Throughout the past couple centuries, our world has seen an unparalleled trend towards democratization. The Western influence on the rest of the political world was stabilized after the end of the cold war and breakdown of the USSR, however one part of the world remained untouched by western influence. In this paper I will seek to understand why it took so long for such states to experience the modernization the rest of the world was experiencing, as well as the variables behind such success in certain states. By 1994, 75% of the regimes in the Arab world were still under authoritarian rule. Fast forward to 2011 we see 6 countries with similar political tensions all undergo uprisings for similar reasons, but with far different outcomes. What do the “leading explanatory frameworks of democratization and authoritarianism” say about Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain (Brownlee 2018)?
The common answer to this question often points to three prominent variables: demography, technology, and repressive capacity. Although these variables are important in understanding the entire situation in 2011 in the Middle East, I argue that historical regime characteristics are what characterize those three variables, therefore to fully understand the Arab Spring we must look deeper than surface level variables as well as what caused those three variables to rise to prominency. I also argue that western influence in Arab regimes helped the regimes maintain a coercive apparatus to silence uprisings.
First we must have an understanding of the outcomes of such six Arab countries that participated in the uprisings of the Arab Spring in 2011. Most opposition success was from the oppositions ability to impel the “coercive apparatus” to break with the regime as seen in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Bahrain, Syria and Libya used their oil wealth and/or hereditary rule to dwell such uprisings, however in Libya foreign states intervened causing the fall of the regime. What separated success from failure was the structure of regime-military relations, where the incumbent in a failed uprising enjoyed loyalty of military and vice versa, with oil wealth and hereditary rule being a major factor in military loyalty. Second, we need to fully understand what an uprising entails, so we can better understand the nature and outcomes of the Arab Spring in 2011.
An uprising must have three major characteristics to label it as so: the first being the eruption of non-violent mass protests, the second being the spread of such protest domestically, and the third being the seizure and control of public space by the opposition. In this paper I will discuss “failure” and “success” in regards to the uprisings; “failure” entailing that the uprising did not produce a change in the government while “success” entails the replacement of autocratic leaders with a new form of government. Although some states “succeeded”, it does not necessarily correlate with the success of a state overall; for example, Tunisia and Libya both experienced a change in government rule however both are considered “failed states” as neither has come up with a successful rebuttal to the prior regime in order to stabilize the country.
Loyalty
The Arab world has a long history of repression through authoritarian rule, but why were some countries able to succeed in overthrowing the regime for change while others failed? Fewer than half of Arab States had uprisings, and old four succeeded in revolution. Many argue that a younger population leads to uprisings, however there is stronger correlation correlation between young unemployment rates and successful uprisings rather than just looking at age, as many states with young populations didn’t have any uprisings at all. We also examine how the diffusion of social networks contributed to success, as well as the posture of the army in such state. We can dissect all three of these variables through historical regime characteristics that determined relative balance of power between oppositionists and the regime itself thus better identifying the roots of successful and failed authoritarian rule. When looking at such correlations we can conclude early on that the military was the heart of determining whether the tensions of protest would result in revolution, and when looking at the military’s role we can determine that it is conditioned by the states oil wealth and historical hereditary rule. States who have succeeded in the oil market and states who have had successful hereditary transfer of power see more loyalty in the military thus protecting the regime against opposition. States who succeeded in revolution had a lack of oil wealth as well as non-successful transfer of dynastic power within the regime, resulting in disloyalty towards the regime within the military and therefore successful revolution. This explanation of structural variables such as oil wealth and dynastic rule could’ve been measured before these events and therefore predicted the outcomes of such uprisings.
We saw different amounts of repression in each of the studied states, however this was not a defining factor in the outcome of uprisings. We only saw faltered regimes in states where the military turned against such regime. The fusion of oil wealth and hereditary rule in certain Arab states increased the regimes despotic power on their people and military, giving such regimes more coercive power on the situations that raised in 2011. We see a correlation between these variables and success rates as regimes that lacked both variables succumbed quickly and non-violently to the uprisings, while regimes with one or both variables resulted in violent war between the regime and its opposition. Oil creates mass wealth for states with a big supply and these regimes used this wealth on the military, creating a strong political bond between the military and regime leaders. This loyalty was only strengthened when the regime had a successful transfer of dynastic power, as the successor would be viewed similarly to his predecessor, maintaining a cohesive political and military strategy. They also used the mass wealth to pay off their population, called popular renterism, creating mass support throughout their general population. Oil wealth gave regimes infrastructural power as they were able to penetrate civil society and coerce their citizens to step back from the opposition with bribes and public benefits. This infrastructural power made it hard for its citizens to turn against the regime, as they relied on the regime for everything from healthcare to getting paid. We also see the power of oil wealth when we examine the western influence on the uprisings. As foreign powers often incentivize change, the western world has pockets of permissiveness as they need to maintain good relations with these powers to preserve oil flows as well as defend Israel. Although the western countries might have disagreed or even condemned the actions of certain regimes, they made sure to do so extremely carefully in order to avoid the cut of oil flow that the US similarly saw from OPEC in 1973 during the oil embargo. The US wants to ensure stability of geo-strategic allies while also appearing to advocate steady democratization. During the Arab Spring, these relations with the western world (USA specifically) contributed to growing repression throughout these autocratic regimes.
