The Land beyond the Border

Johannes Becke

Description

Based on three case studies from the Middle East, The Land beyond the Border advances an innovative theoretical framework for the study of state expansions and state contractions. Johannes Becke argues that state expansion can be theorized according to four basic ideal types—a form of patronage (patronization), the imposition of a satellite regime (satellization), the establishment of territorial exclaves (exclavization), or a full-fledged takeover (incorporation). Becke discusses how both irredentist ideologies and political realities have shaped the dynamics of state expansion and state contraction in the recent history of each state. By studying Israel comparatively with other Middle Eastern regimes, this book forms part of an emerging research agenda seeking to bring the research fields of Israel Studies and Middle East Studies closer together. Instead of treating Israel's rule over the occupied territories as an isolated case, Becke offers students the chance to understand Israel's settlement project within the broader framework of postcolonial state formation.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction

1. A Theory of Postcolonial State Expansions

2. The Late Colonial State in the Middle East

3. After Empire: Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial State Formation

4. Varieties of State Expansion

5. Resistance and Institutional Change

6. State Expansions and State Contractions after the End of the Cold War

7. Varieties of Expansionism in Global Comparison

Conclusion

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Middle East
• History of the Middle East
• Comparative politics

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438482248
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Land beyond the
BORDER
SUNY series in Comparative Politics

