“Challenging Charles Tilly’s model of ‘war-makes-state,’ Schwarz (NATO Defense College, Rome) compares the Middle East with the European model of state building and explains the dynamics and consolidation of states in the Arab world through an examination of Iraq, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.”—Choice
“This comparative volume explores the dramatic pathways of political development undertaken by rentier regimes in the Arab world. Here, waging war proved to weaken rather than strengthen state capacity in pernicious ways--an insight that contrasts sharply with received Western wisdom about war being the crucible of modern state building.”—Sean L. Yom, Temple University
“An important contribution to the literature on state building in the Middle East.”—Gawdat Bahgat, author of Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East
Rolf Schwarz highlights the perils of funding wars through the sale of natural resources in oil-rich countries, fighting with imported weaponry, and accepting peace settlements negotiated and guaranteed by foreign powers, offering provocative insights into post-conflict peace building, state failure, and the potential for democratic rule.
Rolf Schwarz is professor at the NATO Defense College in Rome.
