Introduction
Over the last two decades, Middle
East specialists in political science and other academic fields have used a
wide variety of approaches to understand problems with political and economic development
in the region; in particular, the region’s apparent immunity to the wave of
democratization that effected Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa
throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. With
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of authoritarianism in Eastern
Europe, many political scientists thought it was only a matter of time before
the same thing happened in the Middle East. The field became dominated by researchers
looking for any sign that the region’s political systems were opening up. However, by the 2000’s, it became apparent
that authoritarian regimes in the region were far more flexible and durable
than previously thought. Although the
Arab Spring in 2011 created an initial wave of optimism in the academic
community, the lack of democratic transitions in the region, perhaps with the
exception of Tunisia, only reinforced the perception that the Middle East was
unique in terms of its struggle to democratize. Political scientists over the last decade
have used a great variety of approaches to try and understand why this might be
the case.
There is a lot to learn by comparing
and contrasting the literature. For one,
researches have used a great variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to
understand the region. They have made
use of the sciences of economics, anthropology, sociology, international
relations, comparative politics, history, and gender studies in their works. By approaching the problem of political and
economic development from many different angles, these researchers show that
there are multiple complications with development in the region, many of which
are interconnected with each other.
Problems with rentierism, clientelism, Islamic radicalism, gender
inequality, ethnic conflict, economic dependency on the West, environmental degradation,
over population, the suppression of civil liberties, a lack of regional
economic integration, and a plethora of new authoritarian maintenance strategies
have created problems with governance and the political economy. Understanding the complexity of problems with
governance and democratization in the region requires a diversity of
methodologies and coordination among scholars operating in different fields.
To compare and contrast the
literature, I have chosen four works that represent a diverse sampling of the research
completed over the last couple of decades on the issue of political development
in the Middle East. They are as follows:
Governance in the Middle East and North Africa, which was edited by Abbass
Kadhim; “Does Oil Hinder Democracy,” by Michael Ross; “Taming Wusta to Achieve
Development,” by Robert Cunningham and Yasin Sarayrah; and “Islam and Democracy
in the Middle East: The Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes toward
Democracy in Four Arab Countries,” by Mark Tessler. The authors of the book and the articles
mentioned above make use of a diversity of different strategies to understand
governance in the Middle East and the obstacles to political and economic development
in the region.
Governance in the Middle East
and North Africa
Abbas
Kadhim’s edited book Governance in the Middle East and North Africa,
which was written in 2013, provides a diverse array of perspectives on
political development in the Middle East and the challenges facing the region.[1] Like many other scholarly works in the social
sciences over the last few decades, each chapter is written by different
specialists who focus on their own area of research. Chapters one through ten focus on general
issues affecting governance in the Middle East like corruption, excessive
military spending, rentier states, unemployment, a lack of regional trade,
radical Islamism, the suppression of civil liberties, and gender
inequality. Chapters eleven through
twenty eight consist of individual country case studies where we get to see
many exceptions to the general problems affecting governance in the
region. Overall, the book seeks to bring
together the macro and micro as well as qualitative and quantitative studies in
one exhaustive volume. What is good
about these kinds of books is that the reader has the opportunity to look at
the issue of governance in the MENA region from a great diversity of
perspectives and methodologies.
Of course, the biggest drawback for
the editors of these volumes is tying the research and ideas of all of the
authors together to create general theories about political development. After
all, one of the main goals of political science is to explain the most
phenomena while using the least amount of independent variables possible, but
trying to coordinate the ideas of authors who use different methodologies and
come from different academic disciplines is not easy. The writers in Governance in the Middle East
and North Africa do make frequent mention of each other throughout the
book; however, with the exception of a very terse introduction, the work lacks
a single voice that could truly tie together these diverse perspectives. This
does not mean that Abbas Kadhim did not attempt to synchronize the works of the
various authors in the book. He places
the chapters of the book in a very specific order to show the reader how the
various problems with governance and development in the region are
interconnected with each other.
