Royal Factionalism, the Khawalid, and the Securitization of ‘the Shīʿa Problem’ in Bahrain

Gengler, Justin

doi:10.1080/21534764.2013.802944

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Despite the BICI finding no evidence of Iranian involvement, the regime line was to stress Iranian manipulation of Shi'a populations. Shi'a experiences in Bahrain are multifarious, shaped by a range of other factors, including class, gender and ethnicity (Gengler, 2013). As a consequence of decades of political, social and economic repression by the Sunni minority, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain was created in Bahrain, with support from Iranian agents.…”

Section: Facilitating Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An unpublished report for the Gulf Centre for Democratic Development noted how the marginalization of Sunnīs and the lessening of their role in Bahrain is part of a larger regional problem, whereas [our] sons of the Sunnī sect in Iraq face the same problem, meaning there is a direct correlation between [the Iraqi situation and] the marginalization of the Sunna in the Gulf countries, and their marginalization in Bahrain in particular. Thus there is a dangerous challenge facing Bahraini society in the increased role of the Shīʿa [and] the retreat of the role of the Sunna in the Bahraini political system; namely, the problem concerns the country's [Bahrain's] national security, and the likelihood of political regime change in the long term by means of the current relationships between Bahrain's Shīʿa and all the Shīʿa in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia's eastern region, and Kuwait (Gengler 2013).…”

Section: Facilitating Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Existential threats and regulating life: securitization in the contemporary Middle East

Mabon

2018

Global Discourse

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As we move past the 6th anniversary of the Arab Uprisings, the dreams that had driven the protest movements, causing people to take to the streets and separating autocratic regimes from societies have been extinguished. In many cases, autocratic rulers remain in control, having mobilised support bases and implemented coup proofing and securitization strategies to do so. In others, the battle rages and the space that was created from the fragmentation of the state has allowed for groups like Da'ish to gain prominence. As a mechanism of control, a number of Sunni regimes sought to securitize the Shi'a threat, framing minority groups as an Iranian 5th column and securing their place within the pantheon of Sunni Arab states opposed to Iran. To this end, this article applies the concept of securitization to the Middle East with a focus upon the securitization of the Shi'a other. Such processes occur across time and space and are not restricted to state borders, escaping the Westphalian straitjacket. As a consequence, one must consider the construction of space and political structures across the region in order to understand the traction that such moves can find. It appears then, that in seeking to maintain short term survival, regimes have sacrificed long--term stability, but the impacts of such moves transcend the typically linear constructed audiences within securitization moves. A key contribution of this article is to consider the extent to which audiences within the Middle East, both intended and unintended, transcend the linear audiences found within conventional processes of securitization. The article uses two case studies as a means of exploring the extent to which securitization can be applied to the Middle East. Such an approach helps us to identify the logics that are involved within the process of securitization, with consideration of the idea that we can populate a broad framework about the universal application of securitization to context specific cases. There is, of course, a range of challenges to the application of securitization theories to the non--Western world. Whilst a number of scholars have undertaken such efforts, including a number of luminaries involved within this volume, we must also be conscious of a range of issues. To this end, this article seeks to contribute to these debates by asking to what extent we can learn about the logics of securitization, particularly within the non--Western context, by looking at case studies from the Middle East. It does this by employing a comparative framework, based upon a selection of most similar case studies. Such a decision facilitates awareness of key securitization processes across the Middle East and whilst they are by no means the only processes, the selected case studies help us to identify the logic that is involved within the more dominant processes of securitization in the Middle East. With the penetration of the

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Section: Facilitating Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Facilitating Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Existential threats and regulating life: securitization in the contemporary Middle East

Mabon

2018

Global Discourse

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“…King Hamad, for his part, appears unable or unwilling to control conservative elements; "he [Hamad] does little to reign in Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed and his hardline allies" (ibid.). Indeed, Gengler (2014) argues that Hamad has actually empowered these hardliners in order to counter the influence of the Prime Minister. Yet there are also question marks about Hamad's reformist credentials, especially toward the Shi¤a.…”

Section: A Perpetual Hard-linementioning

confidence: 99%

Saudi Intervention, Sectarianism, and De-Democratization in Bahrain’s Uprising

Jones¹

2016

Protest, Social Movements and Global Democracy Since 2011: New Perspectives

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“…In these societies, beliefs about religious differences evolve into boundary and conflict markers in polities' social stratification (Brewer 1992). In the Middle East, sectarianism has been studied as a typical phenomenon of divided societies -such as Lebanon, Iraq, and Bahrain (Wehrey 2013;Matthiesen 2013b;Gengler 2013;Pinto 2014;Salamey 2009;Makdisi 1996;Amail 1985).…”

Section: Sectarianism In the Middle East: Primordialism Versus Materimentioning

confidence: 99%

Casting the Other as an existential threat: The securitisation of sectarianism in the international relations of the Syria crisis

Darwich¹,

Fakhoury²

2016

Global Discourse

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractWith the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the Sunni-Shiite divide came back to the fore in regional politics. In this context, sectarian identities have now acquired a security dimension, as actors have started framing each other as existential threats. This article aims to examine the process by which sectarian identities become security issues and sources of conflict. We claim that primordial and instrumentalist/rationalist approaches to identity cannot capture the complexities of sectarianism in Middle East international relations. Instead, we draw on securitisation theory to examine the speech acts and narratives leading to the construction of sectarianism as a security issue in the Middle East. We examine Hezbollah's and Saudi Arabia's speech acts towards the Syria crisis as revelatory cases in the securitisation of the Sunni-Shiite divide in the post-2011 order.

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Royal Factionalism, the Khawalid, and the Securitization of ‘the Shīʿa Problem’ in Bahrain

Cited by 19 publications

References 2 publications

Existential threats and regulating life: securitization in the contemporary Middle East

Existential threats and regulating life: securitization in the contemporary Middle East

Saudi Intervention, Sectarianism, and De-Democratization in Bahrain’s Uprising

Casting the Other as an existential threat: The securitisation of sectarianism in the international relations of the Syria crisis

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