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Mediterranean Politics
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The Unbearable Lightness of Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Arab Uprisings

Andrea Teti & Gennaro Gervasio
a a b

Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Scotland

b

Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University, Australia Available online: 22 Jul 2011

To cite this article: Andrea Teti & Gennaro Gervasio (2011): The Unbearable Lightness of Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Arab Uprisings, Mediterranean Politics, 16:2, 321-327 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2011.583758

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

PROFILE

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The Unbearable Lightness of Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Arab Uprisings

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

On 17 December 2010, Mohamad Bouazizi set himself on re in desperation in the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, sparking what became a revolution which in barely 28 days toppled one of the most notorious autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa. The upheaval that followed, however, surprised even keen observers, not only successfully removing Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from what seemed like a seat of unchallengeable power, but sparking revolts against other autocrats across the region, most famously in Egypt, but also in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and latterly Syria, with signicant protests also in Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Today, as protesters in Tunisia and Egypt struggle to consolidate their gains and others hope to emulate their successes, it is far from clear what enduring results these uprisings will yield. Some have called the last few months an Arab 1989, while others have drawn analogies with Europes doomed revolutions of 1848. Although the outcome of these unprecedented uprisings and the precise nature of the changes currently taking place in Egypt and across the region will only become apparent in the fullness of time, some important lessons on their roots and signicance can already be drawn. The Frailty of Autocracy The rst lesson is that authoritarianism is often fragile. After the fall of the USSR, there was considerable optimism that global transitions to (liberal) democracy were simply a matter of time. As the decade progressed, however, some eastern European countries backslid and democratizations third wave failed to spread to the Middle East. In both regions, autocracies increasingly spoke the language of
Correspondence Address: Andrea Teti, Department of Politics and International Relations University of Aberdeen, Edward Wright Building, Aberdeen AB24 3QY. Email: a.teti@abdn.ac.uk

1362-9395 Print/1743-9418 Online/11/020321-7 q 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2011.583758

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liberalism, while only enacting changes that were either cosmetic or easily reversible. Explanations for this newfound authoritarian resilience offered by mainstream scholarship often originate in culturalist claims about Islam and Arab culture to the tools of patronage and coercion that keep regional autocrats in power. Others emphasized the novelty of this new form of governance, which paradoxically dressed up repression and citizens exclusion from decision making in the language of democracy: while granting democratic rights in principle, enacting legislation especially vigorous security legislation, draconian restrictions on independent press and civil society, and the emasculation of parliaments of any legislative or oversight functions would make it impossible in practice. So strong did authoritarianisms grip on local politics appear to be, that some scholars even recently called for a shift away from studying democratization to postdemocratization. And yet, while the combination of co-option and coercion destroyed much ofcial opposition in the Arab world, making regime stability appear convincing, stability and calm ought not to be conated. Although most observers of Middle Eastern affairs were well aware of the lack of legitimacy most regimes suffered from, this did not translate into scepticism about their solidity. In this sense, the events of the last few months are an indictment of the profession not, as some have alleged, because they were not predicted very few expected the sheer scale of events, including protesters themselves but because ferocity and strength were so easily conated. Roots of Radicalization The second lesson is that there are concrete limits to the speed and extent of neoliberal reforms. The 25 January protests happened barely two days after the IMF called for further cuts in subsidies on essential goods in Egypt,1 demonstrating singularly bad political timing, and poor judgement of or possibly little regard for the impact that such reforms would have on most Egyptians. As in the cases of Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan, debates about the roots of protest in Egypt quickly split between those who pointed to economic factors and those who thought protest was primarily driven by political dissatisfaction. But the two are inextricably linked. In the (gun)re and fury, it is easy to forget that just as in Egypts rst January intifada, in 1977, todays protests are the direct result of neo-liberal reforms, both political and economic. Politically, liberalization without democratization simply marginalizes those it avowedly empowers: their increasing frustration cannot come as a surprise. Economically, when liberalization leads to the emergence of monopolistic or oligopolistic market forces, with little regard for a more even wealth distribution, such reforms increase citizens sense of alienation from the state, further undermining the regimes residual legitimacy. The economic impasse the regions post-populist regimes faced was plain enough. Most macroeconomic indicators would lead one to believe that Egypt and Tunisia were rather success stories. In Egypt, for example, GDP growth nearly doubled over the decade, public debt was

