From your readings on the state and authoritarianism in the Middle East, what strikes you as unique or interesting about the types of regimes found in the region? In what ways do you think they differ from one another, and/or why do you think they persist, when much of the world has moved from authoritarianism to democracy or hybrid regimes?
10 thoughts on “Week 4”
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Processing the literature for this week and considering the questions asked for this blog post was an interesting exercise given the current period of transition in many countries of the region (and the consequent need for academic revision). It makes me wish that I knew a lot more about the histories and political realities of countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria and better understood the events leading up to the recent civil unrest so that I could more intelligently apply the lenses of the regime theories proffered. Or, better yet, that I could sit in a room with Eva Bellin and discuss the ramifications of the Arab Spring on authoritarianism in the region.
That being said, regime type in the Middle East and North Africa featured many striking characteristics. Most notably in my mind was the centrality of oil. In Intro to Comparative Politics, we learned a bit about political economy and development, discussed resource wealth, and knew enough to recognize the critical role these factors play in political study. However, in the Middle East and North Africa, oil is elevated to a unique level of importance. The fact that academic discourse on the region has developed language to distinguish between Middle Eastern regimes with oil and those without—rather than simply relying on more general indicators like relative wealth, GDP, income, or number of resources—is telling.
For states that have it, oil has worked to preserve authoritarian regimes because it has solved the region’s revenue problems. Rather than having to work hard to extract resources from its subjects, oil states have developed state-run oil industry and rentier economies that deposit foreign investments directly into the bank accounts of the government. Having full coffers does a few things for these monarchies, such as allowing them to create effective and institutionalized (often patrimonial) systems of wealth distribution. Because these states are able to provide goods and services for their citizens, and frequently in exchange for regime support, the oil monarchies of the Middle East find themselves with large bases of content and loyal constituents. Meanwhile, non-oil regimes have had to centralize and maintain power in much more “typical” ways. Obviously, there are more factors at play in Middle Eastern authoritarianism than simply the presence of oil, but it remains a distinctive axis in regime development.
Many of the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are products or the cascading results of Western European colonialism and interference. Regimes like the Hashemite Family in Jordan have been in power since WWI and the mandate system established by the Treaty of Sevres. Political unrest and sectarianism in Iraq caused partially by the British choice to form the country from the Ottoman Empire regions of Mosul, Basra, and Baghdad resulted in regimes that sought authoritarian powers in an attempt to preserve their seat of power amidst political and social turmoil.
Authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have persisted for a number of reasons. Many regimes hesitate to move to democracy because sectarianism or religious extremism has created volatile and sometimes hostile political environments that they believe are better handled under one authoritarian power. Another reason for their persistence is the use of religion to legitimize the regime, seen particularly in the Wahhabi-based authoritarian regime of Saudi Arabia.
An important reason for the persistence of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that I took from Shibley Telhami’s lecture at the Clifford Symposium is the very recent multi-nationalization of television and the news (Al-Jazeera, satellite TV) in the Middle East, which has allowed citizens of Middle Eastern nations to see more of the world around them than the censored national television they watched up until recently allowed them to see. Not having exposure to political systems and ways of life in other countries has kept many citizens of authoritarian regimes from trying to change their own governments. Professor Telhami cited this multi-nationalization of the news and the information revolution as primary factors contributing to the Arab Spring this year. So while many authoritarian regimes have managed to stay in power very persistently in many Middle Eastern states, the events of this spring mean that those regimes will need to start listening more closely to their public, and won’t be able to ignore public sentiment completely any longer.
I think that the title of Bellin’s article sums up the uniqueness of authoritarianism in the Middle East well: “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East.” It is quite amazing that there is only one fairly liberal democracy in the entire region (Israel), and even then the there are legitimate concerns regarding human rights and occupation.
