ABSTRACT
In his seminal analysis o f the Arab regional system, Paul Noble emphasized that communications and the flow of ideas had to be set alongside more traditional military and economic determinants o f influence. Intraregional transnational linkages, he noted, had always been an important part o f Arab politics. The relative salience o f this, however, was changing. Writing in the wake o f the Gulf War, he suggested in 1991 that there had been a ‘decline in the permeability o f Arab societies and political systems,’ such that ‘the intensity o f popular concern for larger Arab causes had declined.’1 Others too have noted the apparent decline of Arabism, and the rise o f ‘statism,’ in the region.2
