Navigating Identity and Power: Decoding Raymond Hinnebusch’s View on Identity's Influence on Middle Eastern Foreign Policies

Identity politics functions as both a force of unity and a source of fragmentation in the Middle East, influencing foreign policy, state legitimacy, and regional order.

In The Politics of Identity in Middle East International Relations, Raymond Hinnebusch argues that identity—whether ethnic, religious, or national—is central to understanding the region’s enduring instability. “If there is anything special about the international politics of the Middle East,” he writes, “it is the power of identity” (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 158).

Hinnebusch frames identity as inherently dualistic: capable of fostering solidarity or inciting conflict. This duality becomes especially potent in a region shaped by colonial legacies, artificial borders, and contested nationhood. Identity, he states, “is two-sided” (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 158), simultaneously acting as a catalyst for state formation and a driver of resistance to imposed structures.

State Formation and the Struggle for Legitimacy

Hinnebusch also emphasizes that whether identities are integrated or repressed during state formation greatly influences long-term foreign policy behavior. States that succeed in aligning political structure with identity tend to pursue status quo policies, while those with frustrated identities often adopt revisionist stances. Postcolonial state boundaries, often misaligned with organic social groupings, fuel this dynamic.

The Kurdish question is a case in point: a distinct identity fragmented across multiple states has sparked persistent separatist movements, notably in Iraq and Turkey. Similarly, Lebanon—engineered as a multi-sectarian state by France—has experienced chronic internal strife and served as a theater for regional power struggles (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 165). In the Gulf, British-imposed sectarian divides, especially affecting Shia minorities, have created structural tensions in countries like Bahrain and Iraq.

The author’s historical analysis reveals how colonial manipulation of identity has left deep fractures in state legitimacy. This disjunction between fixed territorial states and fluid identities continues to destabilize the region, challenging the viability of the Westphalian system in the Middle East.

Material Constraints on Identity Politics

Further, while identity plays a powerful role in shaping political behavior, Hinnebusch also underscores the importance of material constraints. For instance, Egypt under Nasser successfully led symbolic pan-Arab initiatives largely due to its size and institutional coherence compared to other Arab regimes (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 169). However, attempts to export revolutionary identity—by both Egypt and Iran—were ultimately contained by the superior material power of rivals such as Israel and Iraq.

Hinnebusch illustrates that identity-based projects, including pan-Arabism, often faltered when they clashed with hard power realities. The decline of Arabism after the uprisings reflects a shift toward pragmatic state interests over ideologically driven regionalism (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 167). As identity narratives proved costly and yielded limited strategic gain, many regimes reverted to a more realist pursuit of national interest, constrained by military and economic limitations.

The Arab uprisings further demonstrated that identity alone could not drive political change unless supported by favorable material conditions. States adapted their identities and foreign policies to navigate system-level pressures, highlighting the limits of identity politics in the absence of structural capacity.

Regional Order and the Identity of Allies and Enemies

Hinnebusch extends his analysis to the regional order, where identity shapes perceptions of friend and foe. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel’s pursuit of a homogenous Jewish state, especially after its 1967 territorial expansion, entrenched hostility with neighboring Arab populations that could not be assimilated without undermining the state’s foundational identity (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 166). Israel's capacity to sustain this identity project, Hinnebusch argues, relied heavily on “exceptional extraterritorial support” from the Jewish diaspora and the United States (Hinnebusch, 2019, p. 166).

Across the region, where identity and territory are misaligned, state legitimacy suffers, and revisionist behavior persists. Civil wars in Lebanon, Sudan, and continued hostilities involving Iraq and Israel illustrate the destructive potential of identity incongruence. Conversely, identity congruent with state boundaries can generate political stability, yet such cases remain rare.

Ultimately, Hinnebusch concludes that the fragmentation of identity across state lines remains the central obstacle to peace and order in the Middle East. The region’s volatility stems from the interplay between identity narratives and material constraints, each capable of reinforcing or undermining the other. Effective conflict resolution, he suggests, must account for both: the deep roots of collective identity and the practical limits of power.

References

Hinnebusch, R. (2019). The Politics of Identity in the Middle East International Relations. In L, Fawcett (Ed.), International Relations of the Middle East (5th ed., pp. 158–179). Oxford University Press.