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down by nearly a quarter, and the current account balance was healthy. Other indicators, however, paint a more worrying picture: ination has nearly doubled, wages have been sluggish, and unemployment has risen, as has population. As a result, nearly 40 per cent of Egyptians over 32 million people now live on or under $2 per day. To put that into perspective, that is less than half the price of a cappuccino in Cairos upmarket Zamalek district. But increases in the cost of living hit the middle classes as well as the poor. The hardest hit were the young, left without money, jobs, prospects or even the option of emigrating, thanks to increasingly stringent EU immigration laws. The fabulous wealth of new oligarchs such as Ahmad Ezz or the Trabelsi family only increased frustration of those outside ever-narrower elites. Indeed, it was no coincidence that the period of accelerated liberalization driven by Ahmad Nazifs government saw increasing labour unrest in Egypt, with more strikes in 2010 than in the whole of the previous ve years. As in Egypt, across the Arab world privatizations, labour market de-regulation (e.g. in Qualied Industrial Zones), continued reduction of subsidies on essential items, combined with rising ination particularly food prices led not only to increased labour mobilization, but also to increasing disaffection by newly-pauperized middle class groups such as teachers and doctors. Protesters themselves have conrmed the explosiveness of this mix of economic and political factors in their slogans and the anger they vented to anyone willing to listen. In Egypt, the key slogans of the revolution were bread (aish), freedom (hurriyya) and human dignity (karama insaniyya). In brief, democracy and social justice. Virtually in the same breath, most protesters complained about the dire economic situation, the corruption of their supposedly democratic representatives, and about the heavy-handed everyday bullying they were subjected to by police and security services. As one woman said: were tired, we just want to work, we just want to eat! People asked for their human rights and their dignity. It was the system that was the object of their protest. Economic reforms being demanded by both global investors and local elites could not afford the use of political liberalization as a safety valve, as had happened in the past with several regimes, including Algeria, Morocco and Jordan as well as Egypt and Tunisia. In some regimes, such as Egypt or Yemen, this dissent could be hinted at in independent parts of the press and civil society even manifest itself in movements such as Egypts Kefaya or increasingly vocal independent trade unions while in other systems, such as Bahrain, Syria or Libya, this was much harder, but all across the region opposition was swiftly crushed, leaving ordinary citizens voiceless. Perhaps the paradoxical epitome of this marginalization came barely weeks before Egypts second January uprising, during Egypts parliamentary elections: having gained over 95 per cent of seats in the rst round, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) actually rigged results in some constituencies in favour of the opposition to bring its share down to 93 per cent. In short, having sacriced remnants of its populist revolutionary legitimacy on the altar of its narrower self-interest, and alienating increasingly large swathes of the population in the process, the ruling elite found it impossible to compensate politically for its economic choices.

