The above brief survey of state theories shows the basic conditions of any modern state. Evidently, any organization which controls a given population in a well-defined territory, and has the ability to issue binding rules for its population and to monopolize the levers of coercion, is called a state. Given those basic features of a state, scholars might vary in their perception of the relationship between state and society. The Marxist perspective is extremely reductive in the sense that it conceives the nature of the state-society relationship to be rooted in the economic structure. At the same time, the Weberian perspective is extremely static in the sense that it conceives the state to be an undifferentiated entity with a homogenous interest.
14 Michael Mann. States, War and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology. Oxford UK & Cambridge USA: Blackwell Publishers, 1988, P.4.
15 Joel S. Migdal. Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton & New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988, P.19.
Bo Strath and Rolf Torstendahl in their State Theory and State Development16 rejected the Marxist and Weberian perspectives on the state-society relationship, and developed a new perspective on that relationship. In doing so, they traced how the state had developed since 1800, from the early capitalist state until it reached its current form of modern welfare state. After explaining how the state had developed to its current form, they arrived at a more holistic, reciprocal, and dynamic vision of the state-society relationship.
According to them, the form of any state is not the outcome of the interest of a specific social force/class, or the state agents’ interest. The state can not be reduced to a specific social force/class, nor yet can it be reduced to the interest of state agents.
Rather, the state's form is the outcome of the reciprocal influences of social forces/classes and state agents. In other words, the state is influenced by the interests of different social forces/classes within the society, but it is not a mirror of such interests, since it reflects also the interest of state agents. In this sense the state is autonomous but, at the same time, influenced by the society.
Charles Bright & Susan Harding highlighted also the influence of social forces on the state, as they consider state building to be a question of state agents’ initiatives, as well as of social forces reacting to such initiatives. But, they added the competition between the politicians and bureaucratic agents, who can develop and defend their own interest in the face of the politicians, as another factor that influences the form of a state. The state, according to them, is
"A distinct realm of structural political relations that is defined by contentions along its boundaries and among politicians and bureaucrats who, in competing for office and influence, rework social and economic conflict into political terms. These contentions both define the state vis-à-vis other social and economic institutions and continually re-make the state.17
Although Charles Bright & Susan Harding highlighted the state as a differentiated organization that formed two competitive parts, the bureaucracy and the politicians, they remained unable to explain how these two parts might be influenced in different degrees by different social groups or forces, an issue which is heavily emphasized by
16 Strath & Torstendahl op.cit., Pp.12-37.
17 Bright & Harding op.cit., P.4.
Joel S. Migdal in his State in Society: an approach to struggle for domination.18 Migdal went a step further and regarded the state as an organization formed of not just two parts, but of many different parts with different interests. These parts, according to him, are in a continuous competitive engagement with other social forces. Such engagement includes the top policy makers, legislators, law enforcement personnel (executive bodies), the state’s policy implementation structure (bureaucracy system), and so on. The new contribution of Migdal is his assertion that through such engagement the different parts of the state, according to different interests they encompass, react and responds differently to the pressures they are exposed to.
The overall reactions of different parts of the state and different social forces resulting from such competitive engagement decide the pattern of domination in the society. It decides the extent to which the state can assume a full coherent domination and complete control over society, and thus act in a coherent fashion (integrated domination or centralization), or to which neither the state nor any other social forces have full domination in the country (non-integrated or dispersed domination or decentralization).
Generally speaking, the state is seen as an organization that monopolizes coercion as a means to support its major function of issuing binding rules for a given population occupying a given territory. For Charles Bright & Susan Harding (1984) and Bo Strath & Rolf Torstendahl (1992) the state must not be seen in a static way. Rather, the state is placed in a social context that influences and is influenced by it, and therefore affects the state's form. Also the state must be placed within its international environment, which also influences its form. For Migdal (1994), moreover, the state must be seen not in a coherent, but in a heterogeneous fashion, in which its different agencies exhibit different interests and continuously interact with other social forces in the society.
