MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Location: file:///C:/F4843254/Week14.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Questions – Week #10

Questions – Week #14=

  1. Let us discuss Roger Owen= 217;s observation (pp 66-67) that “the close involvement with events a= nd processes across Arab borders means that there is less of a difference between domestic and foreign policy than in other parts of the world.&= #8221;  Why may regional developments= in the Arab world have a greater impact upon the internal politics of a g= iven country in the region than, say, some regional developments in Latin America or Southe= ast Asia upon one of their respective states?&= nbsp; Why may even a regime’s legitimacy be at stake in the Arab world? 
  2. Do you think that the Arab world or at least part= s of it constitute what Karl Deutsch called a security community (Hudson, p. 6)? 
  3. What about economic cooperation?  Can Arab countries gradually = deepen their economic ties, following in the footsteps of the European Union, moving from specific projects like the European Coal and Steel Communi= ty to a free trade area and eventually to political union?  What are the conditions for developing supranational institutions?  What do you think of Bassam Tibi’s “middle way” of sharing “a political culture of policymaking within a civil society” (p. 103)?
  4. What complementary economic interests do various states in the region share?  In what ways are their economic interests conflicting?
  5. How has the balance of power (the “Arab bal= ance of weakness” discussed by Bahgat Korany) changed in the region since the third Gu= lf war?
  6. What are the similarities and differences between radical Islamism today and Arabism a half century ago?  Does radical Islamism today p= ose a greater threat to existing state orders than Arabism (Gamal Abdul Nasser vs. the Ba’ath) in the 1950s and 1960s?
  7. Now to the final question that we did not answer = last week, but given our better understanding of regional politics, can the oil-rich GCC regimes afford, even with plenty of revenues to meet their implicit welfare commitments, to continue to minimize political reform= and investments in political infrastructure?  How would you advise them to proceed?
  8. Will the (contradictory) tendencies of US-led globalization pressure the Arab world toward greater integration or disintegration, or will they in the final analysis have little impact = upon the region?  And what are= the possible impacts, respectively, of the EU, Russia, and China?