Striking From The Margins: State, Religion and Devolution of Authority in the Middle East

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab world has undergone a series of radical transformations. One of the most significant is the resurgence of activist and puritanical forms of religion presenting as viable alternatives to existing social, cultural and political practices. The rise in sectarianism and violence in the name of religion has left scholars searching for adequate conceptual tools that might generate a clearer insight into these interconnected conflicts. In Striking from the Margins, leading authorities in their field propose new analytical frameworks to facilitate greater understanding of the fragmentation and devolution of the state in the Arab world. Challenging the revival of well-worn theories in cultural and post-colonial studies, they provide novel contributions on issues ranging from military formations, political violence in urban and rural settings, trans-regional war economies, the crystallisation of sect-based authorities and the restructuring of tribal networks. Placing much-needed emphasis on the re-emergence of religion, this timely and vital volume offers a new, critical approach to the study of the volatile and evolving cultural, social and political landscapes of the Middle East.

Table of Contents:
Comparative Perspectives 1. Deniz Kandiyoti, From the Margins to The Centre? How Gender Politics Became A Litmus Test of Governance 2. Stathis Kalyvas, Arab Civil Wars: An Assessment Part I: States, Political Economies and Systematic Collapse 1. Mudher Al-Alwani, Iraqi Market and Ethnic-Sectarian Bioregionalism 2. Isam Al-Khafaji, Reconfiguring the State, Restructuring Communities 3. Virginie Collombier, Post-Qaddafi Libya: Political Agreements or A New Social Contract? 4. Adam Hanieh, State Formation In The Middle East: The GCC and the Political Economy of the Regional Scale 5. Shamel Azmeh, The Political Economy of Syria and Iraq) Part II: The Devolution of Violence: Militias, Security and War Economies 1. Omar Ashour, The (Military) Rise of Armed Non-State Actors: The Case of Isis 2. Hosham Dawood, Tribes and Violence in Armed Conflict: An Anthropologist's View 3. Frederic Wehrey, Hybridised Security Governance: The Case of Libya Part III: Reconfigurations of Religion: From the Margins to the Centre 1. Harout Akdedian, The Reconfiguration of the Religious Field in Syria: From Neoliberalism to State Atrophy and Beyond 2. Harith Hasan, Religious Actors, Political (Dis)Order and the Reconfiguration of Margincenter Relations In Iraq: The Case of the Shii Clerical Authority 3. Haider Saeed, The Sect and the Nation Part IV: Localities 1. Asya El-Meehy, Governance from Below: Comparing Local Experiments in Egypt and Syria After the Uprisings 2. Asma Jameel, Families of Daesh: Retribution and Forgiveness Part V: Jihadism and Local Networks 1. Hamzeh Al-Mustafa, Virtual Networks During the Syrian Revolution 2. Haenni, Patrick, The Reorganization and Securitization of Daesh Strongholds 3. Mazur, Kevin, Dayr Al-Zur From Revolution to Isis: Local Networks, Hybrid Identities and Outside Authorities Part VI: State Disaggregation and Geopolitics 1. Arjomand, Said, Daesh and Iran's Islamic Revolution in Historical Perspective 2. Kodmani, Bassma, The Future of the Syrian State 3. Saunders, Robert A., Extending the Katechon: Religio-Civilizational Vectors in Russia's Intervention in the Levant

About the Author :
Professor Aziz Al-Azmeh is Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of History at the Central European University (CEU). He has been Visiting Professor at Yale University, Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, Georgetown University, and more recently at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations of the Aga Khan University (London) and SciencesPo Paris. His publications include Islams and Modernities, The Emergence of Islam in late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press) and Secularism in the Arab World: Contexts, Ideas and Consequences (Edinburgh University Press). Professor Nadia Al-Bagdadi is Professor of History and Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at CEU. A historian of modern Islamic history, thought, literature and culture, she studied at the Freie Universitat in Berlin, in Cairo and Tunis. Dr Harith Hasan is a Senior SFM Fellow at the CEU and a senior non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center. He is writing a book on the reconstitution of the relationship between the state and religious entities in post-2003 Iraq. Dr Harout Akdedian is Carnegie SFM research fellow at the CEU's Centre for Religious Studies and visiting scholar at Portland State University's Middle East Studies Center. Akdedian is currently working on his book, Stifling the Public Domain in Syria: A Decade of Violence and Beyond.