ABSTRACT
History and its impacts only go part of the way to explaining the preponderance of conspiracist discourse in the Arab world. History is important in providing a framework on which the basis of a conspiracy theory often is built, and most notably, the role of external actors in modern Middle Eastern history has provided plenty of antagonists and scoundrels that, in conspiracist discourse, can be identified and labelled as conspirators. However for conspiracy theories to have political meaning, and more importantly, continuing significance in political dynamics, they need also to have relevance in the contemporary domestic political setting. The next two chapters pursue this aspect, with this chapter being concerned with how the failure of political and developmental ideologies in the region have nurtured a context of disillusionment and frustration in which conspiracy theories can emerge and gain resonance. In the post-independence period of the past sixty or so years, the Arab
world has sought political and economic development through a number of ideological orthodoxies. The immediate post-independence period, especially the 1950s and 1960s, were characterized by state-building attempts that stressed the importance of a strong, centralized state authority, acting as an investor, employer, and authority for order and equity. This statist period was accompanied by unfulfilled promises of democracy and Arab unity, and atrophied as the economic costs of state-led development became obvious, and as corruption and post-populist1 authoritarianism became the concomitants of a large, often clumsy, and only quasi-effectual state. The period since this time has been one of political challenge for the state
and ideological inchoateness among societal units. Most states have tried various forms of economic liberalization and guided political reform to sustain their levels of support and legitimacy, though success has been limited and the commitment to reforms usually half-hearted and often a little more than a reactionary attempt to allay threats to the regime. Society, meanwhile, is divided over what political ideology ought to be pursued and validated; some, especially the ‘old guard’ loyal to the post-independence order, remain secular and in favour of a strong, modernizing state, while others have followed the post-populist state along the path of economic reform and tepid
democratization, and others still have turned to political Islam of various shades. As a result, the contemporary Arab world is politically (not to mention in other ways, as well) an unhappy place. The distance between states and societies has widened, with increasing bulks of the population in most Arab states dissatisfied or disillusioned with their political leaders, and such leaders increasingly fearful and suspicious of real, potential, and imagined threats from society. These dynamics, and their contribution to conspiracy theories, are the subjects of this chapter, which begins with an explanation of the failure of earlier orthodoxies, then discusses the large and expanding gap between state and society, and then explores how these political dynamics are manifested in a number of popular conspiracy theories.
