Van Antwerp Dissertation ETD Version

Legacies of Repression: The Revival of Political Participation in the Shadow of Authoritarian Rule

by Alanna Claire Van Antwerp

B.A. in Linguistics, May 2003, University of Colorado M.A. in Linguistics, May 2003, University of Colorado M.A. in International Development Studies, May 2007, The George Washington University

A Dissertation submitted to

The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

May 18, 2014

Dissertation directed by

Nathan Jude Brown Professor of Political Science and International Affairs

The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Alanna Claire Van Antwerp has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of March 19, 2014. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.

Legacies of Repression: The Revival of Political Participation in the Shadow of Authoritarian Rule

Alanna Claire Van Antwerp

Dissertation Research Committee:

Nathan Jude Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Dissertation Director

Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and of Media and Public Affairs, Committee Member

Kimberly J. Morgan, Professor of Political Science, Committee Member

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Dedication

To my parents, Frederick and Caroline Van Antwerp, who gave me everything.

Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the support, generosity, encouragement and advice of a great many people and institutions.

For their generous financial support, I would like to thank the David Boren NSEP

Graduate Fellowship, which provided me with the funding for 12 months of field research in Egypt (2012). The fellowship enabled me to boost my Modern Standard

Arabic and immerse myself in Egyptian dialect before beginning my field interviews, both of which were essential my success. The Institute for Middle East Studies at the

George Washington University generously awarded me the funds to conduct summer research in Tunisia for one month in 2013, as well as gave me an office during my last year of dissertation writing, which proved invaluable to my progress. The Project on

Middle East Political Science also provided me with a generous Travel-Research-

Engagement Grant, which allowed me to conduct pre-dissertation research in Cairo in

October 2011. It goes without saying that none of these institutions are responsible or accountable for any of the ideas or errors in this dissertation.

The George Washington University’s Department of Political Science has been a warm, collegial, stimulating environment free of competitiveness. Members of the

Comparative Politics Workshop provided excellent help and feedback on earlier drafts of the theory, as did the members of the Institute for Middle East Studies’ dissertation working group. The Egyptian Revolutions Working Group has also been an exciting and engaging community and my analysis of Egyptian politics in 2011 benefited greatly from

the comments and suggestions given to me by this group of scholars, particularly Hesham

Sallam, Elliott Colla, Mona Atiya, and Joshua Stacher.

A great many individuals gave me their time, advice, patience, support and humor throughout the writing of this dissertation and my greatest debt is to the members of my committee. Nathan Brown is, with good reason, the kind of advisor for whom students would lie down in front of oncoming traffic. He has been an exemplary dissertation chair, co-author, mentor, joke-trader, caring friend, and true human being. He read countless drafts of every single piece of this dissertation, usually within a shockingly short turn- around period, and always helped to make my work better, sharper, clearer and more interesting. Whether over lunch in Cairo, coffee in Arlington, emergency panic sessions in his office, hundreds of emails, or phone calls from various locations, Nathan gave me the never-ending support, encouragement, and insight that I needed to bring this project to fruition. For all of these things, I will be eternally grateful.

Second, Marc Lynch, like a heat-seeking missile, always honed in directly on the weak spots in my work, logic, and argument, illuminating them and allowing me to excise them. His “fuzzy bunny test” is something I will continue to use long after my dissertation. Marc has also created rich opportunities for doctoral students working on the

Middle East through the Project on Middle East Political Science and the Institute for

Middle East Studies at GW, both of which greatly enhanced my education and provided me within invaluable financial and intellectual support.

Third, and certainly not the least, I am immensely grateful to Kimberly Morgan, whose intellect is akin to a blast furnace, both transformative and humbling. Kimberly reads and comments on manuscripts like no other, providing a level of fine-grained

feedback that constantly improved my writing, ideas, and knowledge of the literature. I am also extremely grateful for Kimberly’s advice about fieldwork concerns and my career, as well as her continual support throughout my time in the program. Henry Hale and Adrienne LeBas were fantastic external readers for my dissertation. They both gave essential feedback and insight into the project’s strengths and weaknesses, reading earlier drafts of various parts of the argument, and have helped me to expand the theory, insights, and contributions beyond Egypt and the Middle East.

I owe numerous thanks to a great many people in Egypt, all of whom made my fieldwork productive, rich and possible. First, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all of the Egyptians who, out of concern for their safety in post-2013 Egypt, I cannot name here. They opened their homes and offices to me and patiently answered all of my questions. Without their willingness to share with me, this research would never have been possible. Sarah Conner, Zoe Kosoff, and Naima Green helped orient me to

Alexandria and introduced me to its delights. To Mohammed al-Borgi I owe my deep gratitude for his meticulous tutoring of my Arabic and to the friendship, humor and acceptance he gave me during what was a lonely, isolated time. During my first month in

Cairo, Kurt Smolek and Susan Meyerson were extremely fun and generous hosts, helping to keep me sane through Lebanese food, evenings of Doctor Who and the Walking Dead, and much-appreciated Kentucky bourbon. Holger Albrecht lent me the use of his lovely apartment, a gift that transformed my stay in Cairo and for which I continue to be deeply grateful. Mariam Serag accompanied me on every single one of my Cairo interviews, helping me when I did not understand a word or phrase in Arabic, laughing heartily with

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me through many hot, dusty adventures, and voraciously eating koshari and shawarma with me nearly every day.

Back home in Washington, D.C., Julia Macdonald was my Ghost Protocol comrade-in-arms throughout the doctoral program at GW. Julia was by my side during the course of our mutual trials and tribulations, from beginning to end. I am deeply thankful for her companionship through frantic late nights, exhausted mornings, moments of gut-wrenching anxiety, all the times when we were proud of ourselves, and all the times when we had just about had it.

And finally, my family. I am forever grateful to Luz Torres, who years ago opened this life chapter by encouraging me to apply to doctoral programs in the first place. Among a myriad of gifts, her daily support while I was in Egypt helped me to maintain my optimism and positivity throughout what was a grueling time, sending care packages and even visiting and accompanying me on an exhausting, hot research blitz to

Tanta and Mansoura. Her constant love, selflessness and laughter throughout this process fed me, making every day better, fuller, happier and complete. And to my parents, brother, and sister-in-law: Fred, Caroline, Will, and Mallory. The life opportunities given to me by these four opened up the world to me, gave me the tools that I needed to succeed, gifted me with curiosity and wonder, grounded me with a platform of love and raucous humor, and remained my steadfast support throughout every one of my successes, defeats and challenges. This dissertation is for you.

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Abstract of Dissertation

Legacies of Repression: The Revival of Political Participation in the Shadow of Authoritarian Rule

What shapes the dynamics of the revitalization of political participation after the collapse of a long-term authoritarian regime? While much attention has been paid to Communist successor parties in the post-Soviet space, a surprising lack of attention has been given to opposition successor parties and the fate of opposition movements more generally after a regime transition occurs. This dissertation explores how opposition groups that risked life and limb under the authoritarian regime transform — or fail to transform — themselves into political actors in the post-authoritarian era, honing in on two processes in particular: party formation and political mobilization. Rather than being highly contingent events, as many scholars of democratic transitions argue, both party formation and electoral mobilization after authoritarian collapse are outcomes rooted in the political opposition structure of the prior authoritarian regime. The way in which the regime structured the political opposition — who it co-opted, who it controlled, and who it repressed and excluded — shapes the organizational form of opposition groups, the ideas contested within the system, and the variation in resources possessed by different members of the political opposition. These factors in turn shape the processes of party formation and political mobilization at the point of regime transition.

This dissertation utilizes both an in-depth, single case study alongside a structured, focused, cross-regional comparison. The case of Egypt after the ousting of Hosni

Mubarak serves as the in-depth case study, employing data gathered through over 100 in- depth field interviews and ethnographic research in Alexandria, Cairo, and the Nile Delta over twelve months in 2012. Cross-regional qualitative comparative analysis utilizes data from further field research in Tunisia in 2013 and the Czech Republic in 2012, and secondary source data on Zambia, Poland, and Brazil. The findings illustrate the counterintuitive insight that repression, not patronage, can in fact be a political and organizational advantage in post-authoritarian contexts.

Table of Contents

Dedication ……………………………………………………………………...... iv

Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………...... v

Abstract of Dissertation .....………………………………………………………….... ix

List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………...... xii

Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………………………………………………...... 1

Chapter 2: Political Participation in the Shadow of Authoritarian Rule …………...... 30

Chapter 3: Political Participation and Dominant-Party Authoritarianism in

Egypt (1981-2011) ……………………………………………………………...... 66

Chapter 4: The Revival of Participation: Egyptian Party Formation and

Political Mobilization in 2011 ………………………………………………...... 131

Chapter 5: The Revival of Participation in Dominant-Party Contexts: Tunisia and Brazil ……………………………………………………………………...... 195

Chapter 6: The Revival of Participation in Single-Party Contexts: Poland,

Czechoslovakia and Zambia …………………………………………………...... 270

Chapter 7: Epilogue: Beyond Founding Elections …………………………...... 336

Chapter 8: Conclusion ………………………………………………………...... 364

References ……………………………………………………………………...... 385

List of Tables

Table 1.1 …………………………………………………………………………….. 7

Table 1.2 …………………………………………………………………………….. 13

Table 1.3 …………………………………………………………………………….. 19

Table 1.4 …………………………………………………………………………….. 24

Table 1.5 …………………………………………………………………………….. 25

Table 1.6 …………………………………………………………………………….. 26

Table 1.7 …………………………………………………………………………….. 26

Table 1.8 …………………………………………………………………………….. 27

Table 2.1 …………………………………………………………………………….. 49

Table 2.2 …………………………………………………………………………….. 52

Table 2.3 …………………………………………………………………………….. 55

Table 2.4 …………………………………………………………………………….. 60

Table 4.1 …………………………………………………………………………... 133

Table 4.2 …………………………………………………………………………... 149

Table 4.3 …………………………………………………………………………... 150

Table 4.4 …………………………………………………………………………... 161

Table 4.5 …………………………………………………………………………... 181

Table 5.1 …………………………………………………………………………... 207

Table 5.2 …………………………………………………………………………... 216

Table 5.3 …………………………………………………………………………... 217

Table 5.4 …………………………………………………………………………... 218

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Table 5.5 …………………………………………………………………………... 228

Table 5.6 …………………………………………………………………………... 231

Table 5.7 …………………………………………………………………………... 245

Table 5.8 …………………………………………………………………………... 252

Table 5.9 …………………………………………………………………………... 253

Table 6.1 …………………………………………………………………………... 282

Table 6.2 …………………………………………………………………………... 307

Table 6.3 …………………………………………………………………………... 327

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Chapter 1

Introduction

On June 30, 2013, tens of thousands of protesters filled public squares and streets across

Egypt, demanding that Mohammed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president in over eighty years, resign from office. Demonstrators rallying around the presidential palace in Cairo chanted, “The people want the fall of the regime!” which was the same phrase used to oust long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak from power in February

2011. In addition to calling for Morsi’s resignation, protesters also vehemently denounced the Freedom and Justice Party, formed out of Egypt’s most famous social movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. President Morsi’s refusal to resign in the face of the protests prompted the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to remove him from the presidency on July 3, 2013 and assume leadership of the country.

The virulence of the protests against President Morsi and the Freedom and Justice

Party make it easy to forget that, just eighteen months earlier in December 2011, the same party swept the elections for Egypt’s first freely chosen parliament since 1920. In the months preceding the elections, an enormous number of political parties were able to register, organize freely, mobilize supporters, and compete for influence after decades of fraudulent elections and constricted participation. However, some of the groups that had been instrumental in mobilizing public demonstrations against the Mubarak regime failed to form into political parties, while other groups with no apparent political ambitions did, leading to a puzzling mismatch between pre-transition mobilization and post-transition party formation. Furthermore, to the dismay of many of the youth organizers that spearheaded the January 25 protests, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice

Party won 43 percent of the seats in parliament. How did a social movement that was heavily repressed by an authoritarian regime go on to achieve a resounding electoral victory in Egypt’s founding elections? And, returning to the events of June 2013, why, after achieving a resounding electoral victory, was this group swept from power just eighteen months later?

Events in Egypt recalled the political arc of another group in Poland, over twenty years earlier. In 1989 observers were similarly caught by surprise by the electoral results of the first partly-free elections since Poland became a Soviet bloc state after the end of the Second World War. While the electoral success of the opposition group Solidarność

(Solidarity) may seem rather obvious in hindsight, it was not predicted at the time: observing events first-hand in Poland, Timothy Garten Ash reported the shock that greeted the massive electoral success of the trade-union-turned-political-party. The group had been expected to win some seats in the Polish legislature, but the magnitude of their success shocked both observers and members of Solidarity itself.1

A quick look at other transitions reveals further similarities. Six months after

Solidarity’s win in Poland, events were repeated in Czechoslovakia, when the opposition group Občankse Forum (Civic Forum) won a huge share of that country’s first free legislative elections after the end of Communist rule.2 Next door to Egypt in 2011, in

Tunisia’s first free elections after the ousting of autocrat Zine al-Abedine Ben ‘Ali, the

Nahda (Renaissance) Party won forty-one percent of the seats in the Constituent

Assembly. How did this group, the majority of whose members were imprisoned or driven out of the country under Ben Ali, manage to win so many votes? While much

1 Ash 1990 2 Ash 1990.

attention has been paid to Communist successor parties,3 a surprising lack of attention has been given to opposition successor parties and the fate of opposition movements more generally.4 What happens to these groups once an authoritarian regime collapses and the political space opens up to the full spectrum of societal actors?

In reviewing the empirical evidence, several interesting puzzles exist with respect to patterns of both party formation and political mobilization in the context of regime transitions. First, many of the groups that are the most active in mobilizing opposition to the existing political order in authoritarian regimes are those that are excluded from formal party politics. Frequently, however, there is an intriguing mismatch between pre- transition political mobilization and post-transition political party formation: why do some opposition groups that are successful in mobilizing protest to authoritarian regimes form political parties while other equally active opposition groups do not? In particular, why does organized labor sometimes play such a leading role in post-transition politics and at other times recede? Similarly, why do pro-reform umbrella activist groups sometimes make the transition to electoral politics and at other times fade from into memory?

Second, the existing literature on political mobilization has established that legal, formally organized groups, such as political parties, are better at mobilizing supporters than illegal, informally organized ones.5 In many cases, however, illegal, informally organized, repressed opposition groups have won the founding elections of a number of countries, mobilizing far more supporters than established political parties. This outcome

3 Grzymala-Busse 2002, among others. 4 A notable exception to this is Grodsky 2012, who examines how former movement leaders maintain (or fail to maintain) ties to the movement after a democratic breakthrough. 5 Passy 2003.

has occurred in the founding elections of countries from varied regions, regime types, and transition types, both in cases in which these groups negotiated with authoritarian incumbents, such as in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Zambia and South Africa, and in situations when they did not, such as in Egypt, Tunisia, and the Philippines. What explains how repressed opposition groups win founding elections while older, established parties with financial resources and electoral experience do not?

Third, perhaps even more surprising than these groups’ early party formation and electoral victories is, in some cases, their subsequent dissolution just years after winning these elections. Solidarity in Poland fell apart into multiple groups before the subsequent

September 1993 elections, as did the Czechoslovak Civic Forum in 1992. In contrast,

South Africa’s African National Congress continues to win elections to the time of this writing, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood remained organizationally coherent (even after being ousted from power through a military coup), and the Tunisian Nahda Party remains a unified political party that was, until recently, at the helm of the Constitutional

Assembly. What explains why such popular groups quickly fall from grace – and even dissolve – in some cases and not in others?

Existing Explanations

Founding elections “are crucial to the democratizing process of dismantling and disempowering the old regime. They are even more crucial to the installation, legitimation, and empowerment of a new democratic regime.”6 Despite their significance, however, the existing scholarship offers no parsimonious account that explains why some parties are more successful than others and which resources are most important in this

context. These accounts fail to offer such an explanation for several reasons. First, much of the literature has imprinted the study of regime transitions with the tendency to look at snapshots of regimes and opposition divided around the point of transition. Most of these works focus on distinct periods of time, either on the politics of authoritarian regimes, on the individual “stages” of transitions, or on the politics of democratic regimes. For example, while excellent accounts exist that highlight the way in which authoritarian regimes control and manipulate the political opposition,7 these accounts do not trace the effects of these practices to the dynamics of post-transition politics. Similarly, the literature on democratic transitions focuses on distinct phases, such as the preconditions that must be met in order for a democratic transition to occur,8 the mechanics of the transitions themselves,9 or the consolidation of democracy after a transition has taken place.10 Few of these accounts, therefore, bridge the different “stages” of the transition process and their explanatory scope is limited by the notion that transitions proceed in sequence, with each sequence a distinct phase.

Second, and related, is the debate between structure and contingency. Much of the literature has focused on the high degree of uncertainty that presumably characterizes founding elections and political transitions more generally. O’Donnell and Schmitter characterize these elections as “moments of great drama”11 and go so far as to argue that

“‘normal science methodology’ is inappropriate in rapidly changing situations, where those very parameters of political action are in flux.”12 Other scholars, however, have

6 Linz & Stepan 1996, 93. 7 Lust-Okar 2004; Schedler 2006. 8 Lipset 1959. 9 Rustow 1971; O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986; Karl 1980. 10 Diamond 1999; Huntington 1991; Stepan 1988. 11 O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986, 62. 12 Ibid, 4.

argued just the opposite, that there are features of the prior authoritarian regime that insert a degree of regularity into transition outcomes. Bratton and Van de Walle, for example, argue that political transitions in sub-Saharan Africa share common features because of the preponderance of neopatrimonial rule in the region.13

Such scholars who do believe that there are regularities to be discerned in political transitions, however, fall prey to a third problem preventing the generation of higher level theories that explain outcomes of founding elections: these works tend to highlight factors, norms, and patterns of socio-political organization that are particular to the historical and cultural features of specific countries and regions.14 For example, much of the excellent work done in this area has focused on the former Soviet states in particular and has attempted to explain how former communist-party elites were or were not able to reconstitute power in the years following 1989.15 However, due to their regional focus, these accounts highlight phenomena particularly significant to the post-Soviet space, and do not provide generalizable insights that can explain outcomes in North Africa or elsewhere. To be fair, this shortcoming is quite natural; in many cases, “waves” of political transitions sweep through particular regions as both activists and authoritarian leaders are inspired by and learn from their neighbors.16

However, the third17 and fourth18 waves of transition have since been followed by the 2011 Arab uprisings, providing a wealth of new empirical material available for cross-regional comparisons. Such examinations reveal that features other than geographic

13 Bratton & Van de Walle 1994. 14 See O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986 on Latin America and Southern Europe; Bratton & Van de Walle 1994 and 1997 on sub-Saharan Africa; Kitschselt et al 1999 on Eastern Europe. 15 Grzymala-Busse 2002; Kitschelt et al 1999; Kostelecky 2002; Pridham & Lewis 1996; Pridham 1995. 16 Hale 2012. 17 Huntington 1991. 18 McFaul 2005.

location are better suited as bases of comparison. As Table 1.1 shows, considerable variation regarding regime type, transition type, and transition outcome exists within each region. This empirical evidence helps to break down the notion that transitions and regimes are automatically comparable to others within the same region and are simultaneously incomparable to those occurring in geographically and culturally disparate sites.

Table 1.1: Variation in Regime Type, Transition Type and Region Prior Regime Transition Type Type North Africa Egypt Dominant Party Bottom-Up Tunisia Dominant Party Bottom-Up Libya Personalist Bottom-Up/External Eastern Europe Czechoslovakia One Party Negotiated East Germany One Party Negotiated Hungary One Party Negotiated Bulgaria One Party Negotiated Poland One Party Negotiated Moldova One Party Top-Down Romania One Party Bottom-Up Slovenia One Party Top-Down Serbia One Party Top-Down Croatia One Party Top-Down Albania One Party Top-Down USSR Lithuania One Party Negotiated Latvia One Party Negotiated Estonia One Party Negotiated Belarus One Party Top-Down Ukraine One Party Top-Down Kyrgyzstan One Party Top-Down Kazakhstan One Party Top-Down Uzbekistan One Party Top-Down Turkmenistan One Party Top-Down Georgia One Party Top-Down Armenia One Party Top-Down Azerbaijan One Party Top-Down Mongolia One Party Top-Down Southern Europe Spain One Party Negotiated Portugal Dominant Party Top-Down Greece Military Top-Down

Sub-Saharan Africa Zambia One Party Negotiated South Africa One Party Negotiated Cape Verde One Party Negotiated Benin One Party Negotiated Niger One Party Negotiated Madagascar One Party Negotiated Burundi One Party Negotiated Nigeria Military Negotiated Asia Indonesia Dominant Party Bottom-Up South Korea One Party Negotiated Philippines Personalist Bottom-Up Taiwan One Party Top-Down Latin America Chile Military Top-Down Argentina Military Negotiated Nicaragua Military Bottom-Up Uruguay Military Negotiated Bolivia Military Top-Down Brazil Dominant Party Top-Down Peru Military Top-Down Ecuador Military Top-Down

Just as assumptions of within-region homogeneity potentially obscure generalizable accounts of regime transitions, assumptions of homogeneity within transition type can also present obstacles to the generation of higher-level theories. For example, the vast scholarship on negotiated transitions asserts that there are particular features of political pacts that are determinative of later outcomes. Because pacts “establish formulas for sharing or alternating in office, distributing the spoils of office, and constraining policy choice in areas of high salience to the groups involved, while excluding other groups from office, spoils, or influence over policy,”19 one might conclude that this type of transition is not comparable, in terms of the resources opposition actors have, to transitions of other types. It might be tempting, for example, to argue that political opposition actors who participate in pacts are automatically guaranteed electoral victory afterward. However, as this project demonstrates, which particular opposition actors take

part in the negotiations is itself a function of the prior political opposition structure, not some other contingent factor. Thus, the political opposition structure, not the pact itself, may in fact be structuring later outcomes.

Fourth, existing accounts that could uncover regularities in the transformation of the political landscape post-transition display a tendency to focus on the state and elite negotiators rather than on collective societal actors.20 This focus on elite actors is perhaps a natural outgrowth of Rustow’s classic analysis of the process of political transitions involving negotiations at the elite level.21 Such a focus, however, obscures the role of societal actors leading up to the point of negotiation, and in some cases conflates the form of the transition with its causes. For example, the assumption of elite-led pacts is that the transition is elite-initiated; in many cases, however, these pacts are themselves undertaken in response to pressure exerted at the mass level, while in other cases they are initiated in response to regional, external, or other factors. As we shall see in following chapters, this distinction carries important implications for democratic consolidation but is obscured by a conceptual focus on elite actors at the expense of societal ones.

Finally, these accounts prioritize a focus on the way in which formal institutions and organizations bring about gradual liberalization, at the expense of attention to social movements and informal networks.22 While formal political parties, and formal institutions more generally, are central to democratic consolidation,23 much more of the contentious, salient political activity under authoritarian regimes is actually taking place outside of formal party politics. In some cases, these networks are converted into formal

19 Geddes 1999, 120. 20 Collier & Mahoney 1997. 21 Rustow 1971. 22 Schedler 2006; Lindberg 2009; Mainwaring & Scully 1985.

organizations or utilized for political mobilization, but in some cases they are not, and existing accounts offer no explanation for this variation. Unfortunately, much of the literature that does, in fact, address civil society organizations under authoritarian regimes becomes bogged down in the distinction between what Foley and Edwards term

‘civil society 1’ and ‘civil society 2’, whereby the former represents organizations that do not challenge the state and the latter represents those organizations that play a political, advocacy or watchdog role.24 This distinction, however, presupposes the fact that ‘civil society 1’ organizations are not playing a political role in pre-transition society because they are typically not doing so through formal organizations or through party politics.

