The Analysis of National Security in the Arab Context: Restating the State of the Art

Security in the Arab world and Turkey: differently different

“…In accounting for security in the Arab world, scholars have challenged the "relevance" of the "standard" concept of security, which they find deficient in accounting for the trials and travails of postcolonial statehood (Al-Mashat 1985;Korany 1986;Korany, Noble, and Brynen 1993a;Sayigh 1990). Highlighting identity/security dynamics, Arab scholars have utilized the notion of "Arab security" and reworked it to qualify the "standard" concept (Dessouki 1993;Korany 1994;Korany, Noble, andBrynen 1993a, 1993b). Turkish scholars, contrary to their Arab world counterparts, did not challenge the relevance of "standard" concepts but rather offered accounts of Turkey's security as an aspect of "Western security."…”

“…Such a stance, in turn, fits the profile of an intellectual tradition that has been attentive to the Arab-non-Arab distinction when considering various topics, including security. Korany highlights how "state frontiers have been less important as barriers in collective psychology than has the distinction between Arab and non-Arab" (Korany 1994: 167;Korany 1999;Korany et al 1993a). This has been the case since the early days of the formation of individual Arab states and despite the efforts of Arab leaders to fortify state boundaries and strengthen sovereignty.…”

“…Similarly, Abdul-Monem M. Al-Mashat (1985) maintains that the "standard" concept of national security is not only state-centric but also statist by virtue of the primacy accorded to the security of the state over other referents. Putting the state at the focal point of analysis is problematic, Korany has argued, because it would leave societal insecurities out of security analyses (Korany, Noble, and Brynen 1993b).…”

Inquiring into Others’ Conceptions of the International and Security

“…Writing in the early 1990s, Bahgat Korany (a member of the Montréal school; see Salloukh in this issue) identified a rift between two different conceptions of "Arab national security": state-centric and society-centric conceptions (Korany, Brynen, and Noble 1993). The concept of "Arab national security" is not new; it originated in the discourses of pan-Arabist policy makers during the (Arab) Cold War.…”

Bridging the Gap: IR, Middle East Studies and the Disciplinary Politics of the Area Studies Controversy

“…In the past there has been a small but steady trickle of scholarship drawing explicitly European Journal of International Relations 13(1) on both literatures, and this continues to be the case (e.g. Binder, 1958;Korany and Dessouki, 1991;Korany et al, 1993;Halliday, 1995;Hinnebusch and Ehteshami, 2002). There have also been instances of cross-fertilization: IR has drawn on the idea of the 'rentier state' first developed in MES, while MES has often deployed 'power politics' (Brown, 1984;Hansen, 2001;Walt, 1987) and 'dependency' (Bromley, 1994) approaches in analysing regional politics.…”