He purposely placed the article “Governance-constrained
growth in the MENA region” by Robert Looney at the beginning of the work
because it sets the stage for the book’s central question: why has the Middle
East struggled with political and economic development in comparison with other
regions of the world over the last half century.[2] Before answering this question, Kadhim’s
edited volume needed a comparativist like Robert Looney who could define
concepts like good governance and economic growth, and who could establish how
the Middle East compares with other regions of the world.
Looney used a diverse array of
statistics and indexes to make a connection between his independent and
dependent variables, which are governance and economic growth respectively, in
order to compare and contrast different regions of the world. Looney feels that economic growth requires a
country’s integration with the global economy; stable and sufficient tax
collection; and the protection of private property, and this can only achieved
through good governance. To define
governance, he relies on a complex index developed by the World Bank, which
measures the following six variables using a diverse array of surveys conducted
in each country: voice and accountability (civil liberties); political
stability; government effectiveness; regulatory quality; rule of law; and
control of corruption. He measures
economic growth with GDP per capita and the Heritage Foundation’s Economic
Freedom Index. After comparing and
contrasting between regions, what he finds is that Asia and Central/Eastern
Europe have had significantly higher rates of economic growth over the last
half century than Latin America, the Middle East, and Sub Saharan Africa, and
this is correlated with the quality of governance. East Asia and Central Europe scored
consistently higher on the World Bank’s governance indicator than the other
three regions. Although the Middle East
did score slightly better than Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa on some
governance indicators like perceptions of corruption and the rule of law, they
ranked at the bottom on governance indicators connected with the level of
political freedom like voice and accountability.
The proceeding chapters seek to
understand why the region has problems with governance and, in turn, economic
growth. Democratization, in particular, has eluded the
region. One of the facts that make the
Middle East unique in comparison with the rest of the world is the presence of
vast quantities of fossil fuels.
Approximately two thirds of the world’s oil reserves are located in the
region. This is why Kadhim followed up
Looney’s article with Mary Ann Tetreault’s “Stuff is Not Enough: Resources and
Governance in the Middle East,” which looks at the effects of rents like water,
religious monuments, transport routes, and most importantly oil on governance.[3] A lot has been written about the pernicious
effects of oil on developing countries within the field of political science. Although the resource has generated a lot of
wealth for fossil fuel exporting countries in places like the Gulf,
overdependence on the resource has stalled political and economic development
over all. Oil does create wealth, but it
is a resource that can easily be concentrated in the hands of an authoritarian
government who can then use that wealth to buy off political opponents and silence
those who aren’t as easily co-opted with coercion. Since the wealth from rents does not have to
be earned, governments lack the incentive to tax their own population or invest
in industry and quality educational institutions. Furthermore, these regimes are dangerously
dependent on a single resource that is neither stable nor viable for the long
term future. Even the regimes in the
Middle East that don’t have large amounts of oil resources have other forms of
rents like oil pipelines, strategic transportation routes, remittances from
workers in the oil industry, religious/historical monuments, and access to
Western aid due to the strategic importance of the region. Rentierism is a problem that affects most of
the Middle East. This is one of the reasons
why the region has struggled with political and economic development according
to Tetreault.
Kathim follows up Tetreault’s
article with Charles Dunbar’s “The Middle East political economy and the Arab
Awakening: A Difficult symbiosis?,” which discusses the connections between
authoritarianism, poor governance, unemployment, and the revolutions of 2011.[4] Dunbar discusses how Middle East states,
following independence from Europe, created highly centralized political
economies in the 1950’s with the aim of redistributing capital from agriculture
to industry to modernize their countries.
Part of the rational for this is that they were protecting their
economies from Western industry by placing heavy tariffs on imports; also,
governments were seen as the only institutions with enough capital in
underdeveloped societies to invest in industrialization. However, these import-substitution strategies
failed to achieve the desired level of growth due to numerous political factors.