These accounts, as a result, are limited by their very narrow definition of what is

“political,” overlooking the symbolic resistance and active construction of parallel societies undertaken by ostensibly apolitical groups and informal networks that are excluded from formal political activity.

The Argument

In order to the understand the forces shaping party formation by opposition groups and the variation in groups’ ability to mobilize supporters for founding elections, we need to look to the patterns, routines, and practices of political participation that existed for years

– sometimes decades -- before the point of transition. Such a historical conception of participation under long-term authoritarian regimes is necessary to understand events at this juncture in part because founding elections are often held relatively quickly after authoritarian collapse or regime transition in order to pave the way for institutional and

23 Huntington 1968. 24 Foley & Edwards 2002.

political change. For example, of 29 founding elections in sub-Saharan Africa between

1989 and 1994, half of all of these countries proceeded directly to elections after authoritarian breakdown rather than writing a new constitution or reviewing other institutional rules.25 This short time frame between authoritarian collapse and founding elections means that most actors will still be coping with the consequences of several decades of political repression, co-optation and control as they shape new agendas, strategies and action plans.

Authoritarian regimes influence the organization and behavior of political parties, civil society organizations and social movements in a multitude of ways. While no authoritarian regime is exactly alike, the central factor that shapes the dynamics of both variation in party formation and political mobilization in the brief time period leading up to founding elections is the political opposition structure of the prior authoritarian regime.

The political opposition structure is defined as the way in which a regime facilitates, manipulates, and constricts political contestation by removing certain actors from the opposition through co-optation, permitting some actors to contest the regime through within-system channels, such as elections, and denying others the ability to engage in within-system contestation. Scholars of authoritarianism have previously described the different ways in which regimes co-opt certain groups,26 include others within the regime’s ‘winning coalition,’27 and exclude many more from participation in formal politics.28 The political opposition structure centralizes all of these forms of interaction –

25 Bratton & van de Walle 1997. 26 Bellin 2000 27 Bueno de Mesquita et al 2003 28 Lust 2005. Lust in particular utilizes a concept similar to political opposition structure, what she terms “structure of contestation.” As I explain in Chapter 2, Lust’s structure of contestation is a narrower concept than the “political opposition structure” used here, and does not address groups that are co-opted by the regime.

co-optation, inclusion, exclusion – into a single concept. The way in which the regime structures the political opposition during the authoritarian era determines the organizational form of opposition groups, the ideas contested within the system, and the variation in resources possessed by different members of the political opposition. These factors feed through the transition and shape the processes of party formation and political mobilization at the point of regime transition.

Authoritarian regimes can be classified into one of two types of political opposition structure, based on the degree of contestation they permit: one-party regimes and dominant-party regimes.29 In dominant-party authoritarian regimes, the regime divides the political opposition by permitting a select set of opposition political parties to contest the regime and the ruling party electorally, even though these parties’ activities are controlled and they have no genuine expectation of winning elections. Groups that are not granted permission (or do not wish) to form a political party instead contest the regime extra-systemically, through public protests and demonstrations, violent attack, or other non-electoral, extra-institutional means. Using the case of Egypt under Mubarak as an illustrative example, the regime removed organized labor from the opposition by co- opting the labor union structure; the regime permitted three opposition parties to gain legal status and contest the regime through legislative elections; other opposition groups excluded from electoral contestation were instead forced (or chose) to contest the

Mubarak regime through extra-systemic channels. These groups included reformist activists who staged protests, various Islamist groups that engaged in societal outreach,

29 A third type of opposition structure is also possible: that of zero contestation, or a highly repressive, totalitarian society in which no opposition at all is permitted to exist. However, as this project tries to identify the ways in which pre-existing opposition groups form political parties and interact with authoritarian regimes, zero-contestation regimes are outside the scope of this study.

social-service provision, and participation through professional syndicates, and parties that wished to compete in elections but were denied the ability to do so (such as the

Labor, Wasat, and Muslim Brotherhood).

Kaunda as an illustrative example, the regime attempted to co-opt organized labor but failed; it did not permit any opposition parties to compete electorally against the ruling party, the UNIP; all other opposition groups were forced to contest the regime through protests, strikes, and critical newspaper articles.

Both one-party and dominant-party authoritarian regimes also attempt to and often succeed in co-opting certain groups, thus removing them from the political opposition.

Thus, within each political opposition structure type, the different opposition groups themselves can be classified as co-opted, within-system opposition, or extra-system opposition. This political opposition structure of the authoritarian regime – who is co- opted, who is included, and who is excluded -- explains the processes of party formation, political mobilization prior to founding elections, and the likelihood of the fracture or cohesion of opposition successor parties in subsequent years.

Table 1.2: Authoritarian Political Opposition Structure Co-opted Within-System Extra-Systemic Examples Groups Contestation Contestation • Social Regime may movements co-opt potential • Regime • Illegal political Egypt, Tunisia, Dominant- opposition political party parties Indonesia, Korea, Party groups, thus • Select • Pro-democracy Uruguay, Brazil, Regimes removing them opposition groups Peru, Ecuador from the political parties opposition. • Civil society organizations One-Party Regime may • Regime • Social Poland,

Regimes co-opt potential political party movements Czechoslovakia, opposition • Illegal political East Germany, groups, thus parties Hungary, Bulgaria, removing them • Pro-democracy Moldova, Ukraine, from the groups Yugoslavia, opposition. • Civil society Belarus, Albania, organizations USSR, Mongolia, Niger, Cape Verde, Zambia, Burundi, Madagascar, Taiwan, Argentina

Opposition Structure and Party Formation

In the lead-up to founding elections, a multitude of new political parties form as the political space opens after years of constriction. Within this context, therefore, it is puzzling that some opposition groups do not form into political parties, despite being consistent mobilizers of protest against the authoritarian regime. For example, why do we see some labor unions engaging in highly visible, contentious, extra-systemic contestation in the form of public demonstrations, strikes, and protests, but not forming political parties after the regime transition, while in other cases, labor unions form into political parties? And why do some pro-reform umbrella groups – such as the Civic

Forum in Czechoslovakia and Kefaya in Egypt -- immediately form political parties at the point of transition in some contexts but not in others, despite a history of political activism and contentious, costly mobilization?

As we shall see in Chapter 2, both kinds of variation are explained by the political opposition structure. First, organized labor’s position within the political opposition structure – specifically whether or not organized labor was co-opted by the regime – determines party formation by this group. When organized labor was removed from the political opposition by co-optation, party formation by this interest group is much less

likely after authoritarian collapse. In contrast, when organized labor was part of the political opposition, a labor-based party is more likely to form at this juncture.

Second, the likelihood of party formation by pro-reform umbrella groups is shaped by a different facet of the authoritarian-opposition structure: whether or not the regime permits within-system contestation or forces all political actors into extra-system opposition. As we will see in Chapter 2, for new political parties to be successful, they require establishing networks, recruiting leaders and rank-and-file participants, paying for offices and publicity materials, and setting down physical infrastructure. As such, new political parties are generally only successful when they can utilize “a strong organizational base or, more often, some parallel, ‘pre-partisan’ organization” through which collective action and mobilization can be coordinated.30 The political opposition structure affects the potential organizational base of pro-reform umbrella groups, thus facilitating or obstructing the conversion of such groups into political parties.

In dominant-party contexts, a select group of opposition parties is permitted to contest the regime and all other opposition parties must contest the regime through extra- system channels. Pro-reform umbrella activist groups unite various segments of the political opposition, including members of existing opposition political parties, for the purpose of engaging in strikes, protests, distributing petitions, and challenging the regime in ways that legal parties cannot. The fact that these pro-reform opposition groups co- exist alongside opposition political parties results in two consequences that prevent these groups from forming viable political parties during the regime transition. First, a large number of the members of the pro-reform activist group have ties to other opposition political parties or groups denied legal party status. The pro-reform opposition group

therefore shares its membership base with a wide range of other opposition organizations.

Second, the legal opposition political parties and the other opposition groups denied legal party status likely have more specific ideological orientations than simply being pro- reform/anti-regime. Thus, individuals’ overlapping membership in other organizations is based upon an ideology or identity that is potentially more salient than the anti-regime ideology expressed by the pro-reform umbrella group. These two factors, caused by the existence of within-system contestation in the form of opposition political parties, mean that a pro-reform activist group is likely to lose much of its membership base as soon as the transition occurs and its members are pulled away to other, more ideologically salient, organizations.

In contrast, in one-party contexts, no within-system contestation is permitted, and all of the opposition is forced into extra-system contestation. Pro-reform groups do not share a membership base with opposition political parties, although they may share a membership base with other pro-reform groups. These overlapping membership ties, however, do not pull members away from the pro-reform group at the point of transition because they share the same ideological orientation. As a result, members of pro-reform groups are not drawn away by more salient identity- or ideology-groups in the lead-up to founding elections. More common in these contexts is that the various pro-reform groups unite within a single political party, thus pooling, not dividing, their membership bases.

Opposition Structure and Political Mobilization

The political opposition structure during the authoritarian period also shapes variation in the success of political mobilization prior to founding elections. As a result of the way in

30 Boix 2007, 516.

which the process of political mobilization works — individual linkage and persuasion — and the means by which authoritarian political regimes alter opposition groups’ organization and behavior, extra-system opposition groups that form political parties will be better able to mobilize supporters after authoritarian collapse than pre-existing political parties or new parties due to two mechanisms: organizational characteristics and oppositional credibility.

Groups that contest the authoritarian regime through within-system channels operate through formal organizational structures and are legal. They have offices, membership lists, and visibility. These resources would serve as advantages for mobilization in democratic contexts; however, in authoritarian contexts, these groups are very easily monitored and controlled by the regime, due to their formal organizational characteristics and legal status, thus constricting the extent of their grassroots presence.

As a result, after authoritarian collapse, these groups do not have extensive grassroots networks, they often do not have a presence outside of major urban centers, and they are not experienced in actively mobilizing supporters.

In contrast, groups that contest the regime through extra-system channels have different organizational characteristics: they are illegal; they by necessity have low visibility; and they rely on interpersonal networks for their recruitment, communication and coordination. Rather than control these groups through laws, regimes tend to alternately tolerate and repress these groups. During periods of toleration, these groups cultivate an expansive grassroots presence that enables them to identify and reach out to potential supporters, thus targeting them for mobilization.31 During periods of repression, these groups go “underground” and retreat to informal networks, because such

organizational forms are less visible and less easily monitored by the regime. During the authoritarian regime, their lack of both legality and formal organization limits the traditional political impact these groups can have; collective action is not as easily coordinated through interpersonal networks as it is through formal organizations that have offices, membership lists, and a clear organizational structure. However, at the point of regime transition, these groups have a much more extensive grassroots presence than groups that participated through within-system channels, thus enabling them to more quickly, effectively and efficiently reach out to and mobilize supporters for founding elections.

Groups that contested the regime through extra-system channels also have greater persuasive capabilities than parties that form from groups that contested the regime through within-system channels. This persuasive capability is due to the credibility these groups garner as a result of their visible opposition to the regime and the suffering that they experience at the hands of the coercive apparatus when the regime resorts to repressive tactics. Groups that contest the regime through within-system channels, in contrast, do not suffer visible repression on a systematic level. While individual members of these groups may suffer repression, as a group they are not systematically and thoroughly beaten, jailed, tortured and executed in full view of their communities.

Instead, they attempt to effect change through the state’s own institutions, and are therefore typically viewed as less credible than groups that act outside the system and that suffer the consequences for it. As we see in the case studies, parties that form from groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels will be viewed as more

31 Aldrich 2011.

“credible” than parties that form from groups that contest the regime through within- system channels or new parties.

Table 1.3: Post-Authoritarian Mobilization

Role in Political Opposition Opposition Group Resources Outcomes Structure

Organizational Capabilities Extra-Systemic (informal networks, grassroots Contestation  presence) Post-Authoritarian Oppositional Credibility  Mobilization of Supporters Within-System Lack of Organizational  Contestation Capabilities

Lack of Credibility

Political Opposition Structure and Opposition Group Survival

This project’s primary focus is on the processes of the reconstitution of political participation during the period between regime transition and founding elections in order to hone in on and trace the mechanisms at work in this juncture. However, what happens to opposition groups beyond that juncture, and their interaction not just with authoritarian elites but also with authoritarian institutions, is an important one. As we shall see in

Chapter 7, political parties that form out of opposition groups in one-party contexts tend not to survive beyond the founding elections. This is a result of the fact that, due to the political structure of one-party contexts, in which no opposition parties were allowed to exist, the political parties that compete in founding elections are coalitions of pro-reform, anti-regime opposition groups that initially overlook their very distinct ideological differences. These differences emerge, however, after founding elections and these political parties divide into a number of ideologically coherent parties, as occurred with respect to the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia and Solidarity in Poland. The exception to

this trend is the case of Zambia, where the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) does survive and goes on to become a new ruling party. This divergent outcome is a result of the fact that the MMD incorporates former authoritarian elites into the party and breaks with one segment of its base — that of the working class. (I further discuss the role played by authoritarian elites and institutions below.) Thus, the higher level of party- system volatility in these cases is the final legacy of the authoritarian-era opposition structure; those opposition groups that are able to form into parties and win founding elections also tend to disintegrate shortly thereafter. This pattern gives considerable insight into the high frequency with which Communist successor parties were able to reclaim a good deal of terrain in Eastern and Central Europe.

In contrast to one-party contexts, political parties that form out of opposition groups in dominant-party contexts tend to be ideologically coherent and do not collapse into multiple factions of disparate ideological orientations. The cases examined here, however, illustrate another way that these parties do not survive: the persistence of authoritarian institutions. The case of Egypt, in contrast to that of Brazil and Tunisia, is illustrative of this divergent outcome. In the case of Egypt, a powerful institution from the authoritarian era − the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces — never gave up power or submitted to democratic control at the hands of the civilian government. The military’s continued power without democratic, civilian oversight enabled the coup in July 2013 that swept the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party from power. In contrast, in the case of Tunisia, the military was never an important part of the Ben ‘Ali regime and has not played a major role in the country post-transition. Finally, Brazil’s military

for the most part submitted to democratic, civilian oversight, although it maintained a number of prerogatives in the realm of economic policymaking.32

Scope of Inquiry, Methodology, and Case Selection

This project employs a case-centered approach to identifying the mechanisms and processes linking the authoritarian past with the post-authoritarian present. As such, the project focuses on the way in which legacies of authoritarianism shape three processes at this juncture: party formation, political mobilization, and opposition group survival. Two scope conditions follow from the goal of the project. First, due to the fact that the theory is speaking to the way in which opposition groups make the transition from an authoritarian political context to a post-authoritarian one, the scope of the theory is necessarily limited to those cases in which an identifiable opposition group existed during the authoritarian era. As a result, cases in which there was no organized, recognizable opposition during the authoritarian era do not fall within the scope of this project.

Second, the scope of this theory is limited to cases in which the authoritarian incumbent was unpopular prior to authoritarian collapse. This scope condition in part follows from the first one, in so far as a popular authoritarian regime will be faced with far fewer opposition groups, and the evolution of opposition groups is the focus of this study. This scope condition is also necessary because the theory here assumes that authoritarian regimes are faced with varying degrees of resistance and cooperation, and that this variation in resistance shapes the organization, strategies, and public images of different opposition groups in the eyes of the general public. These effects then feed through the transition to strongly influence post-authoritarian mobilizational outcomes.

32 Macdonald & Van Antwerp 2013.

Authoritarian regimes that are popular are both unlikely to be overthrown and are likely to be voted back into office in the case of free elections. As a result, this kind of regime is outside the scope of the theory.

This project employs a case-centered approach33 and begins with an intensive examination of a single case, Egypt. The remainder of the study then follows with the method of a structured, focused comparison,34 both across case and within case. The single case study enables the in-depth examination of the implications of the theory and the tracing and testing of the causal mechanisms believed to be at work.35 The comparative cases allow both for the confirmation of the presence and operation of the mechanisms and processes highlighted in the theory as well as for an examination of the different ways in which the mechanisms operate within the particular contexts of each case. Like other small-N researchers, I take what Ragin calls "a configurational view" on the way in which theories should be formed and tested. A configurational view "sees parts as mutually constitutive and interconnected within a given case."36 Thus, such an approach does not expect each case to be identical, but rather to illuminate the different ways in which mechanisms interact with the other parts of each case to produce the outcome in question.

The argument presented here is rooted in twelve months of fieldwork in Egypt in

2012. During this time, I conducted interviews with over 100 political party members,

Muslim Brothers, Salafis, members of professional syndicates and labor unions, Egyptian academics, NGO employees, and community members. These interviews were semi-

33 See Ragin 2000 for the differences between a case-centered and variable-centered approach. 34 George & Bennet 2005. 35 Eckstein 1975.

structured but open-ended; I asked a consistent set of questions in each interview but permitted the interviewee to add to or alter the flow of the conversation as he or she saw fit. The interviews generally lasted between one and two hours and were conducted in

Arabic, with a few exceptions. Due to the limitations of research in a charged political environment, interviewees were not chosen at random but I interviewed both elite and rank-and-file members of the parties and groups, and ensured that a wide variety of political parties were interviewed. I also accounted for potential geographical variation by conducting thirty interviews in Alexandria, twenty in Mansoura, Zagazig, and Tanta, and fifty in Cairo. In addition to interview data, I also collected primary materials from political parties in Alexandria, Cairo, Zagazig, Tanta, and Mansoura, and carried out limited participant-observation at political party campaigns in Alexandria and at community-development workshops in Giza. Using the data gathered through the field research in Egypt, I carried out a structured within-case comparison of the histories, forms of participation, organizational characteristics, electoral strategies, and grassroots presence of the different political opposition groups that contested the Mubarak regime, through both within- and extra-system channels.

In order to test the theory built on the Egypt case, I selected five comparative cases for examination. The comparative cases were selected based upon the scope conditions of the theory (from the population of unpopular authoritarian regimes that had some sort of opposition). They were also chosen based upon their variation on the independent variable (structure of the opposition), and lack of variation on the dependent variable

(post-authoritarian opposition group mobilization success). While King, Keohane and

36 Ragin 2000, 27. Large-N analysis, in contrast, examines one feature of many cases in order to establish a covarying relationship across cases to demonstrate generalizability.

Verba argue that an ideal case selection is generated by the random selection of many cases,37 such a methodology is more suited to large-N statistical analysis than an approach that is geared toward identifying and uncovering the causal mechanisms connecting causal factors and outcomes.38 Instead, the case selection strategy utilized here serves two purposes. First, the variation on the hypothesized causal variable allows for the testing of this causal variable across different cases, albeit without claims of universal generalizability. Second, selecting for cases in which the outcome of interest is present in different contexts (post-authoritarian mobilizational success of opposition groups) allows for a “conjunctural” exploration of the mechanisms theorized to be important: grassroots presence and oppositional credibility. The fact that each case is slightly different is especially helpful in conjunctural research. As Ragin argues,

“The goal of this type of analysis is to identify the causal conditions shared

by the cases. Causal conditions do not compete with each other, as they do

in correlational research; they combine. How they combine is something

that the researcher tries to piece together using his or her in-depth

knowledge of cases. Because all the cases have more or less the same

outcome, the usual reasoning is that hte causal conditions shared by cases

provide important clues regarding which factors must be combined to

produce the outcome in question."39

Table 1.4: Case Selection Prior Transition Party Formation Opposition Regime Type Type Group Won

37 King, Keohane & Verba 1994. 38 George & Bennett 2005. 39 Ragin 2000, 32.

Founding Elections North Africa Egypt Dominant Bottom-Up Labor (-) F&J Party (+) Party Umbrella group (-) Tunisia Dominant Bottom-Up Labor (-) Al-Nahda (+) Party Eastern Europe Czechoslovakia One Party Negotiated Umbrella group (+) Civic Forum (+) Poland One Party Negotiated Labor (+) Solidarity (+) Sub-Saharan Africa Zambia One-Party Negotiated Labor (+) MMD (+) Umbrella group (+) Latin America Brazil Dominant Top-Down Labor (+) PMDB (-) Party

Due to the kinds of variation that they exhibit, the cases selected offer the opportunity to test the three sub-components of my argument: party formation, political mobilization, and opposition successor party cohesion. First, the cases vary in terms of the puzzles of party formation. Egypt, Tunisia, and Czechoslovakia are cases in which organized labor was co-opted during the prior authoritarian era; Poland, Zambia, and

Brazil are cases in which organized labor was part of the political opposition. This variation on the independent and dependent variable allows us to test the causal weight of the opposition structure and trace the mechanisms leading to the outcomes.

Table 1.5 Labor Puzzle Case Selection Case Position of Labor Party Labor in Opp. Formation Egypt Co-Opted No Tunisia Co-Opted No Czechoslovakia Co-Opted No Poland Opposition Yes Zambia Opposition Yes Brazil Opposition Yes

Similarly, the cases provide variation on the formation of parties by pro-reform umbrella groups. In Egypt, where opposition political parties pre-existed the transition, umbrella groups did not form political parties; in contrast, in Czechoslovakia and

Zambia, where no opposition party pre-dated the transition, umbrella groups formed parties.

Table 1.6 Umbrella Group Case Selection Case Opposition Umbrella Group Structure Party Formation Egypt Dominant Party No Tunisia Dominant Party N/A Czechoslovakia One Party Yes Poland One Party N/A Zambia One Party Yes Brazil Dominant Party N/A

Second, the cases here permit the isolation and confirmation of the twin mechanisms of political mobilization: organizational resources and symbolic credibility.

All of the cases except for Brazil have clear positive values on the dependent variable, as

Table 1.5 shows. This design enables an in-depth, medium-N investigation of the causal mechanisms through a structured, focused comparison of the organizational characteristics of each country’s opposition groups prior to the transition, the electoral strategies used in the campaigns for the founding elections, and the perceived credibility of each group. As explained earlier in this section, the case selection enables us to hone in on and explain why we see opposition groups performing well at this juncture. The mixed case of Brazil usefully begins to illustrate the causal limits of these two mechanisms and set the agenda for further research that would also incorporate negative cases.

