Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Adaptable Autocrats

Stanford University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................................ixAbbreviations and Acronyms.......................................................xiiiIntroduction: Changing to Stay the Same..........................................11 Debating Authoritarianism......................................................282 The Origins of Executive Authority.............................................473 Adaptation and Elite Co-optation...............................................794 Adaptation and Nonelite Co-optation............................................1205 The 2011 Uprisings and the Future of Autocratic Adaptation.....................156Notes............................................................................179References.......................................................................201Index............................................................................219

Chapter One

THE NUMBER OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACIES IN THE WORLD grew from 76 to 120 between 1990 and 2000. During the decade that followed, democracies started to decline. In 2010, the fifth consecutive year of decline, the number dipped to 115. Citizens in the political systems of the Arab world did not notice this expansion and contraction. Their systems have defied global democratizing trends for decades. Freedom House lists all Arab governments as "not free" with the exception of Morocco, Iraq, and Lebanon. Yet, even these exceptions are suspect. Thoroughly authoritarian systems remain in the Arab world after democratization's "Third Wave," the Soviet Union's implosion, and decades of continuing failures by the US government's "democratization industry." The region's exceptionalism left some academics perplexed despite protests from regional experts. Some credited the region's predominately Islamic or Arab cultures as the obstacle for democracy in the region. Yet, even those who do not resort to cultural arguments were seduced by the prospects of democracy.

Despite the recalcitrance of autocracy in the region, democratization frameworks and assumptions informed many of the research agendas during the 1990s. So much so that, in 1999, Lisa Wedeen argued, "There are, oddly, few recent writings on authoritarianism in comparative politics and they tend to be concerned primarily with the transition from authoritarian to democratic forms of rule." It is not that social scientists believed the region was experiencing democratization. Irrespective of intentions or beliefs, the transitology framework became stitched into the work in the 1990s. While studies continue to vacillate between bottom-up and top-down approaches, research production shifted to explicitly explaining authoritarian durability in the 2000s. With the 2011 uprisings in the region, research agendas arrive at a fresh—if yet still unsettled—junction. If those working on the Arab world follow the trail blazed by those who researched the post-Soviet transitions, then there will likely be more work on social groups than on elites in the coming period. Yet, given the convoluted transitions that emerged after 1989, democratization will likely be just as complicated as it has always been in the Arab world. There will not likely be a wholesale adoption or return to studying democratic transitions. Just because studying authoritarianism has been the dominant paradigm for the past decade does not mean that others were listening. For example, US policy circles have failed to move away from their liberalizing aims and rhetoric in the Arab world irrespective of the realities on the ground.

Successive American administrations also deployed foreign aid and other incentive programs to promote democracy in the Arab world. Following the September 11 attacks, the US government viewed the lack of democracy as a national security question. The Bush administration responded with the "Freedom Agenda." Except for the military intervention into Iraq, Bush's agenda was just a repackaged attempt to democratize and "electionize" autocratic states. Yet, US democracy promotion efforts and aid has not directly impacted rulers' tenures in office. These efforts also have not improved educational standards, strengthened institutions, empowered women, or created middle classes in Arab states. The UN's Arab Human Development Reports record the lack of progress in these "deficit" areas regularly.

Diplomatic exchanges between the United States and Arab governments dramatize this struggle over democratization. On one side of this reform struggle stand US political elites, who argue that Arab governments should reform by increasing freedoms and democracy. The Arab ruling elites respond by reconfiguring their ranks to appease international actors but continuing to block openings for greater inclusion. When American officials speak of reform, they seem to imply a change in the character of governance. When Arab leaders initiate reform, they have precluded such changes. This looks like a heated battle of wills between right and wrong, but it has traditionally been much ado about nothing.

This drama plays out every few years. The democratization industry amplifies the refrain that the American government has insufficiently or incorrectly promoted democracy. Congressional funding is channeled throughout the bureaucracy to sponsor various programs such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). Diplomatic exchanges occur whereby American officials ask for greater inclusive reform from their Arab counterparts. Secretaries of State visit and appeal for spectacles, such as elections, to demonstrate compliance. Arab elites, however, are not rendered defenseless in this performance. They respond. Leaders warn ominously of chaos if reforms are not managed responsibly. Government ministers and party apparatchiks claim that they are already democratizing. Newspaper editorials levy allegations of foreign meddling in their affairs. After bilateral relations are described as "tense," the incumbent regime reorders its hierarchy and produces measures that recalibrate their entrenchment. Kienle has called this "political deliberalization"; and Pool notes the tendency for "a retreat to a stricter authoritarianism" when pursing reforms. While US officials and policy centers claim victory over the superficial actions of Arab leaders, the outcome is cosmetic.

Some analysts cite the importance of Washington's pressure as an impetus for Arab reform measures. This exuberance should be tempered. For example, Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that Washington positively nudged Egypt to establish multicandidacy presidential elections in 2005. She fails, however, to disclose that the incumbent cruised to victory with nearly 90 percent of that contest's vote. It seems clear that no amount of incentives, political will, or strategic appointments within the State Department will reverse the barren fortunes of the US democracy promotion. Regardless, the aid and democratization enterprises continue to double down on their failed efforts rather than change the assumptions or accept the projects' limitations.

Despite the ardency that these diplomatic face-offs produce in terms of impassioned exchanges and spilled ink by those across the transnational ideological...