Houses Built on Sand: Violence, Sectarianism and Revolution in the Middle East

The events of the Arab Uprisings posed an existential challenge to sovereign power across the Middle East. Whilst popular movements resulted in the toppling of authoritarian rule in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, other regimes were able to withstand these pressures. This book questions why some regimes fell whilst others were able to survive.

Drawing on the work of political theorists such as Agamben and Arendt, Mabon explores the ways in which sovereign power is contested, resulting in the fragmentation of political projects across the region. Combining an innovative theoretical approach with interviews with people across the region and beyond, Mabon paints a picture of Middle Eastern politics dominated by elites seeking to maintain power and wealth, seemingly at whatever cost. This, for Mabon, is a consequence of the emergence and development of particular visions of political projects that harness or marginalise identities, communities, ideologies and faiths as mechanisms designed to ensure their survival.

This book is essential reading for those interested in understanding why the uprisings took place, their geopolitical consequences, and why they are likely to happen again.

Professor Simon Mabon is Chair in International Politics at Lancaster University, where he is Director of the Richardson Institute, the UK’s oldest peace and conflict research centre; he is also Director of Sectarianism, Proxies & De-sectarianisation (SEPAD) project. His research falls at the intersection of International Political Theory and Middle East Studies, with a focus on sovereignty and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. His books include Saudi Arabia and Iran: Soft power rivalry in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013); Houses Built On Sand (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press/Oxford University Press, 2020); and The Struggle for Supremacy in the Middle East Saudi Arabia and Iran (Oxford University Press, 2023).

This conversation will be facilitated by Dr Toni Rouhana, Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the Civil War Paths project, working on understanding the role that sect identities play before, during, and after the wars that took place in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.