Table 1.7: Political Mobilization Case Selection Case Opposition Group Wins Founding Elections Egypt Yes Tunisia Yes Czechoslovakia Yes Poland Yes Zambia Yes Brazil Yes and No

Third, the cases offer variation in the final outcome of interest: opposition successor party fracture or coherence after founding elections. According to the theory, opposition successor parties are more likely to fracture following founding elections in former one-party regimes, as ideological and policy positions become more salient and anti-regime coalitions begin to splinter. In former dominant-party regimes, however, opposition successor parties are more likely to be ideologically coherent and are less likely to splinter at this juncture

Table 1.8: Opposition Successor Party Fracture Case Political Opposition Structure Opposition Successor Party Survival Egypt Dominant Party Coherence Tunisia Dominant Party Coherence Czechoslovakia One Party Fracture Poland One Party Fracture Zambia One Party Mixed Brazil Dominant Party Coherence

Finally, in order to overcome the tendency to focus on particular regions of the world at the expense of cross-regional generalizable theories, I selected cases based upon their variation on the independent and dependent variables while also including cases from several regions of the world and multiple transition types. Tunisia serves as a shadow case for Egypt, with a parallel political opposition structure (dominant-party regime), parallel geographic location, and parallel transition type. Brazil serves as a case with a parallel opposition structure from a different geographical region. Poland,

Czechoslovakia, and Zambia serve as contrasting cases, with a different political opposition structure (one-party regimes).

Extended fieldwork was not possible in all of the cases under consideration here.

However, the research on Tunisia was given depth through one month of fieldwork conducted in Tunis in 2013. During this time I collected primary materials from political

parties and conducted over 40 semi-structured interviews with political party members,

Islamists, intellectuals and academics, civil society activists, and trade union members. I was also able to conduct a brief research trip to the Czech Republic in 2012 to interview former dissidents and opposition activists that could contribute further insight into the processes of political party formation, mobilization, and dissolution between 1989 and

1992.

Plan of the Dissertation

The organization proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 presents the theory in detail, along with a set of falsifiable claims regarding the way in which the political opposition structure shapes outcomes of party formation and political mobilization in the lead up to founding elections. Chapter 3 and 4 begin the case analysis with two chapters devoted to the in-depth case of Egypt. Chapter 3 analyzes the structure of the political opposition during Hosni Mubarak’s rule — who was co-opted, who participated through within- system channels, who participated through extra-systemic channels — and the impact of these different types of participation on the organization and credibility of the groups in question. Chapter 4 evaluates the processes of party formation and political mobilization in light of the falsifiable propositions developed in Chapter 2 to examine whether the theory does, in fact, explain the outcomes. Chapters 5 and 6 expand the argument beyond

Egypt as well as to further test its claims. Chapter 5 examines the political opposition structure of two other dominant-party authoritarian regimes -- Tunisia and Brazil -- and analyzes the processes of party formation and political mobilization in light of the propositions in my theory. Chapter 6 examines the political opposition structure, party

formation, and political mobilization in three one-party regimes: Poland, Czechoslovakia and Zambia. Chapter 7 analyzes the role that the authoritarian-era political opposition structure plays in determining the survival of dissolution of these opposition successor parties, as well as highlights the important role that authoritarian elites and institutions continue to play in this juncture. Chapter 8 concludes the dissertation and summarizes the argument.

Chapter 2

The Revival of Political Participation: Party Formation and Political Mobilization in the Shadow of Authoritarian Rule

Introduction

Authoritarian regimes are notorious for restricting political participation, jailing members of the opposition, and handing out benefits to select segments of society. Civil society is constrained by webs of laws, regulations, and threats of repression; political parties, when they exist, are usually tightly controlled; and the political opposition as a whole typically has little chance of achieving — or taking part in — alternation in power. After years, and in many cases decades, of constricted participation, repression, and political control, what determines the processes governing the revival of genuine political participation and competition after such regimes collapse, are overthrown, or negotiate an end to their rule?

O’Donnell and Schmitter highlight the central role of the formation of political parties and the holding of the first free, multiparty elections in the process of political transition and the revival of participation. “The announcement by those in transitional authority that they intend to convoke elections for representative positions of national significance has a profound effect…relations between contending factions and forces, inside and outside the regime, begin changing rapidly.”40 What determines the balance of power in these relationships, and which opposition or societal groups form into political parties once restrictions are lifted? It is fair to say that each authoritarian regime is undemocratic in its own way. But does the way in which a country and its people experience authoritarianism affect is post-authoritarian politics? And if so, how?

40 O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986, 57.

While the link between pre- and post-transition politics would seem an obvious one to draw, scholars have in many cases argued just the opposite. O’Donnell and Schmitter, for example, characterize events during regime transitions are highly contingent. They argue that founding elections and political transitions defy the ability of social science to make generalizable assessments about regularity at these points in time.41 Scholars that do pay attention to linkages between pre- and post-transition politics tend, however, to focus on features particular to the historical and cultural characteristics of individual countries and regions.42 Rather than explaining generalizable outcomes that can be observed across cases, these accounts tend to focus on idiosyncratic outcomes that are not relevant in other contexts.

This chapter makes several arguments. First, it broadens the focus beyond single countries or regions to highlight intriguing variation that exists with respect to the particular processes of party formation and political mobilization at the juncture of regime transition. Second, it examines existing accounts of both processes to show that much of the extant literature cannot explain such variation because it tends to be rooted in established democracies rather than non-democratic contexts. Third, it weighs in firmly on the side of accounts that uncover regularities linking pre- and post-transition political developments, arguing that the legacy of the political opposition structure during the authoritarian era shapes both outcomes. The way in which the authoritarian regime co- opts, excludes, and includes different opposition groups shapes these groups’ ideological orientations, organizational characteristics, and symbolic credibility with the population at large. These features, in turn, determine which groups form political parties upon the

41 O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986, 4.

collapse of an authoritarian regime and which groups are best able to mobilize supporters in the lead up to founding elections.

Puzzles of Post-Authoritarian Party Formation

Several puzzles exist with respect to the processes of party formation at the juncture of a regime transition. Why do some opposition groups that are successful in mobilizing protest to authoritarian regimes form political parties while other equally active opposition groups do not? In authoritarian contexts, many of the groups that are most successful at mobilizing supporters, winning regime concessions and even contributing to regime collapse are groups outside of the formal party system. Despite their track record of representing the interests of a broad base and mobilizing collective action, however, not all of these unions go on to form parties during and after a political transition, leading to a puzzling mismatch between pre-transition popular mobilization and post-transition political party competition. What explains this variation? The following sections highlight variation in party formation among two types of groups that frequently play large roles in the mobilization of protest during authoritarian regimes: labor unions and pro-reform umbrella activist groups.

In many authoritarian regimes, labor unions are highly successful organizations for mobilization and protest. As Valenzuela argues, “The labor movement has a greater capacity for extensive and effective mobilization at critical moments than other societal groups. It has an organized network through its more or less permanently established unions, which can provide an underlying grid for the choreography of demonstrations and

42 See O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986 on Latin America and Southern Europe; Bratton & Van de Walle 1994 and 1997 on sub-Saharan Africa; Kitschselt et al 1999 and Grzymala-Busse 2002 on Eastern Europe.

protests. Its mass base normally has specific common interests and a politically tinged collective identity rooted in a lived history."43 Organized labor, therefore, is frequently successful at overcoming the collective action problem and mounting protests, strikes, and other actions geared at winning concessions from the regime. Indeed, in five of the six cases examined here — Zambia, Brazil, Poland, Egypt, and Tunisia — organized labor demonstrated its impressive mobilizational potential during the authoritarian, period sometimes mobilizing on behalf of economic concerns and at other times mobilizing around explicitly political issues. In only certain of these cases, however, did these labor unions form political parties, whether alone or in concert with other pro-reform groups: in

Zambia, Brazil, and Poland, labor unions formed parties, while in Egypt and Tunisia they did not. What explains this variation?

Another type of group that typically mobilizes opposition to authoritarian regimes, through protests and demonstrations, petitions, underground presses, and leaflet campaigns, is pro-reform umbrella activist groups, united in favor of democratic reform and against the undemocratic policies of the authoritarian regime. These pro-reform groups unite a broad segment of the population from different ideological orientations and traditions in opposition to the regime. Such activist groups were prominent members of the political opposition in Egypt, Czechoslovakia, and Zambia, yet these groups formed political parties in Czechoslovakia and Zambia, not in Egypt. Why?

Extant scholarship on the historical sources of political parties, processes of party formation, and party systems is vast. Existing accounts provide a set of explanations and expectations regarding the source of parties, the ways in which institutions structure choices and incentives, and the usefulness of political parties to rational, strategic

43 Valenzuela 1989, 447.

political elites. A gap exists, however, in terms of the formation of political parties in the context of regime transitions, primarily because explanations focus either on single case studies of party formation or on the interaction between societal cleavages and institutions in established democracies. As such, the literature does not provide a set of expectations that predict the empirical variation that exists in terms of the formation of parties from pre-existing mobilizing structures in transitional settings.

The literature has established that elites and voters turn to political parties for strategic reasons; parties, as an organizational form, provide a number of “goods” to elites and voters. They44 provide a structural link between masses and elites;45 they provide cognitive shortcuts to voters, whereby a party label represents a whole package of policies, identities and ideologies that provide an easy means by which voters select their preferred candidate;46 they contribute to party system institutionalization by crystalizing a set of longer-lasting loyalties referred to as ‘party identification’;47 and they provide a structure through which to coordinate the mobilization of voters across an expansive geographical or temporal space.48 The primary accounts that explain party non- formation focus on instances in which individuals or individual charisma is sufficient to win office, or when alternative electoral mobilizing vehicles exist. For example, presidential primary elections in the United States encourage candidate-centered, rather than party-centered, electoral campaigns;49 similarly, in post-Soviet Russia, the electoral system permits candidates to run as independents (individuals) which weakens the

44 Aldrich 1995. 45 Shively 2011. 46 Downs 1957; Fiorina 1981. 47 Campbell et al 1986. 48 LaPalombara & Weiner 1966. 49 Aldrich 1995.

political party as a vehicle by which candidates win office.50 The cases under consideration here, however, are ones in which the political party as an organizational form should be dominant; while a smaller proportion of candidates were permitted to run as independents in the 2011 Egyptian elections, the majority of legislative seats in all four cases were allotted to closed political party lists through proportional representation, the very setting in which political parties offer the best choice for candidates to win office.

As such, accounts that highlight the strategic utility, or lack thereof, or political parties, cannot explain the peculiar variation exhibited by the cases under consideration here.

Accounts of the rise of European party systems focus on the existence and politicization of pre-existing cleavages present in society, highlighting a number of these: rural-urban divides, secular-religious distinctions, class cleavages, and confessional cleavages.51 According to these accounts, political parties represent the interests of these different groups of people and as suffrage was extended to the entire adult population in

European countries, these cleavages “froze” in place, thus creating modern-day party systems.52 Subsequent scholars have followed this approach, focusing on cleavages delineated by different ethnic identities,53 and a value shift in reaction to the European left as the cause of extreme right parties in Western Europe.54 While providing historically rich accounts of the rise of particular parties and the modern-day expression of historical societal divisions, however, the shortcoming of these theories lies in the fact that they fail to provide parsimonious expectations about the conditions under which these cleavages become politicized and the incentives structuring the conversion of

50 Hale 2005. 51 Lipset & Rokkan 1967. 52 Lipset & Rokkan 1967. 53 Van Cott 2005; Chandra 2005.

cleavages into organizations.55 Furthermore, while the literature has demonstrated that cleavages are often organized and expressed through different civil society organizations, such as labor unions or religious associations, that then demand representation of their interests (and as such form parties),56 the contingent conditions under which new parties are formed from these pre-existing associations is not well-theorized. Furthermore, the importance of “cleavages” as such is not well-understood in the context of transitions, especially because a large number of new political parties form at this juncture, many of which have no clear ideological orientation or platform. A cleavage-based approach does not, as such, explain the variation in these cases; the Czechoslovak Civic Forum, for example, emerged from an umbrella activist group that encompassed a wide range of ideological perspectives and class identities and yet produced a political party. In contrast, the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, which represented a highly salient and already politicized cleavage in society — that of low-paid workers — failed to produce a political party. Under what conditions, then, do salient cleavages produce party organizations in transitional settings?

Accounts focusing on the role of institutions potentially provide a partial answer to this question, by demonstrating that institutional choices exert mechanical and strategic effects on the number of cleavages that are politicized, and help to explain why political parties do not form from salient cleavages in some contexts. The choice of proportional or disproportional electoral institutions structures the strength of political parties as a form of organization and the number of parties that are likely to exist within a party

54 Golder 2003; Kitschelt 1996; Inglehart 1997 55 Eliassen & Svaasand 1975. 56 Perkins 1996; LaPalombara & Weiner 1966.

system.57 Disproportional electoral institutions, such as single member district plurality systems, privilege large political parties and disadvantage smaller parties, unless these small parties are concentrated within particular electoral districts.58 As such these systems condition the choices of both elites and voters; in disproportional systems both elites and voters will be drawn to the largest political party that represents one of their policy or identity preferences as that party will have the best chance of winning seats in the legislature or the presidency.59 Proportional systems, in contrast, incentivize the politicization of a larger number of cleavages and identities. Despite the insight they offer, however, the choice of electoral institution does not explain the puzzling variation in party formation amongst the groups in these cases; Egypt and Tunisia used proportional systems, which should have encouraged (and did encourage) the formation of a large number of parties. Labor unions did not form into parties in either country, however.

As stated earlier, a central reason that the established literature does not provide a clear answer to the observed variation in these cases is that the majority of extant theories focus on party formation in established democracies,60 a problem highlighted by Kalyvas in his analysis of the rise of Christian democratic parties in Europe.61 The accounts that do focus on transitional settings tend to be descriptive, outlining features of parties in transitional settings rather than the conditions under which new parties emerge. For example, in referring to parties in newly decolonized countries, LaPalombara & Weiner argue that these parties’ “drive to power will be much more raw and untempered by the

57 Duverger 1954. 58 Duverger 1954. 59 Posner 2007. 60 See Mainwaring & Scully 1985.

restraining influence of long-established participation in a competitive parliamentary framework.”62

Party formation in the context of a regime transitions deserves more theoretical attention because this context creates different incentives, constraints, and opportunities for political actors. For example, O’Donnell and Schmitter have demonstrated that an enormous number of new, small parties without clearly defined platforms spring up in the wake of a transition, including in disproportional electoral systems, even though they have little chance of winning office;63 this flies in the face of rationalist accounts of party formation, which view the phenomenon in terms of rational cost-benefit analysis. As I argue in section 3 of this chapter, party formation in the lead-up to founding elections is, instead, a function of the political opposition structure of the authoritarian regime. Not only are elites contending with a newly competitive political space and the prospects of genuine political competition, but they must account for the legacies of regime control and societal accommodation that developed over decades of authoritarian rule, especially because founding elections typically occur very soon after regime collapse. Before expanding on this argument, however, I turn to the second aspect of the revival of political participation after authoritarianism: political mobilization.

Puzzles of Post-Authoritarian Mobilization

Once parties form and begin to compete with one another during founding elections, which of these different groups is best equipped to mobilize supporters after years without genuine participation? The existing literature on political mobilization has

61 Kalyvas 1996, 14. 62 LaPalombara & Weiner 1966, 30.

established that legal, formally organized groups, such as political parties, are better at mobilizing supporters than illegal, informally organized groups.64 Opposition groups, despite being illegal, informally organized, and suffering repression, have won the founding elections of numerous countries, mobilizing far more supporters than established political parties. What explains this pattern, whereby repressed opposition groups espousing a wide variety of ideologies and rooted in different geographical regions win founding elections while older, established parties with financial resources and electoral experience do not?

The social movements literature and the scholarship on elections in democratic contexts has clearly established the way in which political mobilization works. Political mobilization is the process of persuading individuals to join in collective action for a certain purpose, be it engaging in protests or voting.65 The existing literature has demonstrated that successful mobilization requires creating a link between a given individual and a cause in order to persuade that individual to participate and inform him of the opportunity to do so.66 Interpersonal contact is by far the most persuasive means of political mobilization; face-to-face contact not only increases the likelihood that an individual will be persuaded but also “increases the perceived importance of the election within that social network.”67 Second, mobilization requires overcoming the collective action problem,68 wherein many people will conclude that it is not individually rational to participate in political activity. As such, successful mobilization becomes more likely

63 O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986. 64 Passy 2003. 65 Aldrich 2011. 66 Passy 2013. 67 Rolf 2012, 15. 68 Olson 1972.

when the individual costs of mobilization - both the physical costs of political participation and the decision costs - are lowered and the benefits are increased.69 These individual decisions evaluating the costs and benefits of participation in collective action are influenced by material evaluations as well as social ones; the decision to join in collective action is affected by the negative incentive of the risk of losing a relationship

(a punishment for not joining) and by the positive incentive provided by the perception that an existing relationship will be actively enhanced by participating in the movement together.70

Mobilizing structures play a central role in aggregating these micro-level interactions and decisions to collective outcomes. Mobilizing structures typically take one of two forms. The first is a “formal association of persons,”71 such as political parties, professional unions, NGOs, student groups, and religious associations. The second kind of mobilizing structure is “the connective structures or interpersonal networks that link leaders and followers, centers and peripheries, and different parts of a movement sector with another, permitting coordination and aggregation, and allowing movements to persist even when formal organization is lacking.”72 While both formal associations and informal networks can constitute mobilizing structures, the literature indicates that formal organizations are particularly effective at encouraging mobilization because they are efficient at providing incentives - material and ideological - for their members to participate on behalf of a cause. This is why political parties are such efficient vehicles for groups to win office. Parties “try to mobilize the largest possible

69 Aldrich 2011. 70 Rolf 2012; Gould 2003. 71 Tarrow 2011, 123. 72 Ibid, 124.

support from the general public... Available strategies range from calling upon broadly supported sets of values to the provision of selective incentives to prospective members/subscribers in the form of services leisure-time activities, discount packages, etc.”73 Political parties can also lower the physical and decision costs of individual participation by bussing voters to polling stations, providing pamphlets that clearly explain electoral rules and by making it easy for voters to identify which candidate belongs to the party.74

The existing literature on political mobilization thus implies several predictions about which groups will be best able to mobilize supporters. First, in order to mobilize supporters, an organization must be able to make contact with and persuade individuals to support the group. Legal, visible groups can more easily persuade and provide information to individuals as well as openly attempt to alter their cost-analysis, because illegal, low visibility groups must rely on interpersonal networks for their mobilizational efforts and cannot as openly provide material incentives or reduce costs for participation.75 This indicates that established political parties, not formerly repressed resistance groups, should mobilize voters best in the context of founding elections.

Second, formally organized groups are better able to communicate, allocate resources, and coordinate actions than informally organized ones, and yet it was these same informally organized opposition groups — the Salafi Calling in Egypt, the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia, Al-Nahda in Tunisia, and post-martial law Solidarity in Poland — that were able to win founding elections. The predictions of the literature on mobilization, therefore, cannot explain the outcomes observed in these cases.

73 Della Porta & Diani 2006, 141. 74 Aldrich 2011.

Authoritarian Political Opposition Structure

and the Revival of Political Participation

The central claim of my argument is that the characteristics of political life during the authoritarian era shape the way in which political participation is revived during and after the political transition. Political participation is very different in authoritarian regimes and democratic ones, and this has consequences for the resources, opportunities, and constraints with which all political actors contend once a regime transition takes place.

Authoritarian regimes utilize a range of institutions,76 material resources,77 and coercion78 to prevent societal actors from challenging the regime’s supremacy. Citizens wishing to participate in these contexts must do so within tight legal and institutional constraints, or violate those restraints at great personal risk. The constraints imposed by nondemocratic regimes affect both the form and nature of political mobilization, profoundly altering the kinds of activities pursued by political parties and civil society groups and ways in which they pursue them.79

Opposition political parties, when they are allowed to form, are deeply affected by the constraints of a nondemocratic context because authoritarian regimes ensure, through fraud, electoral rules, or legal restrictions, that political parties are limited in their ability establish a grassroots presence or impact policymaking. Rather than competing on the basis of party platform as parties do in democracies, therefore, an authoritarian political context often turns party politics into an arena in which weakened parties compete over

75 Passy 2003. 76 Gandhi 2008. 77 Bellin 2002. 78 Bellin 2004.

state resources that are ultimately distributed based upon personal ties rather than programmatic or policy agendas.80 In most cases, parties that participate in the system are typically unable to have a policy impact, meaning that parties are no longer seen as a site for political opposition, but as an arena in which participants are forced to cooperate with the system. As a result, many opposition leaders leave party politics altogether and attempt to pursue their agendas through NGOs.81

However, nondemocratic regimes also severely restrict civil society organizations, with the consequence that most such organizations in these regimes are what Foley and

Edwards term 'civil society two' — service provision organizations — rather than the advocacy and political organizations that comprise ‘civil society one'.82 These regimes typically have laws in place that determine which organizations are permitted to form by requiring them to first obtain licenses from the state and only granting permission to organizations that are deemed unthreatening. Regimes often attempt to control the members of the board of these organizations, prevent them from receiving funding from abroad, and determine when and where the organization can meet.83 Authoritarian regimes typically view charitable NGOs as unthreatening and a convenient way to make up for the regime's own shortcomings in service delivery and provision of public goods.

As a result, the NGO field in most authoritarian regimes is dominated either by charitable organizations, or those groups pursuing very narrow agendas that do not directly the stability or legitimacy of the regime as a whole.84

79 della Porta & Diani 2006. 80 Lust-Okar 2008; Shehata 2008. 81 Langohr 2004. 82 Foley & Edwards 2002. 83 Wiktorowicz 2001. 84 Langohr 2004.

A consequence of the restrictions imposed upon political parties and civil society organizations is that individuals and movements that wish to pursue a more radical agenda directly challenging authoritarian regimes often do so not through formal organizations but through interpersonal networks and 'underground' groups that cannot be easily monitored, controlled, or punished.85 It is much easier for a regime to monitor an

NGO with an office, a staff roster, and regular business hours than it is to follow, identify, and control a decentralized low-visibility group that operates primarily through informal networks. Therefore, social movements or political groups pursuing a transformative agenda that challenges regime authority or legitimacy have more success if they operate through informal networks to avoid punishment.86

A major consequence of this fact is that in that much of the more salient political activity, even if not directly or obviously challenging the regime, occurs off the grid, so to speak. Scott has pointed to 'everyday resistance,' or "the nearly continuous, informal, undeclared, disguised forms of autonomous resistance by lower classes."87 Although

Scott is talking about individual, rather than collective, action, his notion of everyday resistance calls attention to the need for a more nuanced definition of “political”.

Ostensibly apolitical activities – whether charitable, religious, or communal – can construct a unique kind of resistance to various sorts of repression, which implicitly challenge the regime and subvert its authority. As the case studies here demonstrate, the opposition groups that ultimately go on to win founding elections engaged in such forms of symbolic, informal political contestation outside of formal political channels and institutions.

85 Wiktorowicz 2001; Albrecht 2008. 86 Tarrow 2011; Wiktorowicz 2004; della Porta & Diani 2006.

A historical conception of participation under long-term authoritarian regimes is necessary to understand the revival of political participation after an authoritarian breakdown in part because events typically move quite quickly; founding elections are usually held soon after authoritarian collapse or regime transition in order to pave the way for institutional and political change. In these junctures, political actors must decide quite quickly whether or not to form parties and the typical means of evaluating an electoral contender are absent: the proliferation of new parties impedes the ability of voters to make ‘short-cuts’ and identify with party labels and economic and policy performance are not yet relevant for evaluating a leader. Furthermore, parties’ organizational capacities themselves are hamstrung by the short window between authoritarian collapse and founding elections. For example, of 29 founding elections in sub-Saharan Africa between 1989 and 1994, half of all of these countries proceeded directly to elections after authoritarian breakdown rather than writing a new constitution or reviewing other institutional rules.88 Similarly, across former Soviet states in central and eastern Europe, the first parliamentary elections after the fall of the USSR were held in 1989 or 1990 - i.e., during either the same or following year as the regime’s collapse.89

And in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, founding elections — whether for a new parliament or a constitution-drafting assembly — were held within the year after Ben Ali, Mubarak and

Qaddafi were deposed.

