THE ARABUPRISINGS IN EGYPT

JORDAN AND TUNISIA

Social Political andEconomic Transformations

Andrea TetiPamela Abbott and Francesco Cavatorta

REFORM AND TRANSITION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

Series Editor Ioannis N Grigoriadis

Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean

Series editorIoannis N Grigoriadis

Bilkent UniversityAnkara Turkey

The series of political and economic crises that befell many countries in the Mediterranean region starting in 2009 has raised emphatically questions of reform and transition While the sovereign debt crisis of Southern European states and the ldquoArab Springrdquo appear prima facie unrelated some common roots can be identified low levels of social capital and trust high incidence of corruption and poor institutional performance This series provides a venue for the comparative study of reform and transition in the Mediterranean within and across the political cultural and religious boundaries that crisscross the region Defining the Mediterranean as the region that encompasses the countries of Southern Europe the Levant and North Africa the series contributes to a better understanding of the agents and the structures that have brought reform and transition to the forefront It invites (but is not limited to) interdisciplinary approaches that draw on political science history sociology economics anthropology area studies and cultural studies Bringing together case studies of indi-vidual countries with broader comparative analyses the series provides a home for timely and cutting-edge scholarship that addresses the structural requirements of reform and transition the interrelations between politics history and culture and the strategic importance of the Mediterranean for the EU the USA Russia and emerging powers

More information about this series at httpwwwpalgravecomseries14513

Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean

Series editorIoannis N Grigoriadis

Bilkent UniversityAnkara Turkey

The series of political and economic crises that befell many countries in the Mediterranean region starting in 2009 has raised emphatically questions of reform and transition While the sovereign debt crisis of Southern European states and the ldquoArab Springrdquo appear prima facie unrelated some common roots can be identified low levels of social capital and trust high incidence of corruption and poor institutional performance This series provides a venue for the comparative study of reform and transition in the Mediterranean within and across the political cultural and religious boundaries that crisscross the region Defining the Mediterranean as the region that encompasses the countries of Southern Europe the Levant and North Africa the series contributes to a better understanding of the agents and the structures that have brought reform and transition to the forefront It invites (but is not limited to) interdisciplinary approaches that draw on political science history sociology economics anthropology area studies and cultural studies Bringing together case studies of indi-vidual countries with broader comparative analyses the series provides a home for timely and cutting-edge scholarship that addresses the structural requirements of reform and transition the interrelations between politics history and culture and the strategic importance of the Mediterranean for the EU the USA Russia and emerging powers

More information about this series at httpwwwpalgravecomseries14513

The series of political and economic crises that befell many countries in the Mediterranean region starting in 2009 has raised emphatically questions of reform and transition While the sovereign debt crisis of Southern European states and the ldquoArab Springrdquo appear prima facie unrelated some common roots can be identified low levels of social capital and trust high incidence of corruption and poor institutional performance This series provides a venue for the comparative study of reform and transition in the Mediterranean within and across the political cultural and religious boundaries that crisscross the region Defining the Mediterranean as the region that encompasses the countries of Southern Europe the Levant and North Africa the series contributes to a better understanding of the agents and the structures that have brought reform and transition to the forefront It invites (but is not limited to) interdisciplinary approaches that draw on political science history sociology economics anthropology area studies and cultural studies Bringing together case studies of indi-vidual countries with broader comparative analyses the series provides a home for timely and cutting-edge scholarship that addresses the structural requirements of reform and transition the interrelations between politics history and culture and the strategic importance of the Mediterranean for the EU the USA Russia and emerging powers

More information about this series at httpwwwpalgravecomseries14513

Andrea Teti bull Pamela Abbott Francesco Cavatorta

The Arab Uprisings in Egypt Jordan and

TunisiaSocial Political and Economic Transformations

Reform and Transition in the MediterraneanISBN 978-3-319-69043-8 ISBN 978-3-319-69044-5 (eBook)httpsdoiorg101007978-3-319-69044-5

Library of Congress Control Number 2017956116

copy The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher whether the whole or part of the material is concerned specifically the rights of translation reprinting reuse of illustrations recitation broadcasting reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way and transmission or information storage and retrieval electronic adaptation computer software or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developedThe use of general descriptive names registered names trademarks service marks etc in this publication does not imply even in the absence of a specific statement that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general useThe publisher the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the pub-lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty express or implied with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-tional affiliations

Cover illustration Pattern adapted from an Indian cotton print produced in the 19th century

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer NatureThe registered company is Springer International Publishing AGThe registered company address is Gewerbestrasse 11 6330 Cham Switzerland

Andrea TetiUniversity of AberdeenAberdeen United Kingdom

Francesco CavatortaLaval UniversityQueacutebec Queacutebec Canada

Pamela AbbottUniversity of AberdeenAberdeen United Kingdom

Reform and Transition in the MediterraneanISBN 978-3-319-69043-8 ISBN 978-3-319-69044-5 (eBook)httpsdoiorg101007978-3-319-69044-5

Library of Congress Control Number 2017956116

copy The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher whether the whole or part of the material is concerned specifically the rights of translation reprinting reuse of illustrations recitation broadcasting reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way and transmission or information storage and retrieval electronic adaptation computer software or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developedThe use of general descriptive names registered names trademarks service marks etc in this publication does not imply even in the absence of a specific statement that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general useThe publisher the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the pub-lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty express or implied with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-tional affiliations

Cover illustration Pattern adapted from an Indian cotton print produced in the 19th century

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer NatureThe registered company is Springer International Publishing AGThe registered company address is Gewerbestrasse 11 6330 Cham Switzerland

Andrea TetiUniversity of AberdeenAberdeen United Kingdom

Francesco CavatortaLaval UniversityQueacutebec Queacutebec Canada

Pamela AbbottUniversity of AberdeenAberdeen United Kingdom

v

This valuable study adds a critical dimension usually missing from analyses of the varying trajectories of the Arab Uprising namely how citizen atti-tudes help explain the Uprising how variations in them matter for regime trajectories and how outcomes have in turn altered mass attitudes The study is based on surveys in Tunisia Egypt and Jordan administered in four yearsmdash2011 and 2013ndash2015mdashcombined with a wealth of informa-tion from pre-existing data bases permitting the authors to make system-atic comparisons across countries and time

The work makes several important contributions to our understandings of the Uprisings First the findings challenge the conventional narrative that the Uprisings were essentially about democracy if that had been the overwhelming demand of the mobilised masses why has been so little democratisation Did the agency of the people not matter compared to elite interests and external constraints The bookrsquos findings help us get beyond this dilemma demonstrating that the main demand of the protes-tors was not for purely procedural liberal democracy (competitive elec-tions political rights) and that majorities wanted rather substantive democracymdashsocio-economic rights Moreover substantial numbers believed their country was not ready for democracy or preferred an Islamist regime or when a trade-off between democracy and order was perceived chose order

For protestors the priorities were lack of economic opportunity and unacceptable levels of corruption and the protests against regimes were for breaking the populist social contract under the widespread turn to neo-liberalism and crony capitalism in the region The study confirms the

