States and sovereignty in the Middle East: myths and realities LOUISE FAWCETT* To many observers the Middle East state system since the Arab uprisings stands at a critical juncture, displaying contradictory patterns of fragility and durability. The uprisings, which started late in 2010, were undoubtedly revolutionary in their initial impact, but beyond Tunisia, it is the counter-revolutionary movement that has proved the more durable.1 The region has witnessed multiple regime changes alongside high levels of popular mobilization, violence and transnational activism. The results have been highly destabilizing, resulting in challenges, not only to regimes, but also to the very sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. This situation, in turn, has contributed to a shifting regional balance of power and repeated episodes of external intervention. Some commentators have argued that the whole regional system, always fragile and contested, is finally undergoing radical transformation; others point to its resilience.2 This article evaluates the latest wave of instability and its consequences for Middle Eastern states, their sovereignty and regional order, introducing themes and discussions taken up in other articles in this special issue. It argues—connecting directly to the article by I. William Zartman3—that despite recent upheavals (and multiple predictions to the contrary), it is likely that the Middle East system of states and borders will remain largely intact—at least in the medium term. This does not mean that states are necessarily ‘strong’ in a Weberian sense, or that sovereignty at different levels is uncontested, but that continuity—state (even regime) survival and border preser- vation—is likely to prevail over major change. To support this assertion, the article evaluates recent events against evolving patterns and conceptions of statehood and sovereignty over time. It argues that understanding the contemporary region requires stepping back from the present and taking a long view of the evolution of states and sovereignty in the modern Middle East. It rejects the use of popular myths and stereotypes about artificial or failed states or imminent system implosion, and calls for a stocktaking of the condition of the Middle Eastern state. In doing so it also considers the Middle * I am grateful to my co-editors Raffaella Del Sarto and Asli Okyay for their hard work and organization in making this special issue possible, and for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. 1 Richard Falk, ‘Rethinking the Arab Spring’, Third World Quarterly 37: 12, 2016, pp. 2322–2334. 2 Mohammed Ayoob, Will the Middle East implode? (Cambridge: Polity, 2014). 3 I. William Zartman, ‘States, boundaries and sovereignty in the Middle East: unsteady but unchanging’, Inter- national Affairs 93: 4, July 2017, pp. 937–48. International Affairs 93: 4 (2017) 789–807; doi: 10.1093/ia/iix122 © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of International Affairs. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Louise Fawcett Eastern experience comparatively, looking at parallel state trajectories elsewhere. Taking such a historical and comparative perspective permits close analysis of the particular conditions under which modern states were established and helps to track their principal features and development. There are many transforma- tive features—whether vacuums of state authority, the agency of transnational forces and border porosity—which yield new insights; but there are also conti- nuities with respect to states’ legal personalities, institutions and identities, which have survived and developed across time. Highlighting such continuities amid change, the aim of this framing piece is not to offer a fully fleshed-out conceptual framework,4 but rather to provide some tentative answers to the wider questions addressed in this special issue on contested borders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Namely, how robust is the Middle East state system and its accou- trements of sovereignty, ‘Westphalian’ or otherwise (a question posed by Middle East scholars long before the Arab uprisings)?5 Why has it been so often assumed that this system is in danger of implosion, and are the dangers of implosion greater today than in the past? And, in answering this question, do we need to rethink the general principles of statehood and sovereignty, adopting critical or post-colonial perspectives; or to discard such concepts altogether? Addressing these questions is important from a number of perspectives. The consequences of the Arab uprisings are of obvious significance, not only to the future of the region and its component states, but also from a wider International Relations (IR) perspective. They have multiple impacts upon major external actors and institutions, including the United States, Russia, China, the United Nations and the European Union, all of which remain deeply involved in the economics, politics and security of the region—indeed, their very actions may yet determine some of the issues at hand. Regional events are also important for testing theoretical perspectives, since they challenge us to recalibrate assumptions about political change, state durability and state survival in certain settings. This article calls for caution about predictions of state breakdown and radical changes to borders and sovereignty. After a brief review of events since the recent Arab uprisings, it first offers a critical perspective on some prevailing assumptions or myths about the current regional disorder and state fragility by placing these in comparative and temporal context. Second, it considers the wider trajectory of sovereignty and statehood in the modern Middle East, to review longer-term patterns and trends and their possible implications. Third, it considers whether or not the vocabulary of IR and its current focus on binary divisions between strong and weak states, or ‘good’ and ‘bad’ governance, is adequate for the task of under- standing the present conjuncture. Finally, it offers some more general conclusions about the implications of the present state/border contestation and assesses the extent to which recent events should be seen as a turning point or ‘critical juncture’ in terms of statehood, sovereignty and institutions. In doing so, it draws on the 4 For such a framework, see Raffaella A. Del Sarto, ‘Contentious borders in the Middle East and North Africa: context and concepts’, International Affairs 93: 4, July 2017, pp. 767–87. 5 F. Gregory Gause III, ‘Sovereignty, statecraft and stability in the Middle East’, Journal of International Affairs 54: 2, 2002, pp. 411–69. 790 International Affairs 93: 4, 2017 States and sovereignty in the Middle East work of both IR and Middle East scholars who have contributed to the debate in different ways, whether by applying a wider IR lens or by examining more closely the particularities of the Middle Eastern system, or combining both in an attempt to build disciplinary bridges.6 There are two core aspects of sovereignty to keep in mind—domestic and international—though the two are obviously interde- pendent. That the Arab uprisings and their aftermath have generated domestic political changes with long-term repercussions cannot be disputed, but how these changes will play out in terms of state authority and institutions remains unclear; whether or not they will result in major international changes, including state breakdown and the redrawing of borders, is even less certain (as evidenced by the evolution of the Syrian war towards the recentralization of Assad’s control)—and here traditional IR scholarship has hitherto proved largely correct in predicting state resilience in an anarchical self-help system, notwithstanding the multiple and often contradictory impacts of bottom-up and top-down pressures supplied by social movements and globalization. The Arab uprisings revisited Though the Arab uprisings unleashed what at first appeared as a ‘democratizing wave’,7 with no immediate implications for state borders and external sovereignty, time revealed how the initial popular movements, which saw the toppling of a number of leaders, generated processes that transcended simple regime change, while the effects of democratization remain patchy or, in some cases, tempo- rary. Moreover, what started as a series of domestically driven events have had widespread regional and international repercussions, though their long-term impact on the structure of the regional system remains uncertain. The word ‘revolution’ was widely used to describe the effects of the early Arab uprisings, but outside Tunisia the revolutions remain unfinished or have been reversed.8 Drawing up a roadmap to enable a better understanding of present events and their possible implications for Middle Eastern states is therefore important for scholars and policy-makers alike. The ‘Arab Spring’—a somewhat maligned term with Orientalist undertones, which captured the initial dynamic of the movements that swept the Arab world from late 2010—quickly evolved beyond regime change into a far more complex and multifaceted affair into which multiple players, state and non-state, regional and extra-regional, have been drawn, with the effect that in certain cases, the very states and territories upon which the modern state system has been based for nearly 6 See International Relations theory and a changing Middle East, POMEPS Studies no. 16 (Washington