Regionalising development: UN expertise and the making of a pan-Arab welfare field, 1949–59

Abstract

In August 1949, the first Social Research Seminar for the Arab States convened in Beirut; five further seminars followed over the next decade. Drawing on Arabic-language seminar proceedings and UN archival records, this article recovers these largely overlooked gatherings to analyse how a distinct regional developmental field took shape in the post-war Arab East. UN institutional uncertainty in the late 1940s allowed the Arab League to capture this format, to authenticate global development through civilisational framing—most visibly in a lexical shift from emancipatory inʿāsh (reinvigoration) to custodial riʿāya (guardianship)—and to consolidate a self-sustaining professional field. The resulting regional arena mediated between global circulation and national implementation while proving durably compatible with the authoritarian welfare regimes emerging across the region.