The Middle East in global modernity: Analytic polycentrism, historic entanglements and a rejuvenated area studies debate. Issue 5 (20th October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stetter, Stephan
• Is Part Of: Mediterranean politics. Volume 26:Issue 5(2021)
• Page Start: 657
• Page End: 681
• Publication Date: 2021-10-20
• Subjects: Middle East -- Arab uprisings -- area studies controversy -- world society -- knowledge production; Mediterranean Region -- Politics and government -- 1945- -- Periodicals; 320.91822
• DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2021.1889301
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1362-9395

Abstract

ABSTRACT: I argue that theories of global modernity/world society offer a promising inter-disciplinary approach for theorizing the Middle East. They provide a conceptual umbrella for a rejuvenated Area Studies debate. I turn first to earlier (inter-disciplinary) debates of that kind and then discuss how a rejuvenated debate can reach for new shores: I address the Middle East Area Studies Controversy, and then Fred Halliday's distinction between 'analytic universalism' and 'historic particularism'. Focusing on the interstices between Area Studies and International Relations (IR), I suggest that scholarship on the Arab uprisings offers insights on how to transcend this distinction by shifting to 'analytic polycentrism' and 'historic entanglements'. I identify the unpredictability of power relations and local/global horizons as central, and often marginalized perspectives brought to the fore in post-Arab uprising scholarship. I then discuss how these insights can be linked to innovative (inter-disciplinary) debates in IR that draw from historical-sociological theories of global modernity and world society, especially how the concepts of emergence and evolution as well as differentiation and subjectivity – central pillars of world society theories – can be made of use for the study of the Middle East's place in global modernity and global IR generally speaking.