar and Hilal-the
challenge that transnational ideological identifications have posed to sovereignty
in the Middle East state system. In trying to show that the Middle East operates
45Ibid., pp. 27-29.
46Ibid., pp. 20-23, 256-258; and Matar and Hilal, al-nizam al- 'iqlimi al-carabi, pp.
60-61.
47Walt, Origins ofAlliances, p. 216.
48Ibid., p. 205.
49Ibid., p. 215.
5OThis criticism of Walt is made by Barnett in his "Identity and Alliances in the Middle East," in Katzenstein, Culture of National Security.
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24 F. Gregory Gause III
under the same neorealist rules as other parts of t
tant constitutive element of the Middle Eastern
Brown goes to the opposite extreme. In asser
tional relations are governed by a unique set o
diplomatic culture, Brown misses the fact tha
restatements of balance of power theory. Thus,
determined outcomes can be explained more
workings of an anarchic system characterized
suffice. Brown's first rule of the Eastern Quest
alliances."'51 That is hardly unique to the Midd
the classical period of European balance of pow
ing than those of the modemrn Middle East.
workings of the Eastern Question game prod
where "rarely does a single political actor-whe
power-have the ability to impose its will or eve
tations."52 Balance of power theories predict ho
is distributed in either bipolar or multipolar co
hegemony are naturally, if not automatically, b
the other members of the system. If Gamal Ab
and Saddam Hussein discovered this fact in the
XIV, Napoleon, and Hitler found that it was equ
The presence of strong, transnational ideolog
state system bequeathed by European colonialis
system apart from other regional systems. Bar
rect in emphasizing this point, though they ar
Arabism. Islamic political ideologies play an i
are not simply to the coherence of existing stat
borders that do not correspond to ethnic realiti
tems in Asia and Africa. In the Middle East, th
organizing principle of the state system itself.
SYSTEMIC APPROACHES TO M/IIDDLE
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: AN ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORK
Defining the System
Geography, self-identification and common social-historical backgroun
important elements in delineating a regional system. Each is important
51Brown, International Politics and the Middle East, p. 16.
52Ibid., p. 17.
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 25
the extent that it leads to sustained, durable interest and involvement, expressed
in tangible commitment of resources, to a common agenda of issues among the
states concerned. This criterion encompasses both conflictual and cooperative
interactions, as long as they are costly to the participants.53 Although it is difficult to quantify this criterion, because resources like the attention of leaders and
concentration of diplomatic effort are difficult to capture in numerical terms, the
concept is not completely subjective. Detailed examination of the historical
record can lead to useful distinctions and a coherent picture of just who is in the
system, who is on the fringes, and who is out and why.
Taking a minimal common agenda of issues to include the Arab-Israeli issue,
Arab unity and cooperation programs, transnational ideological-political con-
flicts over the meaning of Islam for politics, and security issues in the
Arabian/Persian Gulf, it is relatively easy to identify members of the Middle East
regional system in the period since World War II: the eastern Arab states from
Egypt to Iraq (including the Palestinians), Israel, Iran, Turkey, the United States,
the Soviet Union to 1991 and Russia since, Great Britain (to 1971, perhaps somewhat beyond), and France (more at the outset of the period than later). Leonard
Binder, in one of the first scholarly efforts to develop a systemic approach to
Middle East international relations, lists the same regional countries as members
of the system.54
This definition requires qualifications and explanations. The inclusion of
both Arab nationalist and Islamist political-ideological issues in the regional
agenda, while apprehending an important part of regional politics, runs the risk
of creating a system so large as to be analytically useless. If Islamist issues were
themselves defining, then the system could run from Morocco to Indonesia. If
issues of Arabism alone were defining, important players would be left out and
marginal players (Somalia and Mauritania) would be included. By focusing on
how these identity debates affect three sets of interlocking, geographically limited issues (the Arab-Israeli conflict, Gulf security, and Arab unity plans), the
Middle East system can be kept to a manageable size. The Arab states of North
Africa are certainly interested in these issues, but commit tangible resources to
them only episodically. They are better seen as their own, separate, regional sys-
tem. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the newly independent Central Asian states
similarly involve themselves in these issues only occasionally, and rarely with a
major commitment of resources.