Due to intense social cleavages, authoritarian governments in the Middle East
too often sacrificed long term economic development for short term political
stability by creating expensive welfare states and distributing jobs in the
bureaucracy to loyal political clients. Bureaucracies
throughout the region became heavily politicized and corrupt, creating problems
with the rule of law, the infrastructure, educational systems, and foreign investment. State controlled industries too often became
inefficient and unprofitable, and debt ridden countries were forced to turn to
international banks for loans. As
populations and urbanization increased, governments in the Middle East couldn’t
provide enough jobs for people, and budget constraints led to the reduction of
social welfare programs. Although states in the Gulf were able to
mitigate these problems due to large amounts of oil rents and small
populations, other countries in the region struggled to maintain the costs of
their over bloated bureaucracies. Charles Dunbar makes the claim that discontent
over the quality of governance and deteriorating economic conditions set the
stage for the revolutions of 2011.
Failing to develop free markets
protected by the rule of law, countries in the Middle East failed to
significantly diversify their economies.
This has led to significant problems with enhancing regional trade
according to Claire Brunel and Gary Hufbauer in the article “Trade agreements
in the MENA region: Contribution to Better Governance,” which is the fourth
chapter of the book.[5] Brunel
and Hufbauer note that increasing international trade can increase good
governance since it requires developing countries to meet the regulatory
standards of developed countries.
Furthermore, increased trade eases regional political tensions and
allows for the sharing of technology and resources. Although trade has increased substantially
between the Middle East and the West since the 1970’s, MENA countries have not
significantly increased trade with their own neighbors or strengthened regional
political and economic institutions, perhaps with the exception of the Gulf
Cooperation Council. According to the author, an abundance of
international institutions have been created within Africa and the Middle East
for the purposes of promoting greater regional and sub-regional trade, but
there are many political and economic road blocks standing in the way of
reform. Since authoritarian regimes fear
that competition and legal reforms will weaken their base of power in their own
countries, they are hesitant to allow imports that are free of some kind of
formal or informal tax in order to protect domestic businesses loyal to the
regime. These problems with
international trade have played a role in reducing the effectiveness of
governance throughout the region.
Problems with economic and political
development have, in turn, led to growing political discontent in the Middle
East over the last few decades and the rise of Islamist opposition
movements. Much has been written on
this subject as Islamist social movements have created numerous complications
with governance in the region. Mohammed
M. Hafez discusses the nature of these Islamist movements in an article titled
“Illegitimate governance: The roots of Islamist radicalization in the MENA” in
chapter five.[6] According to Hafez, these Islamist movements
share a lot in common. They all seek to mix
religion and state. Furthermore, most of
these groups view the governments that oppress them as being corrupt and
adjust; according to them, only Islam can provide the moral solution necessary
to address the political, economic, and social evils created by secular,
authoritarian rule. However, according
to Hafez, Islamism as a growing social movement has manifested itself in a
number of different ways. Some of these
groups are more passive, preferring to partially cooperate with ruling regimes
in exchange for being allowed to establish their charitable organizations and
social networks. Several authoritarian
regimes, like in Egypt from the 1970’s to the 2000’s, allowed Islamist networks
like the Muslim Brotherhood to operate as they provided much needed social
welfare that the government was increasingly unable to provide. Many of these Islamist networks have been
provided with a lot of funding through remittances from laborers in wealthy
Gulf countries. Other Islamist movements
have instead turned to violence as the main solution to overthrow repressive
governments. Authoritarian regimes have
often responded with coercion to suppress these movements.
The rises of Islamist movements have
created numerous problems with governance.
Other than increasing the potential for political conflict, it also led
to the establishment of more conservative social norms, causing problems with
women’s rights. In Chapter 8, Vickie
Langohr and Amaney Jamal discuss this issue in the article “The improvement of
women’s rights in the Arab world.”[7] Although the status of women in terms of
unemployment and education has improved considerably in the last few decades,
the Middle East still ranks last in all major categories that measure women’s
empowerment; this has created a major obstacle to political and economic
development. The positive reforms that
have been enacted in the region to deal with issues like underrepresentation of
females in parliament and access to jobs for women have almost all taken place
as a result of authoritarian leaders forcing reforms on the rest of
society. Monarchs and presidents alike
that have attempted reform were resisted heavily by conservative social forces
resisting change. Many Western
political scientists have debated whether or not these Islamist social and
political movements constitute civil society since much of their rhetoric is
anti-democratic and often discriminatory towards females and religious
minorities.
