Pan-Arabism survives as public orthodoxy long after leaders abandoned it

Evidence

For a while Arab leaders continued to pay lip service to pan-Arabism while pursuing sectional-national objectives. In recent years even this has ceased, and some Arab leaders have begun to speak openly of their real purposes. The new frankness has not however as yet penetrated to the ideological literature, in which pan-Arabism remains the sole orthodoxy. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 935

Categorization

• XREF: The lag between state practice and ideological discourse parallels institutional-decoupling arguments (Meyer/Rowan) about rhetoric outliving behavior.