While political actors in transitional settings possess and display tremendous agency and strategic behavior, the short time frame between authoritarian collapse and founding elections means that most actors will still be coping with the consequences of

87 Scott 1989, 4. 88 Bratton & van de Walle 1997.

several decades of political repression, co-optation and control. The evolution of organizational form, the integration into and establishment of interpersonal networks, and the persistent depoliticization of many formal organizations are processes that unfold and solidify throughout the duration of an authoritarian regime. In the words of Karl, "Even in the midst of tremendous uncertainty provoked by a regime transition, where constraints appear to be most relaxed and where a wide range of outcomes appears to be possible, the decisions made by various actors respond to and are conditioned by the types of socioeconomic structures and political institutions already present.”90 The patterns, routines, and practices of participation that existed for decades before the point of transition have a large effect on which groups form into political parties and whether these parties are able to mobilize supporters in founding elections.

Political Opposition Structure

Due to the way in which authoritarian regimes influence the organization and behavior of political parties, civil society organizations and social movements, the political opposition structure of the prior authoritarian regime is the central causal factor that shapes both party formation and political mobilization in the brief time period leading up to founding elections. The political opposition structure of an authoritarian regime is defined as the way in which the regime structures political contestation, by removing certain actors from the opposition by co-opting them, permitting some actors to contest the regime through within-system channels, such as elections, and denying others the ability to engage in within-system contestation, thus forcing them into extra-systemic

89 Kostelecky 2002. 90 Karl 1990, 6.

contestation, such as protests, violent attacks and social movements. This authoritarian- era opposition structure – and the way in which this structure shapes groups’ organizational characteristics and symbolic resources -- feeds through the transition to shape the processes of party formation and political mobilization prior to founding elections.

Other scholars have made important contributions to the ways in which a regime’s strategies of co-optation and selective inclusion shape the goals and orientations of political opposition groups in specific contexts. For example, Bellin demonstrated that co-optation, or material benefits, makes organized labor less likely to push for democratization in late-developing countries.91 Ellen Lust has shown that the structure of contestation in authoritarian regimes in the Arab world made certain political groups – those that were included within the system – less likely to mobilize against the regime during economic crises for fear of losing their position within the system. In contrast, when no political groups were included within the system, the same elites are more willing to mobilize against the system during periods of economic crisis.92

The concept of political opposition structure builds on both of these works. First, rather than separating co-optation out from other mechanisms of interaction between regime and opposition as both of these works do, the political opposition structure includes co-optation as one of three relationships between regime and opposition, alongside within-system inclusion and extra-system exclusion. Second, instead of focusing only on the way in which this opposition structure shapes the strategies of regime and opposition and intra-opposition interaction, this account also hones in on the

91 Bellin 2000. 92 Lust 2005.

organizational and symbolic consequences of the opposition structure. The opposition structure shapes the organizational form of opposition groups, the ideas contested within the system, and the variation in resources – not just strategies -- possessed by different members of the political opposition. Finally, while these make very useful contributions to authoritarian politics in specific contexts, I push beyond the pre-transition era to trace how the authoritarian-era political opposition structure in turn shapes post-transition outcomes in a wide range of cases.

Two types of political opposition structure are of interest here, based on the degree of contestation they permit:93 one-party regimes and dominant-party regimes.94 In dominant-party authoritarian regimes, the regime permits a select set of opposition political parties to contest the regime and the ruling party electorally, even though these parties’ activities are controlled and they have no genuine expectation of winning elections. Groups that are not granted permission to form a political party instead contest the regime extra-systemically, through public protests and demonstrations, violent attack, or other non-electoral, extra-institutional means. Examples of dominant-party regimes include Egypt under Mubarak, Tunisia under Ben ‘Ali, and Indonesia under Suharto.

93 Dahl 1971 argued that all regimes can be categorized according to two dimensions, the extent of contestation permitted to societal actors and the degree of participation permitted, the degree of participation does not provide us with any explanatory power as far as our outcomes of interest are concerned. In many authoritarian regimes, citizens regularly vote in elections for the president or the legislature; depending on the degree of contestation permitted, however, these votes mean very different things. In one-party regimes, where no opposition candidates are permitted, voting is merely symbolic, a way in which the regime mobilizes citizens for various purposes (the maintenance of the illusion of democracy is one such reason). In dominant-party regimes, however, citizens can register their discontent with the regime by voting for an opposition candidate. The degree of participation also does not help us to answer the questions presented here; in all of the cases under examination here, citizens regularly voted in elections. Outcomes do, however, vary according to the degree of contestation permitted, as I show in the following sections. 94 As discussed in the introduction, a third type of opposition structure also exists: zero-contestation regimes, in which no political parties, institutions, or organizations exist. As the primary focus here is the way in which opposition groups convert their resources in the post-transition setting, however, zero- contestation regimes are not relevant.

One-party regimes, in contrast, do not allow any opposition groups to form political parties and contest the regime or the ruling party through within-system channels, forcing all opposition groups into extra-systemic contestation. Examples of one-party regimes include Poland and Czechoslovakia under communism, and Zambia under Kaunda. Both types of regime, dominant-party and one-party can attempt to co-opt certain groups in the population, thus removing them from the opposition. The political opposition structure of the authoritarian regime shapes the processes of party formation and determines which political opposition groups are best able to mobilize supporters during founding elections.

Table 2.1: Authoritarian Political Opposition Structure Co-opted Within-System Extra-Systemic Examples Groups Contestation Contestation • Social Regime may movements co-opt potential • Regime political • Illegal political Egypt, Tunisia, Dominant- opposition party parties Indonesia, Korea, Party groups, thus • Select • Pro-democracy Uruguay, Brazil, Regimes removing them opposition groups Peru, Ecuador from the political parties opposition. • Civil society organizations Regime may Poland, co-opt potential Czechoslovakia, opposition • Social East Germany, groups, thus movements Hungary, Bulgaria, removing them • Illegal political Moldova, Ukraine, One-Party from the • Regime political parties Yugoslavia, Regimes opposition. party • Pro-democracy Belarus, Albania, groups USSR, Mongolia, • Civil society Niger, Cape Verde, organizations Zambia, Burundi, Madagascar, Taiwan, Argentina

Political Opposition Structure and the Puzzles of Party Formation

In the lead-up to founding elections, a multitude of new political parties form as the political space opens after years of constriction. Within this context, however, puzzling variation exists with respect to two types of opposition group that sometimes form into a political party and sometimes do not, despite being consistent mobilizers of protest

against the authoritarian regime: labor unions and pro-reform activist groups. Both types of variation are explained by the authoritarian-era political opposition structure.

Earlier in this chapter I explained that political parties offer individuals and groups a set of “goods” that enable them to attain representation in government, provide input into policy decisions, or, in the case of authoritarian regimes, seek office for personal financial gain.95 The reason that so many new parties form in the wake of or during a political transition is that these groups were denied access to within-system — electoral

— contestation during the authoritarian era, either because that specific group was denied permission to form a party or because the regime did not permit any within-system contestation. For this reason, it is not puzzling that opposition groups that sought party legalization during the authoritarian era — such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and

Al-Nahda and the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party in Tunisia — immediately form parties once the regime transition occurs and they are no longer barred from doing so.

Proposition 1: Opposition groups that attempted to form political parties during the authoritarian era but were excluded from within-system contestation will form parties in the wake of the regime transition.

What remains puzzling, however, is why other opposition groups — labor unions and pro-reform activist groups — do not form political parties.

Labor Unions

Why, then, do we see some labor unions engaging in highly visible, contentious, extra- systemic contestation in the form of public demonstrations, strikes, and protests, but not

forming political parties after the regime transition, while in other cases, labor unions form into political parties? Valenzuela has shown that authoritarian regimes typically see organized labor as a potential threat to regime stability because unions provide a mobilizing structure, workers have a common identity, and, due to their linkage to economically significant sectors of production, workers have the ability to impact the regime economically through strikes.96 As such, authoritarian regimes typically attempt to exert control over organized labor, either through engaging in a bargain whereby the regime exerts corporatist controls over labor unions in return for selective benefits for the working class, or through laws that severely restrict and control the rights, finances, and organization of unions.97 Thus, depending on the way in which the regime structures the political opposition, labor is either co-opted into the regime, or designated as part of the political opposition.

As the case studies in the following chapters show, however, even labor unions that have been co-opted by the state often ultimately engage in extra-systemic contestation — protests, strikes, and sit-ins — when the state-labor bargain breaks down over time, often due to economic hardship, and the original corporatist institutional structure is no longer representing the rank-and-file’s interests. Labor unions also engage in strikes, sit-ins, and protests over the same economic issues when they are excluded from the party system and lack institutional ways to effect policy change. Thus, whether or not labor engages in extra-systemic contestation is not an indication of whether labor is actually part of the opposition. When labor has neither been co-opted nor permitted to contest the regime’s policies through within-system means, then labor is part of the political opposition. When

95 Aldrich 2011; Lust-Okar 2008. 96 Valenzuela 1989, 447.

labor has been co-opted by the regime, then labor is not part of the political opposition; labor simply engages in extra-systemic contestation when the corporatist institutional arrangement fails to provide for labor’s interests.

Proposition 2: Labor unions form political parties after a regime transition as a way to attain access to policymaking only when organized labor was part of the political opposition. When organized labor was co-opted by the regime, labor unions will seek to remedy existing institutional arrangements to secure preferred policy outcomes.

If this proposition holds, then the analysis of the case studies should find evidence that in the cases in which labor unions do not form parties, they had been co-opted by the regime. We should also expect to see co-opted labor unions restricting the claims and grievances expressed during strikes and demonstrations to economic issues, not political ones. In contrast, in the cases in which labor unions do form parties, we should see a lack of any corporatist bargain between the regime and labor, as wells labor expressing overtly political claims during protests and demonstrations. Thus, the political opposition structure — whether the regime has co-opted organized labor or not — determines whether labor unions form political parties post-transition. Table 2.2 shows a preliminary categorization of these cases according to the theory; more detailed evidence follows in the case studies.

Table 2.2: Labor Unions and Post-Authoritarian Party Formation Relationship to Regime Party Formation Egypt Co-opted No Tunisia Co-opted No Brazil Opposition Yes Zambia Opposition Yes Poland Opposition Yes Czechoslovakia Co-opted No

97 Ibid.

Activist Groups

Building on proposition 1, pro-reform activist groups are, by definition, part of the political opposition and engage in extra-systemic contestation; why, then, do we see variation in party formation by these groups? Once again, the authoritarian-opposition structure — specifically, whether the regime permits within-system contestation — determines two critical factors that underpin party formation: organizational structure and which identities or ideologies are rendered salient at a given point in time. As I stated earlier in the chapter, for new political parties to be successful, they require establishing networks, recruiting leaders and rank-and-file participants, paying for offices and publicity materials, and setting down physical infrastructure. As such, new political parties are generally only successful when they can utilize “a strong organizational base or, more often, some parallel, ‘pre-partisan’ organization” through which collective action and mobilization can be coordinated.98 In some of the cases observed here, we see pro-reform activist groups providing the organizational base, leadership, and rank-and- file membership upon which to base a political party; in other cases, the activist group does not form a political party. This variation is due to the political opposition structure

— the presence or absence of opposition political parties.

In dominant-party contexts, in which a select group of opposition parties are permitted to contest the regime, the political opposition is divided between opposition parties and those other groups contesting the regime through other channels. Pro-reform activist groups typically act as umbrella groups that unite various different segments of the political opposition, including members of opposition political parties, for the purpose

of engaging in strikes, protests, distributing petitions, and challenging the regime in ways that legal parties cannot. The fact that these pro-reform opposition groups co-exist alongside opposition political parties results in two consequences that prevent these groups from forming viable political parties during the regime transition. First, a large number of the members of the pro-reform activist group have ties to other opposition political parties or groups denied legal party status. The pro-reform opposition group therefore shares its membership base with a wide range of other opposition organizations.

Second, the legal opposition political parties and the other opposition groups denied legal party status likely have more specific ideological orientations than simply being pro- reform/anti-regime. Thus, members’ overlapping membership in other organizations is based upon an ideology or identity that is potentially more salient than the anti-regime ideology. These two factors, caused by the existence of within-system contestation and opposition political parties means that pro-reform activist groups are likely to lose their membership base as soon as the transition occurs and its members are pulled away to other, more ideologically salient, organizations.

In contrast, in one-party contexts, no within-system contestation is permitted, and the opposition is unified in extra-system contestation. Pro-reform groups do not share a membership base with opposition political parties, but they may share a membership base with other pro-reform groups. These overlapping membership ties, however, do not put members away from the pro-reform group at the point of transition because they share the same ideological orientation and members are not drawn away by more salient identity or ideology groups in the lead-up to founding elections. More common in these contexts is

98 Boix 2007, 516.

that the various pro-reform groups unite within a single political party, thus pooling, not dividing, their membership bases.

Proposition 3: Pro-reform activist groups in dominant-party contexts will not form political parties before founding elections and will lose much of their membership base to pre-existing opposition parties or social movements. Pro-reform activist groups will form political parties before founding elections in single-party contexts and may pool their resources with other pro-reform groups within a single party.

Table 2.3 provides a preliminary categorization of the cases according to the theory.

A more detailed examination of the evidence follows in the case studies.

Table 2.3: Pro-Reform Activist Groups and Post-Authoritarian Party Formation Political Opposition Pro-Democracy Party Formation Structure Activist Group Egypt Dominant-Party Kifaya No April 6 No Tunisia Dominant-Party League of Human Rights No Zambia One-Party Movement for Yes Multiparty Democracy Czechoslovakia One-Party Charter ‘77 Yes

Political Opposition Structure and Post-Authoritarian Political Mobilization

After various opposition groups form political parties, why are some parties more successful at mobilizing supporters than others? The political opposition structure during the authoritarian determines the resources available to various groups at the point of transition, making some more able to mobilize supporters than others. As a result of the way in which the process of political mobilization works — individual linkage and persuasion — and the means by which authoritarian political regimes alter the ways in which political and societal groups organize and act, parties that form from opposition

groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels will be better able to mobilize supporters after authoritarian collapse than pre-existing political parties or new parties due to two mechanisms: organizational characteristics and oppositional credibility.

Organizational Characteristics

Organizations vary in terms of legality, their visibility, their exclusivity, and their internal structure. These differences affect a group’s ability to mobilize supporters; in democratic settings, legal, visible groups can more easily persuade and provide information to individuals as well as openly attempt to alter their cost-analysis.

Conversely, low visibility groups, both legal and illegal, must rely on interpersonal networks for their mobilizational efforts and cannot as openly provide material incentives or reduce costs for participation.99

99 Passy 2003.

In contrast, groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels have different characteristics. They are illegal, have low visibility, and rely on interpersonal networks for their recruitment, communication and coordination. Rather than control these groups through laws, regimes tend to alternately tolerate and repress these groups, further incentivizing them to organize through informal networks. During periods of toleration, these groups cultivate expansive grassroots networks because they are less visible and less easily monitored by the regime. During the authoritarian regime, their lack of legality and lack of formal organization limit the potential impact they can have; collective action is not as easily coordinated through interpersonal networks as it is through formal organizations that have offices, membership lists, and a clear organizational structure. As a result, many interpersonal networks remain latent, operating as “‘intermittent structures,’ i.e., “organizations or organizational units, which are deployed and then ‘fold up’ until their period of activity arrives again.”100 However, interpersonal networks provide massive mobilizational potential once they are activated, especially due to the fact that mobilization often takes place through what has been termed ‘bloc recruitment,’ when “cells, branches, or simply significant groups of members of existing organizations are recruited as a whole to a new movement, or contribute to the start of new campaigns.”101 These grassroots networks also make these opposition groups better at both identifying their potential supporters and targeting them for mobilization.102

100 Della Porta & Diani 2006, 149. 101 Ibid, 120. 102 Aldrich 2011.

Proposition 4: Opposition groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels operate through informal networks and have an extensive grassroots presence.

Opposition groups that contest the regime through within-system channels, in contrast, operate through formal networks and lack a presence at the grassroots level.

Oppositional Credibility

Parties that form from groups that contested the regime through extra-systemic channels have greater persuasive capabilities than those that form from groups that contested the regime through within-system channels due to the credibility they garner through their visible opposition to the regime and the suffering that they experience at the hands of the coercive apparatus when the regime resorts to repressive tactics. Opposition groups gain credibility through a peculiar logic of suffering; in an authoritarian context, most citizens know that the regime will repress any opposition that cannot be controlled or co-opted. When a group is repressed by the regime, that group is therefore viewed as challenging the regime, rather than making a bargain with the regime that benefits the group. As repression is intended to frighten and deter citizens and opponents from engaging in actions that are threatening to the regime, it often manifests in public, visual, almost performative events: public hangings and executions, public beatings by police and military officers, raids, and arrests. Even if an individual has succumbed to a

“politics of silence”103 or preference falsification,104 one cannot “exit”105 one’s neighborhood, community, or workplace, all of which are the locations of these repressive acts.

103 Makiya 1993. 104 Kuran 1991.

As evidence from the case studies show, groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels are therefore repressed in full view of their communities.

Community members bear witness to a neighbor being hauled away in a security services van or being beaten by police officers while taking part in a protest or strike. Even if most people do not openly voice their opposition to the regime, when this kind of repression is systematically visited upon a group of people it generates sympathy and a sense of injustice at this group’s treatment. The “hidden transcripts”106 surrounding these public acts of repression – whether individual or collective -- contain the sentiments that the regime is unjust, that the repression is brutal, that the recipient of the repression deserves sympathy, and that the recipient of the repression must be genuinely opposing the regime to suffer so. As the case studies show, part of mobilization after a regime transition is in a sense the expression of these formerly hidden transcripts.

Groups that contest the regime through within-system channels, in contrast, do not suffer visible repression on a systematic level. While individual members of these groups may suffer repression, as a group they are not systematically and thoroughly beaten, jailed, tortured and executed in full view of their communities. Instead, they attempt to effect change through the state’s own institutions, and are therefore viewed as less credible than groups that act outside the system and that suffer the consequences for it.

Proposition 5: Parties that form from groups that contest the regime through extra- systemic channels will be viewed as more “credible” than parties that form from groups that contest the regime through within-system channels or new parties.

105 Hirschman 1970. 106 Scott 1989.

Proposition 6: Parties that form from groups that contest the regime through extra- systemic channels will utilize electoral strategies that reflect specific organizational and persuasive capabilities — a grassroots presence and an awareness of their oppositional credibility.

In summary, the causal chain linking the political opposition structure to mobilizational outcomes is below in Table 2.4.

Table 2.4: Post-Authoritarian Mobilization

Political Opposition Resources Outcomes Structure

Extra-Systemic Organizational Capabilities (informal Contestation  networks, grassroots presence) Post- Oppositional Credibility Authoritarian  Mobilization

Within-System of Supporters  Lack of Organizational Capabilities Contestation Lack of Credibility

Beyond Founding Elections

While this account focuses primarily on the processes of the reconstitution of political participation during a brief juncture — that of the period between regime transition and founding elections — what happens to opposition groups beyond that juncture, and their interaction not just with authoritarian elites but authoritarian institutions, is an important one. An examination of the events following the first free elections in the cases studied here reveals the fact that some aspects of the political opposition structure turn out to be ephemeral while others become increasingly important over time. First, oppositional credibility, while very important in the transitional juncture, has a surprisingly brief half-

life, especially in the face of economic difficulties. Second, the political opposition structure of the authoritarian era continues to be important, albeit in new ways: rather than affecting the mobilizational strength of different groups, the political opposition structure affects the likelihood of group survival or dissolution after founding elections.

Finally, authoritarian elites and institutions, which did not play a central role in events during the transition, play an increasingly important one in the post-transition era, even impacting the likelihood of democratic consolidation.

Political parties that form out of opposition groups in one-party contexts tend not to survive beyond the founding elections. This is a result of the fact that, due to the political structure of one-party contexts, in which no opposition parties were allowed to exist, the political parties that contest founding elections are coalitions of pro-reform, anti-regime opposition groups that initially overlook their very distinct ideological differences. These differences emerge, however, after founding elections and these political parties divide into a number of ideologically coherent parties, as occurred with respect to the Civic

Forum and Solidarity. The exception to this trend is the case of Zambia, where the

Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) does survive and evolves into a new ruling party. This divergent outcome is a result of the fact that the MMD incorporates former authoritarian elites into the party and breaks with one segment of its base — that of the working class. Thus, the higher level of party-system volatility in these cases is the final legacy of the authoritarian-era opposition structure; those opposition groups that are able to form into parties and win founding elections also tend to disintegrate shortly thereafter.

In contrast to one-party contexts, political parties that form out of opposition groups in

dominant-party contexts tend to be ideologically coherent and do not collapse into multiple factions of disparate ideological orientations.

The cases examined here, however, illustrate another way that opposition successor parties do not survive: the persistence of authoritarian institutions. The case of Egypt, in contrast to that of Brazil and Tunisia, is illustrative of this divergent outcome. In Egypt, a powerful institution from the authoritarian era − the Supreme Council of the Armed

Forces — never gave up power or submitted to democratic control at the hands of the civilian government. The military’s continued power without democratic, civilian oversight, enabled the coup in July 2013 that swept the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party from power. In contrast, in the case of Tunisia, the military was never an important part of the Ben ‘Ali regime and has not played a major role in the country post-transition. Finally, Brazil’s military for the most part submitted to democratic, civilian oversight, although it maintained a number of prerogatives in the realm of economic policymaking.107 These factors will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Non-democratic regimes shape the nature of political participation through a mixture of co-optation, repression and control. When these regimes collapse or cede power and the revival of political participation begins, a large number of groups form parties and attempt to mobilize supporters to compete in founding elections. The empirical record of this juncture reveals puzzling variation, however. In terms of party formation, some of the opposition groups that are most active in mobilizing protests and contentious actions against the regime sometimes go on to form parties, and sometimes do not, resulting in a

puzzling mismatch between pre-transition mobilization and post-transition political party competition. Second, some of the groups that are the most successful in mobilizing supporters during founding elections are the ones that were repressed and driven underground during the authoritarian era; these groups lack electoral experience, material resources, and well organized structures. How is it that they manage to win these elections?

The way in which the authoritarian regime structures the political opposition during the authoritarian era determines which opposition groups form into political parties and which are best equipped to mobilize supporters during founding elections. The political opposition structure — whether the regime co-opts potential opponents, whether it permits within-system contestation, and who it permits to engage in within-system contestation — shapes the organizational form of opposition groups, the ideas contested within the system, and the variation in resources possessed by different members of the political opposition. Authoritarian regimes can be classified into two types of political opposition structure, based upon the degree of contestation they permit: one-party regimes and dominant-party regimes. These different political contestation structures determine which groups form political parties, and which groups are best able to mobilize supporters.

