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The Army and Political Power in the Arab Context: Theoretical Issues

Volume 1|Issue 1| Apr 2018 |Articles
DOI: Army

Abstract

This study is concerned with the relationship between the army and politics, not as an ailment specific to Arab societies but as the byproduct of historical development, the nature of the Arab state, and the process attendant to its development, structure, and modernization. The paper sets out from the hypothesis that by definition no army is far removed from politics, and that in recently independent states, the military has a role in state building and in accelerating the country through historical stages. The study focuses on the army's political aspirations in the narrow sense of seizing and wielding power. The distinction is made between the concepts of “revolution” and “coup,” two concepts which have been historically intertwined in Arab public discourse, as an introduction to thinking about various historical experiences and examples where the military played an important role in the process of political and social change. The study affirms the difficulty of reaching any theoretical generalization governing the relationship between the army and power, and its behavior in power, while it attempts to differentiate between a coup launched by the regime against a political process it had initiated, and a coup launched by radicalized officers with the aim of reforming or changing the regime. Finally, there is an attempt to lay down five common features that characterize the relationship between the military and political power in the Arab world.

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Azmi Bishara

Prominent Arab intellectual, political philosopher, and researcher with numerous books and academic publications on political thought, social theory and philosophy. As a scholar, his magnum opus is his two-part work Religion and Secularism in Historical Context. Part I, Religion and Religiosity was published in 2013, followed in 2015 by the two-volume Part II, Secularity and Secularization: The Intellectual Trajectory and Secularity and Theories of Secularization. His latest books are The Question of the State: Philosophy, Theory, and Context (2023) with a second volume titled The Arab State: Beginnings and Evolution (2024); and Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (2024), originally released in English in 2022 by Hurst Publishers in London, published concurrently with The Flood: The War on Palestine in Gaza (2024). Bishara’s publications in Arabic, some of which have become key references within their respective field, include Civil Society: A Critical Study (1996); From the Jewishness of the State to Sharon (2004); On The Arab Question: An Introduction to an Arab Democratic Manifesto (2007); To Be an Arab in Our Times (2009); On Revolution and Susceptibility to Revolution (2012); Religion and Secularism in Historical Context (in 3 vols., 2013, 2015); The Army and Political Power in the Arab Context: Theoretical Problems (2017); The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh): A General Framework and Critical Contribution to Understanding the Phenomenon (2018); What is Populism? (2019); and  Democratic Transition and its Problems: Theoretical Lessons from Arab Experiences (2020).

His English publications include Sectarianism without Sects (Oxford University Press, 2021); On Salafism: Concepts and Contexts (Stanford University Press, 2022); ISIS: The March to Dystopia (I.B. Tauris, 2025); and his trilogy on the Arab revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria, published by I.B. Tauris, Understanding Revolutions: Opening Acts in Tunisia (2021); Egypt: Revolution, Failed Transition and Counter-Revolution (2022); and Syria 2011-2013: Revolution and Tyranny before the Mayhem (2023), in which he provides a rich theoretical analysis in addition to a comprehensive and lucid assessment of the revolutions in three Arab countries.

Bishara serves as the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) and the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies founded by the ACRPS.
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Al-Muntaqa is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

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