This article discusses the lack of adequate attention to the Arab Security Sector and its complex political and social roles in the Arab States and presents the contours of a new research agenda for this topic. First, the authors demonstrate the insufficient scholarly attention accorded to the Arab Security Sector in several academic publications in the fields of Middle East Studies and Security Studies in the period 1990 —2005. Second, they focus on three major areas where recent theoretical and comparative advances in the study of civil—military relations have not been paralleled in the study of the Arab Security Sector: (1) the role of the Arab Security Sector in the process of state formation; (2) informal connections between actors within the Arab Security Sector and actors operating in the political system; and (3) the role of the Arab Security Sector in reflecting and reinforcing patterns of intersectoral relations in the Arab States.
C. Tripp, "The United States and State-Building in Iraq," Review of International Studies30, 4 (October 2004): 545-58; J. Fallows, "Why Iraq Has No Army,"Atlantic Monthly (December 2005). See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-army (accessed November 10, 2008); O. Barak, "Dilemmas of Security in Iraq,"Security Dialogue38, 4 (December 2007): 455-75.
2.
On the Iraqi Army before 2003, see E. Picard, "Arab Military in Politics: From Revolutionary Plot to Authoritarian State," in The Arab State, ed. G. Luciani ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 189-219; I. Al-Marashi, "The Family, Clan, and Tribal Dynamics of Saddam’s Security and Intelligence Network,"International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence16, 2 (Summer 2003): 202-11; A. Hashim, "Saddam Hussein and Civil -Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power,"Middle East Journal57, 1 (Winter 2003): 9-41.
3.
On the impact of civilian security agencies on civil-military relations in democratizing states, see A. Forster, New Civil -Military Relations and Its Research Agendas (Geneva: Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2002). While less accessible to public scrutiny, the Arab internal security agencies also contribute to the endurance of Arab authoritarianism.
4.
D. Rustow, The Military in Middle Eastern Society and Politics (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1963); S. Fisher, ed., The Military in the Middle East (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1963); J.C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension (New York: Praeger, 1969); E. Be’eri, Army Officers in Arab Politics and Society (New York: Praeger, 1970); G. Haddad, Revolutions and Military Rule in the Middle East (New York: Speller, 1971).
5.
G. Ben-Dor, State, Society and Military Elites in the Middle East ( Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1984); Picard, "Arab Military in Politics"; N. Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State (London: Tauris, 1995).
6.
T. Mitchell, "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics ," American Political Science Review85, 1 (March 1991): 77-96.
7.
A. R. Norton, ed., Civil Society in the Middle East (Leiden: Brill, 1994); B. Korany, R. Brynen, and P. Noble, eds. Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995); M. Pripstein Posusney and M. Penner Angrist, eds. Authoritarianism in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005).
8.
E. Sivan, Radical Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990); J. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1992); O. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); O. Roy, Globalised Islam (London: Hurst, 2004).
9.
See A.H. Cordesman, The Military Balance in the Middle East (Westport, Conn.: Praeger); The Middle East Military Balance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press)
10.
Since we deal only with sovereign states, we have not considered the security agencies of the Palestinian National Authority in the Palestinian Territories.
11.
Notably, Israeli authors rank second among all authors in the number of articles they have published in Armed Forces & Society compared to very few authors from other Middle Eastern countries. See Morten Ender, "Authorship and Affiliation in Armed Forces and Society: Volumes 1-25,"Armed Forces & Society27, 4 (Summer 2001): 623-38.
12.
S. Heydemann, ed., War, Institutions, and Social Change in the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); R. Owen, State, Power, and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge , 2000), chap. 10.
13.
See, for example, U. Ben-Eliezer, The Making of Israeli Militarism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); E. Lomsky-Feder and E. Ben-Ari, eds., The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); E. Ben-Ari, Z. Rosenhak, and D. Maman, eds., The Military, State and Society in Israel (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2001).
14.
Steven Cook, Ruling but Not Governing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007); Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within ( Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008). In the series "Middle Eastern Military Studies" published by Routledge, for example, only one of the five books published thus far deals with the Arab Security Sector: I. Al-Marashi and S. Salama, Iraq’s Armed Forces (London: Routledge, 2008).
15.
See http://www.iiss.org/publications/adelphi-papers/full-list-of-adelphi-papers (accessed June 2, 2008).
16.
Y. Sayigh, Confronting the 1990s: Security in the Developing Countries ( London: International Institute for Strategic Studies , 1990); R. Brooks, Political -Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1998).
