Course Overview

 

Prior to this course I viewed the Middle East as an area of the world that is yet to join the rest of the world in its glorious state of modernity and democratic freedom. I was convinced that what it took for a modern Arab state to be considered developed and free was to strive for what western nations have achieved. This course taught me that Middle Eastern politics represents its own unique set of challenges that can’t be narrowed down by a normative western frame. The Orient of today was shaped by deeply entrenched colonial histories, and yet the deepest impact wasn’t the geographic boundaries drawn up without regard, nor the derailing of economic growth by creating an insurmountable dependency on primary resources, but rather it was the more elusive colonial crime of lacerating the continuity of historical and socio-political thought in the near-East. Colonialism was based on the ideology that the west was better than the east and that the Orient needed to be saved from itself. While colonial legacies left a lasting and scathing mark on the orient, it also left the taste of that very ideology in traditional western academia and derivative policy. Through the various case studies and dives into the unique political systems which govern the Middle East, this course brought me to the doors of the following question: Why are we playing catch up with the West instead of with ourselves?

 

Just as western democratic systems have drawn from ancient greek political thought, pre-colonial oriental political structures were entrenched in the philosophies and ideologies of islamic philosophers dating back to 900s AD such as Al-Farabi or Al-Kindi. These different departures for the underlying political theories of Middle Eastern states have charged them with a different type of political balancing act than the west is accustomed to, and thus cannot be tackled from that point of departure. When the Islamic Empire under Umar (634-644 CE) and Uthman (644-656 CE) expanded to Egypt, North Africa, Armenia, Syria, Iraq and Persia, the Quran aided in the proliferation of a common tongue amongst this vast empire, which consequently helped in the dissemination of culture, trade, and created a tendency for Arab states to identify themselves with one another. At the time the synchronous economic and socio-political cyclicality of states was formalized by virtue of a common caliphate and later on the Ottoman Empire, but this dynamic continues to echo with the rise of Arab Nationalism in the 1970s. This mode of association might seem trivial, but not only can we see it spurring the domino effect of political mobilization of arab states during the 2011 Arab Spring, but we can safely say that it is a unique defining feature of middle eastern ideology which underlie the formation of and engagement with the state. 

 

Another defining feature of the underlying structures of modern Arab states is the religious identities of states. The Ottoman Empire in the 1500s saw the continuation of the Islamic Empire’s tradition of assuming religious authority over the caliphate, and yet religious plurality and advocacy was nevertheless a priority. The Ottoman millet system in the 19th century proposed limited self governance to communities of religious minorities and allowed them to conduct themselves along their own legal systems in matters regarding marriage or commerce. A unique challenge of arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran is balancing between the rigidity of conservative religious authority and the progressive forces of political advancement. If we were to draw on a western theory of modernization such as Talcott Parsons’, we would be forced to denounce Saudi’s status as a modern state as a consequence of its resistance to secularism, tribalism, and traditional tie to custom. And yet these are the things Arab states pride themselves most on, the preservation and intergenerational exchange of culture, religious communal associations such as Ramadan dinners, and even the rich histories of tribal structures before they were deposed by colonial forces. 

 

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution the Shah was overthrown Khomeini rose to power as a religious authority atop the parliamentary and the presidential structure. An important note is that just as the monarchy of the United Kingdom represents a lasting institution of political continuity that weathers the cyclicality of parliament, religious authority is similarly regarded as a source of civic continuity providing stability in the case of civil unrest.These institutions need to be regarded endogenously and evaluated normatively using the body of Arab philosophers and political scientists which laid the foundations for our systems of thought and governing today. As opposed to drawing from external systems with traditions of securing western superiority by virtue of oriental inferiority. Less scathingly, however, western policy lacks the transferability we would hope for. In 1977 Egypt, President Anwar El-Sadat looked to ameliorate relationships with the US and was put under pressure to adopt western liberal economic policies of Infitah (openness) as well as ban the Communist civil societies which held a presence in Egypt. These required cutting state subsidies to basic goods, healthcare, and education, which ultimately sparked the Bread Riots, where 70 were killed and 550 injured. The crisis ended when Sadat renewed the subsidies. 