53The idea that system membership should be determined by the density and significance of interactions is suggested by Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 10; and by Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear
(Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1991), Chap. 5.
54Leonard Binder, "The Middle East as a Subordinate International System," World
Politics 10, No. 3 (1958).
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26 F. Gregory Gause III
Because system membership depends upon sta
can change. Great Britain and France are much
now than they were in the 1950s; Russia now
Union was. Turkey generally followed a policy
through the 1970s. Since 1980, Turkey has con
eign policy attention on the Middle East, comm
like the Euphrates water dispute, the cross-bor
issue, the Iran-Iraq and Gulf Wars, and a new le
Israel. If the North African regimes continue to
from Islamist groups, they might become more
nate the Middle Eastern agenda, either by ac
local Islamists) or by taking a more direct role i
cate local Islamists). Were this to occur, we wou
of the Middle Eastern system to include them.
Explaining the System
Each of the works analyzed here provides some
temic approach to Middle East international po
and parsimonious hypotheses are a model for o
explain regional international politics. He remin
of the Middle East to search for answers that are
national relations theory and that travel acr
attention to continuities in Middle Eastern interna
ries and highlights the central role of outside
Matar and Hilal remind us that systemic-lev
account for important changes in regional pol
importance of transnational ideologies for unde
tics of the Middle East. But none of them prese
systemic-level analysis of the region's interstat
Such a framework needs to incorporate four s
ables. The first is the nature of anarchy in th
principle of the regional system. Both Arabism
attempts to reorganize the international politics o
region from a formally anarchic system of juri
cal system of superordinate and subordinate un
commitment to and understanding of Arabism
logical challenge to the very organizing princi
state system bequeathed by European colonialism
ity and fractiousness that has characterized the
since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Most
Arab-Israeli, inter-Arab, Arab-Iranian-can be un
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 27
the incentives powerful local leaders have to appeal to such transnational platforms to advance their interests.
Rather than being a given, as assumed in neorealist theory, the organizing
principle of the Middle East regional system is a contested concept.55 That contest can help explain important changes in regional state behavior. The decline of
Pan-Arabism undoubtedly contributed to the movement toward Arab-Israeli
peace.56 The rise of transnational Islamist politics helps explain the Iran-Iraq
War and alignment behavior in the region more generally since the Iranian Revolution. Moreover, it is the challenge to the norms of sovereignty at the systemic
level that sets Middle Eastern international relations apart from other regions in
Asia and Africa that also inherited their borders from European colonialism.
"Ethnic conflict" in Asia and Africa is largely subnational; in the Middle East it
is transnational.
The consequences of this ideological-political challenge to the sovereign
state system are an understudied aspect of the international relations of the Mid-
dle East. We have numerous fine studies on the diplomatic history of the
Hashemite unity claims,57 the "Arab cold war" of the 1950s and 1960s,58 and the
effects of the Islamic resurgence on the region's international relations.59 But we
are just at the beginning of efforts to factor ideology into more systemic under-
standings of the international relations of the area.60 Wars, alliance decisions,
economic cooperation or competition, and extraregional links can be better
understood than they are now by appreciating how disagreements over the basic
55For a theoretical discussion, see Buzan, People, States, and Fear, Chap. 4.
56Sela, Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
57Yehoshua Porath, In Search of Arab Unity, 1930-1945 (London: Frank Cass,
1986).
58Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970);
Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986);
and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization of the Arab State System, 1945-1954
(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1993).
59James Piscatori, Islam in a World of Nation-States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); R. K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the
Middle East (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); John L. Esposito,
ed., The Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact (Miami: Florida International University
Press, 1990); and Dale F. Eickelman, "Trans-state Islam and Security," in Susanne
Hoeber Rudolph and James Piscatori, eds., Transnational Religion and Fading States
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997).
