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Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question

Year 2014, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, 19 - 42, 01.01.2014

Abstract

This article argues that political instability and conflict in the Middle East and the larger Muslim world are caused by perceived marginalization and systematic injustice suffered by Muslim societies both at the domestic and international levels. In contrast to essentialist explanations of political instability in the Muslim world, the article calls for an institutionalist explanation, highlighting destabilizing effects of political marginalization especially in an increasingly globalized world. Exclusion of Muslim societies from international authority structures is a direct result of fragmentation of political authority and lack of democracy in the Muslim world. Western theories of International Relations are ill-fitted to explain the contribution of perceptions of civilizational injustice because they emerged within a statist and materialist paradigm. Muslim critics differ fundamentally from these approaches in that they see justice rather than order as the basis of a lasting world peace

References

  • Richard Falk, “False Universalism and the Geopolitics of Exclusion: The Case of Islam”, Third World Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1 (1997), pp. 7- 23.
  • Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, No. 3 (1993), pp. 22-49. 3 Ibid.
  • Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand, “Rethinking Political Myth: The Clash of Civilizations as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”, European Journal of Social Theory Vol. 9, No. 3 (2006), pp. 315-336.
  • Errol A. Henderson and Richard Tucker, “Clear and Present Strangers: The Clash of Civilizations and International Conflict”, International Studies Quarterly Vol. 45, No. 2 (2001), pp. 317-338.
  • Fouad Ajami, “The Clash”, The New York Times, 6 January 2008.
  • Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1996, p. 184. 8 Ibid., p. 51.
  • See, for example, Peter J. Katzenstein, Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives, London, Routledge, 2010; Also, Martin Hall and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Civilizational Identity: The Production and Reproduction of “Civilizations” in International Relations, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  • Jajinta O’Hagan, “Discourses of Civilizational Identity”, in Martin Hall and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (eds.), Civilizational Identity: The Production and Reproduction of “Civilizations” in International Relations, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 18.
  • Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968, and, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
  • Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, p. 5.
  • For a discussion on the effects of globalization on Islamic political identity, see, Hasan Kösebalaban, “The Impact of Globalization on Islamic Political Identity”, World Affairs, Vol. 168, No. 1 (2005), pp. 27-37.
  • Huntington, The Third Wave, pp. 27- 28.
  • Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990.
  • Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p. 258. 17 Ibid., p. 311.
  • Ibid., pp. 264-265.
  • Abd Allāh Ahmad Na'īm, Muslims and Global Justice, Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, pp. 11-12.
  • Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, revised 5th ed., New York, A. A. Knopf, 1948, p. 13. 21 Ibid.
  • Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics, London, Latimer House Limited, 1947, p. 19.
  • Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 13.
  • Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, New York, McGraw- Hill, 1979.
  • Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics”, International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (1997), p. 515.
  • Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  • Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, Oslo, International Peace Research Institute, 1996, p. 32.
  • Robert W. Cox and Timothy J. Sinclair, Approaches to World Order, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 87.
  • Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory?: An Introduction”, in Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan (eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia, London, Routledge, 2010, pp. 2-3.
