The State and the Arab State in Bishara’s Democratic Project: Political-Philosophical Approaches

Authors

  • Author

  • Mohammad Othman Mahmoud

Keywords:

State, Azmi Bishara, Democracy, Citizenship, John Rawls, Civil Society, Justice

Abstract

This study examines the question of the state in Azmi Bishara’s exploration of democracy through the lens of political-philosophical approaches to utopia, Rawlsian philosophy, citizenship, civil society, and justice, particularly in the Arab context. Where do Bishara’s theses on the state sit within his broader intellectual project? What is the relationship between the citizenship-based state, civil society, and justice? How does his approach compare with John Rawls’s political utopia? The study posits that Bishara focuses on developing a theory of the state and elaborating it conceptually, treating the state as a realistic political utopia. Bishara’s chief goal is to ascertain the conditions necessary for the establishment of democratic systems in the Arab region. For him, the question begins logically with the state – its origin and evolution – and ends with democracy and issues pertaining to it.

References

  1. English translations of both these works are forthcoming. These two volumes represent the culmination of Bishara’s intellectual project that began with the publication of al-Mujtama‘ al-Madanī: Dirāsa Naqdiyya [Civil Society: A Critical Study] (1996), Fī al-Masʾala al-ʿArabiyya: Muqaddima li-Bayān Dīmuqrāṭī ʿArabī [On The Arab Question: An Introduction to an Arab Democratic Manifesto] (2007), the three volumes of al-Dīn wa-l- ʿAlmāniyya fī Siyāq Tārīkhī [Religion and Secularism in Historical Context] (2013-2015), and al-Intiqāl al-Dīmuqrāṭī wa-Ishkāliyyātuh: Dirāsāt Naẓariyya wa-Taṭbīqiyya ‘Arabiyya [Problems of Democratization: A Comparative Theoretical and Applied Study] (2020). An English translation of the last title in this series has been published as: Azmi Bishara, Arduous Paths: On the Theory and Practice of Democratic Transition (London: Hurst, 2026). Bishara has also published seminal works on Israeli affairs and the Palestinian question, in both Arabic and English, as well as other works released by the ACRPS or in its conferences, seminars, and peer-reviewed journals. Bishara additionally founded several institutions in Palestine and spent years resisting Israeli policies before relocating to Doha, where he later retired from political activism and devoted himself to scholarly pursuits.
  2. Azmi Bishara, Maqāla fī al-Ḥurriyya (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2016), p. 188.
  3. Azmi Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla: Uṭrūḥāt fī al-Falsafa wa-l-Naẓariyya wa-l-Siyāqāt (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2023), p. 142. See also: Azmi Bishara, al-ʿAlmāniyya wa-l-ʿAlmana: al-Sayrūra al-Fikriyya , pt. 2, vol. 1, of al-Dīn wa-l-ʿAlmāniyya fī Siyāq Tārīkhī (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2015), pp.
  4. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 87.
  5. Azmi Bishara, Sectarianism Without Sects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021 [2018]).
  6. Souhail Hbaieb, al-ʿAlmāniyya min Sālib al-Dīn ilā Mūwjab al-Dawla: Rāhiniyyat Mashrūʿ Bishāra ʿArabiyyan (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2019).
  7. Mustapha Ait Kharouach, Naẓariyyat al-ʿAlmāniyya ʿind ʿAzmī Bīshāra: Naqd al-Sardiyyat al-Kubrā li-l-ʿAlmana wa-l-ʿAlmāniyya (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2019).
  8. Azmi Bishara, al-Dīn wa-l-Tadayyun , pt. 1 of al-Dīn wa-l-ʿAlmāniyya fī Siyāq Tārīkhī (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2013); Bishara, al-‘Almāniyya wa- l-ʿAlmana ; Azmi Bishara, al-ʿAlmāniyya wa-Naẓariyyat al-ʿAlmana , pt. 2, vol. 2 of al-Dīn wa-l-ʿAlmāniyya fī Siyāq Tārīkhī (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS,
  9. Souhail Hbaieb, “Mashrūʿ ʿAzmī Bishāra fī al-Taḥawwul al-Dīmuqrāṭī ʿArabiyyan: Dirāsa Muqārana fī Zaman al-Baḥth ʿan Shurūṭ al-Qābiliyya li- Taṭbīq al-Dīmuqrāṭiyya,” Tabayyun , vol. 2, no. 3 (Winter 2013).
  10. Youssef Ben Adi, “Naqd al-Mafāhīm fī al-Mashrūʿ al-Fikrī al-ʿArabī: ʿAzmī Bishāra Namūdhajan,” Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 20 June 2019, accessed on 12/3/2025, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zRgu
  11. Mohammed Hemchi, “Global South Studies on Civil Society: An Arab Contribution,” Al-Muntaqa , vol. 5, no. 1 (April/ May 2022), pp. 29-48.
