Contemporary pan-Arab rhetoric is performative statecraft, not an actual union project.
Evidence
One of the main characteristics of neo-pan-Arabism is that it is not an ideology. Not a single Arab leader thinks about uniting all Arab states. Arab leaders are normatively pan-Arabist, but in reality they are state-centric. It is more about how they present themselves, not what they do. Moreover, neopan-Arabism does not have strong financial tools, and Arab banks and monetary funds are investment agencies whose political goal is not pan-Arab unity but the interests of their leading states. When these states put pressure on another Arab state, they do so to get something in return, financially, not to establish military bases or force a union. And unlike the proponents of classical pan-Arabism, neopan-Arab regimes are largely economically neoliberal: they are transactional in their business dealings, not ideological. Much like the neo-Sovietism of Russia under Putin, these regimes have adopted the trappings of pan-Arabism, but have retained the neoliberal economic model of their immediate predecessors. — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism, 62
Categorization
- XREF: Directly serves the reader’s manufactured-enemy thesis: this is a portrait of a solidarity discourse kept alive as legitimation after its original driving goals were abandoned. — connects to: Pan-Arabism functions as elite legitimation rhetoric, not primordial identity. — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism: a renewed contract of…, 15; Neo-pan-Arabism sustains regime legitimacy rather than pursuing Arab unity. — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism: a renewed contract of…, 110; Shared Arab cultural identity does not translate into political bloc action (+1 more)
- DEFINE: Defines neo-pan-Arabism by contrast against classical pan-Arabism — flagging the axis (performative/normative vs. actual/ideological) as its defining feature.
Related
- Neo-pan-Arabism sustains regime legitimacy rather than pursuing Arab unity. (similarity 0.91)
- Pan-Arabism functions as elite legitimation rhetoric, not primordial identity. (similarity 0.87)
- Renewed pan-Arab rhetoric principally legitimizes existing authoritarian regimes. (similarity 0.87)
- Pan-Arab movements produced autocratic leaders despite democratic rhetoric (similarity 0.82)
- Arab regimes weaponize pan-Arab slogans against internal grassroots uprisings. (similarity 0.81)
- Arab regimes risked their legitimacy by failing their own pan-Arab rhetoric. (similarity 0.81)
- Tunisian state identity was built in opposition to pan-Arabism yet never fully abandoned it. (similarity 0.79)
- Pan-Arabism survives as public orthodoxy long after leaders abandoned it (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Shared Arab cultural identity does not translate into political bloc action
#corroborates(0.90) - Renewed pan-Arab rhetoric principally legitimizes existing authoritarian regimes.
#expands(0.85) — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism, 64