Can a meaningful connection be drawn, without artifice or contrivance, between the rising tensions in Yemen among factions that claim alignment against the Houthis and the intermittent fighting in Syria between the Syrian Democratic Forces and units of the Syrian army? Is there a deeper similarity between the protracted war in Sudan and the political deadlock in Libya, where the divide between east and west has hardened into a durable and self-sustaining rift?
This is the picture at year’s end across the Arab world. On one hand, notable progress has been made in the search for stable positions within emerging global power dynamics, alongside economic transformations in many countries that are shifting from consumption towards investment. On the other hand, a paralysing stasis has settled over long-standing crises, most notably the unresolved question of the nation state, its legitimacy, and its ability to represent what are now familiar sectarian, ethnic, and regional components.
The Iraqi and Lebanese models of consociational democracy, a system of power sharing among components that has evolved into forms of semi-autonomous rule operating beyond the reach of accountability, justice, and citizenship, and that prioritises signature identity, as the late researcher Elias Harik describes it, over national identity, have proved neither effective nor equitable in the distribution of power.
These arrangements elevate the individual's status as a member of a group with real or imagined distinguishing characteristics above belonging to a state governed by a constitution, laws, and regulations that bind all individuals and groups, regardless of their particularities.
