BRIEF

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Huntington’s quest for political order was slightly more then twenty years before its time . His concern about political disorder preceding political institutionalization was premature due to the manner in which the Cold War and its balance of terror put a global premium upon political stability . Now in the aftermath of the break up of the Soviet empire, political disorder is amongst us. Further aggravating the situation is the action of the "victorious " superpower of the United States attempting to exploit the confusion of the successor states of Central Europe and Central Asia for the extension of its own power and "empire"(sometimes called euphemistically Pax Americana ) . From the point of view of superpower rivalry , even Africa has slipped from the status of Cold War battleground into political oblivion and the forgetfulness of mass death and genocide in Angola, Algeria, Ruanda, Burundi , Nigeria, Liberia, Congo Republic and Sierra Leone .The common denominator of this political disorder is the absence of the authoritative sovereignty of the state.

American political science is peculiarly unable to comprehend these circumstances to say nothing of not being able to analyze it effectively. This is not surprising. On the principle of social science similar to trade, following the flag, intellectual currents have reflected the dominant American policy interests of the time. During the Cold War, the subfield of comparative politics was judged by many to be the most intellectually exciting of the political science specializations. This was the era of social science structural functional and political systems "grand theory" that was truly intellectually challenging and imaginative. With its emphasis upon process and political stability it also reflected and served American Cold War policy interests. During this time there was some slight criticism of "area studies" somehow contradicting the positivism of Americanized establishment political science. This was muted however by the scale and therefore intellectual approval of massive U.S. government and private foundation funding of foreign area studies and the presumed or assumed positivism of "grand theory " .

Prepared for the Conference Group on the Middle East, Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-3, 1999 , Atlanta, GA .

Americanized political science in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War has now seized the conceptual high ground. The U. S. Government has either reduced its support of foreign area studies or redefined and diluted them as "cross border" studies and perhaps not coincidentally so have the major private foundations. The American "victory" in the Cold War is seen as the triumph of economic and political liberalism . The foreign policy objectives of democratization and globalization ("marketization "), as was the case in the Cold War itself, now also has political science conceptual correlates. Americanized political science now insists that rational choice theory, "new institutionalism ", "democracy" and market oriented political economy are the neopositivist("post-behavioral") pluralist and individualist criteria for the study of the peoples of other cultures . Political science is once again an unconscious instrument of American foreign policy . This political science deludes itself into thinking that it is engaging in the explanation of foreign politics when in fact it is at best engaging in critical analysis. Perhaps its greatest contribution is to the discussion of the issues of equality, human rights and feminism . As it purports to explain foreign politics and as it perhaps more usefully advances the debate on human rights, it engages in a sustained attack upon so called "area studies ". This attack is in effect a statement of what it does not want to know. Foreign languages, the independant variable status of culture (i.e., ironically, cultures other then its own) and , important to the present article , the role of the state , are what it wishes to be uninformed about . In this respect, it verges on an historical American "no nothing ness".

Political scientists studying the Middle East, on the other hand, have been resistant to this Americanized political science. Like those who study other complex regional foreign cultures they have been immunized by the sheer intellectual effort and long term effort necessary to learn the languages, cultures and religions of the region they have chosen to study. They have developed social science concepts which while themselves are susceptible to critical discussion, more closely approach "explanation" than those emanating from the Americanized mainstream. These latter critics in specific ways have it wrong. The older generation of these critics think that because these political scientists make the state and political culture independant variables these scholars are captives of the two decades old accusation of area studies . That is, they do not adhere to the pluralistic catechism of positivism in which all power is dispersed and all politics is competitive and takes place on a level playing field . The slightly younger critics feel that these political scientists are guilty of something called "Orientalism " i.e. a colonial inspired interpretation of Middle East politics that at best romanticises the past and at worst denies the contemporary Middle East any hope of social progressivism . Some of the more recent critics think they are denying the Middle East of any possibility of a democracy based on individualism and a civil society that confronts and tames the state . Others adopt a postmodernism that sees Middle Eastern politics fragmenting and dividing into segments that are frozen into political deadlock as part of a world wide pattern .

The fact that the Middle Eastern state is coercive is what these critics have to contribute to the understanding of Middle Eastern politics .These critics whether coming from the direction of liberal thought(positivism, pluralism) or Marxist thought(‘orientalism",class analysis) are essentially calling attention to the existence of political or economic injustice . Theirs is an exercise in critical theory . They are judging Middle Eastern political behavior by principles derived from the European Enlightenment . Their critical theory results from this contrast of juxtapositioning the assumptions of two different political cultures . The result is a certain degree of clarity of judgment and the creation of an important controversy regarding the political future and regarding human rights . They are also obscuring the effort at political explanation .

The important theoretical point is that explanation in the social sciences results from the similarity of the assumptions of paradigm and subject and not differences as in critical theory. Therefore, whether the critics are located in the political science discipline itself or are fellow Middle Eastern specialists, they have to confront the fact that the body of scholarship that is judged most authoritative in explaining Middle Eastern politics has neither pluralist nor class assumptions .This scholarship of the intellectual mainstream of Middle Eastern scholars , tends to acknowledge the state or even assigns it and political culture an independent vatiable status or simply accepts the inevitibility of the centralized , top down realty of Middle Eastern politics (Hinnebusch, Springborg , Binder, Harik , Waterbury, Richards, Perthes, Leca, Entelis etc ). In other words, the critics run the danger of a self preoccupation that may be in touch with political science fashion but is out of touch with political reality .

