Construcción y dimensión internacional del autoritarismo en el mundo árabe

Abstract

The relationship between power and knowledge has been reflected in the theoretical construction on the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab States. Originating in nineteenth-century social theory, which conceptualized non-Western societies as stagnant in the face of the dynamism of Western ones, culturalist and essentialist approaches argued a supposed Islamic exceptionality to explain this democratic deficit. In contrast, the materialistic perspectives referred that explanation to the economic base, political system and international location. From the own history of twentieth century international relations, one can observe this conceptualization has not been alien to the world conjunctures of the Cold War and post-Cold War. In this theoretical controversy, the Arab anti-authoritarian mobilizations (2010/2011) introduced an epistemological rupture in favor of materialistic approaches.