The Juffair Dilemma: deconstructing and understanding nationalism in the Gulf

Interview conducted by Layal Niazy, MECACS intern and fourth year International Relations student at the University of St Andrews

Dr Hsinyen Lai is a member of the faculty of MECACS and an Associate Lecturer in the School of International Relations at St Andrews. His research focuses on contemporary Gulf politics and international relations, which he approaches from international historical sociology.

Dr Lai was the first guest speaker for the MECACS seminar series, where he presented his research on “The Juffair Dilemma: Arab Nationalism, Alignment and ‘National-Popular Collective Will’ in Bahrain”. Layal Niazy interviewed him to find out more about his research.

In your seminar, you spoke about demythologizing the demise of Arab nationalism and you argued that Arab nationalism did not decline after 1967 – the year that marks the catastrophic Arab-Israeli war. Why do you hold this view?

Mainstream scholarly literature on the Middle East within the International Relations (IR) field has continuously emphasized the demise of Arab nationalism since the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. More specifically, since the rise of constructivism and its subsequent increasing popularity within the discipline of IR, many scholars adopted a moderate constructivist lens to explain the “demise” of Arab nationalism since 1967. Their major argument lies in the claim that there was a structural, normative shift in Arab nationalism from a regional norm and identity to that of a universal norm of sovereignty. Despite these scholar’s view, I believe the demise of Arab nationalism is a myth.

When you analyze political history from below, a quite different view is evident. Basically, the myth of the demise of Arab nationalism is associated with how Arab state leaders view the world, or how they view political change in the region. Methodologically, scholars often draw upon archives and materials that solely demonstrate how these leaders think; this is essentially ignoring other theoretical and methodological lenses that would instead emphasize what society and the people, as opposed to the leadership, would have to say about the world and political change regarding Arab nationalism.

For instance, when studying the dynamics of state-society relations, especially in the case of Bahrainwhere there is a long history of popular politics dating back to the 1920s, ‘the issue of sovereignty has been ideologically associated with Arab nationalism. The coexistence of ‘two norms’ is not actually as contradictory or conflictual’. Therefore, apart from the constructivist explanation, we need an alternative theoretical understanding of the role of Arab nationalism in the Middle East, especially after 1967. In the scholarly literature about the Gulf in particular, the issue of Arab nationalism has been under looked and under explored. This is partly because scholars and students tend to analyze Gulf politics through rentier state theory, which highlights the role of regimes and state institutions, thus not offering much room to view politics from below.

What do you think is an alternative theoretical lens that is better suited to study Arab nationalism?

Much of my work has drawn on historical sociology, particularly the Marxist tradition to studying the politics of the Middle East, and the Gulf in particular. Within traditional Marxist literature, scholars tend to view both international relations and domestic politics as constituents of social totality. We do not compartmentalize international relations or domestic politics. Through this approach, Marxist, and neo-Marxist scholars study ideologies such as Arab nationalism, and more specifically its development and evolution, by considering both the domestic and international social and political dynamics. This is something valuable that mainstream IR theories cannot really offer, and I found studying state-society relations and ‘politics from below’ necessary. That is why I choose to focus on the role of civil society and local agents to further my understanding of Arab nationalism.

For example, let us examine the history of Gulf politics, and especially the period of revolutionary change during the 1960s and 1970s, which was characterized by the withdrawal of British imperial rule in the Gulf, US hegemony, and the development of neo-liberalism. If we adhere to a historical materialist lens, then we can see how these geopolitical and social changes at the time may have impacted the development and evolution of Arab nationalism, or any other ideology in the region. The best way to understand Arab nationalism is to not conceptualize it as a momentarily fixed idea, but as a social and historical product that constantly corresponds to socio-political dynamics at the domestic, regional, and international level. These three levels are not compartmentalized in a historical materialist perspective; rather, we should strive to visualize how the various levels are interrelated.

Who are some theorists and scholars that have not only inspired you, but also helped shape your research today?