While authoritarian regimes have
faced a lot of pressure from below, they have also faced pressure from Western
countries and minorities within their own countries that support liberal,
democratic reform. Since the 1970’s,
authoritarian regimes throughout the regime that have sought Western aid and
loans have often been pressured to introduce democratic institutions and allow
a space for non-governmental organizations to operate. Heather S. Gregg writes about this in “The prospects
for democratization in the Middle East” in chapter seven.[8] Authoritarian regimes all eventually
responded to these international pressures with superficial democratic reforms,
creating parliaments that have little power and fraudulent elections with
predetermined outcomes. Gregg doubts
that these new institutions will lead to real democratization in the near
future. If anything, many authors have
argued that these fake institutions only reinforce authoritarianism as they
provide a way for these regimes to increase their legitimacy and co-opt
oppositional movements without actually allowing real political competition.
However,
as political and economic problems have grown throughout the region over the
last four decades, authoritarian regimes have had greater difficulty making the
necessary adjustments to avoid political unrest, labor strikes, revolutions,
and calls for democratization. As the
world becomes more interconnected due to the internet and digital technology,
it will become more difficult for regimes to suppress the rising expectations
of their people who will want better governance and accountability. Aqeel Abood writes in “Revolutions in the
Middle East: Demands for political, social, and economic changes and the
states’ repressive response” in chapter ten:
The Middle Eastern revolutions have no doubt taught us
many valuable lessons. The movements of
the youth in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and elsewhere have proven, first,
that fear of the state neither plays a key factor in driving people to do things,
nor is influential from the state’s point of view as a key factor in shaping
people’s social, political, and economic fates.”[9]
Regimes in the region are now caught between social
groups calling for liberal and Islamist reforms; they are also facing the
difficult challenge of choosing between economic policies that promote short
term political stability or long term economic development. They face these difficult challenges while
dealing with growing populations, diminishing resources, environmental
degradation, and rising expectations for better governance among their
population.
Of
course, each country in the MENA region is facing its own unique challenges. Chapters eleven through twenty year discuss
problems with governance in each state.[10] Some countries have had it worse than
others. For example, Lebanon has the
unique challenge of dealing with a sectarian political system where eighteen
different ethnic groups have to coexist within a small state. Iraq is dealing with the legacy of Saddam
Hussein, the US occupation, and sectarian warfare between religion and ethnic
groups. Resource poor Yemen has had to
deal with tribal, religious, and geographic social cleavages that have
frequently led to the civil war in the country over the last few decades. Palestinians have had to live with the
reality of Israeli occupation since 1967.
Syria experienced forty years of highly oppressive authoritarian rule where
an Alawite minority dominated over a Sunni majority, and a subsequent civil war
that has claimed the lives of over 200,000 individuals. On the other hand, some countries have been
more fortunate. The Arab Gulf has the
luxury of having small populations and enormous oil wealth, allowing
governments to provide their citizens with a lavish lifestyle. Turkey, a unique outlier in the region, has
been able to sideline its military from politics, diversify its economy, and
establish a more pluralistic form of government in the last few decades. There are also countries that have a mixed
situation. Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, and
Tunisia have experienced far more stability than their conflict ridden
neighbors, but they suffer from stagnant authoritarian political systems where
stability is traded for long term economic development. Tunisia is the only country that currently
has the potential to transform into a pluralistic, democratic society following
its revolution in 2011. These chapters
in Khadim’s book highlight the fact that there is a great amount of diversity
in the region.
There are of course some problematic
issues with some of the main conclusions of the book. One of the problems with the opening chapter and
the book in general is that its definition of economic development is tied very
closely with the Washington Consensus and politically partisan, right wing
organizations that promote it like the Heritage Foundation. These organizations promote a neoliberal view
of international relations, which seeks to promote free trade and democracy
throughout the world. For these groups,
economic growth and political stability is what matters; issues like equality,
the environment, health, and education are secondary.
Even though GDP per capita can tell
us about the total wealth produced by a country, it cannot tell us about the
degree of economic inequality or the level of human development as measured by
variables like health and education.
