Gilbert Achcar
Biographic Data
| ID | 1398968 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gilbert Achcar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gilbert |
| FAMILY NAME | Achcar |
| SIGNATURE | ACHCAR G |
| AFFILIATIONS | SOAS University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5291-1573 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Une troisième voie au Moyen-Orient
Gilbert Achcar analyses the global geopolitical reconfiguration marked by a neo-fascist convergence between the United States, Putin’s Russia and the global far right, redefining a “new Cold War”. In this context, in the Middle East, states are playing on international rivalries, while popular movements have to rely on themselves to make progress. Achcar insists on the idea of a long-term revolutionary process that began in the Middle East and No…
Morbid Symptoms
One of Gramsci’s most quoted phrases is his 1930 statement in the Prison Notebooks that ‘[t]he crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’. This has traditionally been taken to refer to the emergence of fascism against a background of capitalist crisis and failure of anti-capitalist forces. However, a closer examination of the textual and hi…
On the 'Arab Inequality Puzzle
This rejoinder responds to the Comment by Vladimir Hlasny and Paolo Verme on my article that was recently published in this journal. The acrimonious tone of their Comment is regrettable, and its content reveals a worldview according to which issues such as income inequality and its causal relation to social contention are 'technical' in nature and reserved for debate only among 'apolitical' econometricians. Beyond that, Hlasny and Verme's Comment…
Hegemony, Domination, Corruption and Fraud in the Arab Region
Starting from a critique of the core thesis in Nazih Ayubi’s Over-stating the Arab State (1995) that Arab states are “feeble” because they lack “hegemony” in the Gramscian sense, this article postulates that rule based on coercion alone is not sustainable beyond exceptional periods. It shows how Arab regimes have been deploying the whole range of hegemonic tools, including buying consent (corruption) and artificially inflating it (fraud). Whereas…
Morbid Symptoms
Since the first wave of uprisings in 2011, the euphoria of the "Arab Spring" has given way to the gloom of backlash and a descent into mayhem and war. The revolution has been overwhelmed by clashes between rival counter-revolutionary forces: resilient old regimes on the one hand and Islamic fundamentalist contenders on the other. In this eagerly awaited book, foremost Arab world and international affairs specialist Gilbert Achcar analyzes the fac…
Révolutions et contre-révolutions, qu’en dit le politologue
En partant de son concept de « processus révolutionnaire de longue durée », le politologue franco-libanais Gilbert Achcar nous offre dans cet entretien une fine analyse de la structure, des conséquences et des antécédents des phénomènes révolutionnaires qui ont marqué le monde arabo-musulman depuis 2011. Grâce à son expertise en relations internationales et politique de développement, le chercheur met l’accent sur l’importance des tensions struct…
On the 'Arab Inequality Puzzle
This article surveys and discusses prominent protagonists of the debate on socio-economic inequality in the Arab region, with a special focus on the World Bank and Egypt. According to official data, the region holds remarkably low Gini coefficients in a context of declining inequality. This contradicts the popular perception of high social inequality as a major cause of regional protests since the Arab Spring; hence the reference to a 'puzzle' in…
Analyzing the Middle East
Marx’s historical materialism is a powerful antidote to culturalist essentialism of the kind that became known as Orientalism after Edward Said. The Marxian perspective allows for a full consideration of the role of Western imperialism in hindering the development of the Middle East as well as in the deliberate preservation of archaic sociopolitical features in the region. The concept of Bonapartism that Marx developed in his writings on the Fren…
Marxismes et islams
Seule la démarche matérialiste en histoire permet de réfuter radicalement les essentialismes, tel que « l’orientalisme » en dépit de la critique infondée de Marx par Edward Said. L’attitude politique de Marx et Engels envers la religion reste d’actualité. Cependant, la tradition marxiste est déficitaire dans le domaine de la sociologie de la religion. Il faut intégrer d’autres apports, dont le concept durkheimien d’anomie, pour comprendre la résu…
Gilbert Achcar on the Arab Upheaval—Facts and Fiction
Gilbert Achcar discusses with Nada Matta the crisis in the Middle East and North Africa and points out the responsibilities of all elite actors involved, both external and internal to the region. This interview was first published online by Jacobin on 17 December 2015. The Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies thanks Jacobin for allowing reproduction of the interview here
Clash of Barbarisms
"This inquiry into the probable shape of things to come is sober, uncompromising, deeply informed, and full of provocative insights and judicious analyses." Noam Chomsky "The most forceful, most rigorous text that there is to read on this war." Le Monde Diplomatique The volatile Middle East is the site of vast resources, profound passions, frequent crises, and long-standing conflicts, as well as a major source of international tensions and a key …
