Politics of the Arab Spring. Professor Ellis Goldberg

Transcription

1 Politics of the Arab Spring Professor Ellis Goldberg The Arab spring comprised a set of diverse events in several different countries. It was convenient in the US in early 2011 to view these as a common set of responses to dictatorships and it was often very useful to think about them in terms of previous waves of opposition to dictatorship in Latin America, Eastern Europe or Asia. By now it is apparent that Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain (the Arab Spring countries) have little in common with each other and less with countries in other regions. More to the point, even if these places were similar, the experiences of political and social upheaval have diverged greatly: from a relatively peaceful and seemingly straightforward move toward parliamentary rule in Tunisia to massive unresolved armed conflict in Syria. Students in this course will gain a sharper sense of the economic, political, and social dilemmas faced throughout the region. If only because the Arab Spring countries were dictatorships, we know much less about them than we do about much of the rest of the world. Both academics and policy makers have frequently been wrong in their analyses or predictions about people, institutions and events over the past two years. It has proven to be exceptionally difficult for both domestic and foreign observers to admit (and sometimes even to recognize) how limited their knowledge is about unfolding events, social structures, or the currency of ideas. It has also proven difficult for analysts to recognize or admit that those who they study are not simply passive objects but active subjects striving, as best they can, to shape the perceptions of external analysts and policy-makers. We will, consequently, be reading contradictory analyses some of which have turned out, in retrospect, to be surprisingly in error. Both academics and practitioners need to recognize that a significant portion of what they believe will turn out to be wrong. For academics this is largely unimportant because strikingly original analyses can be welcomed even if they are completely off the mark; for policy-makers, however, it may be more important to remain critical not only of others but even more of one s own biases. We will focus largely on Egypt because it has been the source of the largest amount of writing in English but we will consider events in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Yemen. We will also spend some time trying to understand how external analysts have changed their approaches over time. Your attendance is necessary. Lectures will provide material not available through the general readings including, but not limited to, discussion of works in French and Arabic, my discussions with various Egyptian intellectual and political figures, and images.

2 All readings will be available through a course website; it may also be possible to provide the possibility of a course reader. It is possible that additional readings will be added. It is crucial to understand that we still know very little about the events even as they unfold before us and new publications occasionally shed additional light (as well as more frequently shedding significant heat) on events. Your grade will be based on one in-class examination, two policy memos you will write, and a final critical review of one book or a series of articles addressing a common topic. The exam will take place in April (date still to be determined) which will focus on material covered in lectures. This exam will count for 20 percent of your grade. The two policy memos will be 1,000 words each. They will be due in late February and the week after spring break. More detailed information will be provided later but be aware that you will have to write at least one policy memo for an actor other than the US government. The two memos together will count for 40 percent of your grade. The critical review must be 2,500 words and will either discuss a single book-length work assigned in whole or in part for the course (if the latter, you must read the entire book even if it was not assigned) or a series of articles that address the same subject. If you choose to review a series of articles I must give prior agreement. Works to be reviewed must be in English, French or Arabic. All review articles must be in English. You will note that there are several possible topics that are not included in this syllabus. Please be aware that this is not an accident. There are, for example, no discussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamic law, Orientalism or Arab culture. If you are interested in these topics there are many excellent resources at Harvard and elsewhere to pursue them. By the same token many of the best works are simply not available in English. If I were to choose a single book for this course, I would choose L Egypte au present eds. Vincent Battesti and François Ireton (Sindbad 2012). You will note that several recommended readings are drawn from this extremely timely but also extremely well researched collection. Prelude to the Revolution or Simply Background Muzak? Week 1: Authoritarianism the Point of Departure Especially for the literature on democratic transition, politics begins with authoritarianism, a political system in which an executive governs more or less without overt opposition. This literature may differentiate between some kinds of authoritarian rule, but what is unclear is what scholars of the Middle East understand authoritarianism in the region to be. Country specialists have long perceived important differences between, for example, Tunisian, Libyan, Egyptian and Syrian regimes while specialists in comparative politics have tried to minimize those distinctions by finding common features. Marsha Posusney, The Middle East s Democracy Deficit Eva Bellin, Coercive Institutions and Coercive Leaders Lisa Anderson, Monarchy and the Resilience of Absolutism in the Middle East