Although the reading hints at it, in my opinion, the main difference in authoritarian states in the Middle East is the extent to which the state has control over not only people’s lives but their psyche. From personal experience, I have noticed a huge mentality difference in various Middle Eastern countries. Wedeen does a great job of capturing the depth of the Assad family narrative in Syria, but that is not quite the same in other countries. For example, in Egypt and Yemen the leaders have tried to utilize the same types of symbolism to their advantage, but they have not been as successful. That points to the underlying reasons why authoritarianism takes deep roots. In the gulf, the cause seems to be the rise of the petro-state, but in other countries like Iraq and Syria, the state was able to exploit preexisting circumstances, like sectarianism, as a reason to take control. Other justifications that states use to dominate public and private life include, the threat of extremism, religious justification or security concerns.
It will be difficult to move away from strict state control (authoritarianism) unless some of these underlying conditions are addressed, circumvented or discredited as reasonable reasons for authoritarianism.
The persistence of Middle East authoritarianism may be due to both endogenous and exogenous factors. I find the political and administrative structure of the Middle Eastern countries as one of the most interesting endogenous factors. As Lisa Anderson observes, this is heavily influenced by the political culture of the region – “the prevalence of personal ties and patronage as both a vehicle of recruitment and a mode of internal operation.” Historically, kinship, lineages and tribal relationships have been the core of the social and political structure. In the case of Saudi Arabia, as Michael Herb shows, the regime is absorbed into a very tight family web that administration can be attained “all in the family.” Such unique political and administrative structure of the region could easily foster authoritarianism.
On the other hand, I view the impact of oil as one of the most interesting exogenous factors. Michael Ross’ thesis “Does Oil Hinder Democracy” presents that the “rentier states” obtain a unique way to resist democracy due to the presence of oil. Specifically, the rentier effect consists of at least three different aspects: “taxation effect” “spending effect” and “group formation effect.” With large amount of revenue coming from oil resources, it is plausible that the government would tax less and be less responsible for public life; the government would spend more on strengthening the authoritarian regime; and the government would also spend more money on discouraging the civil societies that are potentially threatening to the regime. Overall, oil as an exogenous factor reinforces the persistence of authoritarianism in the region.
Cammett’s article on “The Political Economy of Development in the Middle East” highlights the divergent economic structures and levels of development in the Middle East. Cammett concludes that there are two factors that contribute to the economic and institutional structure of MENA states, namely, (a) oil wealth and (b) domestic market size. Several of the other authors for in this weeks’ readings have latched onto variable (a), exploring the link between oil wealth and regime type.
Indeed, Michael Ross suggests that, “governments that fund themselves through oil revenues and have larger budgets are more likely to be authoritarian”. I find this hypothesis very compelling, primarily because it is supported by empiric evidence: according to Bellin only 2 out of 21 countries in the MENA region qualify as electoral democracies, and secondarily, because the Arab Spring provides a strong alternate argument.
Ross substantiates his claim that “governments that fund themselves through oil revenues are more likely to be authoritarian”, by asserting that governments use their oil revenues to relieve social pressures that might otherwise lead to demands for greater accountability. However, the recent popular uprisings of the Arab Spring suggest that money is no longer the only thing that ‘speaks’. The social media revolution has enabled a whole new medium for popular mobilization, allowing individuals to pursue ‘group formation’ and strengthen the bond of civil society through channels operating outside of the State. If social media continues to enable the spread of mass ideologies and facilitate collective action, the authoritarian regimes that have historically held power in the Middle East may not be able to maintain the ‘strength and coherence’ that Skocpol deems necessary for sovereignty. It will be interesting to see new mechanisms of popular mobilization continue to challenge state capacity in a region that has historically defined the concept of security, coercion and patrimonialism.
As numerous articles have acknowledged no single, dominant factor can be identified as responsible for the political and economic condition of the Middle East today. However, certain commonalities do stand out. For me, the most striking causal factors that have contributed to the persistence of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are oil and weak civil society. Oil and its “rentier effect” set the Middle East apart as a region from many other developing regions of the world. Obviously, many other countries have a great abundance of oil and simultaneously manage to function as democracies, but as Ross illustrates in his article, oil plays a significant role in inhibiting democracy. Oil widens the gap between government and citizens in multiple ways: governments have less need to collect revenue, rich governments are able to placate citizens with lots of social services, and oil employs fewer people than other industries such as agriculture.