  • Farhad Kazemi, “Two Perspectives on Islam and Civil Society”, in Sohail H. Hashmi (ed.), Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism, and Conflict, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 41.
  • Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, p. 162.
  • Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, “International Relations Theory and the Islamic Worldview”, in Acharya and Buzan (eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory, p. 185.
  • AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, Towards an Islamic Theory of International Relations: New Directions for Methodology and Thought, 2nd rev. ed., Islamization of Knowledge Series Herndon, Va., International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1993, pp. 116-25.
  • Ismail Raji Farouqi, in Ibid., p. xxxv.
  • John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics, 1st ed. Louisville, Ky., Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1993, p. 30.
  • Sohail H. Hashmi, “International Society and Its Islamic Malcontents”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs Vol. 13, No. Winter-Spring (1996), p. 23.
  • Ali Mazrui, Cultural Forces in World Politics, London, James Currey, 1990, p. 22, quoted in Ibid.
  • Falk, “False Universalism and the Geopolitics of Exclusion”.
  • Ahmet Davutoğlu, Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World, Kuala Lumpur, Mahir, 1994.; text quoted in Falk, “False Universalism and the Geopolitics of Exclusion: The Case of Islam”; Ibid.
  • Seyed Muhammed Khatami, UN Chronicle, No.2, 2002, p. 12.
  • “Erdogan: Inaction of the UN is the Cause of International Terrorism”, at www. telesurtv.net/english/news/Erdogan-Inaction-of-the-UN-Is-the-Cause-of-International- Terrorism-20140925-0044.html (last visited 5 May 2015).
  • Hashmi, “International Society and Its Islamic Malcontents”, p. 21.
  • For a discussion of this process, see, James L. Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History, New York, Oxford University Press, 2005.
  • Ali A. Mazrui, “Pretender to Universalism: Western Culture in a Globalizing Age”, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs Vol. 20, No. 1 (2001), pp. 14-15.
  • Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge Middle East Library Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962, New York, New York Review Books, 2006, p. 538.
  • Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World, New York, Bloomsbury, 2011.
  • Robert Fisk, “After the atrocities committed against Muslims in Bosnia, it is no wonder today’s jihadis have set out on the path to war in Syria”, The Independent, 7 September 2014.
  • Larry Diamond, “Why Are There No Arab Democracy?”, Journal of Democracy Vol. 21, No. 1 (2010), p. 93.
  • For a discussion of the negative effects of oil richness on democratization, see, Michael L. Ross, “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?”, World Politics Vol. 53, No. 3 (2001), pp. 325-361.
  • Alfred C. Stepan and Graeme B. Robertson, “An ‘Arab’ More Than a ‘Muslim’ Democracy Gap”, Journal of Democracy Vol. 14, No. 3 (2003), pp. 30-44.
  • For an analysis of the role of the United States in the 1953 Iranian coup, see, Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Hoboken, N.J., J. Wiley & Sons, 2003. The CIA now admits its direct involvement in the coup. “The CIA admits organizing 1953 Iran coup”, at http://www.aljazeera.com/news/ americas/2013/08/201382062432443546.html (last visited 10 July 2015).
  • Roger Diwan and Fareed Mohamedi, “Washington Watch: Paris, Washington, Algiers”, Middle East Report, No. 192.
  • Peter J. Burnell, “New Challenges to Democratization”, in Peter J. Burnell and Richard Youngs (eds.), New Challenges to Democratization, London, Routledge, 2010, p. 15.
  • Andrew J. Bacevich, “Even if we defeat the Islamic State, we’ll still lose the bigger war”, The Washington Post, 3 October 2014.
  • “Turkey’s Davutoğlu: Assad Talks Would Be Like Shaking Hands with Hitler, Saddam”, NBC News, 17 March 2015.
  • “John Kerry chose a strange country from which to defend Egypt’s military takeover”, The Washington Post, 1 August 2013.
  • “Egypt carries out first death sentence after mass trials of Morsi supporters”, The Guardian, 7 March 2015.
  • “A Questionable Decision on Egypt”, The New York Times, 24 April 2014. Also see Roger Cohen, “Egypt carries out first death entence after mass trials of Morsi supporters”, The New York Times, 27 January 2014.
  • “Reigning in Egypt’s Military Aid”, The New York Times, 4 October 2014.
  • David Brooks, “Defending the Coup”, The New York Times, 4 July 2013.
Year 2014, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, 19 - 42, 01.01.2014