  12. Bishara discusses the Ottoman Tanzimat and their role in the Arab-Islamic context in early secularization and the monopolization of lawmaking (and hence the transition to a state-nation and citizenship) in al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , observing that the early leaders of Arab states, who were products of the Tanzimat, were more receptive to pluralism than subsequent leaders who came of age under colonialism. See: Azmi Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya: Baḥth fī al-Manshaʾ wa-l-Masār (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2024), p. 98.
  13. Ibid., pp. 16-17.
  14. Ibid., pp. 101 ff.
  15. The method of wide reflective equilibrium, introduced by Rawls in his theory of justice, is most commonly used in contemporary normative prescriptive political theory. It creates balance and coherence between our principles, ideas, approaches, assumptions, and arguments by considering and reflecting on alternatives, thus ensuring these beliefs and ideas are carefully formulated and justifiable. See: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 18-19, 42-44, 104, 379, 381, 507-508; John Mikhail, “Rawls’ Concept of Reflective Equilibrium and Its Original Function in ‘A Theory of Justice’,” Washington University Jurisprudence Review , vol. 3, no. 1 (2010), pp. 23-28; Norman Daniels, “Wi de Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics,” The Journal of Philosophy , vol. 76, no. 5 (1979); Carl Knight, “Reflective Equilibrium,” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy , 27 November 2023, accessed on 10/4/2025, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zQrB
  16. Bishara’s theories on the state align with the distinction drawn by philosophical and normative political theory between political reality and the politically desirable. The methodology in normative political theory (also known as analytical political theory) can be both descriptive and prescriptive: prescriptive in that it indicates “what ought to be” and descriptive in that it points to the practical constraints of specific situations. This allows for a wide range of approaches to norms and their application within these practical limitations. See: Chandran Kukathas & Philip Pettit, Rawls: A Theory of Justice and Its Critics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. 1-2; Christian List & Laura Valentini, “The Methodology of Political Theory,” in: Herman Cappelen, Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 1; Laura Valentini, “Ideal vs. Non-ideal Theory: A Conceptual Map,” Philosophy Compass , vol. 7, no. 9 (2012), p. 654; Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves, “Normative Political Theory,” Teoria Polityki , no. 1 (2017), p. 179. See also Bishara’s nuanced distinction between political theory and political philosophy in: Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 61 ff.
  17. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 426.
  18. Ibid., p. 306. Weber defines the state from a functional, sociological perspective by its qualitatively distinct, though not its only instrument, which is its monopoly on legitimate or legal physical (or bodily) violence within territorial borders or a defined land (the sphere of sovereignty). See: Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills (trans.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 78.
  19. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 427.
  20. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA/London: Belknap Press, 2001), pp. 4-5, 13.
  21. Mohammed Othman Mahmoud, al-ʿAdāla al-Ijtimāʿiyya al-Dustūriyya fī al-Fikr al-Librālī al-Siyāsī al-Muʿāṣir (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2014), p.
  22. Karl Mannheim, al-Aydiyūlūjyā wa-l-Ūtūbyā: Muqaddima fī Susyulūjyā al-Maʿrifa , Mohammed Raja al-Dirini (trans.) (Kuwait: al-Maktabat al- Kuwaytiya, 1980), pp. 160-163, 257.
