Teti 2011 With Gervasio MedPol Lessons From Arab Uprisings

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The Unbearable Lightness of

Authoritarianism: Lessons from the

Arab UprisingsAndrea Teti

a& Gennaro Gervasio

b

a Department of Politics and International Relations, University ofAberdeen, Scotlandb

Department of Modern History, Politics and International

Relations, Macquarie University, Australia

Available online: 22 Jul 2011

To cite this article: Andrea Teti & Gennaro Gervasio (2011): The Unbearable Lightness of

Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Arab Uprisings, Mediterranean Politics, 16:2, 321-327

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2011.583758

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PROFILE

The Unbearable Lightness ofAuthoritarianism: Lessons from theArab Uprisings

ANDREA TETI* & GENNARO GERVASIO***Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Scotland; **Department of

Modern History, Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University, Australia

On 17 December 2010, Mohamad Bouazizi set himself on fire in desperation in the

small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, sparking what became a revolution which in

barely 28 days toppled one of the most notorious autocrats in the Middle East and

North Africa. The upheaval that followed, however, surprised even keen observers,

not only successfully removing Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from what seemed like a

seat of unchallengeable power, but sparking revolts against other autocrats acrossthe region, most famously in Egypt, but also in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and latterly

Syria, with significant protests also in Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and

the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Today, as protesters in Tunisia and Egypt

struggle to consolidate their gains and others hope to emulate their successes, it is far

from clear what enduring results these uprisings will yield. Some have called the

last few months an Arab 1989, while others have drawn analogies with Europes

doomed revolutions of 1848. Although the outcome of these unprecedented

uprisings and the precise nature of the changes currently taking place in Egypt and

across the region will only become apparent in the fullness of time, some important

lessons on their roots and significance can already be drawn.

The Frailty of Autocracy

The first lesson is that authoritarianism is often fragile. After the fall of the USSR,

there was considerable optimism that global transitions to (liberal) democracy were

simply a matter of time. As the decade progressed, however, some eastern European

countries backslid and democratizations third wave failed to spread to the

Middle East. In both regions, autocracies increasingly spoke the language of

1362-9395 Print/1743-9418 Online/11/020321-7q 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2011.583758

Correspondence Address: Andrea Teti, Department of Politics and International Relations University ofAberdeen, Edward Wright Building, Aberdeen AB24 3QY. Email: [email protected]

Mediterranean Politics,

Vol. 16, No. 2, 321327, July 2011

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liberalism, while only enacting changes that were either cosmetic or easily

reversible. Explanations for this newfound authoritarian resilience offered by

mainstream scholarship often originate in culturalist claims about Islam and Arabculture to the tools of patronage and coercion that keep regional autocrats in power.

Others emphasized the novelty of this new form of governance, which

paradoxically dressed up repression and citizens exclusion from decision making in

the language of democracy: while granting democratic rights in principle, enacting

legislation especially vigorous security legislation, draconian restrictions on

independent press and civil society, and the emasculation of parliaments of any

legislative or oversight functions would make it impossible in practice. So strong

did authoritarianisms grip on local politics appear to be, that some scholars even

recently called for a shift away from studying democratization to post-

democratization.And yet, while the combination of co-option and coercion destroyed much

official opposition in the Arab world, making regime stability appear convincing,

stability and calm ought not to be conflated. Although most observers of Middle

Eastern affairs were well aware of the lack of legitimacy most regimes suffered

from, this did not translate into scepticism about their solidity. In this sense, the

events of the last few months are an indictment of the profession not, as some have

alleged, because they were not predicted very few expected the sheer scale of

events, including protesters themselves but because ferocity and strength were so

easily conflated.

Roots of Radicalization

The second lesson is that there are concrete limits to the speed and extent of neo-

liberal reforms. The 25 January protests happened barely two days after the IMF

called for further cuts in subsidies on essential goods in Egypt,1 demonstrating

singularly bad political timing, and poor judgement of or possibly little regard

for the impact that such reforms would have on most Egyptians. As in the cases of

Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan, debates about the roots of protest in Egypt

quickly split between those who pointed to economic factors and those who thought

protest was primarily driven by political dissatisfaction. But the two are inextricably

linked. In the (gun)fire and fury, it is easy to forget that just as in Egypts firstJanuary intifada, in 1977, todays protests are the direct result of neo-liberal reforms,

both political and economic. Politically, liberalization without democratization

simply marginalizes those it avowedly empowers: their increasing frustration cannot

come as a surprise.