The mainstream political science scholarship of the Middle East is commonly characterized as being non-social scientific which in reality means that it does not share the postulates of the Amerocentric political science mainstream . It is not that it is non-social scientific but rather that its social science is European and not American derived . Illustrative of this is Max Weber’s concept of "patrimonialism", perhaps the single most pervasive concept in the study of Middle East politics . For Weber, the patriarchical authority of the traditional family and the household could be extended as a characterization of traditional political authority as patrimonialism . In the patrimonial political system , authority is concentrated in the hands of a ruler who is constrained politically by tradition . His authority tends to be negotiated between himself and informal and formal constituent groups . Viewed from this perspective while his authority may be authoritarian his coerciveness tends to be exceptional . The paramountcy of this concept by specialists on Middle Eastern politics thus fits in with the overall argument developed here. Such patrimonial authority resonates with the reality of Middle Eastern political practice . Concept and reality are congruent and therefore political analysis tends to be explanatory .

Patrimonialism is indeed suggestive in the interpretation of Middle Eastern politics . It points in the direction of the importance of the political leader and it brings to the fore the question of the political legitimacy of the Middle Eastern state which is why that state may be authoritarian but may not be simply coercive . The concept as articulated by Weber also assists in understanding how the ruler in effect negotiates his relationship with his administrative staff and his army in a traditional and premodern character . Bendix in his intellectual portrait of Weber points out that the latters employment of patrimonialism is intellectually indebted to Hegel . Weber presents political authority and political authority as idealization . In addition, Hegel’s dialectic is an important tool for understanding social and political change . Its importance in application to Middle Eastern politics is that the key to change is the importance of the Idea i.e. political thought as the antithesis (Islamism)which challenges the historical thesis(Arabism) to produce a new synthesis(Islamic nationalism ).

Corporatism, also derived from Hegel, in its intellectual formulation as Idea is a conservative frame work[Islam] which 1)holds the past [tradition] as the guide to the future 2)subordinates the individual to society(umma), the group and the state and 3) holds that the purpose of government is moral and religious rectitude[Promote that which is permissable and prevent that which is forbidden.Al-Quran] . Hegel posits that this Idea is derived from religion, art and philosophy .

Corporatism in its structural dimension consists of a civil society [die burgliche geselleschaft], according to Hegel, consists of an economic elite whose role in governance is limited to consultation[shura] on the basis of consensus [ijmaa]. Their responsibilty is the production of the economic surplus needed to operate society. This elite is in effect the leaders of groups in society who undertake tasks necessary for the operation of the state and the well being of society[takafuliyya]. The state and these groups enter into a compact in which the state licenses these groups (e.g. Law 32 governing organizations in Egypt and the even more stringent regulation introduced more recently in the latter country). The relationship between groups (e.g. trade unions , medical association etc) and state is reciprocal . The state gets social peace and services and the group gets autonomy from the state.

The foregoing is a social science theory that resonates authentically with the reality of Middle East politics . It is also a theory which helps explain what otherwise appears to be a paradox, namely that the state may be authoritarian but it is also unable to deliver services or develope - it is said to be a "weak state". This weakness is perhaps part of what the present dialectical conflict is all about between the secularism of the ideology of Arabism that gradually has lost its legitimacy and its service capabilities and the emergence of an Islamism that as a political oppositional movement is often rooted in exactly this mobilizational capability . Viewed from this perspective, one is led to the speculative conclusion that the political present of the Middle East is one that may be seeing a stronger more legitimate and developmentally capable state emerging as a political synthesis, from the Islamic political challenge to Arabism , called by some, "Islamic nationalism". In terms of the disciplinary issues raised at the outset, political science as practiced in the Middle East is a genuinely post-behavioral political science . It is a political science that has freed itself from the hobgoblin of Americanisms, gone beyond the pseudo neobehavioralism of the political science mainstream and instead is engaging in a much more intellectually persuasive interpretive as opposed to an explanatory social science. This is a political science which having slipped the intellectual limitations of an Americanized discipline, can now address the humanly important themes of political purpose , political structures and political process . The latter can be also prospectively combined to construct conclusions that are more persuasive rather than demonstrative . The anti-Enlightenment formulation of Hegel also holds the prospect of being a comparative framework that would seem to resonate in the Asian values of the Far East and other cultural regions where Enlightenment values do not exist .

In conclusion, an Americanized political science is relevant to foreign area studies perhaps only as a critical approach that helps frame and promote issues of human rights and even feminism e.g. Middle East politics as coercive or authoritarian. From the point of of social science, these are terms of condemnation and not explanation . They do not constitute either a social science explanation or interpretation of human political behavior. Political science in the Middle East as especially illustrated in the employment of the concept of patrimonialism has been able to shake this parochialism of Americanized political science . The latter concept, however, seems to have its greatest interpretive strength as a test of political legitimacy and perhaps is weaker in terms of structural interpretation . The corporatist approach outlined here on the other hand seems to have the prospect to provide both the normative and structural dimensions of theory. It seems to have both the universality of social science theory and yet the sensitivity to the perceptions that Middle Eastern political actors have of themselves. It is perhaps both social scientific and culturally authentic. In terms of post-behavioral social science, it authoritatively interprets rather then chases the positivistic shiboleth of explanation.