Furthermore, although economic integration with the rest of the globe
does create greater access to new technology, markets, and information, it also
means that developing markets might get flooded with cheaply produced goods,
making it more difficult to establish a local industrial sector. This is not to imply that the authors in this
book do not acknowledge these issues at various points or do not address issues
like education; however, several of the authors in the book see economic growth
and integration with the global economy purely as signs of political and
economic progress. The fact that the
main topics of the first half of the book focus on Washington Consensus issues
like international trade agreements, employment, and security while issues like
education, the environment, and poverty are not main topics is indicative of most
of the authors’ views on development in the region.
Does Oil Hinder Democracy?
Over
the last couple of decades, there has been a plethora of journal articles
written on political development in the Middle East; one of the most popular
topics is the issue of oil rents and its effect on political development and
democratization. Michael Ross, in an
article titled “Does Oil Hinder Democracy,” relies on complex quantitative
methods to compare and contrast regimes that are highly dependent on oil and
mineral resource rents with those that are not.
The purpose of doing so was to understand what affect rents have on
political development and why rentierism impedes democratization.[11] The
study trades quantity for quality by using a large amount of statistics to
compare 113 states over a twenty four year period to see if there is a negative
correlation between rentierism and democratization.
The most impressive aspect about
Ross’ methodology is the way in which he compares massive amounts of statistics
over a long period of time, and the creative ways he operationalizes his
variables. He measured rentierism on a
graduated scale based on what percentage of government expenditures is
dependent on oil and mineral resources. Furthermore, he measured his dependent
variable, democratization, on a scale of zero to ten, using many of the same
standards currently put to use by Freedom House and other international
institutions. He did far more than compare
the data to see if there is a correlation between the independent and dependent
variables; the author also analyzed the statistics to see if non-rentier states
progressed faster politically than rentier states from 1973 to 1977. He used computer software to analyze what
would happen if variables like Islamic countries or Gulf countries were removed
from the analysis; individual regions were also analyzed to see if rentierism
had a different affect on governance in these parts of the world. What he found was that there was a
correlation between rentierism and struggles with democratization irrespective
of other variables like culture, religion, or the time period being
studied.
To understand why, Ross compared the
113 countries to see if rentier states were more likely to have low levels of
taxation; spend more on state welfare and defense; and have less economic
diversity. The results showed a clear correlation between
rentierism and low tax rates as well as high spending on government welfare;
however, results were far less clear in terms of the rentier state’s connection
with increased spending on security and the lack of diversity in the economy. The author feels that more research is needed
in this area to understand why rentierism seems to impede democratization.
Of course, the weakness in the study
is that it is broad and does not go into the specific details of each
country. There might be other factors
that are impeding democratization in rentier states outside of an
overdependence on oil and mineral resources.
We would need more case studies over a much longer period of time to be
sure of Michael Ross’ findings. The
author admits this and knows that more research needs to be completed in the
future.
Taming Wusta to Achieve Development
Another
major problem that impedes development in the region is clientelism, which
refers to vertical social networks where patrons give benefits to clients in
exchange for loyalty. Robert Cunningham
and Yasin Sarayrah discuss this topic in the article “Taming Wusta to Achieve
Development,” showing how clientelism leads to corruption in bureaucracies,
which in turn leads to problems with the rule of law.[12] Unlike
Michael Ross, these authors relied on qualitative methods to understand the
connection between the independent and dependent variables.
To
understand the pernicious effects of clientelism, Cunningham and Sarayrah describe
the stories of several individuals who obtained jobs in the Jordanian bureaucracy
through nepotism. Through these case
studies, the authors show how these clientele networks discourage hard work
since gaining jobs is based on connections and not qualifications. Furthermore, once a person gets a job, their
position is only secure as long as their patron remains in a position of power,
creating a great degree of uncertainty.
To make matters worse, the person with the connection is than pressured
by family members and friends to use his position of power to help out his
relatives while he still can. Even if
the bureaucrat wants to do his job properly, there are social forces acting
upon him that make it nearly impossible.