3 Eberhart Kienle, More than a Response to Islamism Larry Diamond, Why are There No Arab Democracies? Tewfik Aclimandos, De Nasser a Moubarak in Battesti and Ireton Week 2: Something is happening here, but you don t know what it is, do you? The political unrest, popular uprisings, and armed conflicts often referred to as the Arab Spring were unforeseen and there is still considerable disagreement even about what to call them and certainly how to understand them. Very early on social scientists weighed in on explaining regional unrest with rigorous and sophisticated arguments; perhaps surprisingly they resurrected some of the oldest available paradigms, including those of desert and sown" and the idea of the conquest state. Even more surprising these social scientists, unlike area studies experts who are also social scientists, argued in favor of extremely long-lasting causal relationships and extremely fuzzy ones. In addition, experts early on focused far too much on what they perceived as a spontaneous social network revolution to the exclusion of institutions, parties, and traditionally understood social forces. It is especially useful to compare contemporary explanations by social scientists with the work of historians on the same period to see how their descriptions match. Or not. Stephen Walt, Eric Chaney, Democratic Change in the Arab World: Past and Present Victor Menaldo, The Middle East and North Africa s Resilient Monarchs Barbara Geddes, What do We Know About Democratization after 20 Years? Thomas Carothers, The End of the Transition Paradigm Marc Lynch, After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges to the Authoritarian Arab state Eva Bellin, Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East in Comparative Politics January Raphael Patai, The Middle East As Culture Area in Middle East Studies 6:1 (1952) Cynthia Nelson, The Desert and Sown UC Berkeley, Institute of International Studies (1973) Fred Donner, Centralized Authority and Military Autonomy in the Early Islamic Conquests in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Mid-East (Darwin Press, 1985) Hugh Kennedy From Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antique and Early Islamic Syria in Past and Present, 106 (1985)

4 Week 3: The inevitable background of colonial rule The colonial powers drew the contemporary international borders of the region and also, in many cases, set the institutional framework from which the current governments arose. In addition, there are analysts who argue that the impact of colonialism itself regardless of how it specifically shaped the region powerfully shaped the present. Nazih Ayubi, State Formation in the Modern Era in Overstating the Arab State (I.B. Tauris 1995) Nathan Brown, Law and Imperialism: Egypt in Comparative Perspective in Law and Society Review 1996 Structures and Institutions Week 4: Key Institutions there s a man with a gun over there Whether writing in the tradition of Weber, Lenin, or Gramsci political scientists tend to conflate the armed forces with the police as the forces of order. Events over the past year in the Middle East suggest that they can be quite distinct institutionally and politically. One possible reason the experts have gotten so many recent Middle Eastern events wrong lies in their inability to grasp the distinction. Nazih Ayubi, Civil-Military Relations in Overstating the Arab State Tewfick Aclimandos Healing without Amputating: Security Reform in Egypt Volker Perthes, Si Vis Stabilitatem, Para Bellum: State Building, National Security and War Preparation in Syria Ahmed Hashim, The Egyptian Military Part Two: From Mubarak Onward Week 5: It s the Economy, Stupid Budgetary constraints and capacities rent-seeking, subsidies, external aid and state-run enterprises all play an important role in the structure of Middle Eastern economies, but especially so in the Arab countries. Samer Soliman, Changes in the Distribution of State Expenditures: Security Prevails, The Impact of the Fiscal Crisis on the Relationship Between Central and Local Government, The End of the Rentier/Caretaker State from The Autumn of Dictatorship (Stanford U. Press 2011) Heba Handoussa, Crisis and Challenge: Prospects for the nineties and Reform Policies for Egypt s Industrial Sector in Handoussa and Potter, Employment and Structural Adjustment: Egypt in the 1990s, Hanaa Kheir el-din and Heba El-Leithy, Agricultural Productivity Growth, Employment and Poverty in Egypt

5 Paul Rivlin and Shmuel Even, Political Stability in Arab States Ragui Assaad, Labor Supply, Employment and Unemployment in the Egyptian Economy, in The Egyptian Labor Market Revisited (ed. Ragui Assaad, AUC Press, 2009) Week 6: The Built Environment Plays a Role Why did massive upheavals occur in Tunis and Cairo and did these events in capital cities shake the existing structures of government more directly than in places like Syria or Libya (not to mention the monarchies) where urban protest in the capital was quickly repressed? Janne Amedi, et. Al., The Importance of Urban Renewal in the Historic District for the Future of Cairo Ellen Micaud, Belated Urban Planning in Tunis: Problems and Prospects Sahar Keraitim and Samia Mehrez, Mulid al-tahrir: Semiotics of a Revolution in Translating Egypt s Revolution (AUC Press, 2012) Aspects of Civil Society Week 7: Agents of Change I the labor movement (or, it s the economy, stupid redux) The idea that civil society is crucial for democracy has become an important motif in contemporary discussions of political change, democratization, and revolution. Civil society applabor figures twice in any study of change: once as a factor of production under the rubric of economic structures and once as a set of institutional relationships through the labor movement and occasionally through the framework of labor relations law. We have looked briefly at labor as a structural factor of production above; here we look at labor as through the role of workers in the labor movement as both an institution and a social movement struggling for particular rights within society. Joel Beinin, The Struggle for Workers Rights in Egypt Nadine Abdallah, Egypt s Workers From Protest Movement to Organized Labor Larissa Chomiak, The Making of a Revolution in Tunisia in Middle Eastern Law and Governance February 2011 Week 8: Agents of Change II Centrist and moderate Islamist movements The dominant political force in the wake of the uprising in Egypt is the Muslim Brothers; a somewhat similar group has emerged as a powerful (but not dominant) force in Tunisia. There has long been a debate about whether this particular current of political Islam is