Structure
Although some look at demography, technology, and repressive capacity as main variables in the success for an uprising in the Arab world, I believe that the historical structure of the regime plays a bigger role in whether or not an opposionist group succeeded in overthrowing a regime. As previously stated, oil wealth and hereditary rule are the main factors in whether a regime remained autocratic, with military loyalty being a central theme to the success or failure of an uprising. In Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, protesters impelled the coercive apparatus (or military) to break with the regime and instead fight for the revolution. This was due to the lack of oil wealth in said countries as well as non-fluid transfer of hereditary power within the regimes. In Syria, Bahrain, and Libya, the regime used oil wealth and hereditary rule to use their coercive apparatus in the face of mass uprisings to silence them. We only see a change in the regime of Libya due to the intervention of foreign powers to defeat Gaddafi. What separates the successful versus failed uprisings is the historical structure of the regime-military relations defined by oil wealth and hereditary rule, where the incumbent of failed uprisings enjoyed loyalty of such officers to turn on their own people in the name of the regime and the incumbent of successful regime change had failed loyalty within their coercive apparatus.
The opposition to autocratic regimes in the Arab world that saw success were from oil poor and non-hereditary regimes, whom were able to be toppled through the change in their coercive apparatus. In these scenarios, the coercive apparatus had not united behind the ruler due to non-successful hereditary transfer of power and the regime began lacking lucrative rent to purchase military loyalty, therefore the combination created a structural opportunity for the opposition to overthrow the regime. In Tunisia, Ben Ali struggled with his despotic power as his military abandoned him due to the lack of fusion to the regime through rent or dynasticism. Due to this, academics and legal advocates bolstered the movement to overthrow the regime with a mass social media movement. As the military turned on the regime, Ben Ali fled the country and is currently residing in Saudi Arabia. Tunisia is the only example where the military completely turned on the regime quickly, and since then the country has not been able to find a common medium to begin the democratization process. Unemployment rates and economic conditions have tumbled since the uprising as the new government is scrambling to democratize without any baseboard to start with. In Yemen, there was a similar scenario. Following the revolt in Tunisia, the Yemenis hoped to recreate a regime collapse. As Yemen is not very wealthy and doesn’t have hereditary rule, the regime had little coercive control over their military. Through violent clashes between protesters and the regime, the military began to split in half. After an assassination attempt, the UN and Saudi Arabia forced Saleh to step down as Saleh could not command loyalty from his people. Saleh’s inability to gain consistent loyalty roots back to the regimes instability between rulers as well as their lack of wealth for the regime to pay rent to its military and people, therefore not being able to gain their support.
Although Egypt had a similar success in their uprising, there are more factors that play into the success of the opposition. Egypt has long defined its citizens role in society and relation to state through their labor, as their only labor union (ETUF) is a state controlled entity that coops labor activists in return for social and welfare benefits. The upsurge of labor action in Egypt began 10 years before the revolt due to the degradation of living conditions. The regime had continuously bribed its laborers with free transportation, medical care, increased pay, etc, however it began to falter due to its widening lack of funds to pay off their “rent”. Workers began to stop receiving benefits and Egyptians demanded change. As the gap between the ETUF and laborers widened, strikes began to become a frequent entity of being a laborer in Egypt. Initially, the activists respected the regime and didn’t call for the fall of such, instead peacefully demanding change. Spaces of visibility for the opposition began to undermine the regime and eventually the creation of a private labor union called for resignation of Mubarak. The uprising experienced a lot of violence and repression, as the regime began to disable internet and start attacking the opposition. Eventually Mubarak stepped down, however this regime change did not bring about complete change within Egypt, as the repression was a long historical characteristic of their state. The mobilization of the laborers is something we had not seen in other states, and it proved effective. This proved that when a state is lacking oil wealth and hereditary rule, it leaves space for oppositions to organize against a regime due to lack of a controlled coercive apparatus.
On the contrary, uprisings seemed to fail in oil rich states that had long and successful hereditary rule. These variables allowed the states to become more repressive, as prior material and institutional powers used the coercive apparatus with political leadership to overcome the uprisings. Bahrain saw the largest uprising per capita, however they also maintained a strong coercive apparatus to silence such uprisings. Due to their monarchial rule, significant oil wealth, and support from Saudi Arabia as well as the US, Bahrain was able to successfully silence its political opponents through its military. A revolution could overturn US and SA influence in Bahrain, so these outside powers helped Bahrain maintain its coercive apparatus for repression within the state.
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