Abstract

References

  • Richard Falk, “False Universalism and the Geopolitics of Exclusion: The Case of Islam”, Third World Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1 (1997), pp. 7- 23.
  • Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, No. 3 (1993), pp. 22-49. 3 Ibid.
  • Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand, “Rethinking Political Myth: The Clash of Civilizations as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”, European Journal of Social Theory Vol. 9, No. 3 (2006), pp. 315-336.
  • Errol A. Henderson and Richard Tucker, “Clear and Present Strangers: The Clash of Civilizations and International Conflict”, International Studies Quarterly Vol. 45, No. 2 (2001), pp. 317-338.
  • Fouad Ajami, “The Clash”, The New York Times, 6 January 2008.
  • Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1996, p. 184. 8 Ibid., p. 51.
  • See, for example, Peter J. Katzenstein, Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives, London, Routledge, 2010; Also, Martin Hall and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Civilizational Identity: The Production and Reproduction of “Civilizations” in International Relations, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  • Jajinta O’Hagan, “Discourses of Civilizational Identity”, in Martin Hall and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (eds.), Civilizational Identity: The Production and Reproduction of “Civilizations” in International Relations, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 18.
  • Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968, and, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
  • Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, p. 5.
  • For a discussion on the effects of globalization on Islamic political identity, see, Hasan Kösebalaban, “The Impact of Globalization on Islamic Political Identity”, World Affairs, Vol. 168, No. 1 (2005), pp. 27-37.
  • Huntington, The Third Wave, pp. 27- 28.
  • Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990.
  • Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p. 258. 17 Ibid., p. 311.
  • Ibid., pp. 264-265.
  • Abd Allāh Ahmad Na'īm, Muslims and Global Justice, Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, pp. 11-12.
  • Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, revised 5th ed., New York, A. A. Knopf, 1948, p. 13. 21 Ibid.
  • Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics, London, Latimer House Limited, 1947, p. 19.
  • Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 13.
  • Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, New York, McGraw- Hill, 1979.
  • Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics”, International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (1997), p. 515.
  • Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  • Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, Oslo, International Peace Research Institute, 1996, p. 32.
  • Robert W. Cox and Timothy J. Sinclair, Approaches to World Order, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 87.
  • Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory?: An Introduction”, in Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan (eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia, London, Routledge, 2010, pp. 2-3.
  • Farhad Kazemi, “Two Perspectives on Islam and Civil Society”, in Sohail H. Hashmi (ed.), Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism, and Conflict, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 41.
  • Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, p. 162.
  • Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, “International Relations Theory and the Islamic Worldview”, in Acharya and Buzan (eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory, p. 185.
  • AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, Towards an Islamic Theory of International Relations: New Directions for Methodology and Thought, 2nd rev. ed., Islamization of Knowledge Series Herndon, Va., International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1993, pp. 116-25.
  • Ismail Raji Farouqi, in Ibid., p. xxxv.
  • John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics, 1st ed. Louisville, Ky., Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1993, p. 30.
  • Sohail H. Hashmi, “International Society and Its Islamic Malcontents”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs Vol. 13, No. Winter-Spring (1996), p. 23.
  • Ali Mazrui, Cultural Forces in World Politics, London, James Currey, 1990, p. 22, quoted in Ibid.
  • Falk, “False Universalism and the Geopolitics of Exclusion”.
  • Ahmet Davutoğlu, Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World, Kuala Lumpur, Mahir, 1994.; text quoted in Falk, “False Universalism and the Geopolitics of Exclusion: The Case of Islam”; Ibid.
