ABSTRACT
For more than two decades, scholars o f domestic and international politics have pondered the changing ‘permeability5 of Middle Eastern states to transnational political influences. Historically, several sets o f factors-the legacies of the Ottoman Empire and European colonialism, patterns o f state formation, the religiocultural identity o f Islam, and the ethno-linguistic connections among Arab states-all created a situation in the Middle East5 whereby ideologies, events, and political movements reverberated across borders to an extent not seen in other parts of the developing world. Peculiar political economies-of petroleum, aid, and migrant labour-reinforced this. In the 1950s and 1960s, pan-Arabism shaped politics in much o f the region. Since the 1970s, Islamist sentiment has been a powerful transnational political influence.
