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This text aims to fill a gap in the field of Middle Eastern political studies by combining international relations theory with concrete case studies. It begins with an overview of the rules and features of the Middle East regional system—the arena in which the local states, including Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Israel and the Arab states of Syria, Jordan and Iraq, operate. The book goes on to analyse foreign-policy-making in key states, illustrating how systemic determinants constrain this policy-making, and how these constraints are dealt with in distinctive ways depending on the particular domestic features of the individual states. Finally, it goes on to look at the outcomes of state policies by examining several major conflicts including the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Gulf War, and the system of regional alignment. The study assesses the impact of international penetration in the region, including the historic reasons behind the formation of the regional state system. It also analyses the continued role of external great powers, such as the United States and the former Soviet Union, and explains the process by which the region has become incorporated into the global capitalist market.
exaggeration, it might be suggested that while Jospin talked Left and acted Right – in some areas, such as redistribution – New Labour talks Right and acts more Left (see below). It follows that some of New Labour’s stated policy goals, such as the abolition of child poverty and reducing health inequalities – both of them more ambitious than the stated policy goals of ‘Old Labour
nation, each Volk , has its own special qualities, but the German Volk carries the seeds of a higher spiritual and cultural order, a special role in human history. An elaborate theory of race was made the basis of state policy. According to this, humanity was sub-divided into different races, which had different and identifiable characteristics and could be placed in a hierarchical order. The highest
either modify industrialism or to find a radical economic alternative to it. Reformists have been more concerned to use traditional or more orthodox tools of law and state policy to control industrialism. However, do green ideas fundamentally change the character of political theorising? The radical response to this question is that mainstream political theory is rooted in certain beliefs which are totally antithetical to
states. Furthermore, only a few of these actors perceive themselves as being involved in a challenge to state sovereignty. Although terrorist and guerrilla organisations see themselves challenging state power, usually to create a new state or severely modify a state in line with their own interests, most dissident groups are aware of the need to work through states and to influence state policies if their objectives are to be
cause of freedom, especially in democracies. Terrorism uses violence to influence public opinion and state policy in favour of the interests and goals of the terrorist group. Violence might be directed against the forces of state power, such as the police, the armed forces or civil officials, or it might involve attacking civilian targets in order to create public pressure on the government to change policy to the advantage of
the resources of their counterparts at Eton. Nevertheless, both Labour and Conservative governments since the Second World War have steadily increased public spending (with concomitant tax rises), providing greater equal opportunities through welfare state policies that originated in the 1940s. Members of all political parties (and none) created the bases for the egalitarian nature of the post
of economic growth, public services and social improvement for least cost and effort. This social-democratic consensus was successful in establishing an ideological grip on British politics for a number of reasons. The mass unemployment, poverty and failure of the 1930s discredited the minimal state policies of the governments of the day. The Second World War involved massive state intervention in the form of
, anti-Arab racism in civil society, discriminatory state policies toward Israeli Palestinians, militaristic responses to external threats, etc. Nor does it exonerate the singularity of harms done by Israel to argue that the policies of neighbouring states are equally or in some cases far more subject to political criticism. The fact that other states do not live up to their responsibilities does not release Israel from its responsibilities for equal treatment
responding to necessity, they were actively remoulding their own destinies. They were not only seeking new and innovative ways of obtaining an income, they were consciously and vigorously resisting the state. In the course of defying various anachronistic state policies, they were reshaping the political and economic structures that surrounded them. (2003: 161) Resistance, then, should be seen in these survival strategies as a mitigation of predation. And this predation is, in the eyes of many people, mainly the responsibility of state action. In the process, as Tripp