Foreword

vi FOREWORD

widespread impression that the activists driving regime change tended to be educated youth but also that supporters were more likely to be those with inadequate income (but not the very poorest) - that is those who had probably suffered the most from regimesrsquo policies and were most con-scious of them

The study also provides evidence on how citizen attitudes matter for outcomes First variations in attitudes can be directly linked to differences in regime trajectories thus opposition to the regime was overwhelming in Tunisia and in Egypt where presidents were overthrown but not in Jordan were there was no regime change In Tunisia alone was there high support for political democracy it is no accident that only in Tunisia was there a successful democratic transition

Second while in the immediate aftermath of the Uprisings there were high expectations of positive change by 2014 disillusionment had set in as governments continued with neo-liberal policies A multitude of attitudi-nal changes indicate political de-mobilisation in 2014 only minorities thought the Uprising had been positive for their country and most thought the economic and security situation had deteriorated significantly com-pared to 2009 Perceptions of economic decline were worse than objective indicators showed In parallel expectations had drastically declined peo-ple now believed reform had to come gradually not via further revolution Security had become a much more salient concern to the point where the formerly hated police were now valued and regimes in Jordan and Egypt enjoyed support for sparing their countries the violent chaos that had enveloped neighbouring countries These changes in attitudes much reduced pressure on elites to deliver political reform and even re- legitimised authoritarian governance Third attitudes suggest Tunisiarsquos democratic transition is in jeopardy Its government although the most democratic was not highly rated by citizens political rights might have improved but substantive democracymdashsocial rightsmdashhad not while Tunisia now faced a terrorist threat non-existent before the Uprising

This study offers a fascinating insight into why the Arab Uprising did not become a democratic revolution

International Relations and Middle East Politics Ray HinnebuschUniversity of St Andrews St Andrews Scotland

vii

This book analyses political economic and social changes in Egypt Jordan and Tunisia since the 2010ndash2011 Uprisings against the backdrop of pre- Uprisings trajectories by integrating survey and non-survey data both quantitative and qualitative In doing so it shows that there is a need to reflect on the conception of democracy at the heart of academic analysis and to take seriously the challenge that collective preferences provide clues to help address the limitations of existing analytical and policy toolkits It is necessary to reconsider the significance of socio-economic rightsmdashas well as juridical equality in civil and political rightsmdashas non-negotiable dimensions of a democratic society and of transitions towards it but also to re-evaluate the stability of authoritarian regimes in the region

Acknowledgements

The Arab Transformations Project Political and Social Transformations in the Arab World was funded under the European Commissionrsquos FP7 Framework Grant agreement no 320214 The Project was coordinated by the University of Aberdeen (UK) and included Dublin City University (DCU) Dublin Ireland Anaacutelisis Socioloacutegicos Econoacutemicos y Poliacuteticos (ASEP) Madrid Spain Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI) Milan Italy Universitaumlt Graz (UNI GRAZ) Graz Austria Societatea Pentru Methodologia Sondajelor Concluzia-Prim (Concluzia) Chisinau Moldova Centre de Recherche en Eacuteconomie Appliqueacutee pour le Deacuteveloppement (CREAD) Algiers Algeria Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research (BASEERA) Cairo Egypt Independent Institute for

PreFAce

viii PREFACE

Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS) Amman Jordan University of Jordan (JU) Amman Jordan MEDA Solutions (MEDAS) Casablanca Morocco Association Forum Des Sciences Sociales Appliqueacutees (ASSF) Tunis Tunisia

disclAimer

The authors alone remain responsible for the content of this book It can-not be taken as necessarily representing the views of the EU the Court of the University of Aberdeen or any of the project partners

Aberdeen UK Andrea Teti

ix

1 Introduction and Background 1

2 Understanding the Context Hopes and Challenges in 2011 27

3 Political Challenges Expectations and Changes 2011ndash2014 55

4 Unmet Challenges and Frustrated Expectations Economic Security and Quality of Life 2011ndash2014 81

5 Employment Creation Corruption and Gender Equality 2011ndash2014 103

6 Conclusions Resilient Authoritarianism and Frustrated Expectations 123

Index 141

contents

xi

AB Arab BarometerADI Arab Democracy IndexAfB AfroBarometerATS Arab Transformations SurveyBTI Bertelsmann Transformation IndexCSOs Civil Society OrganisationsFSI Fragile State IndexGDP Gross Domestic ProductGGI Gender Gap IndexHDI Human Development IndexIFIs International Financial InstitutionsNEET Not in Employment Education or TrainingNGOs Non-governmental OrganisationsUN United NationsWDIs World Development IndicatorsWGIs Worldwide Governance IndicatorsWGP World Gallup Poll

Acronyms And AbbreviAtions

xiii

Fig 21 Percentage mentioning economic factors corruption andor political rights as one of the two main reasons that sparked the Uprisings 42

Fig 22 Main challenges facing the country in 2011 () 44Fig 31 The separation of religion and socio-political life ( disagreeing

with religious influence) 2011 and 2014 74Fig 41 MENA economic growth index present economic performance

and future enabling conditions (scores out of 100) 89Fig 42 Concerns about security in 2014 () 94Fig 43 Economic situation of household and country good or very

good in 2009 and 2014 () 98Fig 51 Percentage who say they are satisfied or very satisfied with

government performance in 2014 109

list oF Figures

xv

Table 11 Taxonomies and approaches to transformations 21Table 21 Support for and participation in the uprisings by category age

18 and over in 2011 37Table 22 Confident that the 2011 Uprisings will succeed in achieving

political and economic transformation 50Table 31 Agree that political and civil rights are guaranteed in 2011 and

2013 63Table 32 Negative effects of democracy 69Table 33 lsquoType of political regime suitablevery suitable for my

countryrsquo in 2011 and 2014 69Table 34 Two most important characteristics of democracy 71Table 41 Major challenges facing country in 2011 and 2014

nominating as one of two 91Table 51 Trust in institutions in 2011 and 2014 political legal

religious civil society and the media 107Table 52 Agreeingstrongly greeting on propositions relating to gender

equality in 2014 118

list oF tAbles

1copy The Author(s) 2018A Teti et al The Arab Uprisings in Egypt Jordan and Tunisia Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean httpsdoiorg101007978-3-319-69044-5_1

CHAPTER 1

Introduction and Background

Abstract The Arab Uprisings were events of rare intensity in Middle Eastern history as mass popular and largely non-violent revolts which threatened and toppled supposedly stable autocracies Branded them the regionrsquos lsquo1989 momentrsquo when counter-revolution followed revolution artificial expectations gave way to equally misplaced disaffection still fails to recognise the Uprisingsrsquo originality and diversity Focusing on three cases epitomising different post-Uprising trajectoriesmdashTunisia Jordan and Egyptmdashthis chapter explores how the Uprisings have been analysed Explanations for the Uprisings fall into three categories over-emphasising in turn chances for democratisation cultural or material obstacles to democracy or the stability of lsquohybrid regimesrsquo The chapter contextualises events leading to the Uprisings in each country and examines strengths and weaknesses of the toolkit through which the Uprisings have been viewed