6 itself moderate, moderating, or intransigent. There is also a debate about what the words moderate, intransigent and radical mean. Not only does the fate of countries such as Egypt hang in the balance but so does American foreign policy and, most important, the reputation of many prominent academics in the US. Crucial to understanding the MB, however, is that they are a large number of activist members who are organized in a hierarchical fashion. Robert Leikin and Steven Brooke, The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood Samer Shehata and Joshua Stacher, The Brotherhood Goes to Parliament Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood After Mubarak Nathan Brown, When Victory Becomes an Option Muhammad Sa id Al- Ashmawi, Haqiqat shi ar al-islam din wa dawlah in Al-Islam al- Siyasi (Cairo: Dar Sina, 1987) Hossam Tamam, two chapters on the increasing role of the Salafi movement and the prominence of rural backgrounds among the Muslim Brothers leadership. In Arabic. Mona El-Ghobashy. The metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 37 (2005), Week 9: Agents of Change III Islamist movements Besides what are called the mainstream movements of political Islam, are other currents now frequently referred to as Salafis. This is a diverse group of actors including former members of groups that carried out individual and collective violence in the 1970s and 1980s, many of them in Upper Egypt. Similar groups have also emerged in Tunisia, Syria, and in Yemen. Mohammed Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz Violence as Contention in the Egyptian Islamic Movement Fawaz Gerges, The End of the Islamist Insurgency in Egypt Bernard Haykel, On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action in Global Salafism Ellis Goldberg, Smashing Idols and the State in Comparative Studies in Society and History Week 10: Women Women, as Mao Tse-Tung famously said, hold up half the sky. They have not necessarily been accorded equal concern on earth whether in practice or social theory. Islamic movements and their opponents all claim to speak both on behalf of as well as about women and often argue that their status is unique in understanding how societies function.

7 Women have played important roles in supporting Islamist movements (and voting for them) as well as opposing them and these movements also seem themselves as shaping the role of women (within families as well as in the institutions and economic structures of society). Valerie Hoffman-Ladd, Polemics on the Modesty and Segregation of Women in Contemporary Egypt Diane Singerman, The Family and Community as Politics in Development, Change, and Gender in Cairo ed. Diane Singerman and Homa Hoodfar (Indiana U. Press, 1996) Lisa Blaydes and Drew Linzer, The Political Economy of Women s Support for Fundamentalist Islam Ragui Assaad and Fatma El-Hamidi, Women in the Egyptian Labor Market: An Analysis of Developments, in The Egyptian Labor Market Revisited (ed. Ragui Assaad, AUC Press, 2009) Saba Mahmood, Ethical Formation and Politics of Individual Autonomy in Contemporary Egypt in Social Research (70:3) Week 11: Semi-urban and Rural Society Despite the importance of rural society, especially in the peripheral areas, we know remarkably little about life or social organization or the role of the institutions of governance in these regions. Stephen King Economic Reform and Tunisia s Administrative Elite Habib Ayeb Social and Political Geography of the Tunisian Revolution: The Alfa Grass Revolution in Review of African Political Economy Yahya Sadowski Price Liberalization in a Rent-Seeking Economy in Political Vegetables (Brookings Institution 1991) Samir Radwan and Eddy Lee, Poverty, Consumption and Basic Needs in Agrarian Change in Egypt (Croom-Helm 1996) François Ireton, Economie politique de l agriculture in Battesti and Ireton Habib Ayeb, L irrigation et la disparition de la saqiya in Battesti and Ireton Week 12: Courts and the Rule of Law I For at least the last forty years the courts have provided Egyptians but not others in the Arab world whatever protection they have from the authoritarian state. The concept of rule of law is (like all concepts worth conceiving) highly contested and hotly debated and

8 Egyptian jurists and legal thinkers have been contesting and debating it for more than 100 years. They have always been aware of its contra-majoritarian implications and they have also been aware that it frequently is most at work in preventing the state from carrying out its programs. Required Bruce Rutherford, The Decline of Statism and the Convergence of Political Alternatives in Egypt After Mubarak (Princeton U Press 2008). Tamir Moustafa, Executive Retrenchment and an Uncertain Future in The Struggle for Constitutional Power (Cambridge U Press 2007). Adel Omar Sharif and Nathan Brown Judicial Independence in the Arab world Tamer Moustafa, Drafting Egypt s Constitution Nathan Brown Contention in Religion and State in Post-Revolutionary Egypt Ellis Goldberg, Constructing Political Community Across Moral Communities in the Thought of Tariq al-bishri unpublished paper Ellis Goldberg, Sanhoury, Zohny, Lambert and Pound, unpublished paper Week 13: Conclusion: Looking at the future through a glass darkly Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria are not all all that similar and are changing in many ways both over the short and the long term. Given how rapidly events occur the final readings for the course will be announced during the last three weeks of class. What we want to think about is how such complex and often contradictory sets of events move forward.