The Nature of Civil Society in Hybrid Regimes in the MENA Region. Sarah E. Yerkes Georgetown University

Transcription

1 The Nature of Civil Society in Hybrid Regimes in the MENA Region Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association September 4, 2010, Washington, DC Sarah E. Yerkes Georgetown University Note: This is a working draft. No part of this document may be cited or copied without the permission of the author. Comments are welcome at the above address.

2 Introduction Since the end of the Cold War, authoritarian leaders in the Arab world 1 have responded to mounting pressures from both internal and external actors to democratize by adopting a variety of liberalization measures, including implementing elections, opening up the space for civil society and granting new civil liberties to previously disenfranchised groups, such as women and minorities. During the past five years alone, regimes across the region instituted remarkable acts that appeared to set the Middle East on a course toward electoral democracy. Several states held historic elections - Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections in 50 years, Bahrain its first parliamentary elections in 30 years, Egypt its first ever competitive presidential elections, and opposition parties made great gains in elections in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon and Egypt while Qatar adopted its first written constitution. 2 However, while these acts largely succeeded in appeasing Washington (and London and Paris), these liberalization measures were not benevolent acts by Arab regimes interested in increasing the political rights and civil liberties of their citizens, but rather a conscious strategy to satisfy international donors and the masses, while simultaneously maintaining a hold on power. As Robert Bianchi, writing in the 1980s, described the situation in one Arab state, Fearful of the social unrest and political opposition that such choices would inevitably provoke, Egypt s rulers have tried to promote a live-and-letlive attitude among antagonistic interests and ideologies without relinquishing power to any of them. 3 In response to this wave of liberalization without democratization, scholars have stopped asking, Why is the Arab world not democratic? 4 and instead asked over and over again, why is the Arab world still autocratic? This has led to a much better understanding of how Arab autocrats manipulate institutions and actors in order to stay in power while maintaining domestic and international legitimacy. But, despite the breadth of scholarship on the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab world, today we understand very little about how this form of entrenched authoritarianism impacts the people who live in Arab regimes. As I will argue in more detail below, over the past few decades, Arab regimes have initiated multiple strategies to simultaneously give off the appearance of political liberalization while limiting the capacity of non-regime actors to successfully function. This has led to a unique configuration of liberalization under coercion. 5 Thus, the vast majority of Arab regimes fit neither standard definitions of autocracy nor democracy; rather Arab regimes can be classified as hybrid regimes. 1 The term Arab world is generally understood to comprise the 22 countries that are members of the Arab League. For the purposes of my dissertation, I restrict my definition to the 17 Arab states geographically located in the Middle East and North Africa. These are: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. 2 Dina Shehata, Islamists and Secularists in Egypt: Opposition, Conflict and Cooperation (New York Routledge, 2010). 3 Robert Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 9. 4 John Waterbury, Democracy without Democrats?: The Potential for Political Liberalization in the Middle East, in Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World, ed. Ghassan Salamé (New York: IB Tauris, 1994). 5 Ellen Lust-Okar and Saloua Zerhouni, eds., Political Participation in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,2008),

3 The vast literature on hybrid regimes has developed a useful conceptualization of the variation of regime types. While scholars have created hundreds of labels for various types of hybrid regimes over the past decade, today there is a general consensus around three types of hybrid regimes. They are competitive authoritarianism, hegemonic authoritarianism and closed authoritarianism. 6 While these terms offer great clarity and differentiation to the term hybrid regime, they do not fully capture the unique political and social configuration at play in the hybrid regimes of the Arab world. While the majority of Arab states do have elections and formal political institutions that would place them in the category of competitive authoritarianism, it is the informal dynamics, particularly the elite-associational relationship that drives Arab politics, not the formal political institutions and rules. Thus, Arab regimes have developed political structures and state-society relations that defy traditional explanations of hybrid regimes and instead fit a specific category of regimes: liberalized autocracies. 7 Daniel Brumberg defines liberalized autocracies as regimes that temper authoritarianism with pluralism. They are liberal in the sense that their leaders not only tolerate, but promote a measure of political openness in civil society, in the press, and even in the electoral system of their country... But they are autocratic in that their rulers always retain the upper hand. They control the security establishment, dominate the media, and dole out economic goodies to their favorite clients. 8 A particular type of hybrid regime, the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world should not be considered in transition from authoritarianism or to democracy. Rather, they are stable regimes in which rulers widen or narrow the boundaries of participation and expression in response to what they see as the social, economic, political, and geostrategic challenges facing their regimes. 9 Table 1. Political Indicators of Arab States 10 Country Regime Type Level of Democratization Region Most recent executive elections Most recent legislative elections Algeria Republic -3.5 North Africa President Abdelaziz Bouteflika reelected April 9, 2009 to third five-year term with 90.2% of the vote. National People s Assembly elected May 17, 2007 (next election 2012); Council of Nations (Senate) elected Dec. 28, 2006 (next election 2009). Bahrain Constitutional Monarchy -12 Persian Gulf None (King Hamd bin Isa al-khalifa in power since 1999). Council of Representatives elected Nov.- Dec.2006 (next election 2010); upper house is not elected. 6 Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002); Larry Diamond, Thinking About Hybrid Regimes, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002). 7 This term was first used by O Donnell and Schmitter to refer to dictablandas, or authoritarian regimes that institute measures of liberalization in order to relieve pressure and obtain external support without giving up hold on their regime. Guillermo O Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 9. 8 Daniel Brumberg, Liberalization Versus Democracy: Understanding Arab Political Reform, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Working Papers, no. 37 (2003): 3. 9 Brumberg, The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 4 (2002): Updated June

