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Bassel F. Salloukh is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut. His recent publications include the co-authored The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon (Pluto Press, 2015), “The Arab Uprisings and the Geopolitics of the Middle East” in The International Spectator (June 2012), the co-authored Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism and Democratization in the Arab World (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012), and the co-authored article “Elite Strategies, Civil Society, and Sectarian Identities in Postwar Lebanon” in International Journal of Middle East Studies (November 2013). His current research looks at post-conflict power-sharing arrangements, the challenge of re-assembling the political orders and societies of post-uprisings Arab states, and the geopolitics of the Middle East after the popular uprisings.
Sectarianism and the Search for New Political Orders in the Arab World
In many Arab countries, the homogenizing, authoritarian, centralized state is a relic of a bygone past. However, what will replace it is not yet clear. The popular Arab uprisings that exploded in December 2010, and their overlap with already-underway geopolitical battles unleashed by the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, combined to torpedo the political orders of a number of Arab states.