18 Joel Migdal. “The State in Society: an approach to Struggle for Domination”. In Joel Migdal &
others (eds.,). State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, Pp.8-34. See also Migdal op.cit, Pp.10-41.
Accordingly, and drawing on the above-mentioned scholars’ discussion, it’s possible to conclude the state as an organization that
1. Monopolizes coercive force and has extractive capacity (tax collection).
2. Constitutes the ultimate source of the legally binding rules for the population.
3. Works in a well-defined territory.
4. Controls the population which occupies this territory.
5. Forms agencies with different interests.
6. Locates within a social context which it influences and by which it is influenced.
7. Engages in international activities.
Conceiving of the state according to the above-mentioned paradigm sheds light on issues that lie at the heart of any state. Issues such as state differentiation, state agency coordination, autonomy, and centralization seem to be, as Tilly emphasized, a major criterion by which one can judge the degree of statehood in any country.19
The process of statehood necessitates the establishment of well-coordinated agencies (legislative, executive, judicial agencies) that are differentiated from other economic or social organizations within the society, a task that is heavily connected with state autonomy. State autonomy seems to be an extremely vague concept.
For example, Charles Bright & Susan Harding stressed that state autonomy lay in its ability to self-regulate, in the sense that it was governed by its own law, and not influenced by other internal or external forces.20
Joel Migdal sheds light on the actions of state officials, considering the state to be autonomous when state officials have the capacity to act upon their own preferences.21
Bo Strath and Rolf Torstendahl refused to consider state autonomy as an empirically-oriented concept, rather asserting that state autonomy is an “amorphous” concept.22 Theda Skocpol rejected such an idea, asserting that the state can be, to some extent,
19 Tilly op.cit., Pp.34-35.
20 Bright & Harding op.cit., P.4.
21 Migdal . Strong Societies, op.cit., Pp.18-19.
22 Strath & Torstendahl op.cit., p.15
autonomous, and this can be measured by looking at the administrative and military institutions of the state. These institutions, she had emphasized, are the basis of state power (as the resources in the society are extracted for them), and have the potential of being autonomous (in their relationship to the social forces, and in their relationship to other states). To what extent they are autonomous can be explained
"...in terms specific to particular types of socio-political systems and to particular sets of historical international circumstances."23
The concept of state centralization seems to be strongly related to the concept of state autonomy. State centralization, in the sense of its ability to get its people to obey its rules and to absorb and monopolize them toward its legal and moral framework, seems to be the normative foundation of state power, or what Michael Mann called the “infrastructural power”.24 According to Mann the source of the state’s real power is to be found not in its ability to monopolize the sources of coercive force, but in its ability to penetrate the society and to implement its authoritative legal rules throughout the whole society, in a way that secures the dominance of such rules over any other rules within the society. The state’s authoritative legal rules must triumph over any ethnic, clan, familial, or any other social-force-based rules (primacy).
State in the Arab World
The previous debate over the nature of the state and its relation with society is, in fact, Eurocentric. It reflects a specific historical European context, in particular the context of feudalism, in which power was fused between long-established nobles, who enjoyed specific privileges in their relationship with the central authority (the king), and their relationship with their subjects (serfs). A group of a reciprocal rights and duties resting on customary law had organized the above-mentioned two relationships.
25
The decentralized nature of feudalism created equal and competitive power centers (the estate). Each power centre was controlled by a noble class, and constituted an autonomous political unit. The basic social organization of such system was the
23 Skocpol op.cit., P.30
24 Mann op.cit., Pp.5-30.
25 Bendix op.cit, Pp.39-48, & Bertrand B. & Pierre B. The Sociology of the State. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, Pp. 6-10, 79-85.
peasantry society engaged in subsistence production as the dominant mode of production. The political decentralization of the feudal system was associated with non-concentration of the land-surplus in the hand of specific social forces. The three basic social forces of this system (peasants, the noble class, and King together with the church) shared, with varying degrees, land surplus.