  23. For more on Bishara’s discussion of Rawls’ utopia in international relations, see: Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , pp. 303-304; for a discussion of the violation of state sovereignty and international law, Western double standards, and international relations, particularly the tendency of states to rely on their own coercive power rather than legitimacy, laws, or international humanitarian principles – which Bishara describes as “a terrible tragedy” – see: Masʾalat al-Dawla , pp. 285 ff, 296; for more on utopian relations between societies and on societies with a “decent consultation hierarchy”, see: John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1999). In developing his “law of peoples”, Rawls draws on Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace”, which discussed the notion of an alliance of peoples or nations. As a universal, contractualist utopia, the closest we have come is the United Nations, which has failed to secure world peace between and within nations. The world is thus moving away from the aspirations of Kant (and Rawls and others) for a utopian law of peoples. See: Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay , M. Campbell Smith (trans.) (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1917), pp. 129-142. See also: Mahmoud, pp. 105-106.
  24. For more on Palestine, see two important works by Bishara: Azmi Bishara, Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (London: Hurst, 2022) and Azmi Bishara, al-Ṭūfān: al-Ḥarb ʿalā Filasṭīn fī Ghazza (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2024).
  25. The same is true of the philosophy that underpins the ideology of the welfare state model, albeit to a lesser extent. Neoliberal ideology is a revival of radical capitalist liberal approaches in its utilitarianism and the limits it places on state intervention to achieve the common good. Liberal liberty is based on the principle of non-intervention by the state, or negative liberty in the sense argued by Isaiah Berlin, borrowing from Friedrich Hegel, particularly in economic activity and the market. It takes Adam Smith’s invisible hand as an alternative to the state’s hand (it has been mockingly called “the state of the night watchman and the traffic cop”). In this context, Nozick, in Anarchy, State and Utopia , distinguishes the state from utopia, which he sees Rawlsianism as representing, especially in its original form, as a hypothetical form in the first instance in social contract theories. The state, in this sense, is a middle ground between the realistic misery of anarchy and the contemplative bliss of utopia. See: Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 282-292; Robert Nozick, Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 77, 250, 289, 391, 399; Robert Nozick, The Nature of Rationality (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1993), pp. 68, 192, 194. See also: John Kenneth Galbraith, Tārīkh al-Fikr al-Iqtiṣādī: al-Māḍī Ṣūrat al-Ḥāḍir , Ahmed Fouad Balbaa (trans.) (Kuwait: National Council for Culture, Arts, and Humanities, 2000), p. 76; Isaiah Berlin, Arbaʿ Maqālāt fī al-Ḥurriyya , Abd al-Karim Mahfud (trans.) (Damascus: Ministry of Culture, 1980), pp. 60-61, 276-277, 285; Mahmoud, pp. 57-64; Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2005), pp. 19, 364, 579-590.
  26. For more details, see Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , pp. 33 ff.
  27. Ibid., p. 9; Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 18.
  28. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , pp. 83, 215. On the welfare state in this sense, see: Mahmoud, pp. 67 ff.
  29. Sectarianism is one cultural, communal tendency seen in the context of the state, citizenship, and the public sphere – a topic that has been amply covered by Bishara in Sectarianism Without Sects. Multiculturalism refers to a state model that considers cultural, communal demands, and the challenges of communal disputes. Kymlicka argues that political justice should be based on cultural-communal membership and related rights “beyond the common rights of citizenship”. See: Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 206, n. 1.
  30. This is what is known as difference-blind liberalism, particularly when it comes to cultural differences. In this context, Taylor argues, “Liberalism is not a possible meeting ground for all cultures, but is the political expression of one range of cultures, and quite incompatible with other ranges. … All this is to say that liberalism can’t and shouldn’t claim complete cultural neutrality. Liberalism is also a fighting creed”. Looking at it from the opposite perspective, Taylor continues, “For mainstream Islam, there is no question of separating politics and religion the way we have come to expect in Western liberal society. … Moreover, as many Muslims are well aware, Western liberalism is not so much an expression of the secular, postreligious outlook that happens to be popular among liberal intellectuals as a more organic outgrowth of Christianity – at least as seen from the alternative vantage point of Islam”. See: Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in: Charles Taylor et al., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 62.