Economically, when liberalization leads to the emergence of monopolistic or

oligopolistic market forces, with little regard for a more even wealth distribution,

such reforms increase citizens sense of alienation from the state, further

undermining the regimes residual legitimacy. The economic impasse the regions

post-populist regimes faced was plain enough. Most macroeconomic indicators

would lead one to believe that Egypt and Tunisia were rather success stories. InEgypt, for example, GDP growth nearly doubled over the decade, public debt was

322 A. Teti & G. Gervasio

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down by nearly a quarter, and the current account balance was healthy. Other

indicators, however, paint a more worrying picture: inflation has nearly doubled,

wages have been sluggish, and unemployment has risen, as has population. As aresult, nearly 40 per cent of Egyptians over 32 million people now live on or

under $2 per day. To put that into perspective, that is less than half the price of a

cappuccino in Cairos upmarket Zamalek district.

But increases in the cost of living hit the middle classes as well as the poor. The

hardest hit were the young, left without money, jobs, prospects or even the option of

emigrating, thanks to increasingly stringent EU immigration laws. The fabulous

wealth of new oligarchs such as Ahmad Ezz or the Trabelsi family only increased

frustration of those outside ever-narrower elites. Indeed, it was no coincidence that

the period of accelerated liberalization driven by Ahmad Nazifs government saw

increasing labour unrest in Egypt, with more strikes in 2010 than in the whole of theprevious five years. As in Egypt, across the Arab world privatizations, labour market

de-regulation (e.g. in Qualified Industrial Zones), continued reduction of subsidies

on essential items, combined with rising inflation particularly food prices led

not only to increased labour mobilization, but also to increasing disaffection by

newly-pauperized middle class groups such as teachers and doctors.

Protesters themselves have confirmed the explosiveness of this mix of economic

and political factors in their slogans and the anger they vented to anyone willing to

listen. In Egypt, the key slogans of the revolution were bread (aish), freedom

(hurriyya) and human dignity (karama insaniyya). In brief, democracy and social

justice. Virtually in the same breath, most protesters complained about the dire

economic situation, the corruption of their supposedly democratic representatives,and about the heavy-handed everyday bullying they were subjected to by police and

security services. As one woman said: were tired, we just want to work, we just

want to eat! People asked for their human rights and their dignity. It was the system

that was the object of their protest.

Economic reforms being demanded by both global investors and local elites could

not afford the use of political liberalization as a safety valve, as had happened in

the past with several regimes, including Algeria, Morocco and Jordan as well as

Egypt and Tunisia. In some regimes, such as Egypt or Yemen, this dissent could be

hinted at in independent parts of the press and civil society even manifest itself

in movements such as Egypts Kefaya or increasingly vocal independent tradeunions while in other systems, such as Bahrain, Syria or Libya, this was much

harder, but all across the region opposition was swiftly crushed, leaving ordinary

citizens voiceless. Perhaps the paradoxical epitome of this marginalization came

barely weeks before Egypts second January uprising, during Egypts parliamentary

elections: having gained over 95 per cent of seats in the first round, the ruling

National Democratic Party (NDP) actually rigged results in some constituencies in

favour of the opposition to bring its share down to 93 per cent.

In short, having sacrificed remnants of its populist revolutionary legitimacy on

the altar of its narrower self-interest, and alienating increasingly large swathes of

the population in the process, the ruling elite found it impossible to compensatepolitically for its economic choices.

Lessons from the Arab Uprisings 323

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Rather than a process of overt politicization, it was this level of combined political

and economic marginalization that produced a turnout for and an intensity in

protests which even organizers failed to anticipate. This gap between expectationand turnout has been so massive, and the support for the protesters core demands so

consistent, that it led many to call this a leaderless opposition. Certainly, none of

the organizations involved could claim support even remotely close to the protests

unprecedented turnouts. But with dissatisfaction simmering beneath the surface, it is

no wonder that ordinary people did not need parties or movements, El Baradei or

Ghannouchi, NGOs or the Muslim Brotherhood to tell them why or against whom to

protest. Events such as the torture and assassination of the young militant Khaled

Said in Alexandria last June, Mohamad Bouazizis self-immolation in December

and especially Tunisias successful uprising simply provided an additional spark in a

tinderbox that had been smoking for years.