Keywords Arab Uprisings bull Modernisation bull Political transformation bull Democratisation bull Authoritarianism bull Authoritarian resilience

2

11 IntroductIon

The Arab Uprisings represented a series of events of rare intensity in the history of the Middle East as mass popular and largely non-violent revolts took place starting in December 2010 in Tunisia and reverberating throughout the region These protests threatenedmdashand in four cases resulted in the overthrow ofmdashapparently stable autocratic regimes The nature and the extensive domestic regional and international impact of the Uprisings merit attention in and of themselves but coming hard on the heels of a global financial crisis and given the resonance of the Arab Uprisings with protest movements beyond the region they appear all the more significant The relevance of the Uprisings is not just academic the Middle East is one of the most frequently conflictual regions in the world it is central to the global political economy as a source of hydrocarbons and a global logistical nexus it is a source of and transit point for migra-tory flows towards Europe and many of its autocracies have been sup-ported as key allies by Western governments

The Arab Uprisings in 201011 caught people governments and many academics by surprise (Gause 2011) Participants and observers both within the region and beyond were surprised at the apparent ease with which mass mobilisation wrong-footed supposedly resilient authoritarian regimes galvanising protesters dismaying regime supporters and leaving Western governmentsrsquo policies in disarray In Western capitals and media great hopes of swift democratisation were pinned on the Arab Uprisings and they were quickly branded the Middle Eastern equivalent to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the domino-like collapse of Soviet bloc dictatorships in 1989 (Kaldor 2011) However few significant democratic transforma-tions have taken place with only Tunisia formally qualifying as a democ-racy by 2017 and substantive progress towards democracy often shaky even there Other countries in which Uprisings took place have experi-enced the survival of authoritarian rule through repression (eg Bahrain) counter-revolution (Egypt) civil war and the collapse of state structures (Libya Syria) or processes of reform and lsquofaccedilade democratisationrsquo (Morocco Jordan) designed to maintain the substance of authoritarian regimes untouched (Malmvig 2014) Both change and continuity have characterised the post-Uprisings period (Hinnebusch ed 2015 Rivetti and Di Peri 2015) and in this book we outline and discuss what public opinion survey data can tell us about the ways in which ordinary Arab citi-zens perceive the socio-economic and political changes or lack thereof in

A TETI ET AL

3

the wake of the Uprisings We do so by looking at three cases that are generally taken as epitomising the different trajectories of post-Uprising countriesmdashTunisia Jordan and Egyptmdashand for which relatively more information is available

In Jordan protesters demonstrated for changes in governance but not for the toppling of the king and there was no regime change King Abdullah II responded to protests with political and economic conces-sions but these left the political system substantively unchanged In the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions between December 2010 and February 2011 relatively peaceful demonstrations led to the overthrow of authori-tarian regimes and embryonic moves towards democracy It should be emphasised that although regime collapse was more pronounced in Tunisia than in Egyptmdashwhere the armed forces took powermdashlarge parts of the regime remained intact (Anderson 2011) While reforms are ongo-ing in Tunisia (Marzouki 2015) and democracy remains a possibility in principle in Egypt ruling elites struggled against each other but resisted any substantive change the first freely elected post-Mubarak executive and legislature ignored popular demands and were overthrown by a military coup in 2013 with a new constitution agreed and a former army chief Abdul Fattah El-Sisi elected President in 2014 While Islamist parties were elected to power after the first post-Uprisings election in Tunisia and Egypt in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood ruled thanks to support from the Salafist Nour alliance while in Tunisia the more moderate Ennahda party agreed to resign in favour of a national unity government in 2013 following mass demonstrations Their experience in power had been con-troversial due to their own failures and to the polarised environment within which they operated

In Tunisia the rise of Salafism (Marks 2013) soon after the revolution endangered the transition because Salafists wanted the implementation of an ultra-conservative version of Islamic law which forced Ennahda to dis-tance itself from them There were also protests in 2012 against moves by the lsquoTroikarsquo the Islamist-led government to revise womenrsquos rights in the proposed new constitution All this polarised Tunisian society with large sectors of the population holding on to the secular heritage of the previous regime Ultimately Ennahda resigned and a technocratic government replaced the lsquoTroikarsquo leading to the consensual adoption of a new consti-tution The successful 2014 legislative and presidential elections placed the country on the path of democratic consolidation In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhoodrsquos Mohammed Morsi was elected President in June 2012

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

4

with a paper-thin majority but by December a Brotherhood-Salafi alliance in Parliament and in the Constitutional Assembly alienated non-Islamist forces by driving through a new Constitution giving a significant role to Islam restricting freedom of speech association and protest and granting significant concessions to an already powerful military Although the new Constitution was easily approved in a referendum the Brotherhood-Salafi alliancemdashcontent to ignore non-Islamists forces while cuddling up to the militarymdashwas met with increasingly forceful opposition on the streets Popular demonstrations grew into widespread protest in June 2013 of which the army took advantage to overthrow Morsi and impose military rule In December 2013 the Brotherhood was declared a terrorist group and in January 2015 the new Constitution banned religious political parties

Explanations for the Uprisings abound in the literature including com-parative work examining larger regional trends and individual case studies where events and developments are examined in great detail While all these works focus on both structural factors and agency by identifying the crucial actors involved in the Uprisings and their aftermath there is very little understanding of how the socio-economic and political transforma-tions which the Uprisings generatedmdashor lack thereofmdashinfluenced ordi-nary citizens This book focuses on two broad areas which responses to public opinion surveys have identified as of central concern for the popula-tions of countries in the Arab world socio-economic cohesiondisloca-tion and political voiceexclusion Our findings suggest that these issues which drove people to demonstrate in 201011 are far from being resolved and that populations continue to have little confidence in their governments in general and in their ability to deliver on concrete issues that matter to people whether in the social economic or political sphere On the contrary peoplersquos expectations have largely been ignored or have gone unfulfilled on a range of issues from social security to still-endemic unemployment trust in governments has declined drastically the econ-omy remains the single largest challenge (and cause of migration) corrup-tion remains pervasive political reforms have been either cosmetic or reversed (or in Tunisiarsquos case they remain shaky) and people have little faith that things will change Neither national governments nor their international counterparts have been able or willing to address this poten-tially toxic mix of factors Indeed international financial institutions (IFIs) and Western governments (Hanieh 2015) quickly recast the Uprisings as a struggle merely for formal democracy and the overthrow of autocracy

A TETI ET AL

5

while neglecting the profound socio-economic malaise that decades of neo-liberal reforms had inflicted This made it possible to stress the need for an orderly transition to democracy while continuing the very economic policies which ordinary citizens blamed for the increasingly precarious lives they were leading

