This special issue, comprising nine research articles and one review article, focuses on ‘Political Changes in the Middle East’. The Middle East today is in a storm of political destabilization, which was triggered by the Arab Spring in late 2010. Regardless of its consequences, such as peaceful democratisation and bloody civil war, the Arab Spring has caused structural changes for both states and society in their domestic politics, which is seemingly leading to a blurring of the lines between regional and international politics. For example, the collapse of the Mubarak regime in Egypt brought about a realignment in inter-state relations between Egypt and other Arab states, as well as with the US. Thus, Middle Eastern politics and international politics are interconnected, as L. Carl Brown rightly argued thirty years ago.
Nevertheless, social science seems to have failed for decades to effectively analyse the interconnections between the political dynamics of the Middle East and international politics. This is mainly because of ‘Middle Eastern exceptionalism’, which is deeply rooted in various research fields of social science. It claims that the region is culturally, socially, and historically so unique that it is hard to be studied or understood through general theories of social science, particularly comparative politics and IR; it is, thus, in turn,difficult to contribute to furthering the theoretical development of disciplinary social science, as well as Middle Eastern area studies. Some experts point out that this exceptionalism is due to an intellectual divide between two scholarly approaches—area studies and disciplinary social science. In addition, both approaches, though in a different manner, have a tendency to regard the region as if it is an exclusive ‘miniature garden’ that is insulated from the remainder of the world. As a result, two different approaches have developed separately, one focused within the region, the other, outside the region.
In search for a new analytical perspective to bridge such a methodological gap, this special issue attempts to set up two working premises. First, while the Middle East possesses common properties and unifying themes, which ontologically generate its ‘regionness’, and thus can be considered independent and autonomous, it does not exist in a static and uniform way, but has a variable, fluid, and multi-layered presence. Second, the concept of ‘political change’ can be an analytical key to connect various levels of dynamics between domestic, regional, and international politics, as well as to overcome the intellectual divide between area studies and disciplinary social science. In this issue, ‘political change’ is loosely defined as the fluctuation or collapse of long-lasting power equilibrium, such as through democratisation, revolution, civil war, inter-state war, and economic crises.
The nine contributions, briefly summarised at the end of this introduction, are all different from one another in terms of their research field, methodology, and case studies. Yet it is clear that all the papers in this issue share a common thesis concerning the above-mentioned problems of ‘Middle Eastern exceptionalism’ and the intellectual drive to tackle it. They also seek to take steps towards developing studies on Middle Eastern politics and international politics by focusing on ‘political changes’ in each case.

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In the exhibition gallery of Sydney Jewish Museum, the images of two Japanese ‘Righteous’ hang next to each other: one is Chiune Sugihara (1900-86) now famous the world over, and the other is Mitsugi Shibata (1910-77) who, in contrast, has remained entirely obscure even to the Japanese public. Much of the literature produced to date on Jewish residents in wartime Shanghai, however, has celebrated Shibata for saving over 20,000 Shanghai Jews from an egregious extermination plan, ostensibly elaborated by S. S. Colonel Josef Meisinger.
Far from refuting the humanitarian aspects of Shibata's actions, this article attempts to reconstruct the events in which he was involved in a different way to that of existing works, notably The Fugu Plan (1979) by Marvin Tokayer and Mary Shwartz.
Using testimony left by Shibata's widow as well as some diplomatic archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the present account will provide a unique insight, from within Japan, into the reality of the ambiguous ‘Shibata Affair’, which took place during the summer of 1942 in Shanghai.

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This special issue is devoted to the study of not only political changes in the Middle East but also to the implications of these changes in regard to the global international system of the 1970s. We can observe that through the 1970s, there developed a growing interdependence between the Middle East, the global system as a whole and other regional systems. This interdependence has had far-reaching effects on other regions. In retrospect, the Third Arab-Israeli War of 1967 caused the following political changes in the Middle East in the 1970s:
(1) The change of power in the Arab World
As a result of the War, the power balance of the Arab World changed radically in favour of the conservative and oil producing regimes which came to aid the defeated hardliners. Nasser's Pan-Arabism disappeared from the Arad political scene. Each Arab state chose her foreign policy based on her geopolitical position and the national interest. This has split the Arab World and led to multipolarization.
(2) The re-emergence of the Palestinian liberation movement
In the aftermath of the Six Day War, the Palestinians started their armed struggle against the Israeli forces. The PLO was reborn with Arafat as its chairman. The Palestine question has come to international recognition as a fundamental element in the Middle East conflict.
(3) The politicization of oil
The oil producing states enhanced their position vis-à-vis the international oil companies and the consuming states in the 1970s. Arab states exploited their oil resources as a political weapon for settling the Arab-Israeli conflict in favour of their cause in 1973.
(4) The activation of Islam as a political force
In August 1969 arson caused damage to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's holy place in Jerusalem under Israeli occupation. This matter was taken up in the first Islamic Summit the following month. Furthermore, the psychological impact upon the Muslims caused by Israeli liberation of Jerusalem and the socio-cultural impact resulting from the rapid modernization of the oil producing states have made domestic politics more fluid, to the extent that a crisis of identity has occurred.
(5) Israel as a regional power
Israel's survival is no more in jeopardy. With security unchallenged and nationalistic sentiments heightened, Israel has been more concerned about the internal developments of neighbouring Arab states. This can be seen, for example, by Israel's strong reaction to Jordan's crisis of 1970, Lebanon's civil war after 1975, and the arms build-up of Arab neighbours.
In the global international system, both the United States and the Soviet Union, which began putting the Middle East under their control after World War II, are steadily on the decline. In the late 1960s, when both powers reached an impasse in their military-economic positions, the global international system was transformed in the direction of multipolarization as a consequence of the loosening of ties in their own camps. The above-mentioned phenomena of the Middle East from 1967 onwards, created a major impact in the global system.
The October War of 1973 is an example. During the War the Arab oil producing countries imposed the “oil weapon” on the industrial countries urging pro-Arab policy statements. This accelerated the multipolarization of the global system. The Western countries, which depended increasingly on Arab oil, differed sharply on how to formulate policies on such issues as oil and Palestine in the face of Arab blackmail. The United States could no longer dictate to the EC and Japan concerning Middle East issues. Moreover, in the early 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union respectively lost military prestige in Iran and Afghanistan. In Iran angry Iranians took the American Embassy staff hostage. But the United States could do nothing for more than a year with the exception of one attempted rescue operation.

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