Introduction

This chapter focuses on a problem explaining the stability and persistence of the state in the Arab World. The Arab defeat of 1967 seems to have been a turning point and partly responsible for the change. The resilience of the post-colonial or post-imperial state occurs in Latin America, a century before the Arab states, and in the Balkans following World War I. American writers tended to consider the post-World War II territorial status quo as permanent. Their attitude clearly entailed a preference for an order that was widely favourable to the expansion of American influence in the world. The Saudi and the Lebanese cases show how difficult it is to transfer traditional Khaldunian ideas on states' strengths and weaknesses to the modern state units which exist today. In the context of the Arab region, opting in favour of industrialisation and economic growth has historically been closely related with the growing role of nationalist ideologies and the fight against foreign domination.