17.
See http://www.neelwafurat.com/browse.aspx?ddmsubject=24&search=books (accessed June 2, 2008).
18.
Understandably, since 2003 the history of the Iraqi Army has been a popular topic for Arab writers, including several retired Iraqi generals. See, for example, the autobiography of former General Ra’ed al-Hamadani, Before History Departs Us (Beirut: ad-Dar al-Arabiyyah lil-Ulum, 2007). Seven chapters of the book appeared in the leading Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi, March 6-13, 2006.
19.
See http://www.caus.org.lb/Home/contents1.php?id=34 (accessed June 2, 2008).
20.
These are M. Hammad, Arab Military Men and the Question of Unity (1987); T. A. Musallam, Arab Military Cooperation (1990); Y. Sayigh, The Arab Military Industry (1992); A. al-Fares, Guns and Butter: Military Expenditure in the Arab Countries, 1970-1990 (1993). See also the proceedings of the conference on Military, Politics and State in the Arab Countries (Beirut: the Arab Unity Research Center, 2002).
21.
Al-Nabulsi, Rise of Arab Militarist Society, 10-11.
22.
C. Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-Making," in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. C. Tilly (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 3-83; M. Mann, "The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results," in States in History, ed. J. Hall ( Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1986), pp. 109-136.
23.
M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1979); Mitchell, "Limits of the State"; G. Steinmetz, ed., State/Culture ( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
24.
E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1983); E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990); B. Anderson, Imagined Communities , 2nd ed. (New York: Verso, 1991).
25.
For the military’s role in state-building, see S. Finer, "State- and Nation-Building in Europe: The Role of the Military," in Tilly, Formation of National States, pp. 84-163. For its role in state construction, see Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Mitchell, "Limits of the State." For its role in national integration, see G. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990); R. Krebs, Fighting for Rights (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006); D. Zirker, C. P. Danopoulos, and A. Simpson, "The Military as a Distinct Ethnic or Quasi-Ethnic Identity in Developing Countries," Armed Forces & Society 34, 2 (January 2008): 314-37.
26.
See, for example, T. Gongora, "War Making and State Power in the Contemporary Middle East," International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, 3 (August 1997): 323-40; G. Sørensen, "War and State Making: Why Doesn’t It Work in the Third World?" Security Dialogue 32, 3 (September 2001): 341-54.
27.
See, for example, O. Barak, "Commemorating Malikiyya: Political Myth, Multiethnic Identity and the Making of the Lebanese Army," History & Memory 13, 1 (Spring/Summer 2001): 60-84; A. Terrill, "The Political Mythology of the Battle of Karameh," Middle East Journal 55, 1 (Winter 2001): 91-111.
28.
Places where this impact can be gauged are the numerous autobiographies published by retired Lebanese officers. See, for example, F. Lahoud, The Tragedy of the Lebanese Army (Baabdat, 1976); R. Taqi al-Din, An Army Revived, 1988-1994 (Beirut, 1998); A. Lahad, In the Eye of the Storm (Haifa: Maktabat Kul Shay’ 2003). Indeed, even officers who were highly critical of their political and military leaders took pride in their military service. See, for example, S. Kheirallah, Memoirs (Beirut: Dar al-Jadid, 1990). In recent years retired army officers from other Arab States (e.g., Jordan, post-2003 Iraq) have also began to publish their memoirs.
29.
K. Salih, State-Making, Nation-Building and the Military: Iraq, 1941-1958 (Goteborg: Department of Political Science, Goteborg University, 1996); L. Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); J. Massad, Colonial Effects (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
30.
A rare example is F. Khury, "The Study of Civil-Military Relations in Modernizing Societies in the Middle East: A Critical Assessment," in Soldiers, Peasants, and Bureaucrats: Civil -Military Relations in Communist and Modernizing Societies, eds. R. Kolkowicz and A. Korbonski (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), pp. 9-27. See also H. Frisch, "The Role of Religion in the Militaries of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan," Orient 43, 2 (June 2002): 207-24.
31.
For details, see O. Barak, The Lebanese Army: A National Institution in a Divided Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009).
32.
Al-Aqsa 808 (November 1989).
33.
See, for example, the Lebanese National Defense Magazine (est. 1990), which publishes essays and research articles in Arabic, English, and French.
34.
