In its formative stages, the study of the theory and practice of security in all the world’s regional subsystems, including that of the Middle East, was defined primarily by the logic of superpower rivalry. For over five decades, the Cold War security agenda was distinguished by the principal strategic balance, that of a structure of bipolarity, between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR). It also served as the core framework of analysis. In that respect, the ‘core’ was prioritized, both analytically and politically, over what were considered local or regional disputes raging in an area broadly defined...

In a world that has recently undergone seismic change with the collapse of the Cold War and is still uncertain as to the ramifications of the New World Order, it is scholars who have become of key importance to developing theories or paradigms to comprehend changing relationships in the international arena. Novel concepts gain acceptance within the academic community as they attract contributors to their intellectual development and proponents who urge their utility for policy makers. For the careful scholar, the worth of any new conceptualization must be proven through testing, typically by applying it to factual situations in defined...

This chapter examines the concept of security through discursive contestation at the leadership level in a critical Middle Eastern case – that of Israel. The approach adopted here can be called historical constructivism in that it traces the fractured construction of security as a phenomenon that changes dramatically, and with significant political implications, over time. This historical constructivist approach is predicated on two fundamental claims. The first is that concepts such as ‘state’, ‘security’ and ‘nation’ are socially constructed and thus will hold different meanings in different spatial and temporal contexts. The second is that the meaning of any socially constructed...

In the context of broadening the scope of international relations (IR) and of the related field of security studies in light of the changed international system after the end of the Cold War, Islam and Islamic movements have moved to the fore of this discipline. At the surface it looks as if the study of the ‘geopolitics of Islam and the West’ has taken the place of the earlier Soviet studies (Fuller and Lesser, 1995). Students of IR concerned with the study of the Middle East and those who have turned to focus on Islamic civilization are caught, however, between...

It is widely assumed that war is a man’s world. Male soldiers fight enemy soldiers on the battlefield to protect their homelands and their families from existential threat. The woman’s role during war, on the other hand, is to remain steadfast on the home front, support her man, keep the home fires burning, and wait anxiously for his safe return. On the basis of this scenario, the motivation for the ‘citizen warrior’ to take up arms is ultimately to shield the honour and integrity of his ‘beautiful soul’ against the perils of a dangerous and anarchic world (Elshtain, 1987). Whether...

Did water scarcity precipitate the 1980s’intifada– the violent conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis? This difficult question is the type of issue with which environmental security researchers grapple. Obviously, violent conflict results from multiple factors, such as ethnic tension, failed deterrence, and misperception. The environmental security analyst must untangle the sources of conflict to determine whether the violence would have occurred had not environmental resource scarcity been a factor. In other words was Israeli and Palestinian water scarcity the precipitating factor for theintifada?

Environmental security is an emerging and vigorously debated subfield of security studies. Although Cold...

In the Middle East, security is strongly influenced by politicized forms of fundamental belief systems. This chapter examines the dual role of political Islam, with specific focus on Palestine and the case ofHamas,the Islamic Resistance Movement, in the West Bank and Gaza. In this context, political Islam represents a general rejection of the Arab–Israeli peace process as well as an instrument of political protest against an indigenous Arab regime.

Hamasis an excellent case study with which to demonstrate the role religion performs in political conflict. Currently,Hamasis gaining in popular support due to renewed violence...

The end of bipolarity brought to light the difficulty inherent in using Cold War concepts of security to explain international relations in the developing world. As well, it has often been argued that international relations is basically an American (with some British input) enterprise (Azar and Moon, 1988b: 1; Hoffman, 1977), with the consequences that only threats that concerned American interests (i.e. military threats from the Soviet Union) were considered security threats.¹ In the contemporary international system, however, issues of security are now much more than superpower competition and interests, and these raise questions as to the nature and practice...