Sectarianism from the Top Down or Bottom Up? Explaining the Middle East's Unlikely De-sectarianization after the Arab Spring

Sectarian politics has retreated across the Middle East in the years after the Arab Spring, even as conflict between the region's two main sectarian actors—Iran and Saudi Arabia—has intensified. This essay explores this incongruence as a way of better understanding the nature and drivers of sec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The review of faith & international affairs
Main Author: Gengler, Justin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2020
In: The review of faith & international affairs
RelBib Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
KBL Near East and North Africa
NCD Political ethics
Further subjects:B Middle East
B Public Opinion
B De-sectarianization
B Sectarianism
B Arab Spring
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:Sectarian politics has retreated across the Middle East in the years after the Arab Spring, even as conflict between the region's two main sectarian actors—Iran and Saudi Arabia—has intensified. This essay explores this incongruence as a way of better understanding the nature and drivers of sectarianism and de-sectarianization in MENA states, supported by public opinion and other data that substantiate the post-2011 decline in Arabs' concern over sectarianism. It contends that the close correspondence between the rise and demise of the Arab Spring on the one hand, and that of sectarianism on the other, supports an instrumentalist interpretation of sectarian politics in the region.
ISSN:1931-7743
Contains:Enthalten in: The review of faith & international affairs
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2020.1729526