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Political Culture & Conflict Resolution in the Arab Middle East
Political Culture and Conflict Resolution in the Arab Middle East

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Chapter Synopses

  

Preliminary page

Containining cover page, table of content and Introduction.

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End

Containining Conclusion, bibliography and index.

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Chapter 1: Conflict Resolution and the Explanatory Capacity of
Political Culture

Following on from an 'operationalisation' of political culture, this chapter engages with key approaches to conflict resolution studies and their relationship with the ‘culture question’. Through an overview of dominant 'macro' approaches to conflict resolution theory, and the tension between theory and practice, this chapter examines the potential for political culture to not only provide enhanced explanatory capacity to resolution theory, but also to enhance dialogue between theorists and practitioners. Finally, the discussion moves to the specifics of political culture in the Arab world influential over the form and legitimacy of peace agreements.

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Chapter 2: Lebanon and the Taef Agreement

The agreement to end Lebanon's 15-year civil war, the Taef Agreement, still exerts a profound influence over this diminutive state almost two decades since its formulation. This chapter explores the form and function of the agreement before outlining how political culture is seen to have shaped key themes of this document. In particular, this chapter argues that the Taef Agreement has worked to enshrine confessional politics in Lebanon, entrenching a political dynamic that many claim was a central reason for the outbreak of conflict in 1975. From this, the lack of attention to reform of the Lebanese economy, effectively legalising the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, and neglecting key areas relating to justice, forgiveness and collective memory that provide the foundation of peacebuilding in Lebanon.

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Chapter 3: Algeria and the Civil Concord

The severe violence of Algeria's civil war has apparently been neutralised by the Civil Concord initiative of President AbdelAziz Bouteflika, elected in 1999. However, as this chapter outlines, the civil concord initiative operates as a security measure rather than as a peace initiative. In particular, this chapter argues how patterns of behaviour on the part of Algerian political elites can reveal efforts to promote specific linear historical narratives, attempts to exonerate themselves from any involvement in or culpability for the violence that gripped the country for over a decade. This has established a process whereby the Civil Concord establishes a process that criminalises opposition and imposes resolution in Algeria.

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Chapter 4: Conflict Resolution and the Perpetuation of Elite Structures in the Arab World

This chapter draws together the themes explored in the examinations of resolution processes in Lebanon and Algeria in an effort to highlight both the implications for conflict resolution in the Arab world generally as well as where the potential explanatory capacity of political culture exhibits limitations. The central theme here is the perpetuation of elite structures in the Arab world that are served by their influence over the formulation of peace processes. The inclusion of political culture as an explanatory concept is vital here, however, it must be used with recognition of its limitations as a secondary, relational, multi-layered and fluid concept.

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