In the past decade the Middle East has experienced a historic transformation. The tectonic plates are shifting. The status quo has been shattered beyond repair. Today, there is a multifaceted struggle unfolding in the Greater Middle East, particularly in the Arab world, over the future of the nation state, the role of the sacred in the political, and the relationship between rulers and citizens. This struggle is more than territorial; it is ideological and institutional. At heart, it is an existential battle between a multitude of actors, including conservatives, progressives, Islamists, and nationalists. A fierce regional cold war between the three pivotal powers (Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) pours gasoline on this internal struggle and exacerbates it. The implications of this struggle have already been felt far beyond the region. The eventual outcome will define the character and identity of the nation states and their relations with the wider world.

Historically in the Greater Middle East and beyond, the notion of borders and boundaries has shifted in time and space. The current all-too-apparent divisions in the Arab world between national identity and tribal, religious, and sectarian identities are contentious and violent. These secondary identities have emerged because of failed state institutions and the lack of legitimacy of the ruling elites. They now threaten to wreck the entire state system.

However, redrawing the map will not, in itself, resolve the crisis facing the system. The recent experience of South Sudan serves as a warning for the violence, instability and bloodshed that can flow from such efforts. The fracturing of the territorial map is a symptom of a deeper, and more systemic, crisis of failed governance. The economic and political vulnerabilities of this failure fuel structural instability by stoking the fires of identity dislocation, sectarianism, and geopolitical rivalry.

Against this backdrop of swift and uncertain change, the Middle East state system is experiencing a profound transition. Competing visions of the nation-state and of the contract between power and the people are being promoted across the region. This will be a long, drawn-out process, the outcome of which remains unclear. This struggle to reform the nation-states of the Middle East reflects the experiences of other regions on the long, and often bloody, path to nation-building, which takes decades. […]

OUTLINE

• From the politics of the past to the politics of the future
• The Middle East in the global context
• The durability of the state system
• Constitutionalism
• The reinvention of authoritarian populism in the Middle East
• Empowering change from the bottom up

Fawaz A. Gerges is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics. He is the author of several books, including Making the Arab World, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2018 and ISIS: A History, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2016.