Contemporary Arab Politics

1963 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 207
Author(s):  
Caesar E. Farah ◽  
George Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Arab Politics

On Secular and Religious Politics of Belonging

2021 ◽  
pp. 254-274
Author(s):  
Ayman K. Agbaria ◽  
Mohanad Mustafa ◽  
Sami Mahajnah
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Religious Politics ◽  
Search For Meaning ◽  
Ideological Position ◽  
The Third ◽  
Arab Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Actors

This chapter focuses on the search for meaning and belonging of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel by discussing how belonging is framed in Arab politics in Israel. More specifically, the chapter maps and analyzes three narratives in the Arab politics of belonging: the romantic, the practical, and the visionary. The first advocates belonging to what the authors term a “lost paradise” of Palestine and Islam. This nostalgic type of belonging yearns for idealized places, times, and characters in the history of Palestine and Islam. The second narrative, the practical, defines belonging first and foremost as a developmental act, practiced at the community level through voluntary and charity programs. The third, the visionary, promotes belonging as an ideological position to be articulated and educated for at the national level. These three concepts are circulated and mobilized by both secular Arab political and Muslim religious actors but in different versions and to different extents.

A Dimension Reduction Method Application to a Political Science Question: Using Exploratory Factor Analysis to Generate the Dimensionality of Political Ideology in the Arab World

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (01) ◽  
pp. 2040002
Author(s):  
Malek Abduljaber
Keyword(s):  
Dimension Reduction ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Stable Solution ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Arab Politics ◽  
Science Question ◽  
Islam And Secularism ◽  
Mass Level

This paper utilises data dimension reduction to settle a heavily debated question concerning the dimensionality of political ideology in the Arab World. It relies on recent data available through the World Values Survey to generate a stable solution for the number of important and exciting dimensions defining ordinary citizens’ political attitude structures. The findings of the analysis suggest that in four Arab states, political ideology is multi-dimensional on the mass level. This negates the widespread assumption made about Arab politics where Islam and secularism constitute the only dimension organising voters’ attitudes and behaviours. This is important because many analyses of Middle Eastern politics start with this assumption without questioning its validity. Further, models of political ideology are to be modified when transferred to studying Middle Eastern political attitudes. The single-dimension hypothesis applicable in some Western settings is not attainable in the Arab World.

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