4 Egypt Republic -12 North Africa President Hosni Mubarak elected to sixyear term on Sept.7, 2005 with 88.6% of the vote (in power since 1981). People s Assembly (444 of 454 seats elected to five-year terms in 2005); Advisory Council (176 of 264 seats elected to six-year terms in 2007). Iraq Parliamentary Democracy -6 Persian Gulf President Jalal Talabani elected April 6, 2005; Prime Minister Nuri al-maliki elected May 20, Council of Representatives elected Dec. 15, Jordan Constitutional Monarchy -7 Levant None. King Abdallah II (since 1999). Lower house (Chamber of Deputies) elected Nov. 20, Upper house not elected. Kuwait Constitutional Emirate Persian Gulf None. Emir Sabah al-ahmad al-jabir al- Sabah (since 2006). National Assembly elected to four-year terms May 16, Lebanon Republic -5.5 Levant President Michel Sulayman (since May 2008). National Assembly elected in June 2009 to four year term based on sectarian PR. Libya Jamahiriya -14 Morocco Constitutional Monarchy -11 North Africa None. Revolutionary Leader Col. Muammar al-qadhafi (since 1969) North Africa None. King Mohamed VI (since 1999). None. Chamber of Representatives elected Sept. 7, Chamber of Counselors elected September 8, Oman Monarchy Persian Gulf None. Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-said (since 1970). Lower house (Majlis al-shura) elected Oct to four-year term. Qatar Emirate -16 Persian Gulf None. Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-thani (since 1995). None. Saudi Arabia Monarchy -17 Persian Gulf None. King Abdallah bin Abd al-aziz Al Saud (since 2005). None. Syria Authoritarian Republic -13 Levant President Bashar al-asad (since 2000); approved by a public referendum every 7 years ( last result 97.6%). People s Council elected April 2007 for four-year term. Tunisia Republic -8.5 North Africa President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali (since 1987) elected 2004 to fourth five-year term with 94.5%. Chamber of Deputies elected 2004 for six-year term; Chamber of Advisors unelected. UAE Federation -9 Persian Gulf None. President Khalifa bin Zayid al- Nuhayyan (since 2004) elected by an advisory council unanimously. None. Yemen Republic -6 Persian Gulf President Ali Abdallah Salih (since 1990) elected in 2006 to seven-year term with 77.2% of the vote. House of Representatives elected April 2003 to six-year term. Sources: CIA, World Factbook 2009 ; Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2006 ; Polity IV Dataset. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of civil society in the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world. Particularly, I seek to understand how civil society organizations (CSOs) are able to carve out an autonomous space for themselves in a situation in which the authoritarian regime allows for the gradual opening of the political space with one hand and seeks to limit the ability of CSOs to work independent of the state with the other. This paper will counter the prevailing attitude in the literature on civil society in the Arab world, which examines civil society from the perspective of democracy promotion alone and fails to fully examine the multiple roles civil society plays within a hybrid regime outside of the lofty (and unfulfilled) goal of democracy promotion. I will argue that the most important role of civil society in the 3