60Along with his book discussed here, see also Michael N. Barnett, "Sovereignty,
Nationalism, and Regional Order in the Arab States System," International Organization 49, No. 3 (1995); Michael N. Barnett, "Institutions, Roles, and Disorder: The Case
of the Arab States System," International Studies Quarterly 37, No. 3 (September
1993); Sela, Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict; Maridi Nahas, "State-Systems and
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28 F. Gregory Gause III
organizing principle of the system affect leader
is through such an effort that scholars of Midd
contribute to, and help refine, the new literature
The second systemic factor is the distribu
Regional multipolarity must be seen as a central
dle East, able to help explain the failure of Ara
the many "artificial" states created by Western
clivity for balancing behavior in regional allian
contribution to our understanding of Middle E
problematic is how global distributions of p
Although the opening up of American and S
reexamination of the early Cold War years in the
tained, theoretical effort to analyze the con
bipolarity for the Middle East. Benjamin Miller
this question in his examination of outside-powe
has Martin Malin in his study of how region
extract resources from the international system, b
done.63
The third variable that needs to be incorpora
of the Middle East is the changing nature of st
making up the system. Many if not most of th
nialism in the Arab East (including the Jewi
began their histories as legal fictions, with little o
associated with modemrn states and serious challen
izens. Over the past decades, they have develop
say) their bureaucracies-civilian and military,
point that they can exercise effective control o
tions.64 Increasing state control over society ha
Revolutionary Challenge: Nasser, Khomeini, and th
nal of Middle East Studies 17, No. 4 (1985); and
Pressures, Constraints, and Opportunities," in
Dessouki, eds., The Foreign Policies of Arab Stat
1991).
61Barnett, "Identity and Alliances in the Middle East."
62See, for example, Fawaz A. Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East:
Regional and International Politics, 1955-1967 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,
1994).
63Miller, When Opponents Cooperate; and Martin Malin, "Entrepreneurial Statecraft:
Egypt and the Superpowers, 1952-1967," Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University,
1995.
64Nazih N. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State (London: I. B. Taurus, 1995); and
Giacomo Luciani, ed., The Arab State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 29
citizen loyalty to ruling regimes, but it has reduced the ability of nonstate actors
(be they ethnic groups like Kurds or transnational ideological movements) to
overthrow ruling regimes or dictate their foreign policies.65 These domestic
changes can help explain some systemwide effects in the international relations
of the region: the decreasing salience of Pan-Arab discourse, the growing recognition of Israel as a legitimate regional player, the stability of secular Arab
regimes in the region after the Iranian Islamic revolution, and the ups and downs
of economic cooperation and integration in the region. How states use foreign
policy will change as the stability of regimes and the institutionalization of states
increases.66 Likewise, to the extent that revolutionary change domestically,
based on principles that transcend state boundaries (as in Iran in 1979), occurs in
one member of a system, the character of interstate relations in that system will
also change.67
Although neorealists would criticize the inclusion of domestic-level factors
in a systemic analysis as reductionist, a solid case can be made for their inclusion
on both theoretical and practical grounds. Analysts from other theoretical para-
digms have included domestic political variables into their systemic-level
analyses of international relations. Richard Rosecrance made security of elites an
important independent variable in accounting for stability in the classical Euro-
pean balance of power.68 Kenneth Waltz was specifically critical of Rosecrance
on this score, but Robert Jervis points out that if a domestic factor can have systemic effects, it becomes a legitimate element of a systemic analysis.69 Barry
Buzan and his colleagues have argued for a more expansive understanding of
unit characteristics in understanding international systems.70 The agent-structure
literature has emphasized the importance of state action in the development of
65For efforts to study the consequences of these changes in different areas of Middle
East international relations, see Gabriel Ben-Dor, State and Conflict in the Middle East
(New York: Praeger, 1983); F. Gregory Gause III, "Revolutionary Fevers and Regional
Contagion: Domestic Structures and the 'Export' of Revolution in the Middle East,"
Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 14, No. 3 (1991); and Malik Mufti,
Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Comrnell University Press, 1996).