The dominance of such modes of production, and the absence of any parallel modes of production (such as the tribal mode of production), were, according to Tilly, the necessary historical conditions that made it possible for the nation-state to emerge in Europe,26 since it introduced a unified ideological superstructure (the peasant culture), among Europeans. Hence, when the state emerged it emerged as a manifestation of the European ruling class’s attempts to accentuate the diversity of European societies (or to accentuate the notion of “We”). That is why it is possible now to talk about the French nation-state, the German nation-state, and so on.
While the historical economic infrastructure of Europe promoted horizontal power relations, and consequently, produced nation-states with a major emphasis on the individual as a self-standing entity, the historical economic infrastructure of the Arab world promoted vertical power relations, and consequently, produced empires with major emphasis on the individual. However, this individual was not regarded as a self-standing entity, but rather as “part of the whole”.
With the exception of Egypt, which has a long history of a peasant society, most of the Arab World experienced the tribal social formation. The economic infrastructure of this social formation (pastoral activities) produced a cultural superstructure in which the group constituted the “basis for identity, political allegiance, and behavior”
and the “…personal, moral, and ascriptive factors…”27 constituted the basis for individual status.
26 Tilly op.cit., Pp.28-29.
27 Richard Tapper. “Anthropologists, Historians, and Tribespeople on Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East”. In Philiph S. Khoury & Joseph Kostiner (ed.). Tribes and State formation in the Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, P. 68.
Without exception, Arab tribes were linked by blood lineage, or what Ibn Khaldun called asabiyya.28 It was this biological linkage (asabiyya) which enabled the Arab tribes in the Gulf countries to extract the Khawa (tribute) under the threat of sword from merchants carrying out long-distance trade activities.29 And it was the one which enabled tribes in North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) to raid urban centers, and confiscate their treasures. The important factor here is that this tribal social formation does not imply, as Nazih Ayubi observed, the traditional Marxist correspondence between the mode of production (infrastructure), and the political and ideological superstructures.30 Indeed, the absence of the mode of production that distinguishes this tribal formation (pastoral economy) does not imply, for example, the absence of the cultural manifestation of this mode, or the political pattern associated with it, in spite of the fact that this cultural manifestation and political pattern, might take different forms.
With the introduction of Islam in the seventh century the tribal cohesion or blood cohesion was subjected to a process of Islamization. In other words, most of the Arab tribes were reorganized within the framework of the newly emerged Islamic umma governed by the new religious rules and principles. These rules and principles were derived from the Shari’a which is derived from the Muslim holy book (the Qur’an), the Islamic Sunni (denotes Prophet Muhammad’s sayings, actions, and
orders-“Hadith”), and the Muslim jurists ijma‘(consensus).31 The Shari’a formed a new
“legal” recourse to unite all Arab tribes within the framework of the Islamic Umma (Islamic community).
Though Prophet Mohammad succeeded in recruiting the traditional asabiyya for his cause (the Islam), his success in this respect was short-lived. Islamic history shows clearly how this asabiyya was re-born again after Mohammad’s death and played a significant role in the creation of the Islamic-dynasty-based empires such as the
28 Steven C. Caton. “Anthropological Theories of Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East:
Ideology and the Semiotics of Power”, In ibid. Pp85-103.
29 Khaldoun Al-Naqeeb. Society and States in the Gulf and Arab Peninsula: A different Perspective.
London: Routledge, 1990, Pp.6-21.
30 Nazih N. Ayubi. Over-Stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East. London &
New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1995, Pp.24-30.
31 Albert Hourani. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798-1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970, Pp.1-7.
Umayyad (AD 660-750), and Abbasid (AD 750-1258) empires, and finally the Ottoman empire, which could take control over most of the Arab world in 16th and 17th centuries, and then ruled it for about 400 years.32
With the rise of Ottomans to power, and their success in diffusing their rule over most of the Arab world, Arabs, for the first time since the introduction of Islam, lost control over their future, and their fate became very much connected to the fate of another race (Ottomans). During the first half of the 19th century, Ottomans underwent significant developments, the most important of which was the rebellion of the Wali of Egypt, Mohammad Ali, against the central authority in Istanbul.