Marxism and the Muslim World
In the wake of the uprisings which rocked the Arab world, Maxime Rodinson’s work has taken on a new and powerful resonance. Dating from 1958, the time of his expulsion from the French Communist Party, to 1972, the assembled articles, papers and essays which form this book outline his vision of the role of Marxist politics in Muslim history and society. By applying a materialist approach to Islam, which encompassed its social and economic history …
The “Great Arab Revolt” of the Twenty-First Century
One question is immediately raised by any attempt to analyse the ongoing events in the Arab region, that of how to refer to them. The most satisfactory term is “revolutionary process”: it puts the emphasis on the potential of the uprising without making a definitive judgement on its results, by stressing that what was set in motion by the December 2010 demonstrations in Tunisia and gradually spread to the whole region is still far from over. The …
Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism
La « grande révolte arabe » du xxie siècle
Une question se pose d’emblée lorsque l’on tente d’analyser les événements en cours dans la région arabe, celle de la façon de les désigner. La formule la plus satisfaisante est « processus révolutionnaire » : elle permet de mettre l’accent sur le potentiel du soulèvement sans donner un jugement définitif sur ses résultats, en soulignant le fait que ce qui a été mis en branle par les manifestations de décembre 2010 en Tunisie et s’est progressive…
People Want
"The people want . . .": This first half of slogans chanted by millions of Arab protesters since 2011 revealed a long-repressed craving for democracy. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by the protestors’ demands. Simplistic interpretations of the uprising that has been shaking the Arab world since a young street vendor set himself on fire in Central Tunisia, on 17 December 2010, seek to portray it as purely political, or e…
Assessing Holocaust Denial in Western and Arab Contexts
The specificity of the type of Holocaust denial on the rise in Arab countries since the 1980s is explored in contradistinction to Western Holocaust denial. The latter, rooted in anti-Semitism, is a substitute for open hatred of the Jews in countries where this hatred has not been tolerated since World War II. Holocaust denial in Arab countries, on the other hand, finds its roots in Israel's exploitation of the Holocaust for political purposes. It…
L'intellectuel symbolique
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L'Orientalisme à rebours
À l'occasion d'une conférence en hommage à Edward Said, Gilbert Achcar livre, dans ce texte, une fine analyse de « l'orientalisme à rebours » - qui partage avec « l'orientalisme » une vision essentialiste du monde musulman, mais en inversant les signes de sorte que « l'islamisme » est érigé en facteur de la modernité. L'auteur montre comment ce discours a traversé un champ intellectuel le plus souvent dominé par des « experts » au service des gou…
Maxime Rodinson on Islamic "Fundamentalism"
U.S. Imperial Strategy in the Middle East
U.S. Middle Eastern strategy for the decade 1991–2000 had run up against its limits on both of its main fronts: the Israeli-Palestinian front, and the Arab-Persian Gulf.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Maxime Rodinson
Avec le décès de Maxime Rodinson, survenu le 23 mai 2004 à l'âge de 89 ans, disparaissait l'une des dernières grandes figures d'une lignée exceptionnelle d'islamologues occidentaux - celle des Régis Blachère, Claude Cahen et Jacques Berque, pour ne citer que des Français comme lui. Rodinson appartenait à cet ensemble d'auteurs aux approches pionnières, qui ont défriché le terrain d'études islamiques mises au diapason des autres sciences sociales,…
Le nouvel ordre impérial ou la mondialisation de l'Empire états-unien
It took the U.S. one century to extend their « manifest destiny » from North America to the whole world. In the aftermath of the Cold War, there still seemed to be a red line that the U.S. global empire could not tread easily, represented by the former boundaries of the ex-USSR. After September 11, this red line has been wiped out: U.S. military bases have been established in the heart of the former Soviet Union. The U.S., which acts as the enfor…
Sur le mouvement anti-guerre et ses perspectives
The Clash of Barbarisms
Every attempt to explain the descent into terrorism that culminated in the suicide attacks of September 11, 2001, as a consequence of the deplorable state of the world we live in has run up against a barrage of vicious polemical artillery. In a climate of intellectual intimidation bearing a certain resemblance to the dark hours of the Cold War, the intimidation relied on two deliberate amalgams.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review…
Morbid Symptoms
One of Gramsci’s most quoted phrases is his 1930 statement in the Prison Notebooks that ‘[t]he crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’. This has traditionally been taken to refer to the emergence of fascism against a background of capitalist crisis and failure of anti-capitalist forces. However, a closer examination of the textual and hi…
L'Orientalisme à rebours
