Description

The Arab World Today

The basic question confronting the Arab world is why, in the mid-1990s, it was sliding back into a position of deepening dependency, stalled development, and increasing marginalization, despite having been one of the major participants and beneficiaries of the national liberation movement that in the second half of the twentieth century put some other Third World regions on the road to political independence, economic development, and modernization. Even in an age of increasing globalization and greater control by the center of the world economic system and its institutions over the periphery, in the final analysis internal conditions determine for any given society its developmental trajectory. The term “internal conditions” is used not only in the traditional sense of the level of development of productive forces and corresponding class configurations, but also — perhaps with even greater immediacy — the degree of maturity of its political institutions, the resilience of its culture, and its ability to exploit the opportunities offered by its external environment and to protect itself from its risks and challenges.

Arab nations, Middle East, international relations, North Africa, Persian Gulf War, U.S.-Middle East relations, Israel and the Palestinians, Arab-Israeli relations

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 23, Nos. 1-2 (1996): 170-183