The Lure of Authoritarianism

Description

The works collected in The Lure of Authoritarianism consider the normative appeal of authoritarianism in light of the 2011 popular uprisings in the Middle East. Despite what seemed to be a popular revolution in favor of more democratic politics, there has instead been a slide back toward authoritarian regimes that merely gesture toward notions of democracy. In the chaos that followed the Arab Spring, societies were lured by the prospect of strong leaders with firm guiding hands. The shift toward normalizing these regimes seems sudden, but the works collected in this volume document a gradual shift toward support for authoritarianism over democracy that stretches back decades in North Africa. Contributors consider the ideological, socioeconomic, and security-based justifications of authoritarianism as well as the surprising and vigorous reestablishment of authoritarianism in these regions. With careful attention to local variations and differences in political strategies, the volume provides a nuanced and sweeping consideration of the changes in the Middle East in the past and what they mean for the future.

Sujets

• Political Ideologies
• Middle Est
• Middle Eastern
• Modern
• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Histoire
• Magreb
• Túnez
• Musulmán
• África
• Modern history
• Islamic terrorism
• History of the Middle East
• General officer
• Tunisia
• North Africa
• Muslim
• Middle East
• History of Africa
• 21st Century
• World
• General
• Maghreb
• Muslim ben al-Hajjaj
• Islam
• North
• Africa
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Tunisie