À l'occasion d'une conférence en hommage à Edward Said, Gilbert Achcar livre, dans ce texte, une fine analyse de « l'orientalisme à rebours » - qui partage avec « l'orientalisme » une vision essentialiste du monde musulman, mais en inversant les signes de sorte que « l'islamisme » est érigé en facteur de la modernité. L'auteur montre comment ce discours a traversé un champ intellectuel le plus souvent dominé par des « experts » au service des gou…
The Clash of Barbarisms
Every attempt to explain the descent into terrorism that culminated in the suicide attacks of September 11, 2001, as a consequence of the deplorable state of the world we live in has run up against a barrage of vicious polemical artillery. In a climate of intellectual intimidation bearing a certain resemblance to the dark hours of the Cold War, the intimidation relied on two deliberate amalgams.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review…
Hegemony, Domination, Corruption and Fraud in the Arab Region
Starting from a critique of the core thesis in Nazih Ayubi’s Over-stating the Arab State (1995) that Arab states are “feeble” because they lack “hegemony” in the Gramscian sense, this article postulates that rule based on coercion alone is not sustainable beyond exceptional periods. It shows how Arab regimes have been deploying the whole range of hegemonic tools, including buying consent (corruption) and artificially inflating it (fraud). Whereas…
On the 'Arab Inequality Puzzle
This article surveys and discusses prominent protagonists of the debate on socio-economic inequality in the Arab region, with a special focus on the World Bank and Egypt. According to official data, the region holds remarkably low Gini coefficients in a context of declining inequality. This contradicts the popular perception of high social inequality as a major cause of regional protests since the Arab Spring; hence the reference to a 'puzzle' in…
U.S. Imperial Strategy in the Middle East
U.S. Middle Eastern strategy for the decade 1991–2000 had run up against its limits on both of its main fronts: the Israeli-Palestinian front, and the Arab-Persian Gulf.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Le sionisme et la paix
Gilbert Achcar, Zionism and the Peace : From the Allon Plan to the Washington Agreement In the light of the Zionist strategy outlined in the Allon Plan in 1967, a plan involving the colonization and partial annexation of the occupied territories of Palestine, the repressive mission given to the PLO by the Washington agreement seems to be more of a pact between leaders than a reconciliation between two peoples. Israel and the United States seem to…
Empire, impérial, impérialisme
Genèse du Léviathan impérial américain
L'A. etudie la specificite historique du developpement de la societe americaine, depuis la genese de l'Etat americain jusqu'a la politique imperialiste du XX e siecle. Le commentaire de Hegel sur l'Etat americain esquisse les elements essentiels d'une theorie de l'Etat que Marx et Engels developperont par la suite
The Strategic Triad
The official end of the Cold War, marked by the growing incapacity and then the collapse of the Soviet Union, inevitably meant a reduction of us military expenditure. This had long been regarded as essential from a strictly economic point of view: the extraordinary prodigality of the
"Is Nato's Onslaught a "Just War
Countless commentators have insisted that NATO's war against Yugoslavia has revived the medieval notion of the "just war." The notion of the "just war" has been adapted many times throughout history to differing sets of values and ideas. Since the eighteenth century, it has been used to justify independence wars as well as revolutionary wars, by currents ranging from liberalism to communism, through nationalism, or any mixture of those and other …
Libéralisme et néo-babouvisme aux sources du marxisme
Gilbert Achcar, Liberalism and the Legacy of Babeuf at the Sources of Marxism Haunted by their discovery of the primacy of the economic and social basis of society, while prioritising the standpoint of real equality over democracy, Marx and Engels let a deficit regarding the democratic political forms and institutions settle in their work. It is only in the latter part of their lives that they sought to make up for that deficit, due mainly to Mar…
Le « pessimisme historique » de Perry Anderson
utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement
D'un siècle américain à l'autre
The Clash of Barbarisms
Every attempt to explain the descent into terrorism that culminated in the suicide attacks of September 11, 2001, as a consequence of the deplorable state of the world we live in has run up against a barrage of vicious polemical artillery. In a climate of intellectual intimidation bearing a certain resemblance to the dark hours of the Cold War, the intimidation relied on two deliberate amalgams.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review…
Le nouvel ordre impérial ou la mondialisation de l'Empire états-unien
It took the U.S. one century to extend their « manifest destiny » from North America to the whole world. In the aftermath of the Cold War, there still seemed to be a red line that the U.S. global empire could not tread easily, represented by the former boundaries of the ex-USSR. After September 11, this red line has been wiped out: U.S. military bases have been established in the heart of the former Soviet Union. The U.S., which acts as the enfor…
Sur le mouvement anti-guerre et ses perspectives
Maxime Rodinson on Islamic "Fundamentalism"
U.S. Imperial Strategy in the Middle East