5 Arab world is that of service provision providing goods and services (such as education, health and poverty alleviation) to the Arab people that government is either unwilling or unable to provide. This paper is part of a larger project (my dissertation) in which I engage in an inductive study of civil society in Egypt and Morocco in an attempt to determine what drives civil society actors to choose a particular strategy for interacting with the regime. While these strategies make up the theory of my dissertation, I will not spend much time on them in this paper, they are not essential for understanding the larger question which this paper addresses: what does civil society look like under liberalized autocracy, and how is it able to function independent of the state, if at all? It should be noted that currently this paper remains at the theoretical stage, with plans to collect data on the state-civil society relationship through fieldwork in Fall 2010 and Spring Thus, this paper is descriptive and does not claim to test causal mechanisms or propose necessarily testable hypotheses at this stage. Nevertheless, I believe that the description of civil society under liberalized autocracy that I provide is a useful tool for both scholars and practitioners of civil society in a hybrid regime more generally and in the Arab world more specifically. Definition of Civil Society Before delving further into the theory behind this paper, it is necessary to clarify a few concepts. First: civil society. The focus of my dissertation is on the wide range of interactions that CSOs have with the state in the Arab world. Whether or not these groups can be classified as civil society is both a theoretical and a semantic issue that requires some clarification. I define civil society not as a set of actors or organizations, but rather as an interactive sphere. I base my general understanding of civil society on the definition put forth by the London School of Economics Center for Civil Society: Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. Civil societies are often populated by organizations such as registered charities, development non-governmental organizations, community groups, women s organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, trades unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy groups. 11 I also borrow from Maha Abdel Rahman who argues, civil society should be seen as more than the sum of its organizations: it is the environment in which these organizations develop and interact. Civil society organizations are the product as well as the components of the society as a 11 What is Civil Society? London School of Economics Center for Civil Society. 4

6 whole and their formation an ongoing process which is born out of continuing changes in domestic social forces, the state, and the complex in which the two interact. 12 The goal of civil society actors is to procure tangible goods that serve their interests. As Moheb Zaki writes of associational life in Egypt, The overwhelming concern of almost all associations is how to extract from the state the support needed to procure basic goods and services, as well as maintain a modicum of freedom to pursue their material interests without undue interference by the government. 13 While civil society contains both formal associations as well as informal structures, I limit my focus to the formal associations that make up civil society in the Arab world. Associations under authoritarianism can be divided into two categories: advocacy associations, which have the overt goal of policy change and are working in direct opposition to the regime; and non-advocacy associations, which are working for social change and quality of life change for Arab citizens without the overt goal of policy change. This second group can be alternatively called service NGOs. These are organizations engaged in charitable, humanitarian or development activities with the goal of providing services that the government is either unable or unwilling to provide to the people. This differentiation is not specific to the Arab world. Many scholars, most notably Robert Putnam, have argued that non-advocacy civil society organizations play just as important a role as advocacy civil society organizations in a democratic setting. 14 I have chosen to differentiate between these two groups of CSOs for two theoretical reasons. First, as I will describe in more detail below, advocacy civil society actors have, thus far, largely failed at achieving their goals (democratic reform or political liberalization). Second, I believe that there has been an overemphasis on the study of advocacy associations within the comparative politics literature and thus I believe a focus on non-advocacy groups, which have been understudied, would be a welcome contribution. It is also essential to understand that the new generation of associations in the Arab world frequently blurs the line between advocacy and non-advocacy associations. Ellen Lust-Okar and Saloua Zerhouni highlight this point, In authoritarian regimes, the political sphere frequently overlaps with other spheres, such as the social and economic. Thus the salient issue is whether participation is intended to influence the state, not whether it takes place in ostensibly political venues. 15 Theory Civil Society in a Democratic Transition The role of both intra- and extra-regime actors in the democratization process has been analyzed 12 Maha Abdel Rahman, The Politics of Uncivil Society in Egypt, Review of African Political Economy 29, no. 91 (2002): Moheb Zaki, Civil Society & Democratization in Egypt (Cairo: Ibn Khaldoun Center, 1995). 14 Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1993). 15 Lust-Okar and Zerhouni, eds., Political Participation in the Middle East, 3. 5

7 in the field of comparative politics regularly since the onset of the Third Wave of democratization in Following the Portuguese coup that year that triggered a global democratic movement, scholars began to try to understand what factors caused democratic transitions to occur across Europe, Asia and Latin America. 17 Despite an impressive body of scholarship that has developed in response to the Third Wave, 35 years later several core issues and concepts within the transitology and democratization literatures remain unresolved. In particular, there is a lack of consensus on the ability of forces external to the authoritarian regime (including both international actors and local civil society groups) to influence political reform. Most scholars would agree that civil society groups can be beneficial to democratic consolidation. 18 By slowly building up grassroots networks, bringing together individuals who might not be willing to make demands on the state alone, but would do so if connected to likeminded people, civil society can sow the seeds for popular uprising and cause citizens to make demands on the state that they might otherwise not be ready, or able, to make on their own. Civil society gives citizens a place to air their grievances, and, in a well-functioning democratic civil society, the tools to make themselves heard. Civil society also can play the role of civic educator, introducing citizens to rights and liberties that citizens in other countries possess but they do not, thereby possibly further sparking their interest in democracy. However, many scholars have been skeptical about the ability of civil society to influence authoritarian breakdown. 19 Some scholars have even suggested that civil society organizations, particularly international NGOs, have contributed to the persistence of authoritarianism, rather than the promotion of democratization. 20 That skepticism is based on two hypotheses: first, it is elites, not the mass 16 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 17 Ibid. 18 Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Richard Gunther, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, and Hans-Jurgen Puhle, eds., The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,1995 ); John Higley and Richard Gunther, eds., Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1992); Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela, eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,1992); Guillermo O Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,1986). 19 Omar G. Encarnación, Civil Society Reconsidered, Comparative Politics 38, no. 3 (2006); Encarnación, The Myth of Civil Society: Social Capital and Democratic Consolidation in Spain and Brazil (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); O Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy; Dankwart Rustow, Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model, Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (1970); Thomas Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999); David Rieff, The False Dawn of Civil Society, The Nation, February Several scholars writing on the Middle East, in particular, have voiced a pessimistic view of civil society. See, for example, Francesco Cavatorta, Civil Society, Islamism and Democratization: The Case of Morocco, Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 2 (2006). 20 Michael Edwards and David Hulme, eds., Beyond the Magic Bullet : NGO Performance and Accountability in the Post-Cold War World (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press,1996); Sarah Mendelson and John Glenn, eds., The Power and Limits of NGOs: A Critical Look at Building Democracy in Eastern Europe and Eurasia (New York: Columbia University Press,2002); Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers, eds., Funding Virtue : Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,2000). 6

