Abstract
This chapter reflects the overall intellectual direction of the book, illustrating its main arguments. It shows how identities in the Middle East have evolved in their specific historical context. It shows how globalisation structures and the concomitant increase in communications and other external processes have affected identity formation, reproduction and transformation. Circumstances which are to a certain extent unique in the area, or are at least found in a uniquely intense form there, have created a situation where identities are less homogenous, more ‘overlapping’, more psychologically conflictual and more fluid than almost anywhere else in the world. The chapter will look at the complex nature of identity formation in the region, a process which Simon Bromley1 has said has led to a social structure in the area that takes the form of a ‘mosaic’. The foci of primary loyalties in the area bring into question the fundamental assumptions of traditional international relations surrounding the centrality of the state and the relationship between state society and ‘the international’.
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Notes
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© 1996 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Law, M. (1996). Nationalism and Middle Eastern Identities. In: Krause, J., Renwick, N. (eds) Identities in International Relations. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25194-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25194-0_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-69384-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-25194-0
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