U.S. Middle Eastern strategy for the decade 1991–2000 had run up against its limits on both of its main fronts: the Israeli-Palestinian front, and the Arab-Persian Gulf.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Maxime Rodinson
Avec le décès de Maxime Rodinson, survenu le 23 mai 2004 à l'âge de 89 ans, disparaissait l'une des dernières grandes figures d'une lignée exceptionnelle d'islamologues occidentaux - celle des Régis Blachère, Claude Cahen et Jacques Berque, pour ne citer que des Français comme lui. Rodinson appartenait à cet ensemble d'auteurs aux approches pionnières, qui ont défriché le terrain d'études islamiques mises au diapason des autres sciences sociales,…
L'Orientalisme à rebours
À l'occasion d'une conférence en hommage à Edward Said, Gilbert Achcar livre, dans ce texte, une fine analyse de « l'orientalisme à rebours » - qui partage avec « l'orientalisme » une vision essentialiste du monde musulman, mais en inversant les signes de sorte que « l'islamisme » est érigé en facteur de la modernité. L'auteur montre comment ce discours a traversé un champ intellectuel le plus souvent dominé par des « experts » au service des gou…
L'intellectuel symbolique
est autorise que dans les limites des conditions gnrales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas chant, des conditions gnrales de la licence souscrite par votre tablissement
Assessing Holocaust Denial in Western and Arab Contexts
The specificity of the type of Holocaust denial on the rise in Arab countries since the 1980s is explored in contradistinction to Western Holocaust denial. The latter, rooted in anti-Semitism, is a substitute for open hatred of the Jews in countries where this hatred has not been tolerated since World War II. Holocaust denial in Arab countries, on the other hand, finds its roots in Israel's exploitation of the Holocaust for political purposes. It…
Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism
La « grande révolte arabe » du xxie siècle
Une question se pose d’emblée lorsque l’on tente d’analyser les événements en cours dans la région arabe, celle de la façon de les désigner. La formule la plus satisfaisante est « processus révolutionnaire » : elle permet de mettre l’accent sur le potentiel du soulèvement sans donner un jugement définitif sur ses résultats, en soulignant le fait que ce qui a été mis en branle par les manifestations de décembre 2010 en Tunisie et s’est progressive…
People Want
"The people want . . .": This first half of slogans chanted by millions of Arab protesters since 2011 revealed a long-repressed craving for democracy. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by the protestors’ demands. Simplistic interpretations of the uprising that has been shaking the Arab world since a young street vendor set himself on fire in Central Tunisia, on 17 December 2010, seek to portray it as purely political, or e…
Clash of Barbarisms
"This inquiry into the probable shape of things to come is sober, uncompromising, deeply informed, and full of provocative insights and judicious analyses." Noam Chomsky "The most forceful, most rigorous text that there is to read on this war." Le Monde Diplomatique The volatile Middle East is the site of vast resources, profound passions, frequent crises, and long-standing conflicts, as well as a major source of international tensions and a key …
Marxism and the Muslim World
In the wake of the uprisings which rocked the Arab world, Maxime Rodinson’s work has taken on a new and powerful resonance. Dating from 1958, the time of his expulsion from the French Communist Party, to 1972, the assembled articles, papers and essays which form this book outline his vision of the role of Marxist politics in Muslim history and society. By applying a materialist approach to Islam, which encompassed its social and economic history …
The “Great Arab Revolt” of the Twenty-First Century
One question is immediately raised by any attempt to analyse the ongoing events in the Arab region, that of how to refer to them. The most satisfactory term is “revolutionary process”: it puts the emphasis on the potential of the uprising without making a definitive judgement on its results, by stressing that what was set in motion by the December 2010 demonstrations in Tunisia and gradually spread to the whole region is still far from over. The …
Gilbert Achcar on the Arab Upheaval—Facts and Fiction
Gilbert Achcar discusses with Nada Matta the crisis in the Middle East and North Africa and points out the responsibilities of all elite actors involved, both external and internal to the region. This interview was first published online by Jacobin on 17 December 2015. The Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies thanks Jacobin for allowing reproduction of the interview here
Analyzing the Middle East
Marx’s historical materialism is a powerful antidote to culturalist essentialism of the kind that became known as Orientalism after Edward Said. The Marxian perspective allows for a full consideration of the role of Western imperialism in hindering the development of the Middle East as well as in the deliberate preservation of archaic sociopolitical features in the region. The concept of Bonapartism that Marx developed in his writings on the Fren…
Political science (22 works) · Law (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · History (13 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Art (10 works) · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender (10 works) · Political and Social Issues (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Humanities (8 works)