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Studying Middle East Militaries: Where Do We Go from Here?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2011

Oren Barak*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Department of International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel; e-mail: msornb@huji.ac.il

Extract

Research on Middle East militaries is imbalanced. In recent decades, scholarly interest in Israel and Turkey has expanded, while the Arab states have more often than not been overlooked. In this essay, I suggest how to address the “gap” in the study of Arab militaries by drawing parallels with militaries in non-Arab states, which have received considerable attention.

Type
The Arab Uprisings of 2011
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

NOTES

1 Barak, Oren and David, Assaf, “The Arab Security Sector: A New Research Agenda for a Neglected Topic,” Armed Forces & Society 36 (2010): 804–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 This essay does not focus on Iran; however, one insight that can be gleaned from the Iranian case is how Lebanon's Hizbullah, for instance, has established itself as a parallel military force to the official army, imitating, perhaps, Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

3 “Freedom in the World 2011 Table of Independent Countries,” http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/fiw/Tables%2C%20Graphs%2C%20etc%2C%20FIW%202011_Revised%201_11_11.pdf (accessed 29 March 2011).

4 Kaya, Serdar, “The Rise and Decline of the Turkish ‘Deep State’: The Ergenekon Case,” Insight Turkey 11 (2009): 99113Google Scholar; Ünver, H. Akin, “Turkey's ‘Deep-State’ and the Ergenekon Conundrum,” Policy Brief 23 (Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 2009)Google Scholar.

5 Barak, Oren and Sheffer, Gabriel, “Israel's ‘Security Network’ and Its Impact: An Exploration of a New Approach,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006): 235–61Google Scholar.

6 Peled, Alon, A Question of Loyalty: Military Manpower Politics in Multiethnic States (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Krebs, Ronald, Fighting for Rights: Military Service and the Politics of Citizenship (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

7 Aydinli, Ersel, “A Paradigmatic Shift for the Turkish Generals and an End to the Coup Era in Turkey,” Middle East Journal 63 (2009): 581–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Barak, Oren and Sheffer, Gabriel, eds., Existential Threats and Civil-Security Relations (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2009)Google Scholar.

9 Quinlivan, James, “Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East,” International Security 24 (1999): 131–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Barak, Oren, “Dilemmas of Security in Iraq,” Security Dialogue 38 (2007): 455–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Barak, Oren, “Towards a Representative Military? The Transformation of the Lebanese Officer Corps since 1945,” Middle East Journal 60 (2006): 7593CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, The Lebanese Army: A National Institution in a Divided Society (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2009).

12 Rihla ila Israʾil (A Journey to Israel) (Cairo: Madbuli, 1996).