 

Middle Eastern states hold fundamentally different approaches to legitimacy. While western democractic systems make a claim of legitimacy that flows from the population up to the state. Middle eastern nations on the other hand, be it the republics of Egypt or Algeria, or the monarchies of Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, have a tendency to flow legitimacy from the state downwards. Plato once said that the happiest people lived under kingships, but that was contingent on the benevolence of kingships, a task of balancing between tyranny and democracy, a task that western democracies are also charged with. Benevolent kingships sire the happiest people and the most efficient progress. Slip too far from the democratic values of egalitarianism and pluralism you end up with a Gaddafi Dictatorship or superficial “electoral victories” such as with the RCD in Tunisia (2011) or the FLN in Algeria. Democracies elevate the middle class and ensure broad political freedoms. Slip too far into the promise of democracy and you end up commoditizing freedom as a means to maintain the structures that keep the disenfranchised disenfranchised and the elite elite. All states are held accountable by their constituency, and while there may be resistance, through policy challenges or revolution, states are bound by their performance legitimacy. The UAE federal monarchy is recognized as one of the most ambitious providers of social welfare and communal development in the world and has seen no challenges to its authority since the British held the rains in 1971. As opposed to rentier states, the UAE utilizes its funds for the amelioration of the quality of life, and faces an elegant stand still between an absolute political authority and an actively consensual populus. In this regard, I learned that not only does the Middle East have a lot to learn from the West, but that the West will need to learn a lot more from the Middle East. 

Question 2: 

 

States in the Middle East and Civil Society

 

Civil society is the body of civic association that exists in “between governments and households, and between the public state sector and the commercial economy” according to Carapico (Angrist 99). These organizations are often formed in order to tackle a gap between societal need and government action, and thus by virtue of centralizing a body of social capital, they represent a well of political power. In the eyes of authoritarian regimes this form of association, if left unchecked, can act as a threat of alternative claims to their monopoly of power or a threat to the status quo. Middle Eastern regimes have often found creative methods of suppressing or regulating civil societies in order to subsist their claims on legitimacy of rule. These active efforts to cripple civil societies or tie them inextricably to the regime in power, hold consequences for states undergoing regime transitions. I will discuss the different methods Middle Eastern regimes have used to restrict the growth and mobility of these institutions, as well as provide instances where their implications have proven corrosive to the fabrics of these nations. 

 

Egypt has a long history of curtailing civil society structures to befit the ruling power’s needs. The Egyptian National Democratic Party absorbed civic organizations into its governmental structure, as a means of keeping the “enemy close” and overseeing and steering their operations. Industry unions were formalized into state sponsored national federations with mandatory participations. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Social affairs (MOSA) was established to reign over civic organizations. The ministry oversaw registration and dissolution of institutions, and was regularly empowered to threaten associations into conforming with the regime’s aims and efforts at state-building. These threats ranged from audits, to bureaucratic gatekeeping, from nationalization of assets to bans. In fact, in 2013 Egypt banned the Muslim Brotherhood from all kinds association and seized all their assets. This method of state administered civil society has such broad reaching webs that in 1964, Law 34 suspended 4000 organizations in order to accommodate for the state’s self-appointed expansion of oversight and discretionary powers over these associations. 

 

These efforts at bureaucratizing civil society have inhibited the growth, activities and authenticity of civil societies in Egypt. Not only does the bureaucratic deadlock weigh down on these associations' capacity to deliver social services, but it also taints the function of these services with the oversight of an overbearing regime. Civil Societies who’s ethical conduct is based on the autonomy and independence of their services, such as Egypt’s lawyer guilds or its educational establishments are now funneled through the interests of the regime. Because Egypt’s civil society is so diverse, the monochromatic light of the regime shines on its academic curriculums just as in its religious institutions. This infiltration into the institutions of society, acts as an informational blockade muting support for alternative parties in the political system, and thus stagnating the democratic potential of this republic. 

