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That there is a fundamental and pervasive change in the Arab world today is not disputed. But the extent of change and its significance remain a puzzle for scholars and policy-makers alike. The Arab world of the 1980's is fundamentally different from that of the 1970's. The region's politics and economics are creating new realities that pose challenges to decision-makers and to everyone in the region. This article reviews the most significant elements of change and identifies their implications for policy-making in the 1980's.[1]
The events of the early 1970's -- preceded by gradual changes which culminated in the war of 1973 and the oil price increases of October that year -- created realities that cannot be comprehended through conventional categories used in the past. Outsiders generally view the Arab world in terms of population, agriculture, industry and the like. In the West, the prevailing view was that the Arab world was poor, despite new wealth in oil-rich countries, and that its economic problems were basically those of increasing rates of growth, per capita income, and managing propensities for urban living. By the same token, the countries of the region were defined as "democracies," "monarchies" or "dictatorships" as the case might be. Arab countries were regarded as "good" or "bad" depending on the cold war politics of the time. Arab states, whatever their form of government, were then defined as "pro-West", "pro-East" or non-aligned, the implication being that political choices were limited to these three possibilities.[2]
The events of the past decade have created new conceptions in the Arab world -- a new vocabulary and a new reality. The political vocabulary of the 1980s is one of interdependence, linkage among countries, proliferation and division of power, and integration of economic and political imperatives.[3] The concepts which now characterized Arab countries differ substantially from conventional categories -- no one today is particularly obsessed by "dictatorship", "democracy" or the "free world". Perhaps for the first time in the history of the region, a new effective exercise of national autonomy is becoming a reality. The nature and extent of this reality may differ from state to state, but the trend affects everyone.
So too, it is difficult to explain events in the Arab world in terms of...