66Adeed Dawisha, "Arab Regimes: Legitimacy and Foreign Policy," in Luciani, Arab
State; and Bassel F. Salloukh, "State Strength, Permeability, and Foreign Policy Behavior: Jordan in Theoretical Perspective," Arab Studies Quarterly 18, No. 2 (1996).
67Nahas, "State-Systems and Revolutionary Challenge"; and Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Comrnell University Press, 1996).
68Richard Rosecrance, Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston: Little, Brown,
1963).
69Jervis, Systems Effects, p. 99.
70Buzan, People, States, and Fear, Chap. 4; and Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and
Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
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30 F. Gregory Gause III
international systems.71 Analysts of "third world"
importance of state-society relations for unders
between international relations among the esta
among the newer states of the South.72
In the Middle East case, it is important to re
state-society relations are not specific to a sing
cess occuring in most, if not all, of the loca
international system. The changes in this p
systemwide, are having systemwide effects, and
The fourth variable is the region's level of e
increase in oil prices in the 1970s led to a corre
and importance of economic exchange among t
in trade, but in capital flows and labor migratio
did preliminary studies of the effects of this p
height of this economic interdependence,75 a p
the salience of transnational ideological appeals
71Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Ma
tion 46, No. 2 (1992); Alexander Wendt, "The Agent
Relations Theory," International Organization 4
"What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?" I
(1989).
72Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne
Rienner, 1995); Mohammed Ayoob, "The Third World in the System of States: Acute
Schizophrenia or Growing Pains?" International Studies Quarterly 33, No. 1 (1989);
Brian L. Job, ed., The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States
(Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1992); Robert Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignty,
International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990); and Edward E. Azar and Chung-in Moon, eds., National Security in the Third
World (London: Edward Elgar, 1988).
73F. Gregory Gause III, "Sovereignty, Statecraft, and Stability in the Middle East,"
Journal of International Affairs 45, No. 2 (1992).
74John Ruggie, following Emil Durkheim, suggests that the "dynamic density" of
transactions among units-their quantity, velocity, and diversity-is properly under-
stood as a characteristic not of the units themselves but of their interaction, and thus is a
systemic characteristic. Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity:
Toward a Neorealist Synthesis," World Politics 35, No. 2 (1983). Buzan, Jones, and Little also include interaction variables in their systemic framework, in Logic ofAnarchy,
pp. 69-80.
75Nadir Farjani, ruhhalfi 'ard al-carab [Migrations in the land of the Arabs] (Beirut:
Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-cArabiyya, 1987); Malcolm Kerr and El Sayed Yassin,
eds., Rich and Poor States in the Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982);
and Saad Eddine Ibrahim, The New Arab Social Order (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,
1982).
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Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations 31
of oil prices in the mid-1980s and the population shifts that accompanied the
Gulf War of 1990-1991 reduced this interdependence. More effort needs to be
put into analyzing the effects of this systemic change on the international rela-
tions of the region-on levels of conflict in the region or on the appeal of
transnational ideological platforms-particularly if we are to understand the
potential effects of the greater regional economic integration being promoted as
a result of, and a benefit from, Arab-Israeli peace agreements.
These four variables, although independently affecting important international phenomenon like war, peace, alliance, and cooperation in the Middle East,
should not be seen as necessarily independent of one another. Change in one can
lead to change in others. For example, increased "stateness" at the domestic level
across the region may lead to decreased salience for transnational ideological
challenges to the existing state system. Increased economic integration may lead
to greater identification with transnational identities, or may serve to confirm the
importance of state identities and sovereign norms of interstate relations. Examining how they relate to one another, and to state behavior in the region, should
define the research agenda for students of the international politics of the Middle
East.
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