8 public, who initiate transitions from authoritarianism; and second, the most important factor for democracy is the quality of its institutions, while civil society is merely icing on the cake. 21 The issue of civil society is further complicated by the definitional ambiguity surrounding that concept. Scholars disagree on both what constitutes civil society as well as the extent to which civil society can be discussed in a non-western or non-democratic setting. 22 A lack of consensus on conceptualization and measurement issues has made it very difficult for scholars within the civil society research program to achieve what Barbara Geddes calls the greatest goal of social science research: knowledge accumulation. 23 The first scholar to demonstrate a relationship between civil society and good governance was Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote specifically about the U.S. experience. 24 Additionally, two of the most prominent scholars on this subject, Robert Putnam and Theda Skocpol, focused their research on the U.S. case. 25 Civil Society under Authoritarianism The primary goal of this paper is to clarify the concept of civil society as it operates in an authoritarian setting. As stated above, scholars disagree on both what constitutes civil society as well as the extent to which civil society can be discussed in a non-western or non-democratic setting. A focus on a Tocquevillian definition of civil society has led to what Carothers calls a gross oversimplification of the makeup and roles of civil society in other countries [outside the United States] around the world. 26 There is no question that civil society operates differently under authoritarianism than it does under democratic systems of government. 27 Under the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world, civil society is simply not fully autonomous. The robust security apparatuses, corporatist nature of the regimes, and co-optation of the civil society sphere by the state are just some of the obstacles that prevent civil society from operating independently of the regime. 28 This has led 21 O Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy; Rustow, Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model. 22 For an overview of this debate see Volker Finn Heinrich, Studying Civil Society across the World, Journal of Civil Society 1, no. 3 (2005); Marc Morjé Howard, Conceptual and Methodological Suggestions for Improving Cross-National Measures of Civil Society: Commentary on Heinrich, Journal of Civil Society 1, no. 3 (2005). See also Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn, eds., Civil Society: Challenging Western Models (London: Routledge,1996). 23 Barbara Geddes, Paradigms and Sand Castles : Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003). 24 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899). 25 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003). 26 Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve, Nicola Pratt, Democracy & Authoritarianism in the Arab World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007); Amaney A. Jamal, Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Sylvia I. Bergh, Traditional Village Councils, Modern Associations, and the Emergence of Hybrid Political Orders in Rural Morocco, Peace Review 21, no. 1 (2009).. 28 Jason Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Sheila Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Eva Bellin, The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective, Comparative Politics 36, no. 2 (2004). 7