 

Other nations in the middle east, such as Yemen and Jordan, have opted for a different strategy named cloning. It involves the creation of government backed nongovernmental organizations  (GONGOS) that compete over domestic and international resources and aid, as well as over the discourse that shapes the market of ideas. Being intimately entwined with the patronage system of the nation, these GONGOS would receive the benefits of expedited processes and paperwork, access to vast networks of political and economic elite, as well as the kinder face of government oversight. Yemen’s General People’s Congress pushed its members to establish their own NGOs in order to syphon foreign aid and domestic support. Similarly, Jordanian NGOs are often organized by or involve members of the Royal family as a means of legitimizing the efforts of these NGOs (RONGOS) as well as safe guarding their alignment with the Hashemite family’s rule. NGOs that are not associated with royal family members are subject to intimidation in case informal redlines, such as denouncing the regime or its allies, are crossed.  RNGOS similarly benefits from favoritism in receiving resources and aid, consequently dwindling the number of autonomous civil societies that compete for those same resources. While some may question the validity of these organizations' status as civil societies given their state sponsorship, these “-NGOs” disrupt the growth of social capital, which harbors some deep consequences when the state is facing collapse. 

 

When civil societies are treated as challengers to the status quoe and state authority, this can distract from the urgent issues waiting to be tackled. After the Beirut port explosion, the EU and western governments like Canada’s, channelled aid through the civil societies helping provide relief rather than the government that is known for its misallocation of aid. This deliberate choice of providing aid directly to civil societies rather than the government reflects a vote of non-confidence that the international community has in the corrupt government of Lebanon. While in usual circumstances this might seem like an arbitrary evaluation of the government’s capacity to lead, it gains importance when this capacity is already under question domestically. The lebanese government attempted to block aid in protest of civil societies being deemed more legitimate actors than the state  itself, which ultimately stood in the way of the urgent needs of thousands of injured, and poverty stricken victims of the blast. In a country where the population already denounces the legitimacy of an incompetent sectarian government, the efforts of Lebanese civil societies to tackle issues such as environmental policy or the Kafala system, are regarded as direct scrutiny of the underwhelming state. This friction between the state and civil society cannibalizes these public and private political actors, and further entrenches the government's non-responsiveness to the issues burdening Lebanon as well their active denigration of civic efforts aimed at resolving these issues. 

 

A more nuanced implication of this friction exists in Lebanon, that of limited prospects of a new wave of non sectarian political leaders. The proliferation of civil society has an added benefit of elevating and expanding the social capital of a nation, and consequently generating new generations of politically aware leadership interested in civil service. One of the chief constraints on the 2019-20 Lebanese protests has been the lack of an alternative to the sectarian political parties which have already been tried and failed. With the absence of new or youthful leadership, amassing the support and credibility necessary to challenge the long standing parties in charge is nearly impossible. In fact one of the government's strategies at preserving the sectarian power structure through civil societies has been through student unions. Young leaders on university campuses are sponsored by the sectarian parties which form the highest echelons of Lebanon’s political elite, and run under the designation of their supporting party. It wasn’t until 2020 that the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University saw their first non-sectarian student elections. 

 

Civil societies serve another key function in emergency states, they can also act as interim leadership during times of regime transitions. The inhibition of civil societies will consequently make the prospects for regime transitions less desirable, especially in countries with living memories of civil war trauma like Lebanon. The National Dialogue Quartet of Tunisia was a collection of affluent civil societies (UGTT, UTICA,  LTDH, Tunisian Order of Lawyers) that aided in the mediation of peace talks between the Tunisian political and religious, and ultimately helped usher peace after the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. Civil societies in the Middle East represent lasting political institutions which display a continued narrative of civic unity and stability in times of civil unrest, especially in times of regime transitions when uncertainty in the face of the transient regime can run rampant. In cases like Lebanon’s where the electorate is faced with a corrupt, inept and yet stable government or the possibility of another civil war, as government officials have so gallantly proposed, the choice seems begrudgingly simple. If on the other hand civil societies were not antagonized by the state, they would represent a valuable line of political continuation and unity in the time of transition, just as the NDQ of Tunisia did for their country. This could consequently sway the electorate into the untested waters of regime change.