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Rather than a process of overt politicization, it was this level of combined political and economic marginalization that produced a turnout for and an intensity in protests which even organizers failed to anticipate. This gap between expectation and turnout has been so massive, and the support for the protesters core demands so consistent, that it led many to call this a leaderless opposition. Certainly, none of the organizations involved could claim support even remotely close to the protests unprecedented turnouts. But with dissatisfaction simmering beneath the surface, it is no wonder that ordinary people did not need parties or movements, El Baradei or Ghannouchi, NGOs or the Muslim Brotherhood to tell them why or against whom to protest. Events such as the torture and assassination of the young militant Khaled Said in Alexandria last June, Mohamad Bouazizis self-immolation in December and especially Tunisias successful uprising simply provided an additional spark in a tinderbox that had been smoking for years. Is Islam the (Only) Solution? The third point was unwittingly made by the Muslim Brotherhood itself on the eve of Egypts rst protests. Responding to accusations that the Brotherhood was behind the demonstration, the spokesman and leader of its reformist wing Essam El-Arian insisted that the Brotherhood did not send anyone [to the streets]. The absence of a clear religious imprint in the uprisings across most of the Arab world, and the lack of leadership by established religious groups, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt, is signicant. In Tunisia, the Nahda party beneted from but did not lead the revolution, with Rachid Ghannouchi returning from exile to a heros welcome, but only after Ben Ali had left. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhoods leadership was notable for its absence. Despite its lightning volte-face once the scale of protests became clear, the credibility of the Brotherhoods conservative leadership was badly damaged, which partly explains their eagerness to achieve tangible results for the revolution, however minimal. Some Islamists did take part in early protests, but many of these are currently leading internal dissent against the conservative leadership. Damaged by its willingness to negotiate and compromise rst with Mubarak and then the military junta, this leadership had already failed to present a clear and credible alternative to the regime before the January uprisings, unwilling or unable to protest at the rigging of recent parliamentary elections or to put forward a more equitable economic policy than the NDPs oligarchic liberalization. Throughout the uprising, the Ikhwan just like the Azhar and Coptic leaderships, who also called for boycotting protests was playing catch-up with smaller liberal parties, with left-wing movements like April 6, and with independent unions, which seemed much closer to the pulse of the average Egyptians frustration. Certainly, most of the protests popular mots dordre horreya, karama, thawra etc. were not those of the Brotherhood. For most protesters, Islam was not the solution. Indeed, the attempt to mobilize sectarian differences has been a strategy common to most regimes faced with uprisings, from Egypt to Bahrain, Yemen to Syria a strategy which largely failed, or which at best impacted upon post-revolutionary divisions.

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The notable absence of a clear religious dimension to issues at the root of protests throughout much of the Arab world provides a timely reminder that it is far from obvious that religious politics should dominate the region in future, just as it did not in a not-so-distant past. This past traction which various forms of nationalism and socialism have had in the region both closely linked to the demand for social, economic and political justice, just as todays protests are suggests that a more balanced political spectrum is possible if nascent democratic movements were able to make signicant inroads into post-revolutionary politics. This is not to say that Islamist movements are now irrelevant. On the contrary, despite internal rifts the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood remains the best-organized political force in Egypt, and the Nahda party is likely to gain considerable consensus in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Likewise, it is likely that Islamist forces will play a signicant role in Yemen and Jordan, should a transition take place. But the fact that for protesters during the uprisings bread, freedom and dignity trumped religion provides a glimpse of political possibility which both local political actors and international counterparts ought to take note of. Particularly for western governments assessing the signicance of uprisings across the Arab world, the largely non-partisan nature of the protests provides the opportunity to shed once and for all the a priori notion that the menu of liberalizing political change involves a necessary dichotomy between popular but anti-democratic Islamist per se and small and isolated secular parties. Democracy on a Knifes Edge: Regional and Global Implications The fourth key aspect of the Arab uprisings lies in local and regional implications of its key goal: democracy. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions obtained results relatively quickly. Since their most obvious successes in toppling their regimes leaderships, there has been a degree of predictable in-ghting as different forces attempt to position themselves in the post-uprising scenario. These divisions have also facilitated the retrenchment of parts of the regime be it apparatchiks of the decapitated regimes or the military in what some already call a counter-revolution (al-thawra al-mudadda). Some successes have been exacted, notably the abolition of hated internal security bodies, but other questions remain, not least the identity of those security services which replace the old, and legislation which both the Egyptian and Tunisian interim governments and their military masters have pushed through which, particularly in the Egyptian case, make life harder particularly for the non-Islamist opposition which had been at the forefront of the uprising. Other uprisings across the region whether more violent and high-prole as in the cases of Bahrain and Libya, Yemen and now Syria, or smouldering as in Algeria, Morocco or Jordan are ongoing and appear to be much more protracted affairs. If they are successful in either toppling regimes or extracting signicant concessions from them, a similar problem of guarding against the erosion of those gains will be crucial to any post-uprising scenario. In Libya, for example, the Transitional National Council (TNC) in Benghazi is already stacked with members of the former regime, not least the bodys current leader and former justice minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil. In Libya and particularly in Yemen, any transitional scenario raises