12 Background

The Arab Uprisings began in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid as a protest against the policersquos arbitrary treatment of Muhammad Bouazizi who committed suicide by setting himself on fire outside the townrsquos police sta-tion in desperation at police harassment These protests quickly snow-balled into increasingly broad-based nationwide demonstrations despite government attempts to repress them and prevent awareness of them spreading The protests moved from countryside towns towards the capi-tal thanks in part to social mediarsquos ability to bypass discredited state- controlled national media An increasingly desperate regime asked the armed forces to fire upon peaceful protesters the Armyrsquos refusal effectively forced President Ben Ali out of office These events gripped not only Tunisia but the entire Arab region and increasingly caught world atten-tion Opponents of autocracies across the Middle East watched the Tunisian regimemdashinfamous for the extensive reach of domestic security services in its lsquosoftrsquo autocracymdashin disarray in the face of widespread peace-ful popular mobilisation In early 2011 protests then took place across the region but most notably in Yemen Egypt Bahrain Libya and Syria The most significant of these in terms of scale and regional impact were pro-tests in Egypt starting on January 25 and sparking nationwide protests on January 28 By February 12 Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had been forced to step down

Governments reacted quickly and where Tunisian Egyptian and Yemeni regimes had trodden relatively carefully in the hope of survival the Libyan and Syrian regimes swiftly resorted to violent repression to maintain their grip on power Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) govern-ments particularly Saudi Arabia propped up their regional counterparts helping Bahrainrsquos rulers quash protests pressuring Western governments not to support the Uprisings and even offering Jordan and Morocco GCC membership Qatar sought to ride the wave of Egyptrsquos protests aligning itself with the Muslim Brotherhood in an attempt to distance themselves from Saudi regional hegemony Meanwhile Western governments were

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

6

caught in a bind While they had spent at least two decades espousing a rhetoric supportive of democracy and human rights as lsquofundamental val-uesrsquo they had also wedded themselves to autocratic regimes on lsquoprag-maticrsquo grounds espousing those regimesrsquo narratives that democratisation should be a lsquogradualrsquo transition because their citizens were unable to understandmdashnever mind practisemdashdemocracy

Initially protesters won significant victories Tunisian President Ben Ali resigned on January 14 Egyptian President Mubarak stepped down on February 11 and protests flared in Libya and Bahrain on February 14 and Syria on the 15th with smaller protests in Iraq (albeit these were less related to the Arab Uprisings themselves and more to ongoing strife) and in Morocco Mauritania and Jordan For all the assumed resilience of these authoritarian regimes conventional instruments of repression and co- option appeared ineffective betraying both the regimesrsquo lack of support domestically and the precarious nature of the altar of stability upon which Western allies had sacrificed the pursuit of democracy

By mid-2011 Tunisia and Egypt appeared to be struggling for transi-tions away from authoritarianism Libya and Syria had descended into conflict Bahrainrsquos protests had been bloodily repressed with the support of Saudi forces Moroccan and Jordanian monarchies had promised reforms without significant reduction of the monarchsrsquo power and Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies were shoring up authoritarian regimes through massive increases in public spending Algeria alone appeared not to have experienced significant protests By late 2011 Syria and Yemen were mired in conflict the Libyan conflict had been brought to an apparent end with Gaddafirsquos assassination and foreign intervention with only renewed protests stallingmdashhowever temporarilymdashEgyptrsquos counter-revolution Many observers began to describe events either as a conflict-ridden lsquoArab Winterrsquo or as an lsquoIslamist Winterrsquo where Islamist parties hijacked popular uprisings translating them into electoral advantage as in Tunisia and Egypt and where Islamist groups with at best dubious lsquorevolutionary cre-dentialsrsquo suppressed embryonic democracy

By mid-2014 when the main public opinion survey on which we draw in this book was conducted the dreams of a democratic and peaceful tran-sition of the region away from authoritarianism and conflict had ended The civil war continued to rage in Syria and Libya Iraq was being invaded by the so-called Islamic State and Egyptrsquos military coup had overthrown the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government While much has been written about the reasons behind the lsquofailurersquo of the Arab

A TETI ET AL

7

Uprisings the descent into civil unrest and retrenched authoritarian rule very little attention has been paid to how ordinary citizens have reacted to all of this The case studies selected for this book attempt to provide a first portrait of what public opinion survey data can tell us about how individu-als have contended with the events described above and the influence the latter had on values and beliefs It is too early to pronounce a definitive judgement on the legacy of the Arab Uprisings but understanding where ordinary citizens stand on a number of significant socio-economic and political issues can be beneficial in appraising recent regional develop-ments and where they might lead next

13 country context

131 Egypt

Egypt is one of the most strategically and culturally significant countries of the Arab world events here reverberate well beyond the region The fall of Mubarak and its aftermath are no exception Egyptrsquos political and insti-tutional landscape has changed several times during the post-Mubarak period and remains ill-defined Although the Muslim Brotherhood had initially opposed the Uprisings in 2012 free elections returned a Brotherhood-led government with Mohammed Morsi as President and the Brotherhoodrsquos alliance with the Salafist Nour party provided a Parliamentary majority bypassing political forces which had supported the revolution The Brotherhood also attempted to pacify the military with constitutional protection of its political influence and its vast economic empire However following anti-government protests in 2013 the mili-tary ousted Morsi imposed military rule and eventually dissolved parlia-ment The May 2014 Presidential elections sanctioned the Armyrsquos renewed grip on power with the election of El-Sisi as President followed by elec-tions for the House of Representatives in 2015 In a post-coup constitu-tion approved by popular referendum in 2014 the Army obtained strengthened constitutional guarantees that their independence would remain unchecked by civilian oversight including their vast budget Although the Constitution guarantees basic political and civil rights Egypt remains an authoritarian state probably even more so than at any time under Mubarak (Shenker 2017) The government has not only outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood it also cracked down on press freedom non- Islamist opposition activism and youth protests (Holmes 2017) On the

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

8

Systemic Peace Polity IV Index for 2015 which measures minimalist lib-eral democratisation it is classified as an anocracy Egyptrsquos regime remains brittle its degree of fragility having worsened slightly since 2007 (Fund for Peace 2016) and the 2016 Fragile States Index (FSI) placing it on alert

The space for independent civil society in Egypt is heavily constrained and the advocacy work of civil society organisations (CSOs) is impeded (CIVICUS 2017 Teti et al 2014) Despite its prominent role in the uprising and its mobilisations against neo-liberal economics in the preced-ing decade (Beinin 2016) the independent labour movement remains weak and divided and successive governments have attempted to stifle its voice by curtailing civil rights and by police harassment as well as through co-option and the use of nationalist propaganda Religious leaders and Islamist activists however play an important role in politics and the legiti-mation of the regime The Muslim Brotherhoodrsquos political stance is to lsquoIslamisersquo society and since its removal from office the Salafist movement which became politically engaged following the 2011 Uprisings and formed the Nour Party has attempted to position itself as the alternative to the Brotherhood The Azhar remains an important tool in the Egyptian statersquos strategies for popular legitimisation with its scholars (ulaama) scrutinising draft legislation to advise if it is in accordance with Islamic law The Coptic Church also remains close to the regime as they have been to previous authoritarian governments