Gregory S. Mahler, Editor
The Land beyond the
BORDER
State Formation and Territorial Expansion in Syria, Morocco, and Israel
Johannes Becke
Cover image: Michele Benericetti https://www.flickr.com/photos/benericetti/5638307529/sizes/l . Courtesy of Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/?ref=ccsearch&atype=rich .
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Becke, Johannes, author.
Title: The land beyond the border : state formation and territorial expansion in Syria, Morocco, and Israel / Johannes Becke.
Other titles: Irredentism after empire Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series in comparative politics | Revision of author’s thesis (doctoral)—Freie Universität Berlin, 2014, titled Irredentism after empire : the postcolonial state expansions of Syria, Morocco, and Israel. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024815 | ISBN 9781438482231 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438482248 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Boundaries—Case studies. | Irredentism—Case studies. | Postcolonialism. | Comparative government. | Syria—Territorial expansion. | Morocco—Territorial expansion. | Israel—Territorial expansion.
Classification: LCC JC323 .B44 2021 | DDC 320.1/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024815
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Political struggle is enormously more complex: in a certain sense, it can be compared to colonial wars or to old wars of conquest—in which the victorious army occupies, or proposes to occupy, permanently all or a part of the conquered territory. Then the defeated army is disarmed and dispersed, but the struggle continues on the terrain of politics and of military “preparation.”
—Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci
When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, it worked feverishly with its Lebanese allies to remake the country in its image, but to no avail. Since 1989, Syria has tried to do the same, with more resolve and success.
—Martin Kramer, “Arab Nationalism : Mistaken Identity”
For my family
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 A Theory of Postcolonial State Expansions
Chapter 2 The Late Colonial State in the Middle East
Chapter 3 After Empire: Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial State Formation
Chapter 4 Varieties of State Expansion
Chapter 5 Resistance and Institutional Change
Chapter 6 State Expansions and State Contractions after the End of the Cold War
Chapter 7 Varieties of Expansionism in Global Comparison
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations
Map 4.1 First Syrian state expansion (1936)
Map 4.2 Second Syrian state expansion (1976)
Map 4.3 First Moroccan state expansion (1956–1958)
Map 4.4 Second Moroccan state expansion (1975)
Map 4.5 First Israeli state expansion (1948–1949)
Map 4.6 Second Israeli state expansion (1967)
Map C.1 Israeli state contractions since 1967
Tables
Table 1.1 A causal model of state expansion and state contraction
Table 1.2 Contextual and institutional sources of institutional change
Table 1.3 A typology of state expansion
Table 1.4 Diverging institutional pathways of state expansion
Table 1.5 State expansions on a continuum of institutional reversibility
Table 1.6 A typology of state contraction
Table 1.7 Diverging institutional pathways of state contraction
Table 1.8 A taxonomy of rule and resistance
Table 5.1 Syrian rule and Lebanese resistance (1976–1989)
Table 5.2 Moroccan rule and Sahrawi resistance (1975–1991)
Table 5.3 Israeli rule and Palestinian resistance (1967–1993)
Table 6.1 Syrian rule and Lebanese resistance (1989–2005)
Table 6.2 Moroccan rule and Sahrawi resistance (1991–2005)
Table 6.3 Israeli rule and Palestinian resistance (1993–2005)
Table 7.1 State expansions after World War II in global comparison
Table 7.2 State contractions after World War II in global comparison
Table C.1 Syrian, Moroccan, and Israeli state expansion in comparison
Table C.2 Syrian, Moroccan, and Israeli state contraction in comparison
Table C.3 In-case variety of state expansion—the Israeli case
Table C.4 In-case variety of state contraction—the Israeli case
Acknowledgments
Selected parts of chapter 1 and chapter 7 are reprinted from Johannes Becke, “Varieties of Expansionism: A Comparative-Historical Approach to the Study of State Expansion and State Contraction,” Political Geography 72 (2019): 64–75, with permission from Elsevier.
Preface
This book is based on a revised PhD dissertation originally submitted at Freie Universität Berlin in 2014 under the supervision of Markus Jachtenfuchs and Eyal Zisser. The final manuscript would not have seen the light of day without the help, encouragement, and critiques of my friends and colleagues who supported me throughout a postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford University and my first years as assistant professor of Israel and Middle East studies at the Heidelberg Center for Jewish Studies (Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg).
At the risk of missing a few names, I would like to express special gratitude to Derek Penslar, Sara Hirschhorn, Jonathan Gribetz, Steven Terner and Ari Roth (in the United States); to Amnon Aran, Peter Bergamin, Menna Abukhadra, and Roman Vater (in the United Kingdom); to Orit Rozin, Elie Podeh, Assaf David, and Oren Barak (in Israel); to Frederek Musall, Viktor Golinets, Roland Gruschka, Henning Sievert, Johannes Zimmermann, Jenny Hestermann, Shelley Harten, and Daniel Mahla (in Germany); to Michael Rinella and the staff at SUNY Press; to Manfred Müller from mr-kartographie for producing the maps; to my comrades from the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (BTS), especially Anael Labigne, Matthew Stephen, and Kathrin Stephen; to my parents and my sister; and finally to my lovely wife Anna, who succeeded in publishing her own PhD dissertation considerably faster than me.
Introduction
The Paradox of Postcolonial State Expansions
Irredentism, the political project of redeeming lost territories for the nation, is as old as modern nationalism itself. 1 Nineteenth-century Italian nationalists were the first to speak of terre irredente (unredeemed lands) situated in the north of what was then the Italian nation-state. Sometimes the claim of redemption was directed at Italian speakers under foreign rule, and sometimes redemption aimed at clearing alien populations from territory that nationalists claimed for the Italian nation alone. 2 Scholars of entrenched ethnic conflicts have described irredentism as the “Macedonian syndrome,” a seemingly pathological obsession not just with territory but also with history. In the words of Weiner, irredentist conflicts are not exclusively fought over a piece of land but often over “what to an outsider would appear to be trivial historical points: whether a given work of art belonged to one cultural tradition rather than to another, the etymology of place names, and whether a particular deity, architectural form, or ancient social institution is indigenous or was borrowed from another culture.” 3
While both the nation and its yet unredeemed territory may seem exceptional to the nationalist eye, there is nothing unique about irredentism from a perspective of global history. As Chazan has shown, 4 irredentism as an “expansive form of territorial postindependence nationalism” 5 represents a recurring feature of each global wave of state formation. The first wave of irredentism flared up during nineteenth-century state formation in Europe, when the term was coined in Italy and where the phenomenon structured the Greek-Ottoman confrontation. 6 A second wave accompanied the establishment of nation-states after World War I following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. The third wave of irredentist conflicts was triggered by decolonization after World War II, and the fourth came to haunt state formation in the post-Soviet and post-Yugoslav sphere, whether in the Caucasus or the Balkans.
Until today, expansionist statecraft persists in decidedly postcolonial times, even if formal colonization based on conquest and hierarchical inequality has long been prohibited by international humanitarian law, 7 which has shifted toward an emphasis on formally equal and sovereign nation-states with inviolable borders. 8 However, indirect forms of external control continue to shape both the postcolonial state 9 and the transformation of the former imperial metropole into a “normative Empire.” 10 As the Russian takeover of the C