  31. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , pp. 52, 54, 99, 244, 271-272, 298.
  32. For more detail, see: Ibid., pp. 163 - 181.
  33. Bishara, Maqāla fī al-Ḥurriyya , p. 186.
  34. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 19. For more details, see: Azmi Bishara, al-Intiqāl al-Dīmuqrāṭī wa-Ishkāliyyātuh: Dirāsa Naẓariyya wa- Taṭbīqiyya ʿArabiyya (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2020), pp. 325 ff.
  35. Islamist discourse remains more prevalent and influential than Arab nationalist discourse among non-elites in Arab states.
  36. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 22.
  37. We should not overlook the difference between the Islamist and Arab nationalist utopias. Ethnocultural identity has been an entry point for the evolution of the state-nation in numerous modern cases and can represent a deep-seated cultural identity within the framework of the state and its nation.
  38. Particularly prophetic hadith. One well-known hadith details the progression of the Muslim umma as ruled first by the Prophet, then the caliphate following the path of the Prophet, then a stinging dominion, then a tyrannical dominion, then, again, a caliphate following the path of the Prophet. See: Ahmed Ibn Hanbal, al-Musnad , vol. 30 (Beirut: al-Risala Foundation, 1999), p. 355.
  39. A formula consistent with the logic of the modern democratic state would be the acceptance of Islamic jurisprudence (and Islamic law more generally) as a source (perhaps even a primary source) of legislation, which is the exclusive domain of the state, represented by elected and appointed legislators. At a minimum, Islamic law would govern personal status matters, and the same applies to the religious laws of other faith communities. In most cases in the developed world, the lawmaking monopolized by modern states is not divorced from the culture of their societies, including their religions, customs, and heritage.
  40. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 181.
  41. Mannheim, pp. 248, 257. On the question of legitimacy, utopia, and ideology, see: Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia , George H. Taylor (ed.) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 258.
  42. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 426.
  43. Mahmoud, p. 156.
  44. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 11.
  45. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 178.
  46. Azmi Bishara, “Nawʿān min al-Muwāṭana: Kalimat al-Duktūr ʿAzmī Bishāra bi-Munāsabat Manḥihi Jāʾizat Ibn Rushd li-l-Fikr al-Ḥurr,” Ibn Rushd Fund, 14 December 2002, accessed on 12/3/2025, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zQHc
  47. Azmi Bishara, Fī al-Masʾala al-ʿArabiyya: Muqaddima li-Bayān Dīmuqrāṭī ʿArabī (Beirut: Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 2007), pp. 190-191.
  48. Bishara discusses the case of Iraq in depth, particularly in connection with sectarianism, in Sectarianism Without Sects , pp. 575-789.
  49. See: Bishara, “Nawʿān min al-Muwāṭana.” Bishara exposes the realities of the state, citizenship, and democracy in the Israeli context, saying: “The fundamental challenge facing democratic forces in a non-democratic state is the practice of citizenship, habituating individuals to act like citizens, and habituating various political forces to the concept of equal citizenship and equality before the law. You know that I belong to a people deprived of citizenship because they live under occupation and are denied the right to self-determination and sovereignty. We cannot speak of citizenship under occupation and absent full sovereignty. As I have already said, citizenship is the flipside of sovereignty. I am also a citizen of a state in which religious or national affiliation constitutes the basis of the individual’s relationship with the state. I am a citizen of a state that does not belong to its citizens.” For further discussion, see: Azmi Bishara, Min Yahūdiyyat al-Dawla ḥattā Shārūn: Dirāsa fī Tanāqudāt al-Dīmuqrāṭiyya al-Isrāʾīliyya , 2nd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Shorouk, 2004). In Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 413, n. 41, Bishara describes Israel as an apartheid, settler colonial state. On democratic culture, see: Azmi Bishara, “al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya: Mulāḥaẓāt ʿĀmma,” Tabayyun , vol. 12, no. 45 (Summer 2023), pp. 23-29. See also: Bishara, al-Intiqāl al- Dīmuqrāṭī , pp. 407 ff.