Also, the bureaucrat’s boss has less room to discipline his worker for
bad behavior. The end result is that
bureaucrats end up performing poorly, eating up state resources while little is
accomplished. Through the micro-study,
we can understand the complex dynamics of individual patron-client networks and
how they negatively affect governance.
There
are several weaknesses in the methodology used by the authors. Although the individual stories help the
reader understand how cliental networks function, we have no idea how common
this phenomenon is in Jordan or the rest of the Middle East in general based on
this study alone. Furthermore, the
causes of it are vaguely attributed to oil rents and the influence of Bedouin
culture. Even more problematic is the
author’s proposed solution to the problem.
The authors suggest that managers can deal with bad employees in a
cliental system by following the Bedouin tradition of sitting down with all of
the parties involved in the social network and discussing the performance of
the worker in question over a cup of tea.
Cunningham and Sarayrah offer no case examples of companies who had
success implementing this strategy. To
be fair to the authors, clientelism, unlike state rents, is not an easy
phenomenon to quantify; the relations between patron and client are informal
after all. We can only quantify
variables that are indirectly connected to clientelism like worker efficiency.
Islam and Democracy in the Middle East
Another
common variable that is linked to problems with democratization is the
influence of Islamic culture on the region.
Mark Tessler, in “Islam and Democracy in the Middle East,” hypothesized that
the Middle East had generally negative attitudes towards democracy in the
1970’s and 1980’s due to conservative religious attitudes.[13]
To test his hypothesis, he completed surveys in four countries throughout the
MENA region, including Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Palestine. The surveys attempted to quantify religious
beliefs and political attitudes to determine if negative attitudes towards
democracy were correlated with religious belief. Although he confirmed that there was a
generally negative attitude towards democracy, its connection with Islamic
beliefs was inconclusive.
There
were several problems with this study.
First of all, he didn’t ask Muslims living outside the region to see if
people of the same faith living within different political environments held
different perspectives on democracy.
Furthermore, he didn’t give the same surveys to people of different
faiths living in other autocratic governments.
Lastly, he wasn’t able to give surveys in Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria
outside of the major cities, which means that he was not able to sample the
full population. One of the obstacles
facing Middle East regional specialists is the difficulty of using surveys to
measure popular opinions. Authoritarian
regimes place a lot of restrictions on academics in this area. Although Tessler’s hypothesis is relevant,
testing it is very difficult in a region that lacks basic civil liberties.
Conclusion
Although
there is a growing base of diverse of literature on political and economic development
in the Middle East, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to improve the
methodologies we use to study variables in the region. Also, many research topics need further
study. Following the 2011 revolutions
that caught the academic community by surprise, it is obvious that much more
needs to be done in terms of understanding political development in the region.
Work Cited
1. Cunningham, Robert and Yasin Sarayrah. 1995. “Taming
Wasta to Achieve Development,” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 16, 3: 29-41.
2. Kadhim, Abbas, ed.
Governance in the Middle East and North Africa. Routledge: 2013.
3. Ross, Michael. "Does oil hinder democracy?"
World Politics, 53 (3): 325-361.
4. Tessler, Mark. "Islam and Democracy in the Middle East:
The Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes toward Democracy in Four Arab
Countries," Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Apr., 2002), pp. 337-354.
[1]
Kadhim, Abbas, ed. Governance in the
Middle East and North Africa. Routledge:
2013.
[2]
Ibid, 3-32.
[3]
Ibid, 33-46.
[4]
Ibid, 50-62.
[5]
Ibid, 63-84.
[6]
Ibid, 85-97.
[7]
Ibid, 133-154.
[8]
Ibid, 112-132.
[9]
Ibid, 182.
[10]
Ibid,
[11] Ross, Michael. "Does oil hinder democracy?"
World Politics, 53 (3): 325-361.
[12]
Cunningham, Robert and Yasin Sarayrah. 1995. “Taming Wasta to Achieve
Development,” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 16, 3: 29-41.
[13]
Tessler, Mark. "Islam and Democracy
in the Middle East: The Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes toward
Democracy in Four Arab Countries," Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 3
(Apr., 2002), pp. 337-354.
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