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  • Political Narratives in the Middle East and North Africa: Conceptions of Order and Perceptions of Instability ed. by Wolfgang Mühlberger and Toni Alaranta
  • Jason Pack (bio)
Political Narratives in the Middle East and North Africa: Conceptions of Order and Perceptions of Instability, edited by Wolfgang Mühlberger and Toni Alaranta. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2020. 187 pages. $119.99 cloth; $89.00 eBook.

Over the last two decades, we have all become increasingly aware of the role played by political narratives and media communication strategies in influencing both policy-makers' and target audience's behaviors. As political narratives become ever more pervasive, elaborate, and microtargeted, [End Page 635] fascinating questions arise for scholarly investigation into their causative impact on geopolitics. Do politicians and media specialists shape narratives to justify their preferred policy choices or does the enduring public appeal of specific national or partisan political narratives determine policy? These and related issues are treated in Political Narratives in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by Wolfgang Mühlberger and Toni Alaranta.

The volume seeks to present a comprehensive investigation of narratives "as strategic tools used by political entrepreneurs interested in developments in the Middle East and North Africa" (p. v). In certain ways, it delivers on the promised investigation of the dynamics at play in the marketplace of competing narratives; yet in others, it falls short. On the plus side, Mühlberger and Alaranta have done an excellent job selecting and grouping the case studies to cover a representative range of regional and non-state actors alongside the key international superpowers. For example, analyzed holistically the reader can draw inferences about how the interplay of domestic tropes and myths feeds into American, Chinese, Russian, and European Union narratives about their countries' (or alliance's) role in promoting order and long-term security in the Middle East.

Conversely, the theoretical framework and literature review put forth in Mühlberger's "Introduction: The Power of Narratives in Political Contexts" may strike nonspecialists as both impenetrable and disconnected from the subsequent case studies. Both there and in Alaranta's "Conclusion: Narrative (Dis) Order in Today's MENA" fascinating constructs are explored, such as the Aristotelean "three-part structure of narratives," narrative's role in "constructing political order" in the minds of the audience, and conceiving political leaders as "entrepreneurs" seeking to actualize a return on their investment in the marketplace of narrative ideas. Unfortunately, none of these concepts are deployed in any of the book's case studies of actual political narratives.

Leaving the murky waters of definitions and theory aside, the book constitutes a practical guide for those seeking a comprehensive appreciation of the larger phenomenon of political narratives in the Middle East and North Africa explored via pithy case studies into how and why key political actors formulate their narratives, worldviews, and rhetorical devices. Toni Alaranta expertly sketches the conventional dichotomy between Kemalist as opposed to neo-Ottoman or Islamist narratives of Turkey's role as an order-provider in the greater Middle East and North Africa. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen presents a brilliant exposition of the competing rhetorical world views of statesmen from the United Arab Emirates versus Qatar and the singularity of each Gulf Cooperation Council state's narrative vis-à-vis the Iranian threat and the Muslim Brotherhood. Novel insights for non-Russian-speaking Middle East scholars emerge in Leonid Issaev and Alisa Shishkina, who expertly probe the interaction of, on the one hand, Russian president Vladimir Putin's political narrative formation toward regional civil wars and his defense of Russian intervention on the side of "state sovereignty, incumbent power holders, or potentially stabilizing anti-Islamist actors" and, on the other hand, Russian elites' concerns vis-à-vis domestic political stability and the threat of another color revolution in Eastern Europe.

These three chapters would certainly make engaging stand-alone reading for an introductory class on contemporary international politics. They present all of the relevant diplomatic background for a non–Middle East expert audience and dissect the historical evolution of the relevant narratives over time and their rhetorical deployment in defense of policy-makers' actions. Although I have highlighted these three, all eight of the content chapters...

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