The event strongly alarmed Ottomans who, since then, have exhibited deep concern over the emergence of a centre of political activities or opposition to their rule. Driven by this concern, and seeking military support, Ottomans forged alliances with Western powers (mainly Britain). In exchange for this support, Ottomans bowed to Western powers’ demands and signed the “Treaty of Free Trade and Friendship” in 1838.33 The treaty, which diminished Ottoman’s control over their economy, left the territories of the empire open to foreign products and investment,34 and consequently, initiated the crystallization of the empire’s economy as a peripheral one in the international economic system.
The incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the international economic system broke the basic foundations of the empire’s political economy, and left the Ottomans unable to control the production and distribution of the economic surplus, as was the case before 1838 (within the context of the Asiatic mode of production which was followed by Ottomans).35 The response of the Ottomans to this development was a group of reform measures (Tanzimat) which sought to change the mode of
32 For excellent assessment on these empires see Ayubi op.cit., Pp55-80.
33 Resat Kasaba. The Ottoman Empire and The World Economy in Nineteenth Century. Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 1988. Pp54-55.
34 For example, these treaties set 5% as tariff on import, and 12% as tarrif on export. See Sevket Pamuk. The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820-1913: Trade, Investment and production. Cambridge: Cambridge Universiry Press, 1987, P.20.
35 Huri Islamoglu-Inan (ed.,). The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, Pp.47-62.
organization of the state apparatus. But these measures were inspired by the Western model, and thus, were alien from the socioeconomic infrastructure of the empire.
This fact brought state into conflict with local population who perceived the tanzimat as a radical break in the basic foundation of the empire.36 As a result, the state started to loose its legitimacy in the eyes of its inhabitants, in a way that enabled Western powers to subject most of the Gulf countries to their tutelage, and later, in the last two decades of the 19th century, to occupy most of the Arab Countries in North Africa.
The growing weakness of the empire was further manifested in the emergence of separatist national movements during the first decade of 20th century. The most notable of these movements was the “Young Turks” which advocated the turkization of the empire, and opposed the autocratic regime of Sultan Abdellhamid. In 1908, this movement revolted against the Abdellhamid regime, and succeeded in seizing power.37
The success of the Young Turks in seizing power became a standard-bearing example for other nations of the empire, among which was the Arab nation. Accordingly, Pan-Arabic organizations and movements started to appear on the scene from then onward.
The most notable of these organizations and movements was El Qahtaniya (founded in 1909 by group of Arab officers of high rank in the Ottoman army), Al Fatah (founded by a group of young students in Paris in 1911) and the “Ottoman decentralization Party” (founded in 1912 by group of Arab activists).38 All of these movements and organizations emphasized the particular nature of Arabs as an ethnic group with a similar history, language, culture, religion, and so forth.
This emphasis was the instrument through which these organizations and movements sought to legitimize their demands either in an independent Arab state or some self-rule arrangements. Towards this end, Sharif Hussein, the member of Hashemite clan to which the Prophet Muhammad belonged, and the guardian of the holy places in the
36 For discussion over the Ottoman reform and its ramifications see Moshe Ma’oz. Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine 1840-1861: the impact of the Tanzimat on Politics and Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.
37 For excellent assessment over the “Young Turks” revolt see the first three chapters (Pp.20-70) of A.L. Macfie. The End of the Ottoman Empire: 1908-1923. London & New York: Longman, 1998.
38 George Antonius. The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement. Lebanon:
Hamish Hamilton, 1976, Pp.109-112.
Arabian Peninsula, engaged in secrete negotiations with the British commissioner to Egypt, Sir. Henry McMahon.
Through these negotiations, which took the form of an exchange of letters between the two men, Hussein sought to enlist Britain on the side of his demands for an independent Arab monarchy under his throne, in exchange for uprising against the
Through these negotiations, which took the form of an exchange of letters between the two men, Hussein sought to enlist Britain on the side of his demands for an independent Arab monarchy under his throne, in exchange for uprising against the