Series - The Crisis of the State in the Islamic World
Part III: Social Values and Principles
Section 2 – Constitutional Principles vs. Societal Values
05 July 2024
Part III: Social Values and Principles
Section 1 – The Absence of Secularism
26 June 2024
Part II: Structural Aspects
Section 4 – Inadequate Administrative Structure (II)
10 June 2024
Part II: Structural Aspects
Section 4 – Inadequate Administrative Structure (I)
20 May 2024
The administration is the only material and palpable aspect of the structure of the state, unlike other aspects such as sovereignty, secularism, liberal democracy, and other values. It is the essence of the states, while the others are meanings within it. This led Max Weber to theorize that the state has an administrative basis in addition to the economic basis that Marx relies on.
Part II: Structural Aspects
Section 3 – The Absence of Liberal Democracy
5 April 2024
Liberal democracy is absent in all Islamic countries despite the establishment of some parliaments and legislative councils in some of them. However, they lack true democracy despite some of these countries returning to transfer of power, holding presidential and parliamentary elections, and parliamentary governance to them for over a decade. This comes after a long era of totalitarian and dictatorial regimes based on one-party rule and one leader, which emerged after a wave of military coups that swept the Third World since the 1940s.
Part II: Structural Aspects
Section 2 – A Weak National Identity (2)
19 March 2024
The emergence of pan-nationalism in the Islamic world had become one of the characteristics of the state when predominant ethnicities in their countries viewed national identity as broader than mere nationalism. Pan-nationalism benefitted them demographically because a more significant number of members of their culture lived beyond their state’s borders. For example, Arabs outside Iraq outnumber Kurds within Iraq. Therefore, Iraqi Arabs perceived that members of their own ethnicity, even outside the borders of Iraq, were closer to them than Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Turkmen, and other ethnicities in Iraq who held Iraqi nationality, like Iraqi Arabs. They believed that Arabs beyond the border would be more beneficial to them than their national partners due to their larger numbers and the expansiveness of Arab countries. They thought that building a pan-Arab nation-state – would solve all the political, economic, military, and cultural crises of Arabs.
Part II: Structural Aspects
Section 2 – A Weak National Identity (1)
08 March 2024
In the first decade of the 19th century, Hegel protested the fervent German nationalist sentiment that swept society. In a realization of the deadly consequences of nationalist extremism, and as though he predicted the major wars it would cause to Europe up until the two world wars, he theorized for a national spirit that would unify all members of the state and that would include the different races, religions, and sects of the state under one national identity, which would safeguard the integrity of the state.
Part II: Structural Aspects
Section 1 – The Weakening of Civic and Civil Citizenship
22 February 2024
The aspects of the crisis of the state in Islamic countries can be divided into structural elements related to the entity of the state and theoretical foundational aspects related to society and the state. The convergence of these aspects prevents establishing a sound modern state in the Islamic world, forcing it to either compound or resolve its crises.
Part I: Characteristics of the State
13 FEBRUARY 2024
The state model Islamic countries today is the Western-model state, like that prevailing in the rest of the world. This model of the state originated in Western Europe after a historical process that lasted several centuries, during which the structures, institutions, and organizations of this state developed in stages. Principles and rules that organically complemented this state emerged, coinciding with fundamental structural changes in European societies.