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serious questions about non-democratic forces, whether tribes, radical and wellarmed Islamists, or former elements of the regimes attempting to undermine postauthoritarian governments. The window of democracy in the Middle East is therefore a small one and the implications of its closure cannot be underestimated. The current phase is one in which there is a broad consensus on the principle of democracy if for no other reason than that it stands for representation and for empowerment, from both political repression and economic disenfranchisement. But crucial to this consensus is the fact that the anti-authoritarian uprisings are home-grown, not imposed from abroad, even from within the region, and that for many of those impoverished by liberalization they hold the hope of better living conditions. If these key expectations are not met, particularly in those countries where revolution or substantive reform take place, it will not be simply the revolutions which will be discredited, but the very concept of democracy. There are two obvious dangers: rst, that western governments attempt to guide the uprisings towards their vision of liberal democracy, whether directly or indirectly through leverage afforded by debt and aid; and second, that protesters demand for economic as well as political reform are ignored. Both possibilities present signicant risks. Already during the early stages of the Libyan and Bahraini uprisings it was clear that a division existed within the US administration between those who favoured backing transitions and those who fell back onto the so-called Realpolitik of backing authoritarian regimes. The latter, like secretary of defence Robert Gates, appear to be increasingly carrying the argument. The result is that, like the EU, while the US easily condemns Gadha or Bashar al-Assad, its protests against the al-Khalifas bloody repression of internal dissent not least with the contribution of Saudi Arabia are barely murmured. This undermines the credibility of western governments as defenders of democracy in the eyes of Arab audiences. At an economic level also, the credibility of western powers is shaky. The EUs External Action Service notably published a document outlining the EUs new stance on democracy,2 the vast majority of which contained re-hashed or barely accelerated versions of precisely those policies which were so badly received by Arab populations, and which were widely perceived as having favoured only kleptocratic elites. Several EU and US representatives and ofcials have visited countries like Egypt in recent weeks, but there is little sign to date of any signicant change in economic policies towards the regions impoverished working and middle classes. For the US in particular, democratic uprisings pose a dilemma. On the one hand, supporting them would potentially cost dearly in the Gulf. On the other hand, positioning itself as a friend of new regional democracies would afford leverage on the Palestinian issue, where a more proactive government particularly in Egypt might exercise sufcient pressure on Israel to make a negotiated solution more likely. It would also provide political ammunition against Russia and China, both of which have awkwardly clothed their opposition to support for democratic and popular self-determination in the language of anti-imperialism, revealing the full extent of their political vulnerability to genuinely democratic movements.

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As in 1848, whether successful or not, the Arab uprisings of 2011 are likely to have an enduring effect on the region. What this effect is will depend on whether key economic and political demands are met, not least because it will affect the extent to which the post-revolutionary re-writing of history which is already well under way succeeds in redening the uprisings as Islamist, foreign-sponsored, sectarian or simply destabilizing. What is clear now is that these uprisings resulted from a combination of economic and political disenfranchisement which revealed the full extent of local autocracies frailty; that they found both regimes and ofcial oppositions badly wanting; that the much-feared conservative Islamists in particular were wrong-footed by an old-fashioned agenda consisting of democracy and social justice; and that the combination of all these factors presents both local and international forces with signicant but short-lived opportunities to transform a regional political landscape scarred by authoritarianism. Notes
1 2

http://arabia.msn.com/news/MiddleEast/General/2011/january/egy94.aspx (accessed 3 June 2011) European Commission, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, A Partnership For Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean, COM(2011) 200 nal, available at http://eeas.europa.eu/euromed/docs/com2011_200_en.pdf#page=2 (accessed 8 March 2011); and ibid., A New Response to a Changing Neighbourhood, 25 May 2011, available at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/342&format=HTML&aged =0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en (accessed 3 June 2011).