Is Islam the (Only) Solution?

The third point was unwittingly made by the Muslim Brotherhood itself on the eve

of Egypts first protests. Responding to accusations that the Brotherhood was behind

the demonstration, the spokesman and leader of its reformist wing Essam El-Arian

insisted that the Brotherhood did not send anyone [to the streets]. The absence of a

clear religious imprint in the uprisings across most of the Arab world, and the lack of

leadership by established religious groups, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt, is

significant.

In Tunisia, the Nahda party benefited from but did not lead the revolution, with

Rachid Ghannouchi returning from exile to a heros welcome, but only after Ben Ali

had left. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhoods leadership was notable for its absence.

Despite its lightning volte-face once the scale of protests became clear, the

credibility of the Brotherhoods conservative leadership was badly damaged, which

partly explains their eagerness to achieve tangible results for the revolution,

however minimal. Some Islamists did take part in early protests, but many of these

are currently leading internal dissent against the conservative leadership. Damaged

by its willingness to negotiate and compromise first with Mubarak and then the

military junta, this leadership had already failed to present a clear and credible

alternative to the regime before the January uprisings, unwilling or unable to protestat the rigging of recent parliamentary elections or to put forward a more equitable

economic policy than the NDPs oligarchic liberalization.

Throughout the uprising, the Ikhwan just like the Azhar and Coptic leaderships,

who also called for boycotting protests was playing catch-up with smaller liberal

parties, with left-wing movements like April 6, and with independent unions, which

seemed much closer to the pulse of the average Egyptians frustration. Certainly,

most of the protests popular mots dordre horreya, karama, thawra etc. were not

those of the Brotherhood. For most protesters, Islam was not the solution. Indeed,

the attempt to mobilize sectarian differences has been a strategy common to most

regimes faced with uprisings, from Egypt to Bahrain, Yemen to Syria a strategywhich largely failed, or which at best impacted upon post-revolutionary divisions.


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The notable absence of a clear religious dimension to issues at the root of protests

throughout much of the Arab world provides a timely reminder that it is far from

obvious that religious politics should dominate the region in future, just as it did not ina not-so-distant past. This past traction which various forms of nationalism and

socialism have had in the region both closely linked to the demand for social,

economic and political justice, just as todays protests are suggests that a more

balanced political spectrum is possible if nascent democratic movements were able to

make significant inroads into post-revolutionary politics. This is not to say that Islamist

movements are now irrelevant. On the contrary, despite internal rifts the Egyptian

Muslim Brotherhood remains the best-organized political force in Egypt, and the

Nahda party is likely to gain considerable consensus in post-revolutionary Tunisia.

Likewise, it is likely that Islamist forces will play a significant role in Yemen

and Jordan, should a transition take place. But the fact that for protesters duringthe uprisings bread, freedom and dignity trumped religion provides a glimpse of

political possibility which both local political actors and international counterparts

ought to take note of. Particularly for western governments assessing the

significance of uprisings across the Arab world, the largely non-partisan nature of

the protests provides the opportunity to shed once and for all the a priori notion that

the menu of liberalizing political change involves a necessary dichotomy between

popular but anti-democratic Islamist per se and small and isolated secular parties.

Democracy on a Knifes Edge: Regional and Global Implications

The fourth key aspect of the Arab uprisings lies in local and regional implications of

its key goal: democracy. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions obtained results

relatively quickly. Since their most obvious successes in toppling their regimes

leaderships, there has been a degree of predictable in-fighting as different forces

attempt to position themselves in the post-uprising scenario. These divisions have

also facilitated the retrenchment of parts of the regime be it apparatchiks of the

decapitated regimes or the military in what some already call a counter-revolution

(al-thawra al-mudadda). Some successes have been exacted, notably the abolition

of hated internal security bodies, but other questions remain, not least the identity

of those security services which replace the old, and legislation which both the

Egyptian and Tunisian interim governments and their military masters have pushedthrough which, particularly in the Egyptian case, make life harder particularly for

the non-Islamist opposition which had been at the forefront of the uprising.

Other uprisings across the region whether more violent and high-profile as in

the cases of Bahrain and Libya, Yemen and now Syria, or smouldering as in Algeria,

Morocco or Jordan are ongoing and appear to be much more protracted affairs.

