Understanding state weakness in the Middle East and North Africa

A macro overview of state formation in the Middle East that explores the paradox that highly resilient regimes and weak states coexist in much of the area. It deploys historical sociological approaches to state formation including the notion of degrees of statehood; and the origins of weak statehood in the export of the Westphalian state from the core manifested in territory-identity incongruence, economic dependency, the protection of weak states from absorption and telescoped developmental challenges. It explores the causes of variations within the region in degrees of statehood and the dominant trajectory of a bell shaped curve over time in which the agency of regime builders and changing world structural conditions have both mattered for degrees of statehood. Finally, the state weakening and partial failure attendant on the Arab uprisings is explored.