Understanding Shiite Leadership
The Art of the Middle Ground in Iran and Lebanon

This book presents Shiite leaderships as pragmatic entities with the potential to form fruitful relationships with the non-Shiite world.

Shaul Mishal (Author), Ori Goldberg (Author)

9781107632677, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2015

162 pages, 2 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.1 x 0.9 cm, 0.26 kg

'Mishal and Goldberg (2014) directly address questions of interest to students of international relations … Understanding Shiite Leadership is an effort to unpack the world of the Shiite leadership in the Middle East.' Vikas Kumar, Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs

In this book, Shaul Mishal and Ori Goldberg explore the ways in which Shiite leaderships in Iran and Lebanon approach themselves and their world. Contrary to the violent and radical image of religious leaderships in the Islamic Republic of Iran and Lebanese Hizballah, the political vision and practice of these leaderships view the world as a middle ground, shying away from absolutist and extremist tendencies. The political leadership assumed by Shiite religious scholars in Iran and Lebanon has transformed Shiite Islam from a marginalized minority to a highly politicized avant garde of Muslim presence, revitalized the practice and causes of political Islam in its struggle for legitimacy and authority, and reshaped the politics of the Middle East and the globe in its image. Utilizing approaches from social theory, history, theology, and literary criticism, the book presents these leaderships as pragmatic, interpretative entities with the potential to form fruitful relationships between Shiite leadership and the non-Shiite world.

Introduction
1. Leadership as interpretation
2. The quest for authority
3. Void and spaces
4. Khomeini's middle ground
5. Forming the middle ground: intra-Shiite issues
6. Seeking the middle ground: extra-Shiite issues
7. The struggle for the middle ground: the 2009 presidential elections
8. Middle ground as resistance: Lebanese Hizballah
9. HB and the temperate city
Epilogue: Shiite leadership and the emergence of the middle ground regime.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]