With respect to party formation, whether or not organized labor forms political parties is a function of whether the regime co-opted or controlled them. Labor unions will form a political party after a regime transition a way to attain access to policymaking only when organized labor was part of the political opposition. When organized labor was co-opted by the regime, however, labor unions will seek to remedy existing

107 Macdonald & Van Antwerp 2013.

institutional arrangements to secure preferred policy outcomes rather then forming a political party.

Whether or not pro-reform activist groups form into political parties is also a function of the political opposition structure, which shapes the nature of these groups’ membership bases and their ideological orientations. Pro-reform activist groups in dominant-party contexts will not form political parties before founding elections and will lose much of their membership base to pre-existing opposition parties or social movements to whom individuals have overlapping ties. In contrast, pro-reform activist groups will form political parties before founding elections in single-party contexts and may pool their resources with other pro-reform groups within a single party.

With respect to political mobilization, the political opposition structure determines which opposition groups have the resources necessary to succeed in founding elections and determines different groups’ organizational characteristics and persuasive abilities.

As a result of the way in which authoritarian contexts shape the organizational characteristics of opposition groups, only those groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels develop a grassroots presence and a network of informal ties which enable them to contact, identify and persuade voters during founding elections. In contrast, groups that contest the regime through within-system channels organize themselves formally and are easily monitored and controlled by the regime. As a result, these groups do not develop a grassroots presence or informal networks. Additionally, groups that contest the regime through extra-systemic channels develop an “oppositional credibility” as a result of the suffering that the group undergoes as a result of regime repression. This credibility persuades voters to vote for them during founding elections.

In contrast, opposition groups that contest the regime through within-system channels are not subject to the same repression and they are viewed as collaborating with the regime.

The following chapters evaluate the evidence for these claims through a structured, focused comparison of a set of case studies. The case of Egypt serves as an in-depth case study; Chapters 3 and 4 explore the political opposition structure of the Mubarak era and evidence pertaining to the formation of political parties and processes of political mobilization in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Chapters 5 and 6 then situate the evidence from Egypt in comparative perspective.

Chapter 3

Political Participation & Dominant-Party Authoritarianism

The Case of Egypt (1981-2011)

Introduction

At 6 a.m. on February 2, 2011, in Cairo, Egypt, one week into historic antigovernment protests, clashes broke out in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square that left over 600 injured and eleven dead.108 Men riding horses and camels rode into the square and began attacking protesters with whips, clubs, stones, and Molotov cocktails. The men on camel were allegedly hired by the regime to intimidate protesters and end the week-long sit in, when protesters had failed to leave the square after a televised speech by President Hosni

Mubarak the night before. These clashes, later known as the Battle of the Camels, were the final, ill-conceived last-ditch effort by a besieged regime attempting to respond to massive public protests of the sort that had ousted the Tunisian dictator Ben ‘Ali just days earlier. The end of the story is by now well known: the brutality galvanized public opinion against Mubarak and he was forced from office on February 11, 2011. The deployment of thugs on camelback is just one example – albeit a colorful one -- of the various ways in which the Mubarak regime and its predecessors had managed, manipulated and repressed the political opposition, from Gamal ‘Abd el-Nasser (1956-

1970) to Anwar Sadat (1970-1981), to Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011).

The Mubarak regime structured the political opposition into three categories, which later had consequences for these groups’ post-transition resources and capabilities. First, he followed the example of his predecessors by maintaining the corporatist structures that endowed organized labor with selective benefits while simultaneously preventing unions

from mobilizing against the state. Second, as a dominant-party regime, a select number of political parties were allowed to compete alongside the ruling National Democratic Party and contest the regime through formal political channels. However, Mubarak subjected these groups to a set of strict controls. As a result, these groups were unable to establish a presence at the grassroots level or challenge the regime in fundamental ways. They were in many ways more restrained in establishing contact with the society at large, due to the numerous ways in which the regime was able to monitor and control their activities.

Third, groups that were excluded from the formal political system, such as Islamist groups and pro-reform umbrella groups, were alternately tolerated and repressed by the regime. During periods of toleration, these groups – especially Islamist groups – were able to establish an extensive grassroots presence through charities, community self-help organizations, private mosques, and individual religious outreach activities. The Muslim

Brotherhood also utilized other civil society organizations, such as professional syndicates, as “substitute sites” for political outreach. These activities at the grassroots level while not always directly confronting the state, constituted the construction of a

“parallel society” that quietly contested the regime’s legitimacy. During periods of repression, members of these groups that avoided arrest retreated underground and into informal networks until they found new venues through which to engage with their communities.

As we shall see in Chapter 4, the existence of political parties that were permitted to contest the regime through within-system channels affected the processes of party formation after the Mubarak regime fell in 2011. At the same time, the ways in which the regime controlled opposition political parties impacted their organizational characteristics

108 Fathi 2012.

and the way in which they were perceived by the general public, both of which diminished their ability to mobilize supporters in the founding elections of 2011. These varying regime-opposition relationships of co-optation, inclusion, and exclusion, and the ways in which these groups benefited or suffered from their position within the opposition structure, later determined who formed political parties and who was able to mobilize supporters in the 2011 elections.

The data presented in this chapter is based upon over one hundred in-depth interviews conducted in Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, Mansoura and Zagazig, during twelve months of fieldwork in 2012. The interviews were conducted with political party members from a range of parties, civil society activists, members of professional syndicates, Muslim Brotherhood members, and Salafis. While most respondents gave me permission to use their names in my work, due to the contentious — and for Muslim

Brotherhood members, dangerous — political atmosphere in Egypt after July 2013, I have chosen to leave these interviews anonymous, with only party membership, city, and date of interview listed. I also employ various secondary sources as part of my analysis.

Authoritarian-Era Political Opposition Structure

The Mubarak regime shaped the structure of Egyptian political participation through a mixture of co-optation, inclusion, and repression directed at different opposition groups.

Co-optation: Labor Unions and Professional Syndicates

Recognizing the huge organizational potential of Egypt’s workers, Hosni Mubarak’s predecessor, President Gamal ‘Abd el-Nasser, instituted a system of corporatist interest

representation, whereby he “tighten[ed] the reigns on the organizational structure of labor while endowing the workers with the necessary benefits to keep them subdued.”109 In

1957 Nasser realized that a single trade federation was the best means by which to organize Egyptian worker, endow them with benefits, and ensure that they did not present a challenge to the regime. As such, he created the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, which Bishara calls the “ideal vehicle for the co-optation of trade union leaders and the domestication of the labor movement.”110 Several scholars have argued that this arrangement was initially beneficial to workers, as “a revolutionary elite used corporatism to strengthen working class organizations as junior partners in a multiclass ruling coalition that benefited briefly from ambitious efforts to combine redistributive reforms with import substitution."111 The benefits to workers included a series of laws that increased the minimum wage, introduced social insurance, and reduced the number of hours in a standard work-week.112 Indeed, between 1952 and 1958, the average weekly wage for industrial workers rose by 45 percent and rose again by 24 percent between 1958 and 1970.113

In exchange for these benefits, however, workers lost several rights. The Ministry of Labor was given control over Egypt’s unions and later Law 35 (1976) made the state- managed Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) the sole legal trade union organization in the country.114 ETUF’s mission “was to control workers as much as it was to represent them”115 and was criticized by international labor organizations as repressing

109 Kassem 2004, 92. 110 Bishara 2013, 32. 111 Bianchi 1989a, 28. 112 Kassem 2004. 113 Goldberg 1992. 114 Kassem 2004; Benin 2012, 3. 115 Benin 2012, 3.

the ability of workers to engage in collective bargaining.116 ETUF decided the labor movement’s policies, ‘negotiated’ with the regime about privatization policies, and prevented politicized demands from being leveraged against the state.117 This control over labor increased during the Mubarak regime; “during this period, the government amended the trade unions law to give the ETUF more power to diffuse workers' discontent. The amendments were aimed at maximizing the power of the ETUF's old guard at the expense of younger and more radical activists...In addition, labor activist

Talal Shukr notes that the amendments transferred all the prerogatives of local union committees to general unions and the trade union confederation."118 Law no. 12 (1995) similarly prohibits workers in each industry from forming more than one union at the national level.119

Nasser’s bargain with workers began to break down as worker benefits came under fire first during Sadat-era infitah (economic liberalization), when economic inequality began to increase, and again near the latter part of the Mubarak era, when the regime began to implement IMF-spurred privatization reforms. The mechanisms of control over labor unions and the successful co-optation of labor union leadership during the Mubarak regime were largely effective in containing worker discontent; despite the opposition of the majority of rank-and-file workers to such privatization and liberalization policies,

ETUF’s leadership agreed to the policy changes, representing the wishes of the regime rather than those of ETUF’s members.120 By the fall of the Mubarak regime in February

116 Gohar 2008, 184. 117 Gohar 2008. 118 Bishara 2013, 35. 119 Gohar 2008. 120 Benin 2012.

2011, only three unions had succeeded in breaking away from the direct control of

ETUF.121

Despite representing a segment of society with a potentially massive mobilizing potential,122 organized labor in Egypt was initially co-opted, and then controlled, by the very structures that should have enabled labor to bargain collectively and contribute to state policies. As such, labor activists and discontented rank-and-file members who sought to contest regime policies did so through extra-systemic means — primarily labor protests -- as I discuss later in this section.

The organizational parallel to the labor unions within the professional fields are

Egypt’s syndicates. Originally established as corporatist peak organizations before the

Nasser era, state law mandates that each professional occupational group (engineers, teachers, doctors, pharmacists, and so on) is represented by a single syndicate, implicitly controlled by the state.123 “During the Nasser era, the associations served primarily as vehicles of co-optation and control, enabling the regime to distribute benefits to a strategic middle-class constituency while containing their political activity within official channels. Most associations retained their nonconfrontational character under Sadat.

Dominated by competing sectoral blocs and cliques, the associations were vulnerable to state manipulation.”124

The character of the professional associations changed somewhat during the

Mubarak regime, as their ranks swelled as a result of the entry into the job force by thousands of university graduates who had been given an education during the Nasser

121 Benin 2012, 5. 122 See Valenzuela 1989. 123 Wickham 2002. 124 Wickham 2002, 180.

regime. Wickham notes that, with the entry of this new group into the syndicates, the organizations changed from “elite institutions with relatively small, privileged memberships into mass institutions marked by sharp generational and class cleavages…Through the mid-1980s, the social and economic grievances of this large bloc of new members were largely ignored by old-guard association leaders.”125 In part due to their increased size and resultant internal cleavages, and in part because they were not controlled by a single state federation as labor unions were, professional syndicates increasingly became the site for political activity by those excluded from or dissatisfied with the party system. As one Muslim Brotherhood member commented126 to me, while

NGOs became the participatory avenue for liberals, professional syndicates became a substitute political arena for Islamists, as I explain more fully in the following section.

However, due to the fact that the professional syndicates were, ultimately, corporatist structures linked to the state, they were subject to state regulation and control.

Therefore, in 1993, in an effort to curtail the political activities of syndicate members after members of the Muslim Brotherhood began to win syndicate elections,127 the

Unified Law of Professional Syndicates no. 100 was enacted, imposing a number of restrictions on syndicate elections. The law mandated that in order for syndicate elections to be valid, at least 50 percent of the total members of that syndicate — for example, 50 percent of all engineers in Egypt — had to vote in those elections. If this threshold was not met, the elections were held again, with a 30 percent participation threshold. If that

125 Wickham 2002, 183. 126 Author interview with a Muslim Brotherhood member, also a senior member of the Pharmacy Syndicate in Cairo, Egypt. 10/15/2012, 4:00 PM. 127 See the following sections.

threshold was again not met, the regime assigned a leader of the syndicate.128

Unsurprisingly, it was extremely difficult to organize 50 percent of all members of one profession to vote and as a result these restrictions led to the appointment of regime- approved syndicate leaders in the 1990s, “single-handedly [bringing] the election process to a complete stop in ten professional syndicates, including those for doctors, engineers, dentists, pharmacists, agriculturalists, teachers, and lawyers.129 Thus, the regime used the structure of the syndicates to control and constrain their political activities.

In summary, both the Nasser and Mubarak regimes attempted to remove organized labor from the political opposition by co-opting workers, simultaneously promising them selective benefits in return for instituting a number of structural and legal measures intended to control them. The way in which the regime attempted to remove organized labor from the political opposition had later consequences for the possibility of labor party formation after Mubarak was ousted from power in 2011.

Within-System Contestation: Political Parties and NGOs

A number of opposition groups and actors contested regime policies through within-system channels: legal political parties contested the regime through elections to parliament, legal non-governmental organizations contested regime policies through legal battles waged in Egypt’s courts, and labor unions and professional syndicates ostensibly advocated on behalf of their interest groups through a system of peak associations.

Within-system contestation was largely controlled by the Mubarak regime through a web of laws that controlled the extent to which opposition groups could contest regime

128 Kassem 2004; Gohar 2008. 129 Gohar 2008, 181.

policies through within-system channels. Upon coming into office in 1981, Mubarak declared a state of emergency, which he renewed every three years. This state of emergency permitted the state to circumvent judicial processes and wield the threat of repression against potential challengers. The Emergency Law no. 162 (1958) was later replaced by a constitutional clause on terrorism (Article 179), enabling the security services to conduct wiretaps of telephones, arrest citizens without warrant or judicial review, search private homes, and detain citizens indefinitely.130

The regime also enacted a series of laws specifically limiting freedoms of association, expression and the press. In addition to the Law of Association (2003), which will be discussed below, the regime limited freedom of assembly; before groups could hold public demonstrations, rallies, or protests of any kind, organizers had to apply and receive approval from the Ministry of Interior, which unsurprisingly rarely gave permission.131 Freedom of expression was similarly cordoned off, with political criticism directed at the president, his family or the military strictly prohibited (although though sometimes inconsistently regulated). Discussions of sectarianism, criticisms of Islam and other such ‘sensitive’ topics were also limited. These restrictions extended to the media, where the state owned and managed all broadcast television stations and most radio stations, with privately-owned stations only permitted to broadcast entertainment programs. Similarly, Mubarak appointed the editors of the three leading newspapers, effectively controlling print journalism. Needless to say, articles criticizing the president

130 Gohar 2008; Freedom House 2005; Sirrs 2010. 131 Freedom House 2005.

or covering controversial topics were grounds for the closure of the remaining private newspapers and the arrest of the authors.132

Electoral Contestation

Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak was a dominant-party regime, in which the regime’s party, the National Democratic Party (NDP), ruled alongside a handful of legal opposition parties. The turn to multi-partism occurred under Mubarak’s predecessor,

President Anwar Sadat (1970-1981), who liberalized Egypt’s political system as part of his “controlled retreat” from Gamal ‘Abd el-Nasser’s single-party regime,133 intended to appeal to those seeking a degree of liberalization as part of his bid to consolidate his presidency and undermine Nasser loyalists.134 Rather than simply open the system to a free-for-all of party formation, Sadat created “platforms” organized according to ideology

— left, right, and center — and permitted them to compete for seats in the People’s

Assembly beginning in 1976. After the regime’s party, the centrist platform, performed well, Sadat permitted the other platforms to convert into actual political parties.135 As a means of excluding the two societal forces potentially the most threatening to his regime, the Nasserists and the Muslim Brotherhood, Sadat simultaneously barred the creation of any political party on the basis of class, religion or geographic region through the

Political Parties Law (40/1976), thus simultaneously liberalizing the political system while attempting to strengthen it against specific challengers.136

132 Freedom House 2005. 133 Wickham 2002, 65. 134 Lust 2005. 135 Wickham 2002. 136 Lust 2005; Wickham 2002.

Shortly after coming into office in 1981, Mubarak further liberalized the electoral system by permitting a number of new political parties to form and allowing these parties to compete in the parliamentary elections of 1984. Of the thirteen political parties permitted to form during these years, only a handful were particularly prominent. The

New Wafd, originally founded in 1919 and reconstituted in 1983, would grow to be the most successful of the opposition parties, gaining more seats in parliament between 2000 and 2005 than any other opposition party.137 The National Progressive Unionist Party, or al-Tagammu’, a leftist party established in 1975, had been heavily critical of Sadat but took part in elections under the Mubarak regime.138 The remaining parties were small and had programs that were indistinguishable from the ruling National Democratic Party.139

As for the ruling party itself, the NDP had a rather vague ideological platform, most likely to enable President Mubarak to utilize a flexible array of ideologies as needed.140

Mubarak was the leader of the party and his image — featured in photographs, posters, and other publicity material — was a major source of currency for the party.141 The NDP typically swept parliamentary elections through a mixture of legal controls, fraud and intimidation, winning 82 percent of votes in 1976, 92 percent of votes in 1989, 87 percent in 1984, 69 percent in 1987, 58 percent in 1990, 71.4 percent in 1995, 77 percent of seats in 2000, 68 percent of votes in 2005, and 81 percent of seats in 2010.142 These numbers are on the low side, as they do not account for independent candidates, most of whom were either members of the NDP or joined the party after the elections.143

137 Shehata 2008. 138 Gohar 2008. 139 Shahin 2010. 140 Kassem 1999. 141 Kassem 1999. 142 Wickham 2002. 143 Wickham 2002.

As is characteristic of dominant-party authoritarian regimes, the Mubarak regime possessed the formal electoral and party institutions of a democratic polity.144 However, through a mixture of regulations, intimidation and fraud, the regime controlled and manipulated these institutions to the extent that they could not be considered democratic, guaranteeing the victory of the NDP.145 The electoral rules put in place by Electoral Law

114 (1983) set an 8 percent minimum vote threshold for any party to be represented in the parliament;146 any party whose votes did not equal this 8 percent minimum would forfeit their vote share to the NDP.147 Under these same rules, political parties were not allowed to run together on the same lists, which mean that any party that was not large enough to run by itself and still surpass the 8 percent threshold had no chance of winning a seat in parliament. The law also gave Mubarak the right to appoint a certain number of seats to

Coptic Christians and women, further aiding the NDP in maintaining a majority in parliament.148

The regime also maintained a monopoly over patronage resources, restricting the ways in which opposition parties could raise money and simultaneously using distributional incentives to win votes and increase voter turnout; “the large and powerful families that dominate electoral politics in rural constituencies are the primary conduits through which patronage is delivered. The NDP’s mobilization of voters along clan and tribal lines helps explain both the comparatively high turnout and the NDP’s strong

144 Schedler 2006 terms this combination of ostensibly democratic electoral institutions within an authoritarian framework “electoral authoritarianism.” Levitsky and Way 2002 term this “competitive authoritarianism.” 145 Freedom House 2005. 146 El-Ghobashy 2005. 147 Wickham 2002. 148 Wickham 2002.

showing in rural areas.”149 These patronage inducements were also extended to party members, who were offered increased salaries, easier access to licenses and permits and other benefits.150

In addition to the savvy use of electoral rules and patronage, the regime exercised a number of legal regulations that succeed in hamstring political parties while simultaneously strengthening Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, which “had at its disposal all available political, economic, financial, and publicity resources.”151 First,

Law no. 40 (1977), Article 8, states that the regime can control the formation of political parties through the Political Parties Committee (PPC). Anyone wishing to form a new political party had to submit an application, along with a set number of signatures gathered from across the country; between 1977 and 2005, the PPC approved only four new parties, while rejecting over 60, sometimes repeatedly.152 Among those denied legal recognition was the Ghad Party, an off-shoot of the Wafd Party, whose leader, Ayman

Nour, presented a substantial challenge to Mubarak when he ran against him in presidential elections in 2005 and was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison on trumped-up charges.153 Also denied legal recognition was the Wasat (“Center”) Party, which was formed by a group of younger Muslim Brothers who objected to certain of the movement’s leadership decisions and attempted to form a new party in 1996. Led by Abu

‘Ila Madi Abu ‘Ila, the Wasat Party reapplied for legal recognition in 1998 and 2004, and

149 Springborg 1982 in Wickham 2002, 89. 150 Springborg 1982 in Wickham 2002, 89. 151 Gohar 2008, 173. 152 Gohar 2008; Freedom House 2005; Kassem 2004. 153 Shahin 2010.

was denied each time on the grounds that they did not offer a new party platform, despite the fact that they did.154

Those parties that did receive and maintain legal status were hampered in their daily activities as they were required to receive approval from the security services before they could hold a public meeting or demonstration or distribute publicity materials.155

Electoral campaigns were heavily monitored by the security services and the party was prevented from holding campaign rallies or conferences outside of party offices.156

During parliamentary electoral campaigns, opposition party members were routinely jailed and harassed; voter turnout was often low, as many believed the elections to be pointless, and those who did attempt to vote were often beaten by the security service.157

As a result, a leader of Wafd in Zagazig, a city in the Delta, told me that it was difficult to convince people to join the party or take part in the campaigns because of the persistent fear of punishment for involvement in politics.158 According to a leading member of the

Wafd Party in Zagazig,

"It was very hard before to talk to people outside the party. There was a lot of

surveillance. The NDP forbade any person from doing certain activities. It was

almost impossible due to the presence of several security forces; even if the police

force was not on the street there were members of NDP that they would stop

people from reaching people. They would inform the security services about what

the Wafd was doing, and individuals would be banned from politics. The party

154 Shahin 2010. 155 Shahin 2010. 156 Author interview with a leader of the Wafd party in Zagazig, Egypt. 8/15/2012, 1:30 PM. 157 Freedom House 2008.

was like a very nice car that was forbidden from going anywhere; people could

walk around it and look at it but could never ride it or get inside it. The traffic

police can put obstacles in its way. People just pass it by."159

Another Wafd member in Cairo explained that it was difficult to do any substantive outreach before elections: "There was security service persecution as well; the parties in

Egypt before the revolution were always under attack from the security services and the

NDP. So there weren't any meetings allowed at cafes and there wasn’t any interaction between the people and no conferences and security permission for campaigns."160

Recruiting candidates was also difficult:

"Since 1984 we knew that the election in Egypt and the end result of election

process was a reflection of the one who is managing it. It was an expression of the

will of the ministry of Interior and not the will of the electorate. This was the

golden rule. For the political party it was a very exhausting process because you

find the candidate and they know they will not pass, they have to go to the

electoral battle and to pretend that they believe that they will pass and at the end it

was a big joke."161

As a result of the difficulty of campaigning through the party, candidates often had to rely upon their own popularity in order to win elections. In explaining the logic with

158 Author interview with a leader of the Wafd party, Zagazig, Egypt. 8/15/2012, 1:30 PM 159 Author interview with a leader of the Wafd party, Zagazig, Egypt. 8/15/2012, 1:30 PM. 160 Author interview with a member of the Wafd Party and staff of party paper, Cairo, Egypt. 11/2/2012, 7 PM.

which candidates were chosen, a former leader of the Tagammu’ party explained,

“Generally we depended on the personalities [individuals] who were popular. The person won because of himself, because of his popularity, not because of the party."162 Even when parties were able to campaign, reports of voting irregularities occurred at every election; for example, during the June 2007 elections for the Shura Council, observers complained that only members of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party were permitted to enter the polling stations to submit their votes.163 The overall effect of these restrictions was that elections became nearly pointless exercises in which opposition political parties felt they had no chance of winning. A former leader of the Wafd party in

Cairo described these elections as “a form of theater in which the ending is known in advance but the actors still act out their roles…Parties were like the sheep in Eid: you let him eat all year long and then the day of Eid you cut his throat.”164

Finally, when political parties did succeed in winning seats in parliament, the

President and NDP maintained control of the legislative process through the NDP’s majority. Although opposition members of parliament were able to raise some political issues they considered to be important,165 elected opposition members “tend[ed] to play passive roles in within the legislature.”166 Even when legislators did exercise their ability to request information or speak during session they tended to do so by thanking the regime profusely and stating their approval of political leaders, rather than maintaining independent or oppositional stances.167 As a result, opposition members in parliament

161 Author interview with a leader of the Wafd, Cairo, Egypt. 11/14/2012, 2:00 PM. 162 Author interview with a leader of the Tagammu’ Party, Cairo, 11/20/2012. 163 Freedom House 2008. 164 Author interview with Mahmoud Abazza, Wafd Party, Cairo, Egypt. 11/14/2012, 2:00 PM. 165 Lust 2005, 82; Wickham 2002, 68. 166 Kassem 2004, 35. 167 Kassem 2004.

fulfilled the role of clientelistic patrons channeling resources to their clients in their home constituencies, rather than advocating policy changes. As their ability to access resources was contingent upon their legislative position, this made them even more dependent on the government and less willing to step out of line.168

Non-Governmental Organizations

Non-governmental organizations were another within-system avenue through which members of the political opposition challenged the Mubarak regime, especially after members of political parties became disillusioned with party competition and attempted to advance their agendas through the work of human rights NGOs.169

However, as in its efforts to control political parties, the Mubarak regime controlled

NGOs, especially human rights NGOs, with a web of legal restrictions that had implications for the organizations’ funding opportunities and curtailed their activities.

