Michael C. Hudson

Middle East dilemma : the politics and economics of Arab integration

Part 1 The changing Arab regional system: the Arab world and the new balance of power in the new Middle East, Bahgat Korany the prospects for Arab co-operation in a changing regional and global system, Paul Noble from Pan-Arabism to the community of sovereign Arab states -redefining the Arab and Arabism in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War, Bassam Tibi. Part 2 Experiments in political integration: the rise and fall of the United Arab Republic, Mustapha Kamil Al-Sayyid the United Arab Emirates - a quarter century of federation, Frauke Heard-Bey The Gulf Cooperation Council - nature, origin, and process, Abdul Khaleq Abdulla the ups and downs of Maghrib unity, I. William Zartman The Republic of Yemen - the politics of unification and civil war, 1989-1995, Robert D. Burrowes.

Presidential Address 1987: Democratization and the Problem of Legitimacy in Middle East Politics

When I told some of my colleagues and students that I wanted to address the question of democratization in Middle East politics at the annual meeting, I was not surprised at their reactions, which were mainly incredulous. If ever a topic were passe, surely it was this one. Not only was the experience of parliamentary democracy brief and unhappy, it also had ended by the middle 1950s. Furthermore, the liberal modernization paradigm that had underpinned earlier forecasts of democracy was itself largely discarded. In addition, my friends argued, how could I try to make a case for democratization when my own writing on Arab politics portrayed fragmented, disoriented societies and unstructured, insecure political environments in which the race between societal demands and state capabilities—no matter which side was “ahead”—could hardly be conducive to democracy. Skeptical colleagues from Egypt and other Arab countries also raised the troublesome question of academic and ideological ethnocentrism: should one even ask about prospects for democratization?

US Middle East Policy and the “Arab Spring”

The so-called “Arab Spring” has accentuated the longstanding structural contradictions in US Middle East policy.’ It has created strains in US relations with Saudi Arabia, thus affecting a fundamental US interest in Middle East oil. It has exposed the paralysis in US policy on the Palestine question owing to the new influence of popular opinion on Arab governments combined with the intransigence of a right-wing Israeli government that continues to effectively dominate American policy through its influence on the US Congress and American public opinion. Meanwhile, despite recent US successes in the “war on terrorism,” aggressive American military tactics have deepened public hostility toward the US in Arab and Muslim opinion.

The Abdullah Peace Plan: Offer or Ultimatum?

The following is an edited transcript of the twenty–ninth in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held on June 14, 2002, in the Russell Senate Office Building with Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., moderating.

Is a Two‐State Solution Still Viable?

The following is an edited transcript of the thirty-second in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held on April 11, 2003, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building with Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., moderating.

Policy Critique: Report of the WINEP Presidential Study Group

A Response to Navigating Through Turbulence: America and the Middle East in a New Century. Report of the Presidential Study Group (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001)