Field:
    International Relations, Comparative Politics

Dissertation Title:
    Why Arab States Fear Islamist Regimes: Threat Perception and Soft Power Politics

Committee:
    Leonard Binder (Co-Chair), Deborah Larson (Co-Chair), Barry O’Neill, David Rapoport, and Bertram Raven

Date of Completion:
    August 2009

Contact Information:
    Lawrence Rubin
    Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
    Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
    Harvard Kennedy School of Government
    79 J.F.K. Street, Mailbox 134
    Cambridge, MA 02138
    Phone: 617.495.8039
    Fax: 617.496.0606

Curriculum Vitae:
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Dissertation Summary:
    This dissertation lies at the nexus of comparative politics, international relations, and religion and international security. I address an important puzzle: Why do states consider ideologically oriented regimes with little military capability a security threat? I apply this question to a region known for its ethnic and religious conflicts: the Middle East. I then ask three interrelated questions: Why do Arab incumbent regimes regard Islamist regimes with limited military capabilities as threats to their security? How have Arab incumbent regimes managed transnational ideological threats at the domestic level? How does this threat perception affect security cooperation, alignments and arms-racing in the Middle East?

    On the basis of interviews with key decision-makers, archival research, and an analysis of media framing, I find that the Arab incumbent regimes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have considered the Islamist regimes that seized power in Iran and Sudan to be security threats not simply because an Islamic state was expected to alter the balance of (hard) power, cause religious-revolutionary contagion, act irrationally, or support religious terrorism. Rather, Egypt and Saudi Arabia considered these Islamist regimes a national security threat because of their soft power projection capabilities to undermine political stability. In particular, these Arab states have feared Islamist regimes’ use of religious symbols to undermine their legitimacy and facilitate collective political action. In addition to “hard balancing” against these transnational ideological threats, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have employed soft power balancing strategies, consisting of resource mobilization and counter-framing, to prevent symbols from being used as coordinating devices for collective political action.

    This project has clear policy relevance and important implications for the international relations literature on threat perception, balance of power, and constructivism as well as religion and international security. It also contributes to a burgeoning literature that uses social movement theory to explain Islamic political activism. In contrast to approaches that assume threat perception is driven by changes in the distribution of capabilities or by differences in religious-cultural identities, I conclude that transnational ideological threats can be just as salient and, under some conditions, more robust determinants of threat perception and state policy than material factors.

Research Interests:
    Middle East politics, Islam and politics, foreign policy analysis, nuclear weapons policy.

Teaching Interests:
    Comparative politics, international relations/international security, Middle East politics, political violence, religion and international security