The so-called “NGO law”, or the 2003 Law of Associations, "prohibits the establishment of associations 'threatening national unity [or] violating public morals,' prohibits NGOs from receiving foreign grants without the approval of the Ministry of Social

Affairs...requires members of NGO governing boards to be approved by the ministry, and allows the ministry to dissolve NGOs without a judicial order.”170 Law 32 (1964) also gives the Ministry of Social Affairs the right to seize an association’s financial assets, appoint members to the NGO’s board, and investigate an organization’s finances.171

168 Kassem 2004. 169 Langohr 2004. 170 Freedom House 2005. 171 Wickham 2002, 99.

While the Mubarak regime was often willing to allow the NGO sector to take over some of the state’s service provision through charitable activities,172 the Ministry of

Social Affairs largely rejected the application of any organization that had an openly political agenda, such as defending human rights, or attempted societal transformation.173

There were notable exceptions to this, with some famous NGOs, such as the Egyptian

Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) working on behalf of human and workers’ rights, but these organizations were constantly faced with the threat of being shut down and their leaders imprisoned. Some of these succeeded in circumventing the Ministry of

Social Affairs by registering under a different legal classification, but their activities were circumscribed by routine ‘visits’ by the security services.174 The Mubarak regime also continually used the bogey-man of ‘hidden agendas’ from abroad as reason to require that

NGOs receive permission before receiving any funding from abroad, effectively cutting off a major source of financial resources.175 These restrictions hampered NGOs’ abilities to rent offices, hold public events, pay electricity bills, and pay employees. While some

NGOs were successful in extracting concessions through the regime via legal battles waged in the courts,176 many civil society organizations with a political or human rights agenda were continually stymied by regime controls that hampered their work or threatened to end it altogether.

172 See Clark 2004. 173 Gohar 2008. 174 Author interview with senior employee at Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies in Cairo, Egypt. 8/1/2012, 11:30 AM. 175 Kassem 2004. 176 See el-Ghobashy 2008.

Extra-System Contestation: Islamists, Umbrella Activists, and Labor Rights

Activists

Those opposition groups that were not permitted to participate in the electoral system or that chose to undertake activities unacceptable to the regime contested the regime through extra-systemic channels, namely protests, violent attacks, and the construction of a parallel society at the grassroots level. These groups included labor activists, pro-reform groups, and “Islamist groups,” namely the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi Calling, and

Islamic Group, each of which I address in the following sections.

The relationship between the regime and groups contesting the regime through extra-systemic channels alternated between toleration and repression, depending on whether or not the regime perceived these activities to be threatening. When the regime viewed these activities are harmless or insignificant, they were often overlooked or implicitly tolerated; when the regime felt threatened, however, it utilized its robust coercive muscle to contain, subdue, and eliminate the threat. “The response of the regime to these forces has not been uniform. In general, the regime has been reluctant to integrate fully the forces that have actual popular presence. At the same time, however, it is difficult to crush these groups and movements without endangering stability…The regime’s margin of toleration starts to narrow when these forces challenge the demarcated boundaries of a tolerable opposition, come close to posing a threat to its control, or shake its grip over power.”177

The threat and experience of repression, while inconsistently applied, was not insignificant. Writing in 2010, Sirrs states that “the Egyptian mukhabarat (secret police)

177 Shahin 2010, 17.

is widely reputed to be the oldest, largest and most effective in the Arab world.”178 In

2008, Freedom House estimated that 16,000 citizens were detained without charge, in conditions of overcrowding, poor sanitation, and the absence of medical care, with numerous allegations of forced confessions.179 An extensive network of informers -- juice vendors, street sweepers, doormen at hotels and apartment buildings -- gave the secret police information on events and people throughout Egypt.180 Indefinite detention and surveillance, while common, were not the most severe punishments inflicted upon suspected opposition members; torture and ill treatment were rampant and systematic in prisons and in encounters with police.181 The now-famous 2010 murder of Khalid Said, a young man beaten to death by police in the doorway of a building in Alexandria, is only one of many:

“When a detainee enters the prison complex, he or she is usually blindfolded and

handcuffed to intimidate, disorient and protect police identities. Some handcuffs

automatically tighten with any movement of the hands. Stripped down to their

underwear, detainees are often subjected to insults, curses and threatened sexual

abuse directed at the prisoner and his or her family members. Some detainees

have endured prolonged taped sessions of human screams to further ‘soften’ them

up. Physical torture is part of the routine with detainees frequently beaten or

kicked with sticks or batons. Some are hung by the wrists for extended periods

178 Sirrs 2010, 1. 179 Freedom House 2008. 180 Sirrs 2010, 165. 181 Freedom House 2005.

with their feet barely touching the floor. Electric shocks to the genitals seem to be

part of the torture routine.”182

Furthermore, this torture was not only used against adult political dissidents, but against teenagers and petty criminals, and in some cases, “suspects' family members were tortured to extract confessions.”183 A new prison named the Scorpion was built in 1993 in which no visitors were allowed, despite rulings to the contrary by Egyptian courts.184 A prominent human rights lawyer who challenged the practices at the Scorpion was himself arrested by the security services; "Madani had been beaten to death, although the authorities insisted he had died of asthma. His coffin was delivered to his family along with an SSIS escort, but no one was allowed to open it.”185 Through the use of these repressive tactics, the Mubarak regime succeeded in raising the costs of political dissent and severely punishing those who crossed red lines set out by the regime.

As I demonstrate in Chapter 4, these alternating periods of repression and toleration significantly affected the way in which opposition groups that participated through extra- systemic channels organized themselves. They were able to operate relatively openly during periods of toleration and expand their activities within society; during period of repression, however, these groups had to rely on informal networks to survive and continue their activities. When repression lessened and groups were able to have some room to breathe, they nonetheless maintained these informal networks and continued to

182 Sirrs 2010, 165. 183 Freedom House 2008. 184 Sirrs 2010. 185 Sirrs 2010, 168.

rely on them to a certain extent, never certain when repression would once again be exerted upon them.

Because these groups contested the regime through extra-systemic means and the majority of them did not appear to constitute a direct threat to the regime’s existence

(with the exception of violent attacks by extremist groups), this type of activity is often overlooked — by regimes and scholars — as being insignificant or not particularly

“political.” However, participation through extra-systemic channels allowed these groups the space within which to develop grassroots ties to the population and undertake projects of persuasion outside of the day-to-day control of the regime during periods of toleration.

In turn, periods of repression also endowed those groups that were able to survive it with resources — organizational and symbolic — that they were able to deploy in order to mobilize supporters after Mubarak was ousted from power in 2011.

Islamist Movements

Two of the major groups that contested the Mubarak regime through extra-system channels were part of the larger category of Islamist movements, groups, and institutions, which, from the 1970s onward, arose in Egypt. This category of activism is known in the literature by different names and slightly different definitions, but all refer to the increasing role of Islam — religious practices, scripture and laws, values, and meaning — in both everyday and political life. Wickham defines political Islam as

“movements…seeking to establish a political system based on Islam…Although the goals and strategies of Islamists differ, they are united in their conviction that the most vexing problems facing contemporary Muslim societies can be resolved through an individual

and collective return to religion.”186 Wiktorowicz prefers the term ‘Islamic activism,’ which he defines as “the mobilization of contention to support Muslim causes…including propagation movements, terrorist groups, collective action rooting in Islamic symbols and identities, explicitly political movements that seek to establish an Islamic state, and inward-looking groups that promote Islamic spirituality through collective efforts.”187

Kurzman and Naqvi in turn define “Islamist” as "the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced."188 Finally, Clark defines an ‘Islamist’ “as a Muslim who attempts to re-

Islamize society by encouraging individuals to practice Islam in daily life and to bridge the perceived gap between religious discourse and practical realities. He or she is a

Muslim who seeks to actively extend and apply Islam beyond what is commonly regarded in liberal political though as the private realm and into the public realm. In doing so, Islamic activism (Islamism) promotes the idea of regarding Islam as a complete system, a body of ideas, values, beliefs, and practices encompassing all spheres of life."189 The groups, social movements, and political parties associated with this trend typically view the practices, rules, and values associated with Islam as the solution to modern-day problems of poverty, inequality, corruption, and injustice.190

Despite the existence, since the beginning of the 20th century, of a number of well- known Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Calling, discussed below, the larger movement of Islamic activism gained widespread traction in

Egypt with the rise of Islamic student associations on Egyptian university campuses

186 Wickham 2002, 1. 187 Wiktorowicz 2004, 2. 188 Kurzman & Naqvi 2010b, 133. 189 Clark 2004, 14.

during the 1970s.191 This growth of Islamic student associations was permitted, even encouraged, by Anwar Sadat as part of his attempt to undermine leftist groups that were popular on university campuses.192 Permitted this space for its activities, Islamists quickly won elections in the faculty and student union elections in the science and engineering faculties,193 and this group of student activists would later become middle- generation leaders in both the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling during later in the

Mubarak regime. As Wickham explains, these student organizations engaged in a wide range of campus activities:

“Student activists held religious conferences and seminars; disseminated Islamic

books and pamphlets on designated “Islamic Days”; offered classes on the

Qur’an, the Sunna, and Islamic jurisprudence; and organized religious camps

during summer vacations. In addition, they initiated a wide range of services, such

as copying academic books at low rates, selling inexpensive “Islamic clothes”,

and providing, for women, separate bus transportation to campus.”194

The three main groups that were part of this Islamist revival in Egypt participated through extra-systemic channels, described below. The Muslim Brotherhood built a vast network of charity and self-help organizations that challenged the legitimacy of the state, engaged in individual outreach (da’wa fardiya), utilized Egypt’s professional associations as substitute sites for political expression and competition, and competed as junior partners in parliamentary elections. The second group, the Salafi Calling, was based in

190 Clark 2004, 13. 191 Wickham 2002, 117. 192 Wickham 2002, 96. 193 Wickham 2002, 117.

Alexandria and engaged in grassroots charitable associations, built networks of religious scholars and preachers (imams) who gave lessons and sermons in independent mosques, and engaged in da’wa activities similar to those of the Muslim Brotherhood. Finally, the

Islamic Group (al-Jama’a al-Islamiya) contested the Mubarak regime through violent attacks and outreach through grassroots organizations. I address the scope and significance of each of these groups’ activities below.

The Muslim Brotherhood

The most famous of these groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, was founded in 1928 by

Hassan al-Banna as both a philanthropic society and a political, social and religious movement. Due to its message, its activities, and the repression it suffered under Nasser,

Sadat and Mubarak, it grew and changed over the years to be one of the most well- organized movements in Egypt before the 2011 revolution.195 Initially an organization focused on nationalist issues, opposing British imperialism, and advocating an end to foreign intervention in Egyptian domestic affairs,196 the Brotherhood entered politics slowly:

“By 1941, the organization decided that it would run for parliament if the

opportunity arose but not under any party banner. Yet its candidates withdrew

when elections were held the following year after the movement cam under

intense pressure from the leader of the (ultimately victorious) nationalist Wafd

Party. For the next decade, the Brotherhood’s involvement in politics grew

194 Wickham 2002, 117. 195 Gohar 2008.

markedly throughout a time of escalating international crises and mounting

domestic instability.”197

The movement developed a pyramidal structure connected horizontally at each level by intensive interpersonal bonds. The organization has a legislative body, the Shura

Council, made up of 100 members, which meets every six months and elects the

Guidance Bureau, made up of thirteen members.198 Beneath the Guidance Bureau, the top of the pyramid, each province in Egypt has a leadership board; beneath that, there was a leadership unit at the district level, and a leadership unit at each sub-division of the district.199 Within each branch unit, the Brothers were grouped into so-called ‘families’ of four to five members, who engage in weekly activities together, observe each other, and socialize with each other.200 The group also had an organized system of outreach and recruitment in each sector of society as part of its project of Islamization. The

Brotherhood had different outreach divisions for labor and peasants, university students, and professional syndicates, and in each case attempted to establish or encourage an

‘Islamic atmosphere’ in each location.201 By 1952, when a group of Egyptian military officers undertook the Free Officers’ coup, the Brotherhood had an estimated 500,000 members.202 The organization suffered one its most debilitating rounds of repression after the Free Officer’s coup in 1952, after which Gamal ‘Abd el-Nasser came to power, initially due to Nasser’s attempts to consolidate his presidency by eliminating rivals, and

196 El-Ghobashy 2005, 376. 197 Brown 2012, 65. 198 El-Ghobashy 2005, 377. 199 Mitchell 1969. 200 Author interview with Muslim Brotherhood leader in Alexandria, Egypt on 7/24/2012 at 3:00 PM. 201 Mitchell 1969. 202 Wickham 2002.

subsequently as the result of an attempt on Nasser’s life, which was orchestrated by a

Brotherhood member.203 Nasser promptly declared the organization illegal and banned, and arrested thousands of members in a “ferocious campaign” of repression.204 The movement again re-emerged under Anwar Sadat, when he released members from prison as part of his “de-Nasserization process”205 and permitted the organization to publish a newspaper, al-Da’wa (the Call).206

Beginning under Sadat and throughout the Mubarak regime, the Muslim

Brotherhood participated through a variety of extra-system channels: through religious outreach (da’wa), through community social work, through the use of professional syndicates as a “substitute site” for political contestation, and by running Muslim

Brotherhood members as independents and junior members on other political party lists during parliamentary elections. In the following sections I address these activities, their impacts, and the response of the Mubarak regime to these activities.

Societal Transformation Through Da’wa and Social Work

First, as part of their objective of societal transformation toward a more Islamic (and by implication, more just, peaceful, uncorrupt) society, members of the Muslim Brotherhood engaged in so-called da’wa, or “calling”, a form of proselytization that not only aims to encourage the recipient to be more religiously observant but also more political and socially engaged in his or her community.207 As one member of the Muslim Brotherhood explained to me, da’wa is more than just religious conversion: “Da’wa for us is not only

203 Wickham 2002, 113; see Mitchell 1969 for a detailed account of this period. 204 Brown 2012, 66. 205 Shahin 2010, 18. 206 Wickham 2002, 113.

to call people to worship, it is to call the people to work, to help society and to participate in the national struggle, to be part of the struggle of your society, either political, social or scientific."208 The Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Salafi Calling, as I discuss below, believes that da’wa fardia or “individual calling,” is an effective means of societal change because it involves leading others to a more Islamic life by living that life yourself.209 According to both the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, “the most effective form of outreach is through direct personal contact between individuals who already have bonds of trust or familiarity;210 “rather than approach a stranger…one begins by propagating the da’wa among relatives, neighbors and peers.”211 Carried out on an individual level within Muslim Brothers’ neighborhoods, workplaces and communities, therefore, this da’wa was part of a process in which the organization’s members forged individual contacts and bonds, influenced others’ behavior, and, as Wickham explains, began to build a level of political and societal awareness and engagement.212 While da’wa could be dismissed as being political insignificant because it does not explicitly address political outcomes, the process of activating individual awareness and engagement has larger consequences in contexts in which disengagement and disillusionment, rather than engagement, are the norm. “Cultural and ideological change can pave the way for change in relations of power by undermining the legitimacy of ruling institutions and elites and justifying collective resistance to them…[Islamic subculture] contained several elements that reinforced the disengagement of educated

207 Wickham 2002. 208 Author interview with local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Giza, 11/24/ 2012, 5:00 PM. 209 Author interviews with member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, Egypt on 11/22/2012 at 10:30 AM; a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Women’s Council in Giza, Egypt on 11/24/2012, 5:00 PM. 210 Wickham 2002, 130. 211 Rosefsky Wickham 2002 130. 212 See Wickham 2002, 125-131.

youth from the symbols and structures of Egypt’s formal institutions and elites.”213

Indeed, members of the Muslim Brotherhood to whom I spoke also viewed da’wa as having political and societal ramifications:

"You have to change the man from the beginning. If the character will be changed

then the behavior will be changed. I cannot change by a lecture or book. This

should be part of your character. It should be a real change. You should accept,

then you should like, then you should start. If these three steps are taken then you

will have a real change. If this change will happen [on an individual level] then

the society will change. This is part of our ideology. First to change the person -

to reform him. Then we have to reform the family; to reform the family most

couples should be harmonized. Then you have to change society, then to repair

the country."214

The Brotherhood also undertook social work and self-help activities that aimed to empower community members with the skills necessary to lead happier and more productive lives. These activities included workshops for young couples, workshops to prepare new mothers for motherhood, skills-based courses, and others. I asked a Muslim

Brotherhood member involved in women’s workshops in Giza about the “charitable” activities undertaken by the Giza branch office. She immediately replied that what the

Brotherhood does is not charity, but social work, emphasizing the long-term and empowering effects of the latter:

213 Wickham 2002, 165. 214 Author interview with a local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Giza, 11/24 2012, 5 PM.

"It’s not charity work; it’s social work. What’s the difference? Social work is

about mobilizing people and engaging them in the activity and you activate their

skills and enable them to use their skills. Charity work only gives people

something. Through the social work you communicate with civil work to serve

the people. For example: preparing those who want to get married pre-marriage.

How to interact with your child, how to keep your children healthy, a complete

program that prepares them how to deal with their husbands, how to deal with

their children’s education and so on. Besides that we give them sessions on how

to prepare themselves for marriage because the divorce rate is so high in Egypt

and that is why were preparing them to do all of these things. Giving financial

support to all the men and women who want to get married but don’t have enough

resources. We also do skills courses where every day we teach something new.

How to do a craft, fix electricity, and if this workshop needs technical skills, then

we send them to a specific academy or institute and give them technical skills that

they need."215

Welfare Provision Through Community and Charitable Associations

The second way in which the Muslim Brotherhood contested the regime through extra- systemic channels was through the establishment of social welfare voluntary organizations that established the Brotherhood as a reliable provider of services. These associations arose in part due to the Egyptian state’s inability to provide sufficient

215 Author interview with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Women’s Council, 11/24/2012, 5 PM, Giza.

medical and other welfare services to a large segment of the Egyptian population, at the same time as many Egyptians came under increased economic strain as a result of the

IMF-prompted economic reforms.216 In assessing the economic circumstances facing middle- and lower-income Egyptians after 1991, Clark summarizes the situation:

"While there has been remarkable macroeconomic improvement under the present

economic restructuring program, the same cannot be said of the micro

level...Micro level conditions have never been so bad: wages and salaries have

fallen; average per-capita yearly incomes have fallen; prices on foodstuffs have

been removed; and the incidence of malnutrition has risen (after steadily falling

from the early 1950s to the late 1980s). According to the UN's Human Poverty

Index, 32.3 percent of the population is living in poverty. The Egyptian Planning

Institute estimated that in 1995-1996, the rate of poverty in Egypt was as high as

48 percent of the total population; the percentage of people living in absolute

poverty reached 33 percent."217

Islamic social institutions, or voluntary associations, rose to fill this gap. These organizations undertook a range of functions, including providing religious lessons, renovating local mosques, and providing health care, day care, educational and job- training services,218 with the result that a “parallel network” of institutions was created.219

By 2004, Clark estimated that Islamic voluntary associations comprised 2,457 out of

216 Clark 2004, 47. 217 Clark 2004, 47. 218 Wickham 2002, 100. 219 Bianchi 1989, 94.

12,832 voluntary associations in Egypt.220 Part of the reason that Islamic voluntary associations were able to expand to such an extent is that the regime, for a number of reasons, tolerated such groups, in some cases providing them with financial assistance and legal privileges, and in other cases simply choosing to ignore them.221 These voluntary associations were typically registered and licensed as religious or charitable foundations, and many of them were affiliated with a mosque, “giving them access to charitable donations collected and distributed through networks away from government supervision. Access to such donations enabled Islamic PVOs to circumvent provisions of law 32 restricting the independent collection of funds, giving them an enormous advantage over their non-Islamic counterparts.”222

By providing community and charitable services to poor and middle-class

Egyptians, the organizations run or funded by the Muslim Brotherhood engaged in a quiet process of contestation that challenged state legitimacy and constructed an alternative form of legitimacy, which I call “sub-state performance legitimacy.” Thachil, in a study of service provision by political parties in India, has demonstrated that while service provision is too often dismissed as a form of clientelism, such provision of services by actors embedded at the community level in fact provides a set of “crucial everyday interactions” that forge relationships between parties and voters.223 While this form of service provision is not overtly political, in that these organizations did not explicitly advocate on behalf of any group or political party and maintained a careful distance from

220 Clark 2004, 12. 221 Clark 2004, 19. 222 Wickham 2002, 100. 223 Thachil 2011, 437.

political organizations,224 they did, however, provide the example of an alternative to the secular state, a model of service and welfare provision that operated at low cost, was community based, and demonstrated “viability and the superiority of Islamism.”225 This provision of service was especially powerful in the context of a state that failed to provide adequate services, and whose officials were seen to be corrupt. As I will argue in the second half of this chapter, these organizations provided the Muslim Brotherhood was a source of symbolic credibility, that of service provision, which enabled the organization to mobilize supporters during the 2011 founding elections.

The reason that the Muslim Brotherhood was able to participate at the community level through these extra-systemic channels is because the Mubarak regime largely permitted it. This toleration might seem counterintuitive; after all, as I outlined in Chapter

2, nondemocratic regimes typically attempt to prevent the establishment of organizations that could challenge state popularity or legitimacy, and as such, deny a range of nongovernmental organizations licenses, funds, or the freedom to operate. This toleration can be explained by three factors. First, in the context of economic hardship and insufficient state capacity to provide services, the state could not afford to reject attempts to fill this gap by other organizations, both because they “can neither deny their citizenries alternative sources of social services nor appear to be non-Islamic or, worse, anti-Islamic, by prohibiting specifically Islamic social institutions."226

Second, my interviews with various members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo,

Alexandria, and the Nile Delta cities of Tanta and Mansoura revealed that the

224 Author interview with an employee of “Risala”, an Islamist charity in Alexandria, Egypt, August 2012; Wickham 2002, 102. 225 Clark 2004, 19. 226 Clark 2004, 18.

organization did not explicitly acknowledge or publicize the organizations through which it channeled or coordinated its service provision. In interviews, several members explained to me that this was a strategic decision on the part of the organization, in part motivated by a desire to avoid state repression should the regime change its stance toward the Brotherhood as it had in the past.