9 many scholars to question the very use of the concept of civil society outside of democracies. Marc Howard, for example, argues, Civil society is a legitimate, appropriate and important object of exploration and analysis within countries that can be considered electoral democracies. But to extend the concept beyond that to various types of authoritarian regimes is, in my view, an endeavor that risks lumping too many different phenomena and forms of organization into one already-beleaguered concept. Howard differentiates between two sub-types of civil society: democratic civil society (which functions in a democracy) and oppositional civil society (which functions in an authoritarian regime). 29 I argue that civil society (in a democratic as well as non-democratic setting) contains both groups that are overtly political, as well as groups that do not have an overt goal of influencing the state. Thus, the term oppositional civil society does not capture the full spectrum of civil society actors and organizations at play in a non-democratic setting. As James Sater argues, the new generation of civil society organization in Morocco no longer operate in opposition to the state, it is no longer the relation to the state which characterizes their action or which motivates their commitment but rather their commitment to the issue itself. 30 I do not intend to dispense of Howard s definition of civil society, rather I hope to add to it by developing a nuanced description of civil society under authoritarianism. As stated above, I do not wish to get bogged down in the semantics of the term civil society. Thus, the goal of my larger research project is to describe the associational sphere and the broad range of state-society relations in the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world. I will show what groups constitute this sphere, what role government-controlled NGOs play in the civic arena, and to what extent traditional civil society groups have been appropriated by the regime and what implications this state-society configuration has for the social, economic and political lives of the people who make up the Arab world. It is my hope that those scholars who may disagree with my conception of associations in the Arab world as part of civil society, will at least understand what it is that I am describing, whether or not they choose to ascribe the term civil society to this set of associations. To better illustrate the distinction between civil society in a democratic setting and civil society in a non-democratic setting, I have included two graphics below. The first is Howard s visualization of the spheres of political society, economic society and civil society (Howard 2003). This illustrates the groups that make up each sphere (and the overlaps) in a democratic setting. The second is my preliminary conceptualization of the spheres of political, economic and civil society in a liberalized autocracy. 29 Howard, Conceptual and Methodological Suggestions for Improving Cross-National Measures of Civil Society: Commentary on Heinrich. 30 James N. Sater, Civil Society and Political Change in Morocco (New York: Routledge, 2007). 8

10 Figure 1. The Spheres of Political Society, Economic Society and Civil Society in a Democracy. 31 Figure 2. The Spheres of Political Society, Economic Society and Civil Society in a Liberalized Autocracy 31 Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 9

11 Within the Arab world there is a particularly large overlap between the political sphere and civil society sphere. One way the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world have responded to civil society pressure is by creating a parallel civil society that is fully controlled by the state but which seeks, ostensibly, to provide the same goods and services as traditional NGOs. This has blurred the line between political and civil societies. 32 Augustus Richard Norton, in the introduction to his seminal two-volume work on civil society in the Middle East writes, Civil society in the Middle East (including Israel) enjoys less autonomy than civil society in the west, and is therefore likely to be less vigorous and less efficacious in interaction with government institutions. Even so, civil society in the Middle East has sometimes been courageously assertive in challenging narrowly-based, unstable regimes. 33 And more recent research on the relationship between civil society and the state in the Arab world echoes Norton s claim. One study by Dutch think tank Hivos, found Despite the limitations of political parties and civil 32 Maha M. Abdel Rahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2004). 33 Augustus Richard Norton, ed. Civil Society in the Middle East, Vol. 2 (New York: Leiden,1996). 10

12 society, they are not to be viewed as irrelevant. As long as they are not too oppositional towards the incumbent regime, parties and civil society can play a role in shaping politics. 34 And while Arab NGOs are under administrative control of the state they have shown an exceptional sense for survival and self-organization within a dire context. 35 Civil Society in the Arab World While most observers of the Arab world have come to the conclusion that civil society is not a major political force for change, there is no doubt civil society exists in the Arab world. A brief overview of the history of CSOs in Egypt illustrates this point. Voluntary associations have been active in Egypt since 1821 when the Hellenic Philanthropic Association was created to assist the Greek expatriate community. During the British colonial period Egypt saw a proliferation of a diverse range of CSOs, resulting in the creation of the Ministry of Social Affairs in 1939 to oversee CSO operations. During the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser a process of control over civil society began in which CSO activity was either heavily restricted, such as by Law 91 of 1959 and Law 62 of 1964, or co-opted. It was during this time that the Community Development Associations (CDAs), localized CSOs that are closely aligned with the government, were established to allow for government control over civil society. During the regime of Anwar Sadat, certain types of CSOs flourished, particularly business associations, in concert with Sadat s economic liberalization (infitah) program. And the Mubarak era ushered in an expansion of CSO activities, particularly among development-oriented NGOs, which coincided with increased donor interest in civil society, particularly in the areas of human rights, women s rights, environmental protection and children s rights. 36 Throughout the region, beginning in the 1980s and peaking in the 1990s, civil society organizations, in the form of voluntary associations and non-governmental organizations proliferated across the Arab world in large numbers. 37 This proliferation was due, in large part, to a conscious decision by Arab regimes to open up the space for dissent partially out of a desire for political reform, but mostly out of a more selfish desire to please international donors and to a need to quell dissent before it threatened the stability of the regime. As Quintan Wiktorowicz observed in Jordan, the proliferation of civil society organizations across the region in the 1980s and 1990s were embedded in a web of bureaucratic practices and legal codes which allows those in power to monitor and regulate collective activities. This web reduces the possibility of a challenge to the state from civil society by rendering much of collective action visible to the administrative apparatus. Under such circumstances, civil society institutions are more an instrument of state control than a mechanism of collective empowerment Beyond Orthodox Approaches: Assessing Opportunities for Democracy Support in the Middle East and North Africa, (NIMD/Hivos, 2010). 35 Ibid. 36 Heinrich Studying Civil Society across the World. 37 Vickie Langohr, Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics: Egypt and Liberalizing Arab Regimes, Comparative Politics 36, no. 2 (2004). 38 Quintan Wiktorowicz, Civil Society as Social Control: State Power in Jordan, Comparative Politics 33, no. 1 (2000):