The weakness of Egyptrsquos social welfare provision is such that charitable organisationsmdashwhich are primarily Islamic with some important Coptic organisationsmdashplay an essential role in Egyptian society without which a considerable percentage of the population would probably find life impos-sible Subsequent governmentsrsquo erosion of welfare provision has made charities crucial in Egyptian politics and a vital element in the legitimisa-tion of Islamist political ideology and of specific political actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Darsquowa (Al-Arian 2014)

Egypt remains a rentier regime with its economy heavily dependent on petroleum and gas agriculture tourism and remittances from migrant workers mainly in Gulf countries Rapid population growth and dwin-dling supplies of arable land are straining the countryrsquos resources and economy while government has done little to address these problems The government controls vast financial resources and is the countryrsquos larg-est employer and although it is difficult to estimate its true economic might the military owns business enterprises that are in almost every

A TETI ET AL

9

sector and produce an extremely wide range of services and goods (Hanieh 2013 Marshall 2015) Economic growth has been sluggish since 2011 and the economy has been hit hard by the decline in oil prices given Egyptrsquos dependency on the Gulf States for development assistance invest-ment and employment for migrant workers (World Bank 2015) Tourism revenues have been hit by the political instability and the threat of terror-ism Official unemployment has increased rapidly since 2010 and Egypt along with other MENA countries has the highest youth unemployment rates in the world The decision to float the Egyptian pound and cut sub-sidies has produced double-digit inflation Post-2011 governments have provided no solution to Egyptrsquos economic woes save the kinds of policies that contributed to triggering the 2011 uprising Unemployment under-employment the gap between expectations and the reality of the labour market income and wealth polarisation and patronage-generated waste on a massive scale are crucial economic issues both for sustainable levels of growth and for long-term political stabilisation

132 Jordan

Jordan is also strategically important located as it is at the crossroads of Asia Africa and Europe Its relevance has increased following the Arab Uprisings emerging as a key battleground between those who would like to see a more democratic region and those who believe sacrificing democ-ratisation is necessary to obtain economic stability and security (Helfont and Helfont 2012) While Jordan witnessed significant protests during the Arab Uprisings demonstrations never called for the departure of King Abdallah II allowing the monarchy room to manoeuvre its way out of the crisis by implementing a number of cosmetic reforms aimed at assuaging dissent

Domestically there is a continuing schism and socio-economic divide between the TransJordaniansmdashthe descendants of the inhabitants of the lands which form modern-day Jordanmdashand the Palestinian-Jordanians who are the descendants of refugees from Israel and the Occupied Territories who fled after the establishment of Israel in 1948ndash1949 The regime lsquobuysrsquo legitimacy from its TransJordanian supporters by providing them with employment in state bureaucracy or in the military which are oversized compared to the countryrsquos needs Current electoral law ensures that TransJordanians who live mainly in rural areas are overrepresented in parliament while urban areas that account for two-thirds of the

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

10

population elect less than a third of deputies Attempts to reform the elec-toral law generate much controversy (Kao 2012) The ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq have had a negative impact on Jordanrsquos economy and are a potential threat to stability and security Jordan being one of the largest hosts of refugees in the world with the influx of refugees numbering 13 million and making up 17 of the total population (authorsrsquo own calcula-tions from Census tables) Domestically this has resulted in security and stability being prioritised over democratisation and human rights

The king is the head of state holds executive powers and is immune from all liability and responsibility Security forces have a significant role in stabilising the regime and being involved in strategic and tactical deci-sions The judiciary is subject to executive influence through the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary Council most of whose members are appointed by the king Political parties are weak with low membership and suffer from the delegitimising strategies of the regime (Martiacutenez 2016) Although the Constitution guarantees basic political and civil rights Jordan remains an authoritarian and illiberal state on the Polity IV Index 2015 it is classified as an autocracy while on the Fragile States Index it has an elevated warning and its degree of fragility worsened between 2007 and 2016

The labour movement and CSOs are generally weak space for them is heavily constrained and their advocacy work is regularly impeded (CIVICUS 2017) Labour unions have few members and poor internal democracy Civil society organisations (CSOs) and international non- governmental organisations (NGOs) tend to focus on service delivery rather than tackling overtly political issues (Ferguson 2017) The various Hirak (movements) formed during the 2011 Uprisings made demands ranging from regime change (a minority) to economic reforms aimed at reversing the governmentrsquos neo-liberal policies However these move-ments have become less active as the space for political activism has become more restricted and mainly limited to the web The Jordanian regime has fostered an official Islam that supports regime dominance which enables it to limit opposition through non-violent conflict resolution (Robbins and Rubin 2013) The Muslim Brotherhood has significant influence over its supporters who live mainly in urban areas Lower-level religious schol-ars who issue the Islamic rules interpret religious regulations and lead prayers in the Mosques play an important role in influencing citizens In addition there is a small but growing Salafi constituency (Wagemakers 2016)

A TETI ET AL

11

Ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq have seriously disrupted economic activity Public debt has risen there are persistent budget deficits and gov-ernment has failed to tackle unemployment Jordan has been in recession since 2011 and unemployment has remained worryingly highmdashespecially youth unemployment which has increased amongst young women (World Development Indicators [WDIs]) For structural reasons such as lack of natural resources and cultivable land the Jordanian economy has been tra-ditionally poor and characterised by a heavy dependence on international aidmdash59 of GDP in 2016mdashand remittances which constitute 143 of GDP (WDIs) The economy is heavily dependent on the service sector and especially touristic revenues which have not been noticeably affected despite post-2011 regional instability

133 Tunisia

Tunisia has never been seen as a central actor in the politics of the Arab world because of its size geographical marginality absence of significant hydrocarbon resources and relative social and political stability following independence from France in 1956 It has however led the region in implementing reforms and influencing political and economic develop-ments across the region and for this reason the country has been of con-siderable importance (Anderson 2011 Sfeir 2006)

There are three main cleavages in Tunisian politics religious-secular socio-economic and regional The religious-secular cleavage has had a profound impact on post-2010 politics with a largely urban wealthier and Francophone elite arguing for a secular state while semi-rural poorer groups argue that religion should be central to policy-making especially for criminal and personal status law Ideological conflict was intense dur-ing the transition but it ultimately ended in a democratic compromise whereby the state remains secular and refrains from interfering with reli-gion and religiosity (Merone 2014) Socio-economic cleavages are along lines of class and especially gender While Tunisian women have enjoyed greater personal status rights than their counterparts across the Arab world conservative and traditional views about the role of women in soci-ety persist and are quite widespread most notably in rural areas (Gray 2012 Kolman 2017) Class cleavages are also significant although at the time of the Uprisings there was a coincidence of interests between a mid-dle class that felt betrayed by the corruption of the Ben Ali regime and a working class that had never had much of a stake in the system (Beinin

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

12

2015) After the revolution this cleavage reappeared with economic issues becoming central to political arguments and social unrest a daily occur-rence in one part or another of the country The regional cleavage is between a more prosperous coastal region and the poorer interior Since independence Tunisians in the south and the interior have felt margin-alised politically economically and socially Encouraging social and eco-nomic development in the south and the interior is one of the most important challenges that Tunis faces

