Conceptual Battle of the Middle East between the Political and Geography

پژوهش نامه ایرانی سیاست بین الملل

Article 3, Volume 10, Issue 2 - Serial Number 20, March 2022, Pages 57-77   

Document Type: Original Article

DOI: 10.22067/irlip.2021.69714.1058

Author

mohadese jazaei^*

political sceince, political and law facaulty,, ferdowsi university of mashhad.

Abstract

The Middle East” is a controversial concept in terms of politics and geography. From a geographical point of view, there is no broad consensus on the borders of the Middle East. Also, there have been challenges in the use and application of the Middle East concept given the new theories to pay attention to the non-Western world. There have been challenges in applying this concept. To counter the monotony of European and American research and studies in the Middle East, instead of the concept of "Middle East", equations such as "Near East and North Africa", "North Middle East", "New Middle East", "Islamic Middle East", "Arab Middle East" "West Asia", and "Southwest Asia" are suggested instead. The main question of this article is "What is the reason for the inevitability of using this concept in all languages of the region, including Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and even Hebrew?" "Why can't the conceptual equivalents and proposed alternatives succeed in conveying the same meaning that the Middle East concept conveys?"  This research aims to answer why the concept of “the Middle East” cannot be left by focusing on the political issue and from the history of concepts method and theory view. The nature of “the political” emphasizes binary confrontations which confirms the fact of existing a stream of the battle between the political forces and group dominant on conversations in concepts forms. Although in this region criticize the hegemony of concepts such as the Middle East, and advocate for alternatives, the political irresistibility against geography is an important obstacle that complicates the use of alternative concepts of the Middle East.

Keywords

the Middle East; the political; geography; history of concepts; Reinhart Koselleck

References

Abbas Amanat. (2012). Is There a Middle East? The Evolution of a Geopolitical
Concept, Eds. Bonine, Amanat & Gasper, Stanford, California, Stanford
University press.
Abbasi, Ibrahim. (2014). "The Middle East, New Structures for Cooperation in the
Middle East Regional Network". World Politics, 3(1), 298-309. (In Persian)
Alibabaei, Gholamreza. (1995). "A Study of the Evolution of the Middle East
Concept". Journal of Events and Analyzes, No. 95. (In Persian)
Arghavani Pirsalami, Fariborz & Mirahmadi, Saeed. (2018). Explaining the Policy
of Balancing China in the Middle East". World Politics, 8(2), 139-176. (In
Persian)
Davison, Roderick H. (1963). "Where is The Middle East?" In the Modern Middle
East. Edited by Richard H. Nolte, pp. 13-30, New York: Atherton.
Dietl, G. (2012). Naming and Claiming a Region, Paper presented to Artuklu
University. Mardin, Turkey.
Eugene F. Miller. (1980). "What Does „Political‟ Mean?" The Review of Politics
42(1), 56-72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1407148.
Ghasemi, Farhad. (2010). "Geopolitical Model of Regional Security; Middle East
Case Study". Geopolitics journal, 18, 60-90. (In Persian)
Hafeznia, Mohammad Reza. (2006). Principles and Concepts of Geopolitics.
Mashhad: Papeli. (In Persian)
Junge, Kay. (2011). Self-Concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymmetrical Counter-
Concepts: Some Aspects of a Multi-Faceted Agenda, Asymmetrical Concepts
after Reinhart Koselleck Historical Semantics and beyond, eds.Kirill
Postoutenko.Verlag, Bielefeld.
Kemp, Geoffrey & Harkavy, Robert. (2004). Strategic Geography and the
Changing Middle East, Translated by Mehdi Hosseini Matin, Tehran: Institute
for Strategic Studies. (In Persian)
Koselleck, Reinhart. (1995). Vergangene Zukunft Zur Semantik Geschichtlicher
Zeiten, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Koselleck, Rinehart (1989). "Linguistic Change and the History of Events".
Journal of Modrn History, No 61.
Koselleck, Rinehart. (1972). "Einleitung in Bunner, Conze and R.koselleck". (eds).
Geschichtliche, Historisches Lexikon. V.1 Stuyygart: Klett-Gotta.
Koselleck. Rinehart. (2005). "Conceptual History, Memory, and Identity: an
Interview with Reinhart Koselleck". Contributions 2 (1).
Malmvig, Helle, Quero, Jordi & Soler i Lecha, Eduard. (2016). "The Contemporary
Regional Order". Menar Project.

Masoudnia, Hossein, Sadeghi Naqdali, Zahra. (2013). "The Greater Middle East of
the Islamic World, Challenges and Strategies". Political Research in the
Islamic World, 3(1). (In Persian)
Meyer, Karl E., Brysac, Shareen Blair (1995). London and the Invention of the
Middle East: Money, Power, and War, 1902–1922. New Haven, Conn: Yale
University Press.
Mottaqi, Ibrahim. (2013). "Europeanism; Why was West Asia called the Middle
East?" Available at: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/others-note?id=24684 Retrieved
April 7, 2021.
Nuri Özalp, Osman. (2011). "Where is the Middle East? The Definition and
Classification Problem of the Middle East as a Regional Subsystem in
International Relations". Turkish Journal of Politics, Vol. 2, No. 2.
Ollman, Bertell. (2015). "What Is Political Science? What Should It Be?"
International Critical Thought 5, No. 3, 362-370, doi:
10.1080/21598282.2015.1065379.
Roger Adelson. (2012). "British and U.S. Use and Misuse of the Term of Middle
East". in: Is There a Middle Wast? The Wvolution of a Geopolitical Concept.
Eds. Bonine, Amanat & Gasper. Stanford, California, Stanford University
press
Schlicht, Alfred. (2008). Die Araber und Europa. 2000 Jahre Gemeinsamer
Geschichte. Stuttgart: Kohl-hammer.
Schmitt, Carl (1932). The Concept of the Political. trans. George Schwab; Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996.
Shokouei, Hossein. (1970). "The Term and Xoncept of the Middle East The
Inadequacy of a Geographical Title", Journal of Persian Language and
Literature, Nos. 95 and 96,387-397. (In Persian)
Skinner, Quentin. (2014). Insights into Political Science. Volume I: On Method.
Translated by Faribs Majidi, Tehran: Javid. (In Persian)
Tibi, Bassam. (1989). Konfliktregion Naher Osten. Regionale Eigendynamik und
Groβmachtinteressen. München: Beck.
Wiley, James (2016). Review of "Politics and the Concept of the Political: The
Political Imagination. (Routledge, London, 2016) in: Contemporary Political
Theory (2018). 17, S197–S200. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-017-0166-3;
published online 7 November 2017.
Yamahata, yatana. (2018). (Re) Shaping Territories to Identities: Is the Middle
East a Colonial Invention? SOAS: University of London.
Yilmaz, Huseyin (2012). "The Eastern question and Ottoman Empire". in the: Is
There a Middle East? The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept. Eds. Bonine,Amanat & Gasper, Stanford, California, Stanford University press.
Www. Khanenei.ir. https://farsi.khamenei.ir/others-note?id=24684, Retrieved April
7, 2021.
https://hiik.de/2021/02/15/renaming-of-the-mena-working-group/?lang=en,
Retrieved April 7, 2021.
https://dppa.un.org/en/region/middle-east-and-west-asia , Retrieved April 7, 2021.
https://www.globalfueleconomy.org/in-country/middle-east-and-west-asia,
Retrieved April 7, 2021.
https://www.blog.hiik.de/category/middle-east-and-maghreb/, Retrieved April 7,
2021.
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/gjhdq_665435/2797_665439/ Retrieved May
26, 2021.