13 But this authoritarian control of civil society should not be overestimated. As Bianchi observed, the unique configuration of corporatism in Egypt both allowed the Mubarak regime to control and divide the opposition, including civil society, but also, by its very flexible nature, has allowed considerable leeway for these same actors. 39 Furthermore, in many Arab states, corporatism has taken place a variety of times in a variety of ways, leading to a lack of a unified corporatist structure. 40 This has allowed for occasional opportunities for civil society to actors to challenge the regime. 41 As Steven Heydemann argued, In the Middle East, it seems, authoritarianism is not inconsistent with the presence of vibrant civil societies. 42 And Denis Sullivan, in his examination of private voluntary organizations (PVOs) in Egypt sums up the situation well, While it is indisputable that the Egyptian government plays a large role in PVO/NGO affairs, what is being disputed is whether that role is appropriate or improper, beneficial or detrimental, requested or imposed. 43 Thus, this paper and my larger dissertation, to paraphrase Sheila Carapico, is not just an argument that civil society exists, but an exploration of the ways civic activism varies under authoritarianism. 44 The particular nature of state-society relations in the Arab world has been difficult to classify. While some scholars have described it as either patrimonial 45 or neo-patrimonial, Sater challenges idea of neo-patrimonialism in the Arab world, arguing that a purely patronage system would make civil society impotent. Particularly since the 1980s there has been at least a minimal independent public sphere in the Arab world. Thus, he argues, there is still some amount of discursive freedom in a neo-patrimonial order, and that discursive freedom might even be a part of the order itself....this accounts for a certain fluidity of state-society relations and this is understood as a process, in which a plurality of social actors participates. 46 Other scholars have classified Arab regimes as corporatist 47, but this, too, fails to capture all the nuances of the statesociety relationship. Rather, multiple state-society dynamics can co-exist simultaneously in a single state. The dynamics at play in Morocco are particularly complicated. The Moroccan king occupies a unique position, as he, by constitutional decree, is the Supreme Representative of the Nation. He therefore has the power to dissolve the parliament, fire any MP, veto or revise any piece of legislation, or enact a decree circumventing the parliament all at his full discretion. Furthermore, 39 Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt. 40 Ibid. 41 Daniel Brumberg, Democratization Versus Liberalization in the Arab World: Dilemmas and Challenges for U.S. Foreign Policy (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005). 42 Steven Heydemann, Social Pacts and the Persistence of Authoritarianism in the Middle East, in Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, ed. Oliver Schlumberger (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007). 43 Denis J. Sullivan, Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt: Islamic Development, Private Initiative and State Control (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1994). 44 Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia. 45 Patrimonialism, as described by Max Weber, refers to a political configuration based on traditional domination in which all government structures are personal instruments of the ruler. 46 Sater, Civil Society and Political Change in Morocco. 47 Sater defines corporatism as a political system in which the state dominates any kind of economic and civil participation: centralization, one-party rule, pervasive state security establishments, and co-optation of independent trade unions and other groups that express their independence vis-à-vis dominant state structures and regimes in place. Ibid. 12