Tunisiarsquos political and institutional landscape has changed dramatically since 2011 Political parties agreed quite quickly that democratic politics was the only way out of the quagmire of authoritarianism Ordinary Tunisians are free to participate in politics form and join political parties be active in civil society and vote in free and fair elections for all levels of power and their individual rights are enshrined in a new constitution approved in 2014 There remain issues and areas for improvement such as policing access to media and genuine gender equality but in six years the country has accomplished a remarkable feat of democratisation On the Polity IV Index Tunisia is classified as a democracy On the Fragile States Indexmdashwhich is a broader measure of stability taking account of the cohe-sion political economic and social situationmdashit is rated as having an ele-vated risk but unlike Egypt and Jordan it has been improving since 2012

Most political parties have pre-Uprisings roots either directly or indirectly but have managed through consensual politics to become protagonists of the transition to democracy The trade union movement a crucial figure in the Tunisian Uprising has sought to influence economic policy- making so as to improve economic conditions for ordinary people It has stayed above the political fray and contributed to working out a deal between political parties to put the transition back on track when it hit problems in 2013 for which it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 Civil Society organisations have become active in Tunisia in all sectors of society and they contribute both to the pluralism of Tunisian associational life and to policy-making now that genuine channels of communication have been opened with the politi-cal system and the political parties However despite the considerable results that the transition has achieved there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm and participation on the part of ordinary citizens which might ultimately under-mine a fragile political system Although the Constitution guarantees politi-cal and civil rights CIVICUS ranks the space for civil society organisations (association peaceful assembly and expression) as obstructedmdashthat is heav-ily contested by power-holders imposing constraints on fundamental civic freedoms While rights are protected in the Constitution archaic laws a

A TETI ET AL

13

resurgent security sector and the use of force undermine them in practice This situation has been exacerbated by restrictions on associational life with a State of Emergency in force since 2015 because of concerns about terrorist attacks that have targeted foreign tourists as well as local people As Boukhars (2017) puts it lsquothe country is still caught in a turbulent grey zone where strong authoritarian tendencies threaten to pull down the countryrsquos tortu-ous march towards democracyrsquo (p 1)

The economic situation has not improved and while political squab-bling and the volatility of the transition have played a role in this the economyrsquos structural problems have remained almost intact IFIs and development partners still put pressure on Tunisia to follow the neo- liberal economic policies that failed to deliver in the 2000s giving the executive little room to manoeuvre Tunisia went into recession in 2011 but then recovered and experienced modest growth (2ndash3 a year) before going into recession again in 2016 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has declined since 2011 and tourism revenues on which Tunisia relies heavily for foreign currency have nearly halved Weak economic performance is preventing the country from dealing with its main problems including unemployment which remains high despite significant hiring in the public sector (African Development Bank 2017) Furthermore regional dispari-ties persist because of meagre government investment and inefficient local authorities in the interior and southern parts of the country Activity is concentrated in the expanding urban areas on the coast and the gap between these and the interior is widening

14 the challenges of the araB uprIsIngs for analysIs and polIcy

The ways in which the Uprisings began and developed in the three coun-tries pose challenges as to how the politics of the Arab world has been understood particularly when it comes to the debate between the para-digms of authoritarian resilience and democratisation In fact the out-come of the Uprisings so far does not fully substantiate either paradigm (Bellin 2012 Pace and Cavatorta 2012 Teti and Gervasio 2011 Valbjorn 2015) On the one hand authoritarian resilience models particularly when based on culturalist explanations about the role of Islam or Arab political culture cannot explain the fall of some regimes and the strong challenges to others regime resilience was clearly not as strong and perva-sive as such models portrayed it as being On the other hand the enthusi-astically revived democratisation paradigm does not fare much better in

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

14

explaining the revolts or the effectiveness of post-Uprisings authoritarian retrenchment as only Tunisia managed to democratise

This section begins with an outline of the analytical and political con-texts and problems within which the toolkit offered by existing scholarship was forged paying particular attention to debates over and limitations in how democracy authoritarianism and political systemic transformations leading towards one and away from the other are conceived It then out-lines approaches found in the literature to the question of democratic transitions (or lack thereof) both in general and in the Middle East specifi-cally It identifies the principal domainscategories these approaches inhabit and the variables they use to explore the transformation of political systems

141 Challenges for the Democratisation Toolkit

By the middle of the 1990s orthodox approaches to political transforma-tions towards democracy came to be dominated by so-called transitology not least thanks to the apparent success of democratisation in Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) and Latin America lsquoTransitologistsrsquo explained successful democratisation by emphasising the importance of elementsmdashsuch as competitive free and fair elections and the role of civil society in constraining the authoritarian impulses of the statemdashwhich per-tain to (liberal) democracyrsquos procedural and formal aspects In addition they emphasised lsquomarket democratisationrsquomdashnamely that the freedom and openness which liberal democratic structures require are provided by market- oriented economies

Most studies of political transformations then understand democracy as the confluence of a recognisably limited number of necessary factors These factorsmdashpresented as prerequisites of democracymdashare generally assumed to be

1 a sufficient level of stateness (eg guaranteeing the rule of Law monop-oly of the legitimate use of force)

2 polyarchy (universal suffrage free and fair elections free speech free-dom of association free media responsible and accountable govern-ments and politicians) and

3 a set of minimal material rights and conditions in the political social and economic lsquospheresrsquo required for civil and political rights provided in polyarchy to be effectively exercised

A TETI ET AL

15

This approach assumes first and foremost that the fundamental precon-dition for democratisation or any political system is a state (Linz and Stepan 1996a) as without the basic ability to enforce the rule of lawmdashwhich requires institutional capabilitymdashdemocracy is not possible A basic requirement in this respect is the statersquos monopoly over the legitimate use of force with the absence of exceptions or jurisdictional enclaves or privi-leges for particular actors (eg the military) Thus state capacity-building for legal enforcement is both a causal and political requisite for democra-tisation The use of force has often been emphasised over legitimacy implicitly reinforcing the ontological priority of security over other aspects of a socio-economic-political compact However enforcing the rule of law also requires popular consent legitimacy is the lynchpin of social con-tracts and without it disintegrative forces would undermine the rule of law and eventually the polity itself In turn such consent requires (demo-cratic) governments to deliver on promises made to their citizens In this sense the question of legitimacy draws attention back to the conditions of social economic and political inclusion and responsiveness

Secondly the possibility of regular elections and replacing leaderships in lsquofree and fairrsquo elections is taken as the defining characteristic of democ-racy (understood as polyarchy) with only lsquofirst generationrsquo human rightsmdashcivil and political libertiesmdashseen as necessary to support such a dynamic (Dahl 1973)

