Identity Politics and Regional Order in the Levant/Kimlik Politikalari ve Levant'da Bolgesel Duzen.

• Author: Kausch, Kristina
• Position: Report

Introduction

Sectarianism has become the convenient standard lens to contemplate political tension and conflict across the Middle East. The primary identification with confessional and ethnic affiliations, and their instrumentalisation for specific political agendas has come to underpin and drive conflict across the region. Much ink has been spilled on how sectarianism has been reinforced in the years following the 2011 uprisings to become the main driver of political contestation and power struggles across the region. (1) While few scholars deny that identity-based politics has become deeply engrained in the workings of regional politics in the Levant, views have grown more nuanced in acknowledging that explaining Middle Eastern conflicts from the main vantage point of the Sunni-Shi'a divide fails to capture both the complexities of conflict and the broader motivations of the actors involved. The degree to which sectarianism is rather an object or a tool of conflict, however, remains contested. (2)

The Middle Eastern debate on sectarianism joins the ranks of global debates on political contestation based on community identities. Far from constituting a specific Middle Eastern or Levantine trait, the use of identity-based politics for geopolitical aims is a global trend. Political elites around the world take advantage of the increasing appeal of identity politics with discourses that address specific groups within or across polities, while more inclusive notions of national or supranational identity struggle to appeal in similar ways.

A host of research has dwelled on whether, to the degree ethno-sectarian identities provide stronger markers of identity than the identification with widely discredited nation states, the legitimacy of state institutions, and the nation-state as such, is up for question. In the Levant, many have wondered whether the post-Ottoman state order, created by the Balfour Declaration in 1917, will survive the advancing ethno-sectarian fragmentation. (3) One hypothesis underpinning many of these analyses has been that varieties of transnational identity politics, purposefully driven by actors interested in fragmentation, are undermining the state order in the Levant.

While the scope of this paper does not allow for a comprehensive assessment of this hypothesis, it will attempt to set the stage by reviewing some of the basic traits of the relationship between identity and order. What role does identity and identity politics play in nation-states and the regional order formed by them? What are the disruptive and uniting qualities of identity, and how are these used strategically by interested actors in the Middle East? What do these dynamics mean for the Levant?

Identity and Identity Politics

Identity defines the individual's belonging to a community. We have multiple overlapping identities: political, geographic, ethnic, religious, sectarian, kinship, etc. The term identity politics--political activism based on group affiliations such as ethnicity, religion, race, sexuality, gender or nationality -was coined in the 1970s and widely spread in the 1980s in response to social injustice, discrimination or assault experienced by members of specific minorities. (4)

A governance entity is built on a community with a shared identity that agrees on the rules on which the community is based. As actors defend or promote a certain order of governance, they define themselves in a particular manner. Modern definitions of statehood emphasize the legitimacy of government institutions as being among the core traits of a state. (5) Legitimacy is linked to state institutions' effective representation of a defined community. Nurturing a clear notion of national identity is therefore a main ingredient of state building.

Actors with a shared identity may however disagree over the norms and order that they associate with that identity. Conflicting or imposed identities, a lack of agreement on the defining identity of a community, or among a community, can lead to conflict over the way the community should be organized and governed. This is especially the case in multi-ethnical and multi- confessional states where sub-national, tribal or religious affiliations and loyalties may take precedence over nationally defined identities. The strengthening of local identities can enhance the difficulties of building a consensus on how a shared state should be designed and governed. (6) The relationship between identity and political order, hence, is highly ambiguous in that identity can be a constituent and disruptive force of order alike.

Traditional notions of identity often part from a static understanding of the term that assumes the need to rank one's individual identities to determine a primordial one. Such one-dimensional conceptions appear increasingly insufficient to explain the complexity of multiple simultaneous identities whose reality is much more malleable and dynamic. Public international law aims to avoid multiple citizenship because of the conflict of loyalty and/or incompatible national legislation that may arise for an individual affiliated with multiple states. By contrast, an alleged conflict between a sectarian affiliation and citizenship is eroded if the underlying motivation to prioritize allegiance with a sectarian community is not primarily religious but based on economic or security considerations, moving the spotlight from issues of faith and identity to governance.

In the Levant, overlapping and layered ethnic, tribal, and confessional identities have coexisted throughout history. The notion that the recent framing of regional conflict along confessional lines will necessarily undermine nation-state based notions of identity belies the multidimensional and malleable character of identity. (7) Ussama Makdisi writes:

Communal identities ... have always represented dynamic and highly contextual understandings of self and other. They have been driven by innumerable schisms, and have also undergone repeated redefinitions throughout their long histories. Thus, the invocation of sectarianism as a category of analysis for understanding the Middle East. conflates a religious identification with a political one, and it ignores the kinship, class, and national and regional networks within which sectarian self-expression has invariably been enmeshed. (8) The malleable nature of identity stands in contrast with the way identity politics--in the Middle East and beyond--has defined individual belonging in increasingly narrow and exclusionary ways.

The surge of identity politics as a...