ABSTRACT
This chapter faces the paradoxical challenge of using opposition as the independent variable to explain the durability of the Arab state in the 1970s and 1980s. The argument proposed here is that an understanding of opposition is to be found in the notion of role complementarity. Both government and opposition have interests to pursue within the political system, and this complementarity of pursuit reinforces the state. Neither uses the other, but each serves the other's interests in performing its own role. Thus, stability in the contemporary Arab state can be explained not only by the government's handling of opposition but also by the opposition's handling of itself and of government. Therefore, except at times of a government of national unity some parties would always be left in opposition. Some of them consider opposition status to be simply a time of reserve duty at the disposition of the king but other see themselves in permanent opposition.