Thirdly most orthodox approaches consider other possible characteris-tics of democracy lsquoless essentialrsquo or lsquoextensionsrsquo of democracy present in lsquomore advanced and completersquo democracies In particular elements of social democracy such as the lsquowelfare statersquo have been argued to be not contributions to but results of democratisation and to have negative unin-tended consequences including demobilised politically disengaged andor economically lsquoparasiticrsquo citizens (Huntington 1968 OrsquoDonnell and Schmitter 1986) Others have recognised that the effective exercise of civil and political rights necessary for a functioning democracymdasheven when understood merely as polyarchymdashrequires a number of socio-economic conditions to be present particularly a reduction of inequalities and the provision of basic services such as education (Dahl 1989 Hyland 1996)

These last issues raise the question of the relation between the political and economic conditions for democracy Orthodox approaches view the statersquos role in the economy as minimal but central as a regulator of mar-kets guarantor and arbiter of contracts and provider of essential services For everything elsemdashincluding socio-economic rights social justice and

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

16

so onmdashthe combination of political liberalism (polyarchy) and economic liberalism (lsquofree marketsrsquo) supposedly affords citizens all the decision- making levers necessary to allocate rights and resources as they see fit Civil society is important but complementary to this process a vibrant civil society and a political society (political parties) independent from the state are considered essential but it is political societyrsquos role to translate demands emerging from civil society into priorities for and policies of the state

There are several important criticisms of this approach Some focus on specific aspects which are misconstrued or entirely absent For example one factor which is as important in real transformations as it is infrequently mentioned in literature is the absence of significant foreign interference (Dahl 1989 Whitehead 1986)

Other criticisms focus on limitations of the framework itself For exam-ple the tripartite distinction between economic civil and political spheres which underpins orthodox approaches is predicated on an assumed differ-ence in form and nominal function However civil society comprises groups of various kinds which act politically albeit often on single issues pressing on political society as well as on the state directly while political society is made of parties which have lsquointerest aggregation functionsrsquo which social movements can also take on albeit without the same formal characteristics as either CSOs or parties (Teti 2015) In addition both civil society and political society depend onmdashand reflectmdashspecific ways in which societies organise their economies The notion that these three lsquospheresrsquo constitute ontologically distinct or causally separable objects is itself questionable (Mitchell 1991 Teti 2012) This should raise questions about the conception of democracy as a balance of such separate but com-plementary spheres

In the event empirical development has forced questions about ortho-dox approaches to democratisation (Carothers 2002) By the end of the 1990s a lsquoreverse waversquo of authoritarianism undermined democratisationrsquos supposed lsquothird waversquo with several post-Soviet states in the Caucasus and CEEC being downgraded for example by Freedom House to lsquonot freersquo while lsquohybrid regimesrsquo (lsquofaccedilade democraciesrsquo or lsquodemocracies with adjec-tivesrsquo) emerged in the Middle East and post-911 lsquosecuritisationrsquo eroded democracy among even supposedly established liberal democracies These three trends which have thus far been considered separately ought to raise questions both about the political future of democracy and about the analytical categories and concepts underpinning its analysis The ensuing debate has yet to overcome important analytical and political obstacles

A TETI ET AL

17

amongst which is the narrowness in the conception of democracy employed in both scholarly work and policy practice (Teti and Abbott 2017) Indeed one of this volumersquos broader aims is precisely to contribute to that debate With this double objective in mind several tendencies stand out in ortho-dox scholarship

bull Teleology a tendency to think of (marketised) Western liberal democ-racy as the political form which transformations away from autocracy tend towards (eg Fukuyama 1989 cf OrsquoDonnell 1996a b)

bull Determinism early studies of democratisation often assumed that as societies modernise and move from pre-industrial to industrial econ-omies there would be an inevitable (linear) path from autocracy to democracy However both logically and empirically there is nothing causally necessary about any such transformations towards any pre-determined outcome On the contrary such transformations are always contested open-ended and precarious and they can be stalled or even reversed (OrsquoDonnell and Schmitter 1986 Teti 2012)

bull Polarity while eventually scholars accepted that political transforma-tions away from authoritarianism were not necessarily linear or deter-ministic and allowed for temporary reversals and multiple pathways the taxonomy upon which orthodox scholarship relies has remained fundamentally lsquopolarrsquo defined by two prescribed end pointsmdashtotali-tarianism and (liberal) democracymdashwithin which analysis of transi-tions take place (Teti 2012) A prescribed set of preconditions are set down as necessary for democratisation with a normative preference for liberal democracy over and above all other political systems in the form of a normative priority awarded to lsquopolyarchicalrsquo characteristics supposedly representing democracyrsquos lsquocorersquo minimum and causally prior prerequisites

bull Taxonomy Complementary to polarity is the taxonomical grid which maps out the possible transformations of states and through which processes of political transformations are viewed It is shaped by a set of normative assumptions particularly in relation to a causal and normative hierarchy between aspects of democracy These normative hierarchies are apparent in the disposition of types and subtypes of political systems according to an lsquoaccretive layeringrsquo reflecting the assumption that certain conditionsmdashspecifically procedural aspects of democracymdashare both necessary and causally prior to others (Linz and Stepan 1996b) The conditions for democracy and transitions

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

18

towards it are summed up in five dimensions Stateness Elections Civil and Political Society Economic Society and Rule of Law and Monopoly of the Legitimate Use of Force

In brief even a cursory outline such as is offered above suggests that there are potential pitfalls in orthodox approaches to the study of transfor-mations towards democracy both in the explicit theoretical focus of these approaches and in the lsquometa-theoreticalrsquo normative assumptions on which they rely Central to both is a specific conception of liberal democracy as twinned mechanisms of political and economic choice the effect of which is to prioritise (a specific set of) civil and political rights over socio- economic rights and social inclusion (Carothers 2002 Linz and Stepan 1996b Teti 2012 2015) The frameworks for scholarly analysis and policy formulation which result from such conceptions are inevitably selective closing off potential alternatives These specificities result in a lsquofixed menursquo from which scholars and also policy-makers debate and select prioritiesmdashfor instance focusing on civil and political rights over social and economic ones or focusing on capacity-building of states or of civil society (Huber 2013)

While this volume is not the place in which to elaborate an entirely dif-ferent approach to political transformations it will endeavour to keep the limitations of existing frameworks in mind and point to the possibility of alternative accounts where possible To do this the following section dis-cusses both mainstream approaches and two possible alternatives while the rest of the volume critically examines survey data to probe orthodox accounts and where necessary to look beyond them

142 Models of Political Transformation

Political Science and Sociology approach the question of political transfor-mations largely through a range of models rooted in the logic of Rostowrsquos modernisation theory Whether through modified versions of that approach (Ingelhart Welzel Huntington) or through its counterparts in studies of Democratisation and lsquoAuthoritarian Resiliencersquo these approaches share a set of assumptions and analytical strategies Democracy and Authoritarianism are conceptualised as polar opposites with the path between them traced by a specific set of necessary transformations albeit reversible and not necessarily always in the same sequence This also explains the existence of three main interrelated types of models