"There is cooperation with some of the organizations, like charity organizations

like Risala. There is coordination between them and us. Risala is the best-known

one that has coordination with the Brotherhood. There is also Ibda’ and Misr al-

Kheir."227

“Before the revolution - if it is known that a group is run by us, they will close it.

We used to join and work with them but not be in the front lines. If you will see -

all the big mosques have medical centers and classes for teaching Koran and

teaching people to help the poor students and for social work and the mosque is

not only for worship."228

"Because of the security situation before the revolution we were not allowed to

join certain effective civil and social organizations; the state itself refused and

objected to their participation, both men and women. There were problems -

whenever it is known that a member of the Ikhwan (“Brothers”) is on the high

227 Author interview with a member of the MB, Alexandria, 8/23/2012, 3:30 PM. 228 Author interview with a local leader of the MB, Giza, 11/24/ 2012, 5 PM.

board of a security organization the organization would get closed or the state

would remove that person."229

"Now we do things through legitimate channels, but before they kept closing our

organizations and we would start new ones, or just do an organization without

registering it as an actual organization."230

When I asked how members of the community, then, knew that the organization was backed by the Brotherhood, respondents told me that community members knew who the Brotherhood members were in their neighborhoods, and knew where these members worked, gave money, and volunteered:

"They know these are charities belong to the MB because of the people who work

in these organizations. The people who volunteer there or start a charitable market

and we know them as brotherhood."231

"Many of the workers of charities are Ikhwan (Brothers). People know that the

people working there are Muslim Brotherhood, so they know that it is a

Brotherhood charity. There is a hospital in Tanta and everyone who works there is

Ikhwan."232

229 Author interview with a member of the MB Women’s Council, Giza, 11/24/2012, 5 PM. 230 Author interview with a leader of the MB, Belqas, Egypt, 9/4/2012, 11:00 AM. 231 Author interview with a member of the Pharmacist Syndicate, Revolution Continues Party, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 7 PM.

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Third, these organizations worked hard to maintain an ostensibly apolitical appearance and bearing. Organizations that were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, received funds from the organization, or employed organization members did not advertise it. After I was told by multiple members of the Muslim Brotherhood that the

Islamic association “Risala” was a Brotherhood charity, I found the Alexandria branch office and obtained interviews. When I entered the NGO, I indeed did not observe any symbols or slogans associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The employees appeared religiously observant, with women wearing the hijab, the scarf that covers their hair, but no other observable feature of the organization betrayed an association with the Muslim

Brotherhood or other group. When I interviewed members of the Alexandria branch, no matter how I asked the questions, the employees would not acknowledge any affiliation with the Brotherhood and were insistent that the organization was completely apolitical.233

Political Contestation Through Professional Syndicates

The third way in which the Muslim Brotherhood contested the Mubarak regime through extra-systemic channels was through its use of the professional syndicates as “substitute sites” for political contestation. In observing political opposition under Chile’s authoritarian military regime, Garretón observed that the Catholic Church, while not a political organization, became a “substitute site” for political contestation by “default” because all other civil society organizations at the time were under military control.234

Egypt’s professional associations became a similar site for Muslim Brotherhood members

232 Author interview with a member of the Pharmacist syndicate and MB, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 4:30 PM. 233 Author interview with Risala employee, 8/27/2012, 10 AM, Alexandria.

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who were denied a license to form a political party. As Brown writes, “with a growing basis of support among professionals in most fields (such as engineering, law and medicine), the new generational of Brotherhood activists found professional associations an inviting field. The association elections operated in comparative freedom, thus rewarding the same kinds of skills younger activists had learned in university politics and student association elections.”235

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood that I interviewed described their motivations for the use of professional syndicates for political activity in terms of their inability to take part in formal party politics. One member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was a member of the Pharmacists’ syndicate in Cairo called the use of professional syndicates as substitute sites for political activity a form of “political edema…There was political blockage and there were not channels to practice politics, and so the Muslim Brotherhood used syndicates to practice politics.”236 Another Brotherhood member described syndicates as the “lung of political activity; the past regime closed any good opposing party, blocked it, so politicians tried to find other ways to express their views, so syndicates had as hare in this activity.”237 Similarly, a member of the Pharmacist’ syndicate in Tanta said, “"We worked in politics from any place that we could because there were so few options."238

Throughout the 1990s, the Muslim Brotherhood used several of the professional syndicates — namely the pharmacists, engineers, doctors, and teachers — as political

234 Garretón 1986. 235 Brown 2012, 89. 236 Author interview with a member of the Doctors’ syndicate and MB, Cairo, 10/15/2012, 4 PM. 237 Author interview with a member of the Doctors’ syndicate, Cairo, 10/21/2012, 2 PM. 238 Author interview with a member of the Pharmacists’ Syndicate, Revolution Continues Party, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 7 PM.

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rehearsal grounds, practicing electoral strategies and slowly gaining majorities on many of the syndicate general committees.239 Several members described similar electoral strategies through which the Brotherhood members of a given syndicate would coordinate their votes ahead of time to ensure the victory of Brotherhood candidates.

According to a member of the Secondary School Teachers’ Syndicate in Tanta, “The

Brotherhood agrees on one person to vote for in the Syndicate. They sit together and agree whom they will vote for, and they vote for a certain number of members. And then we would vote for certain other non-Brotherhood members to complete the list."240

These strategies paid off. “In 1987 its members won fifty-four of the sixty-one contested seats in the Engineers’ Association; in 1988 they won all twelve seats in the

Medical Doctors’ Association; and in 1989 an “Islamic list’ won a substantial stake in the

Commercial Graduates Association. In September 1992 the Brothers took control of the

Lawyers’ Association, securing eighteen of the twenty-four seats on its board, including the post of the secretary general.”241 As of 1992, the Lawyers’ Association was one of the last syndicates without a Brotherhood majority on the committee; “On September 11,

1992, the Islamic Trend (al-Tayyar al-Islami), as the Muslim Brotherhood faction was known, won control of the Lawyers’ Association, defeating its rivals in free and competitive elections.”242

One result of the use of syndicates as “substitute” arenas for political contestation was that the syndicates’ leadership styles changed after Brotherhood members gained majorities of the committees. “The changes wrought by the Islamic leadership once they

239 Author interviews with members of the pharmacy, engineers’, teachers’, and doctors’ syndicates in Tanta and Mansoura, Egypt. 9/6/2012. 240 Author interview with a member of the MB and Teachers’ syndicate, Tanta, 9/7/2012, 2PM. 241 Arafat 2009, 172.

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occupied a majority of seats on the associations’ executive boards were both practical and symbolic. First, the style of leadership changed. Protocols insulating association leaders from rank-and-file were abandoned…In addition to developing a more responsive and egalitarian leadership style, Islamic Trend leaders turned the associations into a showcase for concrete distributional initiatives targeted at the large pool of recent graduates at their base.”243 Syndicates also became more involved with their grassroots base. According to

Dr. Hilmi Gazzar of the Doctors’ Syndicate, “Before, the association leaders sat in their offices and expected the doctors to come to them. This was a mistake. We [the Islamic

Trend] go to the doctors, go down to the workplace, the hospitals, and the clinics, to ask doctors about their problems and complaints.”244 Another result was that they became engaged in more issues outside of their direct professional purview. For example many syndicates provided aid in a variety of disasters, such as the earthquake in 1992, aid convoys to the Gaza strip, and others.245

Beginning in 1992, the Mubarak regime targeted Brotherhood activity in the syndicates through new legal provisions governing syndicate elections and financial donations, and a wave of arrests. The Unified Law of Professional Syndicates no. 100

(1993) was enacted, imposing a number of restrictions on syndicate elections. The law mandated that in order for syndicate elections to be valid, at least 50 percent of the total members of that syndicate — for example, 50 percent of all engineers in Egypt — had to vote in those elections. If this threshold was not met, the elections were held again with a

30 percent participation threshold. If that threshold was again not met, the regime

242 Wickham 2002, 178. 243 Wickham 2002, 191. 244 Wickham 2002, 190. 245 Kassem 2004; Gohar 2008.

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assigned a leader of the syndicate.246 Unsurprisingly, it was extremely difficult to organize 50 percent of all members of one profession to vote and these restrictions thus led to the appointment of regime-approved syndicate leaders in the 1990s, “single- handedly [bringing] the election process to a complete stop in ten professional syndicates, including those for doctors, engineers, dentists, pharmacists, agriculturalists, teachers, and lawyers.”247 Furthermore, the prime minister changed the rules governing who could collect donations, in response to the Brotherhood’s efficient collection of donations to help the victims of the 1992 earthquake, which “outshone the government's bumbling and languorous response.”248 Finally, the regime began a wave of arrests and military trials targeting the Brotherhood leaders in the professional syndicates, many of whom were sentenced to several years of hard labor.249

Despite the fact that the regime was able to end the use of professional syndicates as substitute sites for political contestation in the early 1990s, the Muslim Brotherhood had nonetheless gained significant electoral experience through syndicate elections, had established wider networks among Egypt’s professionals, and cultivated a generation of activists with political experience, who would, in 2011, go on to run in parliamentary elections.

Electoral Contestation Without Legal Status

Despite the fact that electoral contestation is a form of within-system contestation, the

Brotherhood’s electoral experience in relevant in this section because, as a result of the

246 Kassem 2004; Gohar 2008. 247 Gohar 2008, 181. 248 El-Ghobashy 2005, 381. 249 Wickham 2002, 201.

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fact that the Brotherhood was not a legal political party, the group had to utilize different mobilizational strategies and suffered greater repression during the run up to elections.

The development of alternative electoral strategies and the repression that they suffered shaped their later electoral competition in 2011.

Both Sadat and Mubarak denied the Muslim Brotherhood a license to form a political party. The Brotherhood, therefore, instead ran individual candidates on other parties’ lists in the 1980s.250 In 1984, the Brotherhood candidates ran on the party lists of the Wafd Party, and in 1987 did the same on Labor party lists and as independents.251 In the 2005 elections, the Brotherhood won eighty-eight seats in parliament.252

As a result of the Brotherhood’s ability to win votes, even running as a junior partner to the Wafd and Labor Parties, the regime began targeting Brotherhood members for repression in the run up to elections. After the Brotherhood’s positive showing in the

1984 elections, the regime arrested hundreds of Brotherhood members before the 1987 elections.253 In 1995, hundreds more were arrested, many of whom were poll-watchers for the organization, and eighty-two of whom were leading activists.254 Similarly, in

2000, “Scores of Brotherhood activists were arrested in the lead-up to the election period.

During the elections themselves, plainclothes security agents harassed Brotherhood supporters in several districts and, in some instances, physically blocked them from entering the polling stations.”255 One senior member of the Muslim Brothers in

Alexandria reported that the organization always expected to have its leaders rounded up

250 Kassem 2004. 251 Wickham 2002, 66. 252 Gohar 2008. 253 El-Ghobashy 2005, 379. 254 Clark 2004, 55; El-Ghobashy 2005, 384. 255 Wickham 2002, 225.

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and imprisoned around election time; he estimates that in 2005 approximately 6,000

Muslim Brothers were arrested during the campaigning.256 As one member of the

Brotherhood in Zagazig, in middle Egypt, explained to me, “The opposition from the police was a huge factor in the parliamentary campaigns. There was a strong violence in the suppression of the campaigns. The biggest obstacle was the police raids, which affected the efficiency of all our campaigns."257

Due to the fact that the Brotherhood was subjected to repression, and was deprived of the legal status necessary to carry out campaigns like other parties did, such as holding marches in the street and handing out flyers, the Brotherhood developed alternative means to evade state repression and carry out their campaigns. Rather than campaigning openly and suffering repression, Brotherhood members went house-to-house, slipping pamphlets underneath doors, contacted friends and neighbors and urged them to vote for

Brotherhood candidates, and hung banners in the street in the middle of the night under cover of darkness.258 As a Brotherhood member in Alexandria explained to me, “Before

2011 — we were working under the stairs. When we put a banner, it was taken down after an hour. In the past, we worked from 2 am to 5 am and if we sent 50 people to hang a banner, half of them were arrested.”259 Finally, Brotherhood campaigners had to overcome the perception on behalf of potential voters that there was no point in voting.

“People were actually disappointed and knew very well that the elections were

rigged, so people got disappointed but our view was that our competition and

256 Author interview with senior Brotherhood member from the Alexandria branch. Alexandria, Egypt, 7/24/2012. 257 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood and pharmacists’ syndicate, Zagazig (Sharqiya) 8/15/2012, 4 PM 258 Author interviews with members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria, Egypt on 7/24/2012; in Cairo, Egypt on 10/14/2012 at 2:00 PM; in Cairo, Egypt on 11/22/2012 at 10:30 AM. 259 Author interview with leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Alexandria, Egypt, 7/24/2011, 2 PM.

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participation would uncover the rigging of the elections; if we boycotted, then of

course they would get all the votes. We told people to be positive. It was so hard

to know that the regime controlled everything and that you will be very much

repressed and also decide to participate in this political game and to have all these

sacrifices. This was a hard choice but this was very important force that has

triggered the revolution. When you uncover corruption and face it all the time, it

will show its true colors."260

The repression that the Brotherhood faced while participating without legal status in parliamentary elections prior to 2011, and the alternative campaign skills that they created, contributed to their development of organizational and persuasive resources that they would use in the 2011 campaigns after Mubarak was ousted from power.

Regime Response: Repression and Toleration

In general, due to the wide range of activities in which it is involved, “the MB has been much more exposed to the regime’s repression and restrictions. Unlike the legal opposition, however, it is willing to challenge the regime’s harassment, reassert its presence in society, and consequently pay the price for its defiance.”261 This repression, however, has not been a constant. In contrast to Nasser and Sadat, the Mubarak regime approached the organization with a mixture of toleration and repression. The periods of toleration permitted the organization to expand its work in grassroots charitable and self- help organizations, as well as utilize professional associations as “substitute sites” for

260 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, 11/22/2012, Cairo 10:30 AM. 261 Shahin 2010, 19.

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political contestation and run candidates as independents or as junior partners to legal political parties in parliamentary elections, which I describe below.262 However, despite this "thaw in state-Ikhwan relations… there was no question of legalizing the Muslim

Brothers, only de facto toleration."263 Indeed, the Mubarak regime resumed the use of harsh repressive tactics against the group in part due to the fact that the Muslim

Brotherhood, despite being a completely different group, was caught up in the wave of repression exerted by the Mubarak regime in response to jihadi violence carried out by the extremist groups, al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad. “One reason for the emergence of violence is that a large number of those arrested were not necessarily Islamist activists but were assumed to be guilty by the state because they had “Islamist” tendencies, such as donning a beard and attending sermons and prayers at mosques considered by the state to be Islamist-controlled.”264

This crackdown also was partly in response to the Muslim Brotherhood’s increasing control over and use of professional associations for high-visibility charitable activities in the wake of the 1992 earthquake that struck Cairo.265 “The period from 1995 to 2000 became known as the “bone-crushing” phase, during which several leaders and members of the movement stood before six military tribunals and 79 of its leading members received jail sentences.”266 Throughout the mid-1990s, the regime arrested approximately 50,000 members of Islamist organizations, including Muslim Brotherhood members,267 subjecting many of them to torture and hard labor. These waves of

262 Bianchi 1989, 94. 263 El-Ghobashy 2005, 377. 264 Kassem 2004, 152. 265 Clark 2004, 54; Shahin 2010, 18. 266 Shahin 2010, 18. 267 Wickham 2002, 209.

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repression and toleration, as I demonstrate in Chapter 4, resulted in the Muslim

Brotherhood expanding its activities at the grassroots level through periods of toleration while simultaneously developing distinct organizational and persuasion characteristics in response to and in preparation for periods of repression.

The Salafi Calling

A second Islamist movement that contested the regime through extra-systemic channels was the Salafi Calling (al-Da'wa al-Salafiyya), an informal network of followers of the first generation of Muslims. The Salafi Calling began in Alexandria in the 1970s when student activists at Alexandria University's Faculty of Medicine formed their own organization, separate from the Islamic student associations common on university campuses.268 The Salafi Calling had a less structured and less centralized organization than the Muslim Brotherhood. The group did establish an administrative council in

Alexandria, along with branch councils throughout the country, but the most important organizational groupings were between religious teachers and their students. Salafis were more conservative than the Muslim Brothers and were in competition with the latter; the

Salafi Calling became an alternative organization that could attract followers. Members of the Salafi Calling stayed away from formal politics under the Mubarak regime and largely devoted themselves to da’wa activities, charitable associations in their communities, and Islamic textual study and preaching in mosques. While the Salafi calling was less overtly political than the Muslim Brotherhood — the group did not attempt to participate in parliamentary elections or utilize professional syndicates as sites for political activity — their construction of a parallel network of Islamic charitable

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institutions and their outward piousness, even when it brought state repression upon them, created a reputation for honesty and decency in their communities.

Societal Transformation Through Da’wa and Social Work

Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi Calling used the interpersonal da'wa method of recruitment and persuasion as part of their outreach.269 Salafi Calling members or followers attempted to model proper behavior and convince others to adopt their ideas and practices through first establishing interpersonal relationships, in which they attempted to both educate and assist friends and acquaintances in becoming a better

Muslim.270 Salafis, like the Muslim Brothers, emphasized transformative personal change as being at the core of da’wa. Several members of the Salafi Calling that I interviewed emphasized the persuasive element of da’wa and positivity it brought to one’s life:

"It is not about pressure, or terrorism or anything like that. It is like a business; if

you are selling something, you present the best thing that you have and see if

someone will buy it. I don’t oblige them to buy it, or be offended if they don’t do

it. If I see someone smoking or doing any drug that gets into the blood, you can’t

just go to someone and tell her to leave this. The human nature refuses someone

to tell her “do this or don’t do that.” If I love her, then she must choose the right

way herself. I must show her the right way. When she experiences how it feels to

be enlightened and love God and love Muhammed then she will change her

behavior. There is light inside everyone; humans are born naturally with good

268 Lacroix 2012. 269 Wiktorowicz 2006.

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inside them. It is like a magnet, it attracts all the good things. For example if a

person witnessed the miracles of God and witnessed the beauty of him reflected in

everything around him, he is attracted to loving him and obeying him and

following the teachings of Islam."271

“The [Nour] party has a really strong base because of its members’ da’wa

activities; the stream helped people and served them and the people. There were

two types of people connected to the Salafi Calling - actual members of group and

others who loved the group. For example, when my mother witnessed the change

that occurred in me when I became religious, she started to love Salafism. She is

not conservative or religious.”272

A member of the Wasat Party explained the appeal of da’wa activities, which he experienced when a coworker at work chose him, so to speak, as the object of his da’wa activities. He explained that his life felt more meaningful as a result of the changes he began making in response to his co-worker’s persuasion:

"They search for someone who knows you well and then he becomes close to you

over time. He doesn’t reject you or try to convince you of anything. After a period

of time I was asked to join into prayer meetings. Then he invited me to a lesson,

then to other prayers and then you find yourself …they are trying to give you a

message. You can be very close to God and still enjoy your life. It was an

270 Author interviews with salafis in Alexandria and Egypt, autumn 2012. 271 Author interview with a Salafi wife of a Nour party member, Cairo, 22 November 2012, 8 PM.

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experience for me that took 6 months. I just felt like I was becoming a better

person and better inside my family as well; my family was looking at me like

“what has happened to him?” Even in daily habits. You are sleeping early,

working early, more active, taking part in good activities, you are very polite.

Somehow your attitude changes the environment where you live."273

In addition to individual da’wa activities, whereby members of the Salafi Calling influenced their friends and acquaintances and provided a model of a more meaningful life, the Salafi Calling also engaged in social and charitable work at the grassroots level, through Islamic voluntary associations described in the previous section. In parallel to the charitable activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, the charitable activities of the Salafi

Calling were tolerated by the regime, in part because these organizations were not outwardly political, and in part because the group did not advertise to which organization the group was formally linked. As one member of the Muslim Brotherhood told me, one charitable association affiliated with the Salafi Calling, al-Gama’iyya al-Shara’iyya,

“didn’t allow their members to be involved in politics and this is why they were not harassed.”274 Community members identified certain charitable organizations with the

Salafi Calling based upon who staffed the organization and donated to it. As Ashraf el-

Sherif, a scholar of Islamist movements at the American University of Cairo, explained,

“You have the smaller informal organizations that collect a lot of donations and

they spend these donations on providing for the poor. They don’t do it in the name

272 Author interview with a member of the Nour Economic team, 11/19/2012, 8 PM, Cairo. 273 Author interview with a leader of the Wasat Party, Cairo, 10/20/2012.

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of the Salafi Calling but the people who operate the services at the local level are

Salafis or have ties with the Salafi Calling.”275

After several community members in Alexandria, as well as members of the Nour

Party, informed me that a charity in Alexandria, Nour el-Islam (Light of Islam) was a charity run by the Salafi Calling, I went there to ask for an interview. The charity was a complex that included a mosque, a medical clinic, and a religious school, located on boundary between lower-middle income and low-income neighborhoods. When I entered the medical clinic, where I was told the administration had offices, it seemed to be staffed by religiously conservative women, wearing the more conservative form of veiling

(niqab), which covers the face, mouth and sometimes eyes, in addition to a woman’s hair and neck. The only artwork was framed verses from the Qur’an. However, when I obtained an interview with one of the directors of the clinic, he was adamant that Nour el-

Islam had no connection to any political party or stream. Like the employees of Risala, who denied any affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, the employees of Nour el-Islam emphasized that they did not know the political sympathies of their staff and that the organization was in no way political. In contrast, in informal conversations with acquaintances that lived in the area, people invariably confirmed, without hesitation, that

Nour el-Islam was a Salafi Calling charity.

When I asked a leading member of the Nour Party in Alexandria why community members said that a charity was a “Salafi” charity even when the charity itself would not acknowledge any connection, he told me:

274 Author interview with a member of the Freedom & Justice Party, Cairo, 10/14/2012, 2:00 PM.

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“The way we made these organizations is that we were always afraid that the state

police would stop our activities. When they saw something done well, they would

stop them. We made many of these organizations and they were all independent.

No board member has overlapping membership. We found it was best to work

like a system of islands, with no one connected to anyone else. Yes, these

organizations will tell you that they have no relation with other organizations, and

this is true. They are not lying. But we like it that way and we made it like that”

[huge grin].276

By engaging in charitable community organizations without formally affiliating with them, the Salafi Calling was able to contest the state’s control over service provision at the community level, engage in da’wa, and garner “performance legitimacy” at the community level while simultaneously avoiding regime repression.