  • Seyed Muhammed Khatami, UN Chronicle, No.2, 2002, p. 12.
  • “Erdogan: Inaction of the UN is the Cause of International Terrorism”, at www. telesurtv.net/english/news/Erdogan-Inaction-of-the-UN-Is-the-Cause-of-International- Terrorism-20140925-0044.html (last visited 5 May 2015).
  • Hashmi, “International Society and Its Islamic Malcontents”, p. 21.
  • For a discussion of this process, see, James L. Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History, New York, Oxford University Press, 2005.
  • Ali A. Mazrui, “Pretender to Universalism: Western Culture in a Globalizing Age”, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs Vol. 20, No. 1 (2001), pp. 14-15.
  • Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge Middle East Library Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962, New York, New York Review Books, 2006, p. 538.
  • Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World, New York, Bloomsbury, 2011.
  • Robert Fisk, “After the atrocities committed against Muslims in Bosnia, it is no wonder today’s jihadis have set out on the path to war in Syria”, The Independent, 7 September 2014.
  • Larry Diamond, “Why Are There No Arab Democracy?”, Journal of Democracy Vol. 21, No. 1 (2010), p. 93.
  • For a discussion of the negative effects of oil richness on democratization, see, Michael L. Ross, “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?”, World Politics Vol. 53, No. 3 (2001), pp. 325-361.
  • Alfred C. Stepan and Graeme B. Robertson, “An ‘Arab’ More Than a ‘Muslim’ Democracy Gap”, Journal of Democracy Vol. 14, No. 3 (2003), pp. 30-44.
  • For an analysis of the role of the United States in the 1953 Iranian coup, see, Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Hoboken, N.J., J. Wiley & Sons, 2003. The CIA now admits its direct involvement in the coup. “The CIA admits organizing 1953 Iran coup”, at http://www.aljazeera.com/news/ americas/2013/08/201382062432443546.html (last visited 10 July 2015).
  • Roger Diwan and Fareed Mohamedi, “Washington Watch: Paris, Washington, Algiers”, Middle East Report, No. 192.
  • Peter J. Burnell, “New Challenges to Democratization”, in Peter J. Burnell and Richard Youngs (eds.), New Challenges to Democratization, London, Routledge, 2010, p. 15.
  • Andrew J. Bacevich, “Even if we defeat the Islamic State, we’ll still lose the bigger war”, The Washington Post, 3 October 2014.
  • “Turkey’s Davutoğlu: Assad Talks Would Be Like Shaking Hands with Hitler, Saddam”, NBC News, 17 March 2015.
  • “John Kerry chose a strange country from which to defend Egypt’s military takeover”, The Washington Post, 1 August 2013.
  • “Egypt carries out first death sentence after mass trials of Morsi supporters”, The Guardian, 7 March 2015.
  • “A Questionable Decision on Egypt”, The New York Times, 24 April 2014. Also see Roger Cohen, “Egypt carries out first death entence after mass trials of Morsi supporters”, The New York Times, 27 January 2014.
  • “Reigning in Egypt’s Military Aid”, The New York Times, 4 October 2014.
  • David Brooks, “Defending the Coup”, The New York Times, 4 July 2013.
There are 57 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Hasan Kösebalaban This is me

Publication Date January 1, 2014
Published in Issue Year 2014 Volume: 19 Issue: 4

Cite

APA Kösebalaban, H. (2014). Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question. PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs, 19(4), 19-42.
AMA Kösebalaban H. Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question. PERCEPTIONS. January 2014;19(4):19-42.
Chicago Kösebalaban, Hasan. “Muslim Perceptions of Injustice As an International Relations Question”. PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs 19, no. 4 (January 2014): 19-42.
EndNote Kösebalaban H (January 1, 2014) Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question. PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs 19 4 19–42.
IEEE H. Kösebalaban, “Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question”, PERCEPTIONS, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 19–42, 2014.
ISNAD Kösebalaban, Hasan. “Muslim Perceptions of Injustice As an International Relations Question”. PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs 19/4 (January 2014), 19-42.
JAMA Kösebalaban H. Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question. PERCEPTIONS. 2014;19:19–42.
MLA Kösebalaban, Hasan. “Muslim Perceptions of Injustice As an International Relations Question”. PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs, vol. 19, no. 4, 2014, pp. 19-42.
Vancouver Kösebalaban H. Muslim Perceptions of Injustice as an International Relations Question. PERCEPTIONS. 2014;19(4):19-42.