Postcolonial Middle East states adopted secular nation-state models yet faced persistent ethnic challenges

Evidence

It is widely accepted within modern Middle East studies that certain sociocultural and political features have prevailed throughout the region in the postcolonial period and they need to be highlighted. All the newly independent states adopted some form of the nation-state model for political organization, and practically none of them declared themselves as theocratic states. In this sense it could be argued that secular forms of political organization, approximating the classical European model of the nation-state, predominated throughout the region, after formal political independence in the 1950s and 1960s. Nevertheless, this does not also imply that these formally independent states did not face challenges to their hegemonic control over their territory. On the contrary, the schematic history above indicated that in practically all of the countries in the region several forms of ethnic and/or religious sociocultural and political movements did challenge the legitimacy of these regional states. The Kurdish and Palestinian movements for national self-determination challenged the adopted and assumed political identities of the states within which they existed. Similarly, other ethnic and religious minorities, and in some cases majorities, mobilized for more rights and access to power. Thus, “ethnonationalism,” although expected to recede during the postcolonial period, had not been removed from the analytical and political agenda. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3483

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on failed nation-state projects and ethnic separatism — parallels postcolonial state-building elsewhere.