In the aftermath of the revolutions of the Arab Spring, I think it has become clear that what these movements lack is a strong civil society to manage the creation of a new government in the aftermath of the old. Though the citizens of these long oppressed communities were able to unite against a common enemy—a specific leader or regime—they lack the civil and political institutions required to establish a new system. Perhaps this same deficit of civil society is what has kept many of these states under authoritarian systems for so long. Low social capital, weak civil institutions, low levels of association and high illiteracy result in an inability to organize in opposition to the regime. Obviously, a weak civil society is a result of many factors as well, however, the somewhat arbitrary determination of national boundaries by the French and British plays an extremely large role. Since many countries in the Middle East are home to communities who do not share a common history, language or culture, there is little common ground upon which people can relate.
In sum, authoritarianism has been able to flourish in much of the Middle East due to two separate types of disconnect: the disconnect between government and citizen and the disconnect between citizen and other citizens.
Having identified these commonalities, I want to acknowledge a question that Cammett poses in her article: Is the Middle East even a coherent region? Though she presents many arguments in the affirmative (Ottoman empire, mandate system under British and French etc…), her question highlights an important point. An attempt to determine why strong authoritarian regimes have emerged in many of the countries of the Middle East, must really be answered by looking at each country individually and analyzing its unique situation.
ellin presented an interesting argument in her piece. On the one hand, we see that the limits of Middle East lie in its lacks of prerequisites of democratization. The Middle East (historically) has been characterized with weak civil society, low education rates and a struggling economy. However what makes this interesting is that these conditions are not solely present in the Middle East. Regions in Sub Saharan Africa (such as Kenya) could also be characterized by these factors and we have seen many attempts at democratization in other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bellin emphasizes that it is not outstanding the condition in which we find the Middle East rather the fact that there have been limited attempts (historically) at democratization. With the political situations in the Middle East currently, the readings really made me re-think about what these revolutions we are witnessing mean. As Bellin highlights, authoritarianism in the Middle East has had an uncanny ability to remain in power.
This retention of authoritarianism seems to be mainly because of their coercive apparatus, the military, have discouraged/ousted attempts at reformation. Although these countries typically do not have high GNP, they are able to support their military with the use of oil money and international aid. With such high rates of people in the military who are consistently paid, there is a lower chance of revolt. The US and Soviets used the Middle East as a betting ground during the Cold War, each offering money to countries who would aid their cause. Unlike most Cold War proxy zones, the Middle East continued to receive international aid after the Cold War ended.
In fact, we continue to see the US providing aid to many authoritarian countries to ensure oil supply but also to help fight against extremism in the area. With this in mind, it seems that this is a huge factor in why we see authoritarianism persist in the Middle East to an extent (I will admit, I am not entirely steadfast in my logic here but I thought I would throw it out there.) Often, when we see democratization, there is a target event that initiates reform (whether that is encouragement from the international community, or the success of other revolts in similar areas), civil society is then a driving force towards democratization. However, while civil society is often a necessary it is not a sufficient factor and often consolidation is not possible without help in some form. Thus, if there is international interest in keeping a leader (authoritarian or not) in power, than the likelihood of receiving foreign aid during the democratization process decreases. This could be another factor that has lead to authoritarian regimes persisting in the Middle East.
I think that Lisa Anderson perfectly explains the differences, and the reasons behind those differences, in the opening paragraphs of her essay “The State in the Middle East and North Africa.” She cites “tribalism, sectarianism, regionalism, primordial sentiments, and ascriptive identities” as the reasons for the conflicts that persist throughout the region. These different ways of dividing people, and of self-identifying, can all be very powerful tools, and we have seen throughout history that trying to divide people along other lines is a challenge at which we have rarely succeeded. I think the diversity of the regimes that are found in the region today are leftover from a time of intense colonialism, mixed with the current oil wealth in many nations, mixed with the factors that Anderson mentions.