A TETI ET AL

19

bull Democratic Transition (DT) identifies necessary (if not sufficient) conditions for a transition to take place from authoritarian rule to democracy requiring at minimum the combination of a split in authoritarian elites and a degree of pressure from populations (mobilisation) Democratic transitions usually emerge from crises (economic recessions massive human rights abuses defeat in foreign wars) that hit the authoritarian system

bull Hybrid Regimes (HR) variously referred to as lsquohybrid regimesrsquo lsquofaccedilade democraciesrsquo lsquodemocracy with adjectivesrsquo and so on this approach hypothesises the possibility and emergence of regimes that present themselves as democratic but are de facto autocracies in which informal practices of rule render formal democratic institutions and procedures empty of substance Thus while there might be elected and nominally accountable institutions the real wielders of power are unaccountable and sometimes unelected operating through informal channels and placing their priorities above societyrsquos

bull Authoritarian Resilience (AR) identifies blockages making demo-cratic transitions impossible either in principle or in practice As such AR models present variables and causal processes that are the inverse of those found in DT As for DT models necessary conditions for AR include institutional material and cultural conditions ranging from economic factors such as rentierism to cultural ones such as orientalism or political culture and from undemocratic and illiberal agents to international sanctioning of authoritarian practices

Some of the notable problems of this limited lsquomenursquo include under-standing the complex possibilities of political transformation along a single lsquoaxisrsquo linking authoritarianism to (liberal) democracy the desirability of more than just liberal versions of democracy or the blindness to transfor-mations and possibilities within authoritarian systems To address these problems two additional types of authoritarian categories should be considered

bull Cyclical Authoritarianism (CA) points to the superficiality and reversibility of lsquoopeningsrsquo by autocracies suggesting that regimes adopt a strategy alternating political and economic concessions and clampdowns CA regimes fluctuate adaptively between reversible formal configurations while not fundamentally undermining autoc-racy (Hinnebausch 2006)

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

20

bull Brittle Authoritarianism (BA) Authoritarian regimes may generate broad social consensus (eg Nasserrsquos Egypt) allowing them the vio-lent repression of dissent However the use of violence is not in itself an indication of consensus Indeed in repressing dissent autocracies may appear stable but remain vulnerable if they are unwilling or unable to absorb co-opt or respond to the dissent (Ayubi 1995 Teti and Gervasio 2011) Such regimes rely on both extra-legal violence and the legalisation of violence (harassment torture detention with-out trial) and find concessions difficult

Table 11 sets out the taxonomy underpinning the approaches to trans-formations based on a tripartite distinction between political social and economic spheres We use this as a framework for analysing the transfor-mation in Egypt Jordan and Tunisia using macro- and microdata but focusing crucially on the perceptions of ordinary citizens This is the dimension that has often been missing in analyses of the Arab uprisings their roots and their consequences

15 Methodology

This book draws on research carried out as part of the EU-funded Arab Transformations Project The research was cross-national and comparative and drew on existing macrodata indexes and public opinion survey data as well as carrying out a further public opinion survey in six Arab countries in mid- to late 2014 (full details of the research methods can be found in Abbott et al 2017) The projectrsquos overarching aim was to describe explain and understand the root causes and evolution of and the outlook for the Arab Uprisings by shedding light on what drives change how change hap-pens and where (global and regional) transformations lead with particular attention to whether transformations might lead to democracy or whether they might result in a reinforcement of authoritarianism

We use a comparative approach to examine the post-Uprisings trajecto-ries of Egypt Jordan and Tunisia focusing mainly on changes in public opinion This makes it possible to detect both significant similarities across apparently diverse cases and distinctive features of each case allowing more general and less case-specific explanations A comparative approach is fundamental to understand the similarities and differences between countriesrsquo background conditions before the Uprisings between the way protests played out and regimes adapted to them and between the nature

A TETI ET AL

21

Table 11 Taxonomies and approaches to transformations

Transition to democracy

Hybrid regimes

Authoritarian resilience

Brittle authoritarianism

Cyclical authoritarianism

Political systemDemocracy Elections change of governmentsFormal political arena

Parties (barriers to formation) parliaments

Checks and balances

Judicial independence

Rule of law (In)dependence of judiciary equality before the law no exceptionsprivileges

Political attitudes

Authoritarian democratic liberal secular emancipatory

Govrsquot performance

Law and order basic services (education health welfare)

Human rights Civil and political grantednot fully granteddeniedSecurity Personal regional nationalCorruption Government business financial petty corruption influenceInternational context

Permissiveoppositional

Economic systemEconomic rights

Grantednot fully granteddenied

Economic development

Living conditions lsquodevelopmentrsquolsquomodernisationrsquo economic rights satisfaction material conditions political and economic reformsrepression

Political economy

Equalityinequality incomewealth polarisation social mobility economic rights reforms Patrimoniality Clientelism Rentierism corporatism crony capitalism

International context

Levels of dependency (economic geopolitical)

Social systemSocial and cultural rights

Grantednot fully granteddenied

Civil society Absencepresence (in)dependenceco-optation (de)politicisationLegitimacy Culturesemiotic system identity (religion ethnicity etc) and politics

Cultural (anti-)essentialism but importance of previous experiencesRole of local lsquopolitical culturersquoElitesrsquo symbolic manipulationsymbolic capital

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

22

trajectories and results of post-Uprisings transformation processes in the countries To do this we draw on data from the Arab Transformations Survey (ATS) Arab Barometer (AB) AfroBarometer (AfB) [only Egypt and Tunisia] World Values Survey 6 (WVS) and Gallup World Poll (GWP) as well as non-survey macrodata such as the World Development Indicators (WDIs) and Indexes measuring democratisation and governance (For details of the range of variables macrodata and indexes used in the project see Lomazzi et al 2017) Unless otherwise indicated to make the text more readable we are drawing on ABII when discussing public opinion in 2011 ABIII when discussing 2013 and ATS when discussing 2014 and macroindicators are from the WDIs

While surveys undoubtedly have their limitations they provide a broad picture of a societyrsquos public opinion and permit the generalisation of the findings from the survey to the population of each country as a whole with a specified degree of precision They therefore provide an important insight into the political and social attitudes of adults in the three coun-tries in the aftermath of the Uprisings making it possible to investigate what significant factors or combinations of factors (a) made protests pos-sible in the first place (b) triggered the protests themselves and (c) affected the outcomes of those processes

references

Macro IndIcators and Indexes

Polity IV data httpwwwsystemicpeaceorginscrdatahtmlWorld Development Indicators httpdataworldbankorgproductswdi

other references

Abbott P Sapsford R J Diez-Nicholas J amp Teti A (2017) The Methods Handbook for the Political and Social Transformations in the Arab World Project Aberdeen University of Aberdeen

African Development Bank (2017) Tunisia ndash Country Strategy Paper 2017ndash2021 Tunis African Development Bank

Al-Arian A (2014) A State Without a State The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhoodrsquos Social Welfare Institutions Project on Middle East Political Science Retrieved from httpspomepsorg20140930a-state-without-a-state-the-egyptian- muslim-brotherhoods-social-welfare-institutions

A TETI ET AL