The Struggle for the State in Jordan: The Social Origins of Alliances in the Middle East

Description

Why do the states of the Arab world seem so unstable? Why do alliances between them and with outside powers change? In The Struggle for the State in Jordan, Jamie Allinson argues that the answer lies in the expansion of global capitalism in the Middle East. Drawing out the unexpected way in which Jordan's Bedouin tribes became allied to the British Empire in the twentieth century, and the legacy of this for the international politics of the Middle East, he challenges the existing views of the region. Using the example of Jordan, this book traces the social bases of the struggles that produced the country's foreign relations in the latter half of the twentieth century to the reforms carried out under the Ottoman Empire and the processes of land settlement and state formation experience under the British Mandate. By examining the attempts of Jordan to create foreign alliances during a time of upheaval and instability in the region, Allinson offers wider conclusions concerning the nature of the interaction between state and society in the wider Middle East. Cover Author Bio Author Title Copyright Contents List of tables Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration Glossary 1. Fragile Enmities: The International Relations of the Middle Eastern State Reconsidered 2. States, Social Relations and Uneven and Combined Development 3. Beneath the Whip of External Necessity: Social Transformation in Late Ottoman Transjordan 4. ‘The Fiery Gallantry of the Desert’: Land and the Social Origins of the Jordanian Military 5. Murder and Pamphlets: Jordan and the Baghdad Pact 6. Jordan between Nationalism and Colonialism 7. Conclusion List of Interviewees Notes Bibliography Index