The regimes across the region have all of these different factors in common; but other than being comprised of such challenging components, they have little on common in terms of their actual structures. In her essay, Eva Bellin discusses some more of the reasons for which authoritarianism is so strong in the Middle East and North Africa. I think that the most important point that she makes can be found in her conclusion, where she asserts that the strength of the regimes comes not from the lack of democratic ideals, but rather from circumstances that are totally out of the control of the government such as the natural resources. I think the strength can also be tied to the general lack of unity within a state. There might be unity across a nation of people, but that nation is most likely divided into different states, which then requires a strong hand of control to keep some kind of relative peace.
From the readings, it seems like the countries that retained the authoritarian power for as long as they did (current events are showing that they are on the decline), did so through deceit. The “repression effect” as Ross describes it means that the wealth of the monarch or person in charge (from nationalized oil or personal wealth) only keeps the people from prosperity. It is interesting, and makes sense that someone who wants to maintain a certain type of authority would do whatever it takes to keep it, but is a very unfortunate reality that money in the hands of authoritarians stays there. They want the power to spread their own ideals and to keep out evil ones like western democracy. The horror. There is an inkling of “democracy” within these families as there is some system in place to choose the next leader from the plethora of sons, however it is set up to keep an independent minded son from gaining the thrown. The authoritarians inbreed or hand select their successors, meaning that the oil wealth and consistent ideals remain at the top.
These types of governments have persisted because historically, they have been good at keeping their subjects/peoples in the dark and dependant on whatever kind of stability the regimes create (although that stability does not mean the standard of living that the populace deserves). Even though the people might not be happy with their government, it has taken so long from them to stand up to it because it is a really hard thing to do and there is a risk that the uprising will make it worse than before. What we are seeing in the region now is the modernization effect overtaking the repression effect in that education and motivation from the people themselves is overtaking the rulers and giving way to democracy. This education is coming in a large part from the west through the internet and the opportunity to self-educate. This grassroots fight to take down authoritarianism will hopefully yield something closer to what citizens in the region deserve: leadership that looks out for the wellbeing of its citizens, not just its own wallets.
The authoritarian regimes of the Middle East are extremely interesting and varied. To me, one of the most interesting factors within the region is the role played by oil and the formation of the “rentier state.” The discovery of oil, as well as its international significance has proved a tremendous developmental force. Not only have these centralized authoritarian regimes often developed in response to external demands or constraints (rather than internal ones), the lack of connectivity between citizens and state is considerable. The connection, usually created through systems of taxation in which the state is dependent on the people for its primary source of revenue, and where in turn the people come to expect certain amenities from the government, does not exist in the same capacity (or sometimes at all). Because these states are providing services paid for by natural resource revenues, there is no mutual dependency, and often the state is very much autonomous from its constituents. Another extremely interesting political feature within the region is the “dynastic monarchy,” in which an intra-family consolidation of power, such as seen in Saudi Arabia, is politically dominant. As these ruling elites “captured the bureaucratic state in its infancy,” we see that the indeterminacy of succession often holds the regimes together and limits the amount of power of any single member. Obviously, these traits do not apply to every authoritarian regime within the Middle East. “Single-party republics” such as Syria find many ways to continue their dominance, for example through the control of symbolism and rhetoric (I find the cult and rhetoric surrounding Asad to be extremely interesting).
There are many reasons for which I think these regimes persist. While some argue that the “prerequisites for democracy” are missing in the region and lead to continued authoritarian rule, Bellin argues instead that the “coercive apparatus…has been exceptionally able and wiling to crush reform initiatives from below” (144). This robustness can be attributed to a variety of sources, such as international support networks, patrimonialism and the high degree of institutionalism. Another factor leading to the long-term persistence of these regimes is often the plethora of resources available to the states (and the complete control they hold over them) as well as the resulting power structures. For example, both the monarchies of Kuwait and Qatar are extremely long standing and stable, as the powerful and organized merchant class symbolically withdrew from the decision making process in exchange for some of the wealth generated by oil. External international pressures and interventions have no doubt had a large influence as well—not only through demand for oil, but also thorough direct sustenance, whether militarily, politically or economically. Widespread economic and military support has been supplied to secure access to resources (whether through infrastructure, development loans, or other means). International support for ideological leaders has been widespread—the interventions and machinations of both the USSR and USA have been rampant. For example, Reza Shah received support from the USA primarily because his opposition had communist sympathies.