  50. Bishara, “Nawʿān min al-Muwāṭana.”
  51. Bishara, Fī al-Masʾala al-ʿArabiyya , pp. 149-150. The most prominent theorist of consociational democracy is Arend Lijphart, who elaborated on the concept in multiple works. See: Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). The consociational model as promoted and applied in Iraq and Lebanon has come in for severe criticism by Bishara, who has detailed both its theoretical and practical problems. See: Bishara, Sectarianism Without Sects , pp. 221-247.
  52. Azmi Bishara, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Madanī: Dirāsa Naqdiyya , 6th ed. (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2012), p. 49.
  53. Ibid., pp. 243-295.
  54. Bishara, Fī al-Masʾala al-ʿArabiyya , p. 150.
  55. See: Azmi Bishara, “Mudākhala bi-Shaʾn al-ʿAdāla: Suʾāl fī al-Siyāq al-ʿArabī,” Tabayyun , vol. 1, nos. 1-2 (Summer 2013).
  56. Bishara, Maqāla fī al-Ḥurriyya , p. 150.
  57. So-called property-based democracy, or what I have taken to calling, though without enthusiasm, “a legally limited democracy of property”, is an important theoretical model recently developed in the context of Rawlsianism and liberal social democracy in general; it may also have something of a socialist bent. For more details, see: Mahmoud, pp. 259-278; Murad Diyani, Ḥurriyya, Musāwā, Karāma Insāniyya: Ṭūbāwiyyāt al-ʿAdāla min Manẓūr al-Namūdhaj al-Librālī al-Iskandanāvī (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2016), pp. 257-315.
  58. Amartya Sen’s approaches can best be grasped in: Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (New York: Belknap Press, 2009) and Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1999).
  59. Bishara, Maqāla fī al-Ḥurriyya , p. 187
  60. Bishara, “Mudākhala bi-Shaʾn al-ʿAdāla,” p. 11.
  61. The majority of Western states can be most aptly described as exhibiting “Kantian behavior internally and Machiavellian behavior externally”. See: Tarek Mitri et al., “Munāqashat Kitāb ʿAzmī Bishāra Masʾalat al-Dawla ,” Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Discussion series, January 2024, p. 8. I would say “internally Kantian in form” since they have failed to achieve a reasonable degree of equality, and particularly of empowerment. This description can be broadly generalized to their dealings with other states, societies, and individuals, as manifested blatantly and shamelessly in Gaza since the al-Aqsa Deluge, and for decades before that in Palestine and elsewhere.
  62. Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 164.
  63. For more detail, see: Mahmoud, pp. 182 ff.
  64. Bishara, “al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya,” pp. 16-17. For Hegel, the state “instantiates public ethics in an institution capable of representing and applying them”. See: Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , pp. 186-187, 195.
  65. Bishara, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Madanī , p. 173.
  66. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , pp. 17-18.
  67. Azmi Bishara, Sūriyya: Darb al-Ālām nahw al-Ḥurriyya (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2013), p. 31; published in English as: Azmi Bishara, Syria 2011– 2013: Revolution and Tyranny before the Mayhem (London: I.B. Tauris, 2023).
  68. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , pp. 357-358.
  69. Ibid., pp. 23, 357-358; Bishara, Masʾalat al-Dawla , p. 333.
  70. For more on the SDF elections, see: Alaa Rajab Tabab, “Intikhābāt ‘Qasd’: Tafāwuḍ ‘alā Istiḥyāʾ wa-Ilghāʾ bi-Nakhat al-Taʾjīl,” Al Jazeera, 8 June 2024, accessed on 12/3/2025, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zRc6%D8%9B; “al-ʿAqd al-Ijtimāʿi li-l-Idāra al-Dhātiyya li-Shamāl wa-Sharq Sūriyya, Ṭabʿat 2023,” Rojava Information Centre, accessed on 23/3/2025, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zQLb
  71. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , pp. 126, 435-436, 439-440.
  72. Bishara, Maqāla fī al-Ḥurriyya , p. 189.
  73. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 115.
  74. Ibid., pp. 451-452.
  75. Bishara, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Madanī , p. 19.
  76. Bishara, al-Dawla al-ʿArabiyya , p. 449
  77. Ibid., pp. 455-456.
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