4 - Secularist Leaders in the Levant

Summary

The fourth chapter gives a succinct historical description of the secular nationalist ideologies in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel and compares the secular political movements in these countries as they have different regime types and political cultures. The chapter also provides brief biographical accounts of the three top executive leaders from each country: Bashar al-Assad, Saad al-Hariri, and Benjamin Netanyahu. The authors also present and compare the operational code results of the leaders and deliberate on what kind of generic foreign policy behavior and strategies we should expect from secular nationalist leaders. The chapter also sheds light on what these results and strategies mean for MENA politics and for the international relations discipline.