In Lebanon, each security service operates its own Web site. The army’s Web site is www .lebarmy.gov.lb and the ISF Web site is http://www.isf.gov.lb. The Public Security Department (PSD) in Jordan also operates its own Web site, http://www.psd.gov.jo, while the Web site of the Jordanian Army, http://www.jaf.mil.jo, offers a valuable official historiography and provides details on civil -military cooperation in Jordan.
35.
See, for example, the daily summary of press reports at the Web site of the Lebanese Army, at http://www.lebarmy.gov.lb/Mawkaf.asp.
36.
See http://www.mashhoorhaditheh.com.
37.
For details, see A. David and O. Barak, How the New Arab Media Challenges the Arab Militaries: The Case of the War between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006, Policy Brief no. 20 (Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 2008), at http://www.mideasti.org/files/New-Arab-Media.pdf (accessed December 7, 2008).
38.
See, for example, the detailed and documented response of the Jordanian Army to the allegations made about its role in the 1948 War in the popular TV drama King Faruq (2007) published in the November 2007 issue of al-Aqsa. The Lebanese Army, too, responds to unfavorable media reports. See, for example, its denial that some of its officers resigned during the clashes in May 2008, at http://www.lebarmy.gov.lb/article.asp?ln=ar&id=18300 (accessed May 29, 2008).
39.
See http://www.lebarmy.gov.lb/article.asp?ln=ar&id=19666 (accessed October 7, 2008).
40.
M.K. al-Raqqad, The Jordanian Military Media (Amman: Jordanian Army Headquarters, 2006; in Arabic).
41.
See R. Luckham, "Democratic Strategies for Security in Transition and Conflict," in Governing Insecurity, eds. G. Cawthra and R. Luckham (London: Zed, 2003), pp. 3-28.
42.
For a useful discussion of Western patterns of civil-military relations, see J. Burk, "Theories of Democratic Civil -Military Relations,"Armed Forces & Society29, 1 (Fall 2002): 7-29. It is noteworthy that in the 1960s and early 1970s, theories of civil -military relations in Western states were readily applied to the "new states," including in the Middle East. See A. R. Luckham, "A Comparative Typology of Civil-Military Relations,"Government and Opposition6, 1 (January 1971): 5-35; M. Janowitz, Military Institutions and Coercion in the Developing Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977). A study that identifies these informal connections in non-Western and Western states is R. Schiff, "Civil- Military Relations Reconsidered: A Theory of Concordance,"Armed Forces & Society22, 1 (Fall 1995): 7-24.
43.
Cf. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics; Be’eri, Army Officers; Ben-Dor, State, Society and Military Elites; Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State.
44.
See especially Owen, State, Power and Politics.
45.
D. Marsh and M. Smith, "Understanding Policy Networks: Towards a Dialectical Approach,"Political Studies48, 1 (March 2000): 4-21. For a study that applies this concept to Israel’s pattern of civil-security relations, see O. Barak and G. Sheffer, "Israel’s ‘Security Network’ and Its Impact: An Exploration of a New Approach,"International Journal of Middle East Studies38, 2 (May 2006): 235-61.
46.
P. Haas, "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination ," in Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination , ed. P. Haas ( Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 1-35; E. Adler, Communitarian International Relations (New York: Routledge, 2005).
47.
B. Buzan, O. Waever, and J. De Wilde, Security (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner , 1998); M. Williams, "Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,"International Studies Quarterly47, 4 (December 2003): 511-31. See also O. Barak and G. Sheffer, eds., Existential Threats and Civil -Security Relations (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, forthcoming).
48.
T. T. Holm & E. B. Eide, eds., Peacebuilding and Police Reform (London: Frank Cass, 2000); C. Ferguson , "Police Reform, Peacekeeping and SSR: The Need for Closer Synthesis,"Journal of Security Sector Management2, 3 (September 2004): 1-13. Relevant studies on the Arab Security Sector are: Y. Sayigh, Security Sector Reform in the Arab Region: Challenges to Developing an Indigenous Agenda (2007) , at http://www.arab-reform.net/IMG/pdf/Thematic_Study_SSR_Yezid_Sayigh.pdf (accessed May 29, 2008); E. Laipson, "Prospects for Middle East Security-Sector Reform,"Survival49, 2 (Summer 2007): 99-110.
49.
See A. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., Civil- Military Relations and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Muthia Alagappa, ed., Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).
50.