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253040886
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE LURE OF AUTHORITARIANISM
INDIANA SERIES IN MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
Mark Tessler, editor
THE LURE OF
AUTHORITARIANISM
The Maghreb after the Arab Spring
Edited by
Stephen J. King and
Abdeslam M. Maghraoui
With an Afterword by
Hicham Alaoui
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2019 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: King, Stephen J. (Stephen Juan), [date] editor. | Maghraoui, Abdeslam, editor. | Moulay Hicham, Prince of Morocco, [date] writer of afterword.
Title: The lure of authoritarianism : the Maghreb after the Arab Spring / edited by Stephen J. King and Abdeslam M. Maghraoui ; with an afterword by Hicham Alaoui.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana, USA : Indiana University Press, 2019. | Series: Indiana series in Middle East studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018049709 (print) | LCCN 2019001809 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253040893 (e-book) | ISBN 9780253040855 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253040862 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Authoritarianism-Africa, North. | Africa, North-Politics and government-21st century. | Arab Spring, 2010- | Islam and politics-Africa, North.
Classification: LCC JQ3198.A58 (ebook) | LCC JQ3198.A58 L87 2019 (print) | DDC 320.530961-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049709
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To the people in the region yearning for justice and the end of oppression
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Lure of Authoritarianism / Abdeslam M. Maghraoui
Part I Authoritarian Trends
1 Religious Conservativism, Religious Extremism, and Secular Civil Society in North Africa / Marina Ottaway
2 Do Political and Economic Grievances Foster Support for Political Islam in the Post-Arab Spring Maghreb? / Mark Tessler
3 Demographic Pressure, Social Demands, and Instability in the Maghreb / Wai Mun Hong
4 Shifting Courses: Economies of the Maghreb after 2011 / Karen Pfeifer
5 Geopolitical Evolutions in North Africa after the Arab Spring / Pierre Razoux
6 Jihadism in the Post-Arab Spring Maghreb / Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Part II Case Studies
Introduction to Part II: Case Studies / Stephen J. King
7 Elections before and after the Arab Spring in North Africa / Stephen J. King
8 Tunisia Triggers the Arab Spring / Stephen J. King
9 Social and External Origins of State Collapse, the Crisis of Transition, and Strategies for Political and Institutional Reconstruction in Libya / Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
10 From Authoritarian Pluralism to Centralized Autocracy in Morocco / Abdeslam M. Maghraoui
11 The Politics of Mauritania s Arab Uprising and Aftermath / Matt Buehler and Mehdi Ayari
12 Algeria: Economic Austerity, Political Stagnation, and the Gathering Storm / Azzedine Layachi
Afterword / Hicham Alaoui
Index
THE LURE OF AUTHORITARIANISM
INTRODUCTION
The Lure of Authoritarianism
Abdeslam M. Maghraoui
A CROSS THE M AGHREB, AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES ARE REEMERGING UNAPOLOGETICALLY and with new vigor. Except in Tunisia, commitment to power sharing in politics and the idea of cultural diversity in society have all but disappeared. In Mauritania, Morocco, and Algeria, weak opposition parties either boycott the political process or remain subservient to the regimes. At the same time, observers note the increasing role of the police, the dependent judiciary, and local authorities deploying the old methods of political control. In Libya, the hope of bringing the country together after a decade of bloody civil war rests on the shoulders of yet another military strongman. Likewise, the authoritarian temptation at the societal level has outlived the Arab Spring uprisings. Despite persistent popular demands for social justice and better living conditions across the Maghreb countries, the domestic forces for democratic change remain weak. Social protests like the Haratine movement in Mauritania, the Hirak in the Moroccan Rif, or austerity strikes in Algeria have failed to galvanize popular support around a democratic agenda. As if the Arab Spring never happened, the military, Islamist parties, or populist leaders remain the main credible political alternatives in most of the Maghreb today. Even in Tunisia, the only country that made promising steps toward democracy, worrisome restrictions on freedom of expression and individual rights are compromising progress. 1
The rejuvenation of authoritarianism in the Maghreb, and in other parts of the Arab world, is not surprising. The political and economic liberalization reforms since the 1980 s didn t converge on a serious process of democratic transition where actors abide by transparent democratic rules. But the depth and breadth of the temptation is puzzling. During the last fifteen years, scholars of Middle East politics shifted the focus of their research from the conditions that make democratic transition possible to the study of institutions that allow authoritarianism to upgrade and even prosper. 2 Thanks to the privatization of state enterprises and liberalization of the economy, autocratic regimes across the region were able to tap into new resources and create new clientelist networks to shore up their support. Scholarly interest in the role of authoritarian institutions in the Middle East was partly a reaction to the discrepancy between political reforms and what the transition paradigm predicted would happen; 3 and partly due to the paradoxical role of constitutions, parties, elections, and legislatures in authoritarian rejuvenation. 4 Rather than dismissing semidemocratic institutions as mere window-dressing, scholars began to study them on their own merit: as part of the authoritarian regimes strategy to form winning coalitions, broaden popular support, co-opt elites, marginalize opposition, create new resources, and adapt to domestic and external challenges. This edited volume takes the study of authoritarianism in the Maghreb a step further to highlight the broader appeal of authoritarianism.
In a survey of North African politics after the 2011 popular uprisings, the volume paves the way for another paradigmatic shift in approaching the region s politics. Beyond the regimes use of institutions, support for authoritarianism tout court in the name of order and stability is providing the regimes with a potent source of legitimacy. The reinvigoration of authoritarian tendencies in the region cannot be reduced to cultural attributes, though these may play a role. Rather, the volume demonstrates that the Arab Spring and its chaotic aftermath are renormalizing the temptation of authoritarianism for regime elites, civil society, and the people at large. Notably, we do not claim that the trend is socially uniform, politically consistent, or ideologically coherent at this point. As the chapters in this volume illustrate, the trend is not entirely new or unopposed, and there are significant variations across countries and political spheres. Nonetheless, the phenomenon is more readily observable now, and it is wiping out the hopes for democratic transformation.
The shift from upgraded to unapologetic authoritarianism is observable first and foremost in the regimes official discourse. In the late 1990s, except for Gulf state s rulers, virtually all Arab autocrats jumped on the bandwagon of democracy, human rights, and civil society even as they used every tool at their disposal to derail democratic change. 5 The autocratic regimes sponsorship of a flurry of national and international workshops on political reform, economic liberalization, human rights, or transparent governance was of course self-serving. 6 The perfect illustration of this tactic was Tunisia s hosting of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society when the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was one of the most repressive of internet use in the world. However, the frequent and widely publicized increase in prodemocracy stunts in Arab capitals reflected a global and domestic normative change that the authoritarian regimes could not afford to ignore. In the post-Arab Spring era, such a display of phony democratic sentiments has all but disappeared. While governments continue to take advantage of selective reforms that shore up their power, very few bother to justify them in the name of democratic change anymore.
Moroccans were baffled when King Mohammed VI, a trusted Western ally and reputed democracy sympathizer, castigated the West s push for reform in the Arab world in high-profile forums, including one at the United Nations annual meetings. 7 In Egypt, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi justified a brutal campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood in the name of order and stability. He declared that the Egyptian people have different priorities and conceptions of democracy and human rights than the West. After a meeting with Donald Trump in September 2016, el-Sisi had high praise for the Republican nominee s commitment to fighting terrorism. The next day, senior Egyptian