Discursive challenges: Power, state legitimacy and counter‐narratives in the Arab world
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| Author | Tom Walsh,Betul Dogan‐Akkas |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13221 |
Global Policy. 2023;14:361–362.
|
361
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gpol
The special section articles focus on Iraq, the Kurdish
Region of Iraq and the conflict in Yemen. As such, the
focus is upon weak and failed states. Within these frag-
ile contexts, protest movements arise, Islamists com-
pete for power and external actors seek to extend their
influence. Identity plays a central role in unders tanding
all these dynamics. It is key to processes of legitimi -
sation, power- seeking and delegitimisation. All three
articles argue that identit y is a fluid, malleable concept,
which can be adapted to suit various attempts at legiti -
macy and power projection.
Eriksson and Grief (2023) are especially concerned
with analysing the ‘legitimacy deficit s of the post- 2003
Iraqi state and the grounds upon which alternative po -
litical orders have been proposed’. They focus on the
Islamic State of Iraq and the al- Sham (ISIS) and the
Tishreen protest movement as their two case stud-
ies. Whilst the former is a ‘radical, violent, exclusivist
Sunni movement’ and the Tishreen movement a ‘non-
violent, inclusive, anti- sectarian nationalist movement’
(Eriksson & Grief, 2023), the two share a similarity in
that they both arose due to the legitimacy deficit of the
Iraqi state.
Quoting Piatonni (2010, 12– 13), they separate le-
gitimacy into ‘input’ (authorisation, representation and
participation) and ‘output’ (quality and ef fectiveness of
policy outcomes) legitimacy. They argue that ‘a state
will fail in its input legitimacy where it does not provid e a
mechanism for its authorisation that its people consider
appropriate and will fail in its output legitimacy where
the services it provides do not match i ts people's ex-
pectations’ (Eriksson & Grief, 2023). Identity plays an
essential role in understanding how alternative political
orders respond to state failure and the servi ces they
deem as essential.
They separate responses to illegitimacy into redis-
tribution, regime change and seces sion. ISIS is por-
trayed, predominantly, as an attempt at sect- based
redistribution and secession; the Tishreen movement
as a call for transformational regime changes. The ir
divergent identities result in wildly divergent cla ims
against the illegitimacy of the Iraqi state. However, they
remind scholars that identity an d legitimacy are fluid
concepts that can be manipulated to achieve politic al
outcomes.
Raza (2023) focuses on the Kurdish Region of Iraq
(KR), arguing that its three Islamic parties have mod-
erated over time, but that this change is not irrevers-
ible. Similarly, to Eriksson and Grief's article, his paper
wrestles with ideas of genuine identit y, constructed
SPECIAL SECTION
Discursive challenges: Power, state legitimacy and
counter- narratives in the Arab world
TomWalsh | BetulDogan- Akkas
Received: 24 April 2 023
|
Accepted: 24 Apri l 2023
DO I: 10 .1111/17 58- 589 9.13 221
This is an open ac cess article under t he terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2023 The Authors . Global Policy published by Durham Universi ty and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Durham Univers ity, Durham, UK
Correspondence
Tom Walsh, Durham Univers ity, Al Qasimi
Building, Dur ham DH1 3LE, UK.
Email: tom.j.walsh@durham.ac.uk
Abstract
The three articles in this spe cial section address several processes of legitimisa-
tion in the contemporary Arab World. They provide c ompelling insights into why
Islamist movements moderate, how alternative political orders arise in re sponse
to issues of state legitimacy and the ways in which regional and internatio nal
actors legitimise their involvement in Middle Eastern c onflicts. Unifying the three
articles is a motivation to underst and processes of legitimacy, sectarian identity
and discourse, in the power vacuum following the Iraq War of 2003 and the Arab
Spring of 2011. These seismic regional events have created a wave of identity en-
trepreneurs, who have pragmatically attached themse lves to concepts of Islam,
sect and democracy, in order to solidify their hol d on legitimacy and power.
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