Casting the Other as an existential threat: The securitisation of sectarianism in the international relations of the Syria crisis

Abstract

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractWith the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the Sunni-Shiite divide came back to the fore in regional politics. In this context, sectarian identities have now acquired a security dimension, as actors have started framing each other as existential threats. This article aims to examine the process by which sectarian identities become security issues and sources of conflict. We claim that primordial and instrumentalist/rationalist approaches to identity cannot capture the complexities of sectarianism in Middle East international relations. Instead, we draw on securitisation theory to examine the speech acts and narratives leading to the construction of sectarianism as a security issue in the Middle East. We examine Hezbollah's and Saudi Arabia's speech acts towards the Syria crisis as revelatory cases in the securitisation of the Sunni-Shiite divide in the post-2011 order.

Beyond the beyond(s): On the (many) third way(s) beyond primordialism and instrumentalism in the study of sectarianism

“…When the instrumentalist position is situated in the broader literature on ethnicity, nationalism, and identity politics (e.g., Darwich & Fakhoury, ), it is usually presented as rationalism or materialism and linked to figures such as Robert Bates (1983) or Steven Walt (). Thus, we are told (e.g., Darwich & Fakhoury, ; Malmvig, ; Wehrey, ) that instrumentalists perceive identity politics from a top‐down perspective. Communal identities are regarded as very fluid and malleable, making them useful instruments for rational elite actors competing for material interests in terms of economic wealth or political power.…”

“…Instrumentalists are also criticized for ignoring the possibility that sectarianism can take on a life of its own and become “sticky” if sectarian identities become internalized among actors (Lynch, ). In these situations, sectarian identities may also affect people's threat perceptions and understanding of their interests, just as it may enable/constrain some rather than other forms of behaviour (Colgan, ; Darwich & Fakhoury, ).…”

“…When claims about how the “sectarian journey” has been dominated by primordialists are substantiated, it is far more rare to find references to the academic debate about the (re)emergence of sectarianism in the Middle East. Usually, they are limited to two figures (e.g., Darwich & Fakhoury, ; Malmvig, ; Osman, ; Phillips, ). The first is Geneive Abdo (: 2; 2017), according to whom an understanding of the New Sectarianism requires “serious consideration be given to religious difference in its own right, and not simply as an epiphenomenon stemming from social, economic, or political contestation.” The second is Nasr (: 20), who in his discussion about the Shia Revival portrays the Shia‐Sunni conflict as “a struggle for the soul of Islam—a great war of competing theologies and conceptions of sacred history.” However, neither of these works is highly theoretical or specifically directed to a narrow academic audience.…”

“…More frequently, figures from the policy and academic communities appear as examples of an instrumentalist emphasis on “politics rather than piety.” Khalil Osman (: 6), for instance, label the Iraqi specialist Visser () as an example of an instrumentalist, where the “sectarian master narrative” is outlined as being imposed by Western powers in order to divide Iraq and further their own interest. Figures like Droz‐Vincent (), Gause (), Lynch (), Zubaida (), and Wehrey () have moreover been presented as instrumentalists (for instance by Darwich & Fakhoury, : 715; Malmvig, : 34; Phillips, : 362). This is substantiated with reference to how these scholars have stressed how regimes have manipulated and used sectarian identities as a prop of power in an authoritarian regime‐survival strategy or as part of a regional rivalry, where the real underlying drivers have been (geo)politics.…”

“…From a Foucauldian perspective, sectarianism has, for instance, been analysed as a “socioeconomic and political power that produces and reproduces sectarian subjects and modes of political subjectification and mobilization through a dispersed ensemble of institutional, clientelist and discoursive practices” (Salloukh, Barakat, al‐Habbal, Khattab, & Mikaelian, ). Another example is the so‐called “Copenhagen School of Securitization” from IR Theory, which according to Helle Malmvig (2015: 32; see also Darwich & Fakhoury, ; Mabon, ; Saleh & Kraetzschmar, ) is attractive because it “will allow us to bridge concerns with the power politics involved when regional actors and local elites make sectarian claims and the processes of social construction whereby sectarian identities are enacted and discursively framed as security threats.” Edward Said has, furthermore, been introduced as a lens to examine how Western representations of sectarianism in the Middle East draws on classic orientalist tropes and how this impact not only Western understandings but also policies towards so‐called “sectarian conflicts” in the Middle East (Jacoby, ).…”