A “Babushka Doll” comprises several layers of ever smaller dolls nestled within each other. It turns out that some Middle East countries have a similar configuration – but as opposed to the Babushka, in a national context it’s a real problem.

In the Middle East, a nation’s map will often show you only half the picture. Officially, a country has one national flag, one capital city, and one constitutional government; but in fact, inside that structure there’s another power center: an organization or political party that commands loyalty, controls resources, and sets its own rules with a high degree of autonomy that usually is an exclusive function of the state. They act like political mini-states – embedded in the system but largely insulated. These organizations distribute benefits to their supporters/adherents, enforce their own particularistic norms, and wield coercive power through legislation and other even more coercive means that the official state can’t easily overcome.

Three countries are contemporary examples of this phenomenon, albeit each taking a somewhat different form. Before getting into the details, here’s the quick survey. The most extreme are Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, constituting a political, economic, and ideological power center inside the presently weakened theocratic regime. Somewhat less comprehensively, Lebanon’s Hezbollah combines military power and parliamentary influence, while also providing social services to its Shiite followers – much more than a traditional political party but somewhat less than a formal state. And then there’s Israel where the ultra-Orthodox political sector doesn’t command an........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)