One example is a recent study that examines the unfolding of the "securitization" of the Iranian threat in Jordan in the period 2006 -2007. Using discourse analysis methods, it describes the critical role of Jordan’s civil society in rejecting securitization "from above" and stresses the importance of visual images and cultural aspects in securitization "from below." A. David, "From Islamic Iran to Shiite Persia: Elite, Public Opinion and the Securitization of Iran in Jordan after the Second Lebanon War," paper presented at the conference on "Continuous Existential Threats and Civil -Security Relations: The Israeli Case in Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives," Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, March 2008.
51.
See, for example, Jordan News Agency, January 17, 2006.
52.
See http://www.un.org/News/dh/docs/mehlisreport (accessed May 29, 2008).
53.
For examples of such reports on the Middle East and North Africa, see http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-east/n-africa.
54.
David and Barak, How the New Arab Media Challenges the Arab Militaries.
55.
See, for example, the Web site Youkal.net, at http://youkal.net/ar (accessed December 4, 2008). In Arabic yukal means "rumor has it" but the Web site’s name also relates to YouTube.
56.
According to one of these tacit understandings, the Arab militaries stand "above" the political discourse, and their repressive measures against the "special threat" posed by radical Islamic movements does not result in the loss of their domestic legitimacy or their international support. See E. Bellin, "Coercive Institutions and Coercive Leaders," in Posusney and Angrist, Authoritarianism, 34-35. Egyptian playwright ‘Ali Salem relates to this pact in his book Rihla Ila Israi’l [A Journey to Israel] (Cairo, 1994). It is noteworthy, however, that some civil society actors in Egypt criticize its security sector for inflating the Islamic threat; see especially the film al-Irhab wa al-Kebab [Terror and Kebab]. A different example of civil -security cooperation against neoliberal market forces is the Jordanian public’s hailing of the police intervention in a recent consumers’ struggle with owners of gas stations. See Al-Quds al-Arabi, November 11, 2008; G. Madadha, "Fueling Anger and Resentment," The Star, November 24, 2008.
57.
C. Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980); D. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); A. Peled, A Question of Loyalty (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 1-26; Y. Levy, "Militarizing Inequality: A Conceptual Framework,"Theory and Society27 (1998): 873-904.
58.
J. Quinlivan , "Coup-proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East," International Security24, 2 (Fall 1999): 131-65.
59.
R. Satloff and B. Diamond, "Jordan," in Handbook of Political Science Research on the Middle East and North Africa, ed. B. Reich (Westport, CT: Greenwood , 1998), 151-52; M. Kamrava, "Military Professionalization and Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East,"Political Science Quarterly115, 1 (Spring 2000): 89-91; A. Bligh, "The Jordanian Army: Between Domestic and External Challenges," in Armed Forces in the Middle East, ed. B. Rubin and T. Keaney ( London: Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 149-161.
60.
See the "Amended Law of the National Conscription and Reserve Law for the Year 2007,"Official Gazette, no. 4828 (May 31, 2008).
61.
C. Moskos, J. A. Williams, and D. Segal, eds., The Postmodern Military (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). A study that applies this concept to Egypt is H. Frisch, "Guns and Butter in the Egyptian Army," in Rubin and Keaney, Armed Forces, pp. 161-180.
62.
See especially J. Soeters and J. van der Meulen, eds., Managing Diversity in the Armed Forces (Tilburg: Tilburg University Press, 1999); S.C. Selden and F. Selden, "Rethinking Diversity in Public Organizations for the 21st Century: Moving toward a Multicultural Model,"Administration & Society33 (July 2001): 303-29; C. Dandeker and D. Mason, "Diversifying the Uniform? The Participation of Minority Ethnic Personnel in the British Armed Forces,"Armed Forces & Society29, 4 (Summer 2003): 481-507.
63.
See, for example, C. Call and W. Stanley, "Military and Police Reform after Civil Wars," in Contemporary Peacemaking, eds. J. Darby and R. Mac Ginty (London: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 212-223; C. Hartzell and M. Hoddie, "Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management,"American Journal of Political Science47, 2 (April 2003): 318-32.
64.
O. Barak, "Towards a Representative Military? The Transformation of the Lebanese Officer Corps since 1945," Middle East Journal, 60, 1 (Winter 2006): 75-93. It should be added, however, that civil-military relations in Lebanon remain problematic due to the role of the Syrian- Lebanese network mentioned earlier and because of the activities of Hizbullah, the only militia that has not transformed into a political party in the wake of the civil war of 1975-1990.
65.
See, for example, the recent interesting demand of women’s organizations in Iraq for a greater role for women in the country’s security sector as a means to curb jihadist tendencies among Iraqi females; al-Quds al-Arabi (October 27, 2008).