14 the king appoints and oversees a royal cabinet that functions in parallel to the official cabinet. 48 Nevertheless, Abdeslam Maghraoui argues that the Moroccan regime has increasingly paid more attention to civil society both as part of its overall strategies of self-renewal, adaptation and cooptation as well as to counter the Islamist influence. 49 Bergh points out multiple reasons why the associational environment has been liberalized during the past few decades. First, international pressure has pushed the Moroccan regime (particularly that of King Mohammed VI) to improve transparency, increase human rights protection and generally appear more politically liberal. Second, the steadily declining ability of political parties to meet the needs of society led to a vacuum that civil society has fought to fill. Third, she notes that Mohammed VI has instituted legal liberalization of the freedom of association. However, she argues, these legal changes have not resulted in much de facto liberalization in the associational sphere. 50 Why Should we Care about Non-Advocacy Civil Society? As I have argued briefly above, civil society under liberalized autocracy can be divided into two types of organizations: advocacy and non-advocacy. There has been quite a bit of research on the ability of advocacy CSOs to promote democratic reform in the Arab world. While a few dissenters exist, there is a general consensus in the literature that civil society has been unable to push for democracy in the Arab world and is unlikely to be successful without major structural and political changes with the Arab states themselves. Thus, one of the contributions that I hope to make is to show why we should cease, at least for now, focusing on civil society in its advocacy role and instead focus on non-advocacy civil society. These organizations can, more accurately, be called service CSOs 51 as their primary goal is to provide some form of service to their constituents that the regime either unable or unwilling to provide. While a focus on service CSOs has been largely absent in the comparative politics literature, these types of associations have recently begun to grab the attention of scholars, whose focus primarily has been on informal relations between society and state. 52 This literature would be well-complimented by additional research on these informal structures as well as the formal channels through which service CSOs operate in their relationship with the state. The first reason service CSOs matter is that this set of actors continues to achieve success, however small, within the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world. These organizations do succeed in improving the lives of the citizens of the Arab world in areas such as healthcare, education, sports and culture. Asef Bayat, who has generally been critical of the ability of organized groups to impact change in the Arab world writes, in the experience of the Middle East, pressure from below is highly relevant to social development. Given the gradual retreat of 48 Sylvia Bergh, Constraints to Strengthening Public Sector Accountability through Civil Society: The Case of Morocco, International Journal of Public Policy 4, no. 3/4 (2009). 49 Lust-Okar and Zerhouni, eds., Political Participation in the Middle East. 50 Bergh, Constraints to Strengthening Public Sector Accountability through Civil Society: The Case of Morocco. 51 Literature on civil society in a democratic setting prefers the term service NGOs. But, as I have argued, civil society under authoritarianism is not fully free from state control. Thus, the term non-governmental is misleading for many CSOs. 52 See, for example, the work of Sylvia Bergh, Asef Bayat, and Diane Singerman. 13

15 states from their traditional social responsibilities, the Middle East s poor would have been in worse conditions had grassroots actions been totally absent. Yet, grassroots activities do have limitations both in terms of internal constraints on how much can realistically be achieved, and in relation to constraints dictated by the state. 53 But, these constraints are small in comparison to those put in place on advocacy CSOs, particularly those of an overtly political nature. Service CSOs also matter because they raise issues that the regime has previously been unaware of or chosen to ignore. As is often the case in Morocco, civil society actors bring an issue to public and governmental attention, which is then taken up by a royal commission (such as the Royal Institute for Amazigh Culture, the National Initiative for Human Development, the Royal Consultative Council for Saharan Affairs or the Royal Commission for the Reform of the Moudawana). While these commissions may appear to take all of the power away from civil society, rather civil society actors participate on these panels along with regime representatives, thus they represent an official channel through which civil society actors can have a voice. Maghraoui argues that these royal commissions give civil society more legitimacy. 54 This strategy by the regime of co-opting civil society thus serves both the regime s interests as well as civil society s interests simultaneously. Another reason service CSOs matter in the Arab world is because service and charitable associations seek to fill a role the regime is unable or unwilling to fulfill, they do represent a challenge to the regime, albeit on a much smaller scale than political associations represent. Thus, Arab regimes do pay attention to apolitical associations and the dynamic between the two actors is in constant flux, with the regime seeking to divide-and-rule all associational life and the associations seeking to carve out an autonomous space for themselves. As Ben Néfissa argues, The service-oriented and charitable NGOs remain active and dynamic due to two factors: the reduction of state redistribution capacities and the collapse of state instruments following severe crisis situations such as civil wars or liberation conflicts. These NGOs are pioneers in the field of social services and health care. They target and help either the pauperized urban middle classes, as in Egypt, or a whole population, in the case of Palestine. 55 Additionally, in the case of Egypt, the government provision of public services has decreased over time, requiring the Egyptian public to increasingly rely on CSOs for social services previously provided by the government. 56 From the perspective of international donors working in an authoritarian context, Guilain Denoeux argues that service CSOs represent a more appealing channel of support as supporting service CSOs over advocacy CSOs is less likely to alienate the host government and destabilize an ally and benefit hostile forces. 57 Denoeux also argues that service CSOs have the potential, in the long term, to contribute to political liberalization by the fostering of local level partnerships between the government and civil society actors partnerships which, in turn, may 53 Asef Bayat, Social Movements, Activism and Social Development in the Middle East, in Civil Society and Social Movements Programme Paper (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2000). 54 Lust-Okar and Zerhouni, eds., Political Participation in the Middle East. 55 Sarah Ben Néfissa et al., eds., NGOs and Governance in the Arab World (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000). 56 Barbara Lethem Ibrahim and Dina H. Sherif, eds., From Charity to Social Change: Trends in Arab Philanthropy (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2008). 57 Ben Néfissa et al., eds., NGOs and Governance in the Arab World. 14