I was inspired by Fred Halliday’s work, in addition to some of his former students’ work. I studied Arabic as an undergraduate and political science with a major in IR as a master’s student in Taiwan. In Taiwan, scholars do not necessarily focus on the historical side of IR nor try to theorise how history plays a part in our understanding of IR theories. History, for most IR scholars in Taiwan, is just a background to set up a discussion of what they are interested in. So, when I arrived in Edinburgh to pursue my PhD, I became fascinated by the work of various historical sociologists, through my former supervisor Ewan Stein, who introduced a new theoretical perspective to me. In addition, there has been a growing interest within IR scholarship that approaches Gulf politics alternatively beyond rentier state theory. Certain scholars have emphasized the need to start exploring local archives in order to offer local actors a voice within the academic literature, such as Wafa alSayed, Talal Al-Rashoud, among others, and I could not agree more.Meanwhile, I would love to see how Gulf politics can be conceptualized on the global level, for example Adam Hanieh’s and Laleh Khalili’s recent works, as opposed to just the regional level – to witness the Gulf being compared to other societies and areas outside of the Middle East.

What sparked your interest in Bahrain in particular?

My interest in Bahrain was sparked by a mixture of personal and academic reasons. Before coming to Scotland, I worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan for a year to complete my substitutive military service. I already knew then that I wanted to travel abroad to pursue my PhD and that I would focus on the Gulf region. During my time with the ministry, we organized a summer camp for younger students from the Gulf and I met a Bahraini undergraduate student from Georgetown University who sparked my interest in Bahraini popular politics. When I eventually began my PhD studies in Edinburgh and read a lot more about the Gulf, and especially popular movements, I found the literature so fascinating. I decided I wanted to conduct a specific case study of Bahrain after I read “Monsoon Revolution,” by Abdel Razzaq Takriti. Other scholarly works that influenced my research during this stage of my studies include Omar AlShehabi, Adam Hanieh, Laleh Khalili and other Bahraini scholars and activists.

Can you please elaborate on the notion of national popular collective will in Bahrain?

The concept of national popular collective will that I discussed in my paper and presentation is derived from the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci uses this concept to highlight the ideological aspect of what he calls “historical bloc ,” for establishing a modern state. Simply, national popular collective will is a political will that is forged among different social forces by the ruling class within the modern state formation process. Gramsci uses another term, “passive revolution”, to conceptualize how ‘the political’correspond to ‘the social’. So, in a way, we can say that nationalism, as an ideology, fits the form of a modern state whereas capitalism, as a structure, substantiates the content of a modern state. In the case of Bahrain, mainstream scholars tend to not focus on society or ideology in the Gulf. However, if we take a closer look at the history of popular politics in Bahrain, we will find a lot of empirical material waiting to be unpacked. The concept of national popular collective will can improve our theoretical understanding ofhow the Khalifa regime in Bahrain interacts with Bahraini civil society. I also draw upon this concept to reconceptualize Arab nationalism in Bahrain since its independence in 1971 and offer an alternative analysis from mainstream constructivist scholars. In the early 1970s, Bahrain underwent their first parliamentary experience, and I would argue that this serves as a process in which we see how the Khalifa regime attempted to build a national popular collective will and thereby forge a post-colonial historical bloc. We see how this did not last in the long run because the parliament was terminated in 1975, mainlydue to the Juffair Dilemma. The whole idea of building a national popular collective will in Bahrain, however, was to create an idea of national unity. This national unity would be a medium through which the regime obtains consent to rule from civil society, instead of just suppressing movements and people through coercive means. The state-society relation has been quite a contentious issue in Bahrain since the 1970s, and particularly since 2011. I do not think we can say such an ideological connection, or a national popular collective will, between civil society and the regime exists at present, While the Bahraini regime and even most of the scholarship on Bahrain tends to view Bahrain through the lens of sectarian conflict, I believe we need to analyze Bahraini politics form different perspectives.