If they are successful in either toppling regimes or extracting significant concessions

from them, a similar problem of guarding against the erosion of those gains will

be crucial to any post-uprising scenario. In Libya, for example, the Transitional

National Council (TNC) in Benghazi is already stacked with members of the former

regime, not least the bodys current leader and former justice minister, MustafaAbdul Jalil. In Libya and particularly in Yemen, any transitional scenario raises


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serious questions about non-democratic forces, whether tribes, radical and well-

armed Islamists, or former elements of the regimes attempting to undermine post-

authoritarian governments.The window of democracy in the Middle East is therefore a small one and the

implications of its closure cannot be underestimated. The current phase is one in

which there is a broad consensus on the principle of democracy if for no other reason

than that it stands for representation and for empowerment, from both political

repression and economic disenfranchisement. But crucial to this consensus is the fact

that the anti-authoritarian uprisings are home-grown, not imposed from abroad, even

from within the region, and that for many of those impoverished by liberalization

they hold the hope of better living conditions. If these key expectations are not met,

particularly in those countries where revolution or substantive reform take place, it

will not be simply the revolutions which will be discredited, but the very concept ofdemocracy. There are two obvious dangers: first, that western governments attempt

to guide the uprisings towards their vision of liberal democracy, whether directly or

indirectly through leverage afforded by debt and aid; and second, that protesters

demand for economic as well as political reform are ignored.

Both possibilities present significant risks. Already during the early stages of the

Libyan and Bahraini uprisings it was clear that a division existed within the US

administration between those who favoured backing transitions and those who fell

back onto the so-called Realpolitikof backing authoritarian regimes. The latter, like

secretary of defence Robert Gates, appear to be increasingly carrying the argument.

The result is that, like the EU, while the US easily condemns Gadhafi or Bashar

al-Assad, its protests against the al-Khalifas bloody repression of internal dissent not least with the contribution of Saudi Arabia are barely murmured. This

undermines the credibility of western governments as defenders of democracy in the

eyes of Arab audiences.

At an economic level also, the credibility of western powers is shaky. The EUs

External Action Service notably published a document outlining the EUs new

stance on democracy,2 the vast majority of which contained re-hashed or barely

accelerated versions of precisely those policies which were so badly received by

Arab populations, and which were widely perceived as having favoured only

kleptocratic elites. Several EU and US representatives and officials have visited

countries like Egypt in recent weeks, but there is little sign to date of any significantchange in economic policies towards the regions impoverished working and middle

classes.

For the US in particular, democratic uprisings pose a dilemma. On the one hand,

supporting them would potentially cost dearly in the Gulf. On the other hand,

positioning itself as a friend of new regional democracies would afford leverage on

the Palestinian issue, where a more proactive government particularly in Egypt

might exercise sufficient pressure on Israel to make a negotiated solution more

likely. It would also provide political ammunition against Russia and China, both

of which have awkwardly clothed their opposition to support for democratic and

popular self-determination in the language of anti-imperialism, revealing the fullextent of their political vulnerability to genuinely democratic movements.


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Conclusion

As in 1848, whether successful or not, the Arab uprisings of 2011 are likely to have

an enduring effect on the region. What this effect is will depend on whether key

economic and political demands are met, not least because it will affect the extent to

which the post-revolutionary re-writing of history which is already well under

way succeeds in redefining the uprisings as Islamist, foreign-sponsored, sectarian

or simply destabilizing. What is clear now is that these uprisings resulted from a

combination of economic and political disenfranchisement which revealed the full

extent of local autocracies frailty; that they found both regimes and official

oppositions badly wanting; that the much-feared conservative Islamists in particular

were wrong-footed by an old-fashioned agenda consisting of democracy and social

justice; and that the combination of all these factors presents both local and

international forces with significant but short-lived opportunities to transform aregional political landscape scarred by authoritarianism.

Notes

1 http://arabia.msn.com/news/MiddleEast/General/2011/january/egy94.aspx (accessed 3 June 2011)2 European Commission, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, A

Partnership For Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean , COM(2011) 200

final, available at http://eeas.europa.eu/euromed/docs/com2011_200_en.pdf#page=2 (accessed 8

March 2011); and ibid., A New Response to a Changing Neighbourhood, 25 May 2011, available at

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/342&format=HTML&aged

=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en (accessed 3 June 2011).


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Teti 2011 With Gervasio MedPol Lessons From Arab Uprisings