16 generate a broader dynamic conducive to democratization and the capacity for activities that begin as grass roots development initiatives to develop into advocacy. 58 Thus, we know civil society exists in the Arab world and we know non-advocacy civic actors do, sometimes, achieve their goals. We just do not fully know how. My dissertation will therefore construct a theory using comparative and within-case qualitative analysis of individual civil society actors and organizations in Morocco and Egypt to assess what strategies civil society actors use in liberalized autocracies to succeed and why. Alternative Explanations This paper, and my dissertation as a whole, counters traditional state-centered approaches to the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab world, arguing for a need to consider agent-based approaches in addition to state-centered approaches. Additionally, I address the small body of agent-based approaches, arguing that these take a top-down, rather than bottom-up approach and therefore are unable to explain the behavior of civil society at the micro-level. The conventional wisdom as demonstrated most clearly by the transitions paradigm, is that macro-structures and strategic configurations drive the behavior of actors and groups in an authoritarian setting, with little regard for the agency of those actors. 59 Additionally, scholars argue that authoritarian breakdown is best predicted by certain structural configurations. 60 Furthermore, it is a complex interaction of structural factors that allows for authoritarianism to persist in the MENA region in particular. 61 Most of the literature on authoritarianism in the Arab world focuses on the cohesion of the elite coalition to explain regime stability. The seminal work by O Donnell and Schmitter on transitions from authoritarian rule first argued that transitions from authoritarianism occur when there is a crack within the ruling coalition. 62 Recent work on the Arab world has echoed these earlier claims, pointing to strongly cohesive ruling coalitions in the region as the main explanation for continued authoritarianism. 63 But, as Shehata points out, while state-centered approaches tend to do a good job of explaining the persistence of authoritarianism in closed authoritarian regimes, they fail to fully explain the dynamics at work in liberalized autocracies. 64 Much of the early transitology literature ignored the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) 58 Ibid. 59 O Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies. 60 Seymour Martin Lipset, Some Social Requisites of Democracy, American Political Science Review 53(1959); Barrington Moore, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Rustow, Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model ; Barbara Geddes, Authoritarian Breakdown: Empirical Test of a Game Theoretic Argument, in American Political Science Association Annual Meeting (Atlanta, GA, 1999); Robert Alan Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). 61 Bellin, The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective. 62 O Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies. 63 Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization; Michael Herb, All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution and Democracy in Middle Eastern Monarchies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999). 64 Shehata, Islamists and Secularists in Egypt: Opposition, Conflict and Cooperation. 15

17 region entirely, providing little for later scholars of that region to build upon. 65 And, the main explanations for the ability of regimes to maintain cohesion - access to rents/patronage and the ability to repress do not fully apply to the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world. 66 These states are generally not the oil-rich states of the region, thereby limiting the amount of patronage for the regime to dole out. This requires rulers to rely on additional strategies to keep their challengers at bay, such as fragmenting the opposition. 67 A second explanation is that a blend of structure and agency is the best approach. While I find this argument more convincing, the scholars within this school tend to focus on elites as agents, rather than bottom-up approaches such as the one that I propose. 68 One important work of this nature is Ellen Lust-Okar s work on structures of contestation in the Arab world. Lust-Okar analyzes the formal institutions in authoritarian regimes differentiating between divided structures of contestation and unified structures of contestation to determine under what configurations liberalization is more likely. 69 Her work does deal with state-society relations in the liberalized autocracies of the Arab world, but only from the perspective of the regime. While she does mention some strategies used by opposition actors to pressure the regime to reform, the actors she studies are purely political actors. She does not systematically consider the ways in which civil society actors react to the strategies used by authoritarian leaders to keep them at bay. In addition to Lust-Okar s work, there is a body of scholarship that examines the ways in which the authoritarian regime responds to the demands of civil society. 70 And while these works will certainly help inform my theory, they do not consider the strategies used by civil society, missing this important piece of the puzzle. The Lust-Okar and Zerhouni book does address these issues from the perspective of society, but they focus solely on political 65 See, for example, Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation; O Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy; Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 66 For a good overview of the state-centered thesis and these explanations see Shehata, Islamists and Secularists in Egypt: Opposition, Conflict and Cooperation, Ibid. 68 Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Ruth Berins Collier, Paths toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation; Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt; Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa, in Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change, ed. Peter Lewis (Westview Press, 1998); Ellen Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents and Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, What Democracy Is...And Is Not, Journal of Democracy 2, no. 3 (1991); Pratt, Democracy & Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Richard Snyder and James Mahoney, The Missing Variable: Institutions and the Study of Regime Change, Comparative Politics 32, no. 1 (1999). 69 Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents and Institutions. 70 See, for example, Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia; Holger Albrecht, Authoritarian Opposition and the Politics of Challenge in Egypt, in Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, ed. Oliver Schlumberger (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007); Steven Heydemann, Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Arab World, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution Analysis Paper, no. 13 (2007); Amr Hamzawy and Marina Ottaway, Getting to Pluralism: Political Actors in the Arab World (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009). 16