Outreach Through Private Mosques

In addition to building a grassroots presence through community social and charitable work and religious outreach, the Salafi Calling established a network of private mosques from which its imams preached and in which the organization’s clusters of teacher-student networks gathered and studied. The ability of the Salafi Calling to build and use private mosques for their religious outreach was part of a broader phenomenon of

275 Author interview with Dr. Ashraf el-Sherif, Professor at American University of Cairo, Cairo, 11/15/2012, 6:30 PM. 276 Author interview with a leader of the Nour Party, Alexandria, 8/30/2012, 11 AM.

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private mosque building that began in the 1970s.277 “Unlike government (hukumi) mosques, which were maintained by state funds and staffed by government-appointed imams, private (ahli) mosques were self-constituted organizations, financed through private donations and staffed by imams selected by members of the local community.

According to one estimate, the number of ahli mosques increased from 20,000 in 1970 to more than 46,000 in 1981.”278

The mosques that were part of the Salafi Calling’s network became sites from which the organization’s particular vision of Islam — that Muslims should strive for the emulation of the life and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed — was propagated through the sermons of Salafi imams, whose views and preaching style gave each mosque a particular reputation. When I asked members of my community which mosques were

“Salafi” mosques, they would list some names. When I asked how they knew these mosques were Salafi mosques, they would answer that it was a Salafi mosque because of the imam who preached there. As three members of the Salafi Calling explained to me in a group interview in Cairo, the basic structure of the Salafi Calling organization was its clusters of teacher-student linkages, where each religious scholar (sheikh) had a group of students who followed him and studied under him, and these teacher-student groups met in the various mosques affiliated with the Salafi Calling.279

As a result, these mosques became hubs of social and community life for members of the Salafi Calling, especially because they were excluded from other social venues due to state repression, as I detail below. According to the same three members of the Salafi

Calling, “There are groups that meet in the mosques and do things together and read

277 Wickham 2002, 98. 278 Wickham 2002, 98.

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Islamic books together, have football matches together, and spend time together.”280

Furthermore because mosques were also the “nuclei for a network of satellite institutions,”281 such as the school and medical clinic that were attached the mosque in

Nour el-Islam in Alexandria, they also became hubs for community and social activity within the neighborhoods in which they were located.

Regime Response: Repression and Toleration

The Mubarak regime treated the Salafi Calling with a mixture of repression and toleration. The regime’s toleration of the Salafi Calling was for the most part directed at the building of private mosques and the organization’s charitable activities, not necessarily out of an active choice, but in large part due to the inability of the state’s

Ministry of Religious Endowments to keep up with and track the growth of these institutions.282 Furthermore, the state was hindered in its ability to constrain the Salafi

Calling’s service provision and charitable organizations for the same reason it tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood’s; as long as the organizations did not engage in overtly political activities, the regime largely permitted their operations, especially in the context of its own inability to adequately provide for the needs of the population.

Despite the regime’s toleration of private mosques and charitable organizations, however, the leaders of the Salafi Calling, and the organization’s members, were treated with repression and harassment by the state. "They faced constant harassment by the

Mubarak regime, which repeatedly closed down the Furqan Institute [a Salafi Calling

279 Auther interview with members of the Nour Economic team, 19 November 2012, 8 PM, Cairo. 280 Author interview with members of the Nour Economic team, 19 November 2012, 8 PM, Cairo. 281 Wickham 2002, 98. 282 Wickham 2002, 98.

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educational institute], banned their publications, and required all Salafi leaders to obtain travel permits form the State Security Services in order to leave Alexandria. Additionally,

Salafi leaders were frequently arrested and harassed."283 This repression was partly due to the regime’s crackdown on militant Islamist organizations in the 1990s, as I discuss in the following section, whereby the regime did not distinguish between violent extremists and moderate Islamists.284 Salafis that I interviewed also reported being arrested during various waves of repression in the 1990s and recount torture and brutality within the prison system on the charge that they were members of a jihadi group.285

While members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other political parties told me that

Salafis did not face repression from the regime, the accounts of ordinary members of the

Salafi Calling to whom I spoke told a very different story. These members reported pervasive harassment, discrimination and fear that affected most aspects of their lives.

For example, any man wearing a long beard (which marked him as someone with

‘Islamist tendencies’) could not enter or be a member of various community and professional clubs in Cairo and Alexandria.286 Salafis that I interviewed reported feeling

‘visible’ and ostracized, and avoided meeting in groups larger than 5 or 6 people for fear of arrest. Salafis also recounted to me all of the things they could not do because they had beards — they could not apply for certain jobs, they could not join the military,287 they could not have their families or wives treated in state-run medical clinics. The wife

283 Boehmer & Murphy 2012, 16. 284 Wickham 2002, 153. 285 Author interview with a member of the Lawyers’ Syndicate and Salafi, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 9 PM; Author interview with members of Salafi movement in Alexandria, Egypt. 8/10/2012, 8:00 PM. 286 Author interview with members of Salafi movement in Alexandria, Egypt. 8/10/2012, 8:00 PM. 287 Author interview with members of the Nour party in Cairo, Egypt. 11/9/2012, 8:00 PM.

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of a Salafi man recounted numerous stories of her friends whose husbands had been arrested on charges of being a Salafi or a jihadi:

“One of my close friends had a bearded husband, and he didn’t do anything

except pray a lot and go to mosque where Sheikh Omar Abdel Kafi preached and

study. The state security went to his house and arrested everyone who was

attending this lesson, including him, and went to his home and searched his home

and took his computer and put his computer in a box and said they found

weapons. They lied. He was put in prison when his son was an infant and when he

was released, his son was in secondary school.”288

Other Salafis reported that simply being involved in religious activities, such as studying in certain mosques affiliated with the Salafi movement, was enough to warrant police surveillance.

"The old regime persecuted those who are more committed in their [religious]

practice. If you pray in the mosque they have a file on you. If you take part in

religious charity programs, they have a file on you. Alexandria leaders [of the

Salafi movement] were not able to leave Alexandria without police

permission."289

“In any gathering before the revolution, there was always security there. In each

mosque for salafis there was a snitch."290

288 Author interview with wife of Salafi in Cairo, Egypt. 11/22/2012, 8:00 PM. 289 Author interview with leader of the Nour Party, Alexandria, 8/30/2012, 11 AM

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“If they go to lessons by one of the sheikhs, the police would wait for them

outside and arrest some of them so that they were punished and dehumanized for

their own ideology even though they weren’t terrorists."291

The Islamic Group

The Islamic Group (Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya) was a religiously conservative movement focused on the islamification of society and the establishment of a social and political order in keeping with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic Group began as a religious study group of nine people in Minya, in Middle Egypt in the 1970s, focused on the teachings of conservative Islamic thinkers, and quickly spread to a larger grassroots movement centered in Upper Egypt. The group members began a campaign to enforce more socially conservative values, such as gender segregation in schools, created and encouraged a group identity expressed in clothing and behavior,292 and gained control of the student union at Minya University in 1977.293 The group quickly expanded its networks and gained a large following in Upper Egypt, running summer camps that included physical training, and organizing religiously-themed book fairs and other events.294

While the group was initially not involved in political activities, it became more contentious and anti-regime in the later 1970s.295 The Islamic Group was distinct from both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Calling in that the Islamic Group espoused

290 Author interview with a Salafi, Alexandria, 8/14/2012, 10:30 PM. 291 Author interview with members of the Nour Economic team, Cairo, 11/19/2012, 8 PM. 292 Meijer 2011, 147. 293 Mubarak 1997. 294 Meijer 2011, 149. 295 Meijer 2011, 149.

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the use of violence in order to achieve the group’s goals, and was “opposed to the

Brotherhood’s rapprochement with Sadat.”296 The Islamic Group took up arms in 1987, carried out multiple violent attacks against tourists,297 and “waged war on the Mubarak regime for more than 15 years before its leaders -- most of whom were in jail -- officially renounced violence in 1997.”298

Regime Response: Repression and Toleration

This use of violence unsurprisingly led to violent reprisals by the Mubarak regime (the same violence that also affected members of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafi Calling).

The regime attempted to close down the mosques that served as the hub of the Islamic

Group’s activities, to which the group would respond by holding demonstrations and praying the street. “Massive public prayers attended sometimes by thousands of members of the Jama’at wearing their characteristic white robes and long beards were impressive demonstrations of solidarity and the embodiment of unspoken claims to the standing of the movement.”299

A cycle of violence and reprisals ensued, in which members of al-Jama’a attempted to assassinate regime officials and the state in turn used extra-judicial killings in response.300 By 2001, it is estimated that there were between 15,000 and 20,000 political prisoners; “the more [the state] perceived the Islamists as a threat to stability, the harsher

296 Wickham 2002, 114. 297 Mubarak 1997. 298 Lacroix 2012, 2. 299 Meijer 2011, 150. 300 Kassem 2004.

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it applied its coercive apparatus to society in its pursuit of Islamist targets.”301 Eventually the group renounced the use of violence in the late 1990s.

Labor Rights Protests

The co-optation of organized labor was already detailed earlier in this chapter. However, in the 2000s, an increasing number of labor activists began to organize outside of the labor union structure and express their demand through extra-systemic channels. As a result of the corporatist system of labor control created by Nasser in the Egyptian Trade

Union Federation, rank-and-file members of labor unions found that their voices were increasingly sidelined during the Mubarak era, especially between 1996 and 2004, when the regime increased the pace of IMF-prompted privatization reforms, which introduced

“institutional measures that threatened one of the workers' most coveted benefits from the populist era, namely job security. The unified labor code of 2003 legalized collective dismissals.”302 The pace of reforms increased even further when Prime Minister Nazif took office in 2004.303 Unable to influence regime policy through the union structure, workers instead turned to extra-systemic channels to express their grievances. “The co- optation of the trade union structure…has resulted in a pattern whereby workers have little choice but to resort to wildcat strikes and spontaneous demonstrations.”304 As a result, activist branches of the ETUF enacted sit-ins, strikes and protests to demand changes in workers rights and state economic policies.

301 Kassem 2004, 154. 302 Bishara 2013, 35-36. 303 Bishara 2013, 36. 304 Kassem 2004, 105.

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Despite ETUF leadership’s best efforts, labor unions began the “culture of protest” in the 2000s that publicly eroded the Mubarak regime’s legitimacy.305 By February 2011 three unions had succeeded in breaking away from the ETUF.306 Both independent unions and those within the ETUF engaged in a series of sit-ins, wildcat strikes and demonstrations against policies of the regime and specific economic privatization reforms initiated by Mubarak.307 Between 1998 and 2003, before the implementation of privatization polices picked up speed, workers carried out an annual average of 118 protests; this rate increased drastically between 2004 and 2011.308 Between 1998 and

2010, anywhere from 2 million to 4 million workers staged 3,400 to 4,000 strikes and protests.309 Highly prominent strikes involving more than 10,000 workers in 2006 at the

Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla al-Kubra were central to breaking the barriers of fear surrounding public protest in Egypt.310 Thus, while organized labor remained muzzled within the corporatist institutions of ETUF, individual labor activists began to voice their demands through public protest and outside of union institutions.

Regime Response: Repression

While the highly visible labor protests served to highlight the possibility of protesting the regime, this is not to imply that these strikes were tolerated by the regime. As the right to strike was controlled and limited by state law, workers and activist branches were subjected to repression by the state when they engaged in strikes without the permission

305 Beinin 2012, 5-6. 306 Beinin 2012; Bishara 2013. 307 Kassem 2004. 308 Bishara 2013, 35-36. 309 Beinin 2012. 310 Bishara 2013.

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of union leaders, with activists being beaten by police and arrested. "Three workers died in clashes with security forces during a 1984 strike in Misr Textile Factory in Kafr al-

Dawwar in 1984. A decade later, a strike at the same factory was violently repressed."311

Pro-Reform Umbrella Activist Groups

Finally pro-reform activist groups contested the Mubarak regime through extra-system channels, specifically through protests, petititons, and conferences. As parliamentary elections did not present an existential threat to the regime, those actors who sought to challenge the undemocratic nature of Mubarak’s presidency — and the anticipated succession of his son, Gamal Mubarak — had to do so through extra-systemic channels.

The most famous of these groups were two umbrella activist groups: Kefaya (“Enough”) and the April 6 group.

Kefaya was an umbrella group encompassing a broad range of individual and collective opposition to the Mubarak regime, across ideological lines, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wasat Party, and the Karama Party, alongside liberals.312

The group specifically opposed the passing on of the presidency to Gamal Mubarak as well as “foreign intervention in the reform process.”313 The group began its opposition to the regime by organizing a petition in protest of limited reforms the regime had suggested and demanded direct presidential elections.314 The petition collected 1,934 signatures.315

The group held its first demonstration in 2004 in anticipation of the 2005 presidential

311 Bishara 2013, 51. 312 Shahin 2010, 17. 313 Arafat 2009, 158; Gohar 2008. 314 Arafat 2009, 158. 315 Ibid.

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elections, which Mubarak was expected to utilize fraud and manipulation to win.316 The group’s slogan was la lil-tawrith, la lil-tamdid (‘no to inheritance, no to extension’), crystalizing the issue of Mubarak’s expected decision to hand the regime over to his son.

Despite their relatively small size, the group had a significant ability to mobilize for protest; in April of 2005 the group “organized fourteen demonstrations across Egypt in a single day.”317 At the height of its activities, Kefaya had a grassroots presence in 24 of the 26 provinces throughout Egypt and claimed 15,000 members,318 holding highly visible public demonstrations against the regime.319 However, the majority of the activities were centered on Cairo, as the purpose of the movement was to challenge the regime.320 Kefaya mobilized existing members through e-mail and SMS and attempted to reach out to new members by contacting sympathetic members of professional syndicates, publishing banners and political cartoons on its website, and sending SMS messages to thousands of mobile phones in advance of demonstrations in order to reach people not connected to the internet.321 Members would also print and distribute flyers challenging the regime by throwing them in the street and then exiting the area.322

Through these protests, symbolic slogans, and outreach to the general public,

Kefaya publicly eroded regime legitimacy; “previous to the Kefaya movement, activists never dared to say ‘no’ directly to the symbols of power.”323 As a senior member of the

316 Oweidat et al 2008. 317 Arafat 2009, 158. 318 Gohar 2008. 319 Oweidat et al 2008. 320 Author interview with Kefaya activist in Tanta, Egypt. 9/6/2012, 7:00 PM. 321 Oweidat et al 2008. 322 Author interview with Kefaya member in Cairo, Egypt. 10/18/2012, 3:00 PM. 323 Oweidat et al 2008, 24.

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Doctors’ Syndicate in Tanta explained to me, “Kefaya taught the Egyptians that demonstrations aren’t only important in terms of size but in terms of kind."324

Finally, the April 6 Movement was a youth activist pro-reform group that originated as an offshoot of the Kifaya Movement.325 April 6 was similarly diverse, although its membership was much younger than Kefaya. The group was inspired by the labor strikes in the industrial city of Mahalla al-Kubra in 2008 and began to coordinate their own strikes and protest actions that year. Certain of its members received training from Serbian Otpor activists in Serbia and they used similar protest tactics: flash mobs, funny songs and chants mocking the regime, and a Facebook page to coordinate their actions. They were one of the groups that ultimately helped to organize the protests on

January 25, 2011, which began the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

Regime Response: Repression

Like the protests carried out by labor activists, the protesters who comprised Kifaya demonstrators were subjected to beatings and imprisonment from the security services,326 while female demonstrators were assaulted by suspected NDP thugs.”327 April 6 activists were similarly repressed, with many of the group members arrested and tortured from

2008 onward.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

324 Author interview with senior member of the Doctors’ Syndicate, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 10 PM. 325 Author interview with a leader of the April 6 activist group in Cairo, Egypt. 8/1/2012, 2 PM. 326 Freedom House 2008. 327 Arafat 2009, 159.

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The Mubarak regime structured the political opposition into three classes: those that were co-opted, those that were permitted to contest the regime through within-system channels and those that were forced to contest the regime through extra-systemic channels. In maintaining the Nasser-era corporatist labor controls, centralized in the

Egyptian Trade Union Federation, Mubarak prevented organized labor from mounting a cohesive, organized opposition to the regime, and ensured that organized labor would not mount a unified protest against the regime’s IMF-spurred privatization policies from

1990 onward. In contrast, by permitting opposition political parties to exist alongside the ruling National Democratic Party, Mubarak permitted a degree of within-system political contestation, through which political opposition members were able to contest the regime through parliamentary elections. The regime also permitted a degree of contestation by nongovernmental organizations through the legal system, whereby individuals or organizations could use legal cases fought in Egypt’s courts to win concessions from the regime over narrow policy issues.

Although the regime permitted this contestation to take place, it maintained strict control over activities in these channels through a web of legal restrictions and institutional controls. The regime strictly stipulated the boundaries governing the behavior of NGOs, controlled electoral outcomes through electoral rules and outright fraud, and impeded the ability of political parties to carry out outreach activities. As the next chapter shows, the controls leveraged against actors that operated though within- system channels had consequences for the credibility and legitimacy that these groups possessed in the general population, as well as their organizational resources and

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grassroots presence, both of which affected their ability to mobilize supporters in the

2011 elections.

While the Mubarak regime permitted some opposition actors to contest the regime through within-system channels, it barred other opposition actors from doing so. Due to the regime’s co-optation of organized labor, labor activists or union members who were dissatisfied with the regime’s economic polices had no within-system channels through which to contest regime policies. As a result, labor activists took to extra-systemic channels, namely protests, to register their discontent. Pro-reform activists, too, participated through extra-systemic channels. While the regime permitted contestation through political parties, it was well known that these elections would not lead to regime change, due to the dominance of the ruling NDP in parliament and to the regime’s electoral fraud. As a consequence, those who wanted to advocate more directly for greater liberalization and a move toward democracy had to do so through protests and other contentious action, both of which were greeted by harsh regime repression.

Finally, groups that were directly barred from forming a political party and participating through systemic channels were those affiliated with political Islam: the

Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi Calling, and the Islamic Group. The Muslim Brotherhood engaged in an extensive process of quiet contestation and the construction of a parallel society through individual religious outreach and persuasion (da’wa), empowering community social work, and the effective provision of services at the community level through charities and voluntary associations. It also utilized professional associations as

“substitute sites” for political contestation and electoral practice, gaining majorities on syndicate committees and using this platform to engage in charitable activities. Finally,

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the Muslim Brotherhood also managed to compete in parliamentary elections by running candidates as independents and participating on the Wafd and Labor Party lists.

The Salafi Calling, while eschewing overtly political activities like electoral participation and the use of “substitute sites” for political contestation, was deeply engaged in the construction of a parallel society distinct from the poverty and suffering brought about by the Mubarak regime, and the corruption of regime members. The Salafi

Calling engaged in community-based charity work, individual religious outreach and persuasion (da’wa), and the construction of a network of private mosques that propagated the Salafi Calling’s particular vision of everyday life and religion. The Islamic Group, while taking part in community-based activities like the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi

Calling, also engaged in violent contestation of the state. Rather than challenge the state through systemic channels, the Islamic Group attempted to challenge the state’s very existence through a campaign of violence during the 1990s.

The regime responded to the activities of these Islamist groups with a mixture of toleration and control. In part because the regime viewed the charitable activities as politically harmless, in part because it lacked the capacity to regulate them, and in part because it could not adequately provide for Egypt’s poor, the regime tolerated the charitable activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi calling as long as the organizations did not become overtly political. As I will demonstrate in Chapter 4, these charities provided these two organizations with credibility, grassroots support and “substate performance legitimacy” among the larger population. However, the regime did not hesitate to use repression to crack down on Islamist groups when it felt threatened by their activities. Individual Islamists were regularly targeted for arrest and torture by the

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regime, especially after the Islamic Group took up arms against the state in the 1990s.

The regime also increasingly cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood during parliamentary campaigns and stopped the group’s use of the professional syndicates as

“substitute sites” for political contestation. As we see in the following chapter, this repression endowed these groups with persuasive and organizational resources that they were able to employ while mobilizing supporters during the 2011 parliamentary campaigns.

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Chapter 4

The Revival of Political Participation

After Authoritarianism:

Egyptian Party Formation & Political Mobilization in 2011

Introduction

The Mubarak regime collapsed suddenly and unexpectedly after eighteen days of mass protest beginning on 25 January 2011. For eighteen days, demonstrators filled public spaces across Egypt, denouncing the regime, clashing with police and the infamously brutal, black-clad Central Security Forces, and calling for “bread, freedom and social justice.” After several unsuccessful attempts to alternately repress and placate protesters,

Hosni Mubarak fled to Sharm el-Sheikh in February. The Supreme Council of the Armed

Forces served as a caretaker president of sorts alongside a civilian cabinet and ruled over the country as it began the reconstruction of a democratic polity. In March 2011, 77% of

Egyptian voters approved a constitutional referendum,328 which removed some of the guarantees that had kept Mubarak and the National Democratic Party in power,329 and the first free and fair parliamentary elections were scheduled for November 2011.

The events of this period provide several empirical puzzles, both in terms of the processes of party formation, and the outcomes of the 2011 elections. First, there was a puzzling mismatch between pre-transition political mobilization and intra-transition party formation. Some of the groups that were pivotal in mobilizing public protest against the

Mubarak regime and calling for democracy, such as labor activists and pro-reform activists, did not form political parties once the process of party registration commenced

328 “Egypt referendum strongly backs constitutional changes” 329 Brown and Dunne 2011.

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in spring of 2011. The failure of organized labor to form a political party is particularly puzzling, both empirically and theoretically, as organized labor has historically provided the organizational base as well as the political interest in party formation.330 Indeed, as I show in Chapters 5 and 6, in explorations of events in Poland, Zambia, and Brazil, the conversion of labor unions into political parties during political transitions is a common occurrence.

Second, after parties were formed and the 2011 elections were carried out, some of the results of these elections were dramatically surprising to observers. Rather than electoral experience predicting electoral success, new parties with no experience won large vote shares. The Nour (Light) party, which formed from the Salafi Calling, which had no electoral experience prior to 2011, won nearly 22% of parliamentary seats, while parties with significant electoral experience, such as the Wafd and Tagammu’, were far less successful. Money, too, was not the predictive factor; one of the wealthiest parties in

Egypt, the Wafd, under-performed, given its financial resources. Perhaps less surprising to Egypt-watchers was that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party won

43% of the seats in parliament; the quick and easy answer was that the use of Islam as a mobilizing ideology was responsible for the group’s success. At the same time, however, other parties running on Islamist platforms won hardly any seats at all.

The following sections of this chapter return to the set of propositions laid out in

Chapter 2. I first examine evidence for the propositions about party formation; I then examine the evidence for the propositions about political mobilization. The analysis presented in this chapter is based upon over one hundred in-depth interviews conducted in Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, Mansoura and Zagazig, during twelve months in 2012. The

330 For example, see Valenzuela 1989 and Collier 1997.

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interviews were conducted with political party members from a range of parties, civil society activists, members of professional syndicates, Muslim Brotherhood members, and

Salafis. While most respondents gave me permission to use their names in my work, due to the contentious — and for Muslim Brotherhood members, dangerous — political atmosphere in Egypt after July 2013, I have chosen to leave these interviews anonymous, with only party membership, city, and date of interview listed.

Authoritarian Legacies and Party Formation:

Egyptian Party Formation in 2011

The dynamics of party formation during the transition from a long-term authoritarian regime are affected by the way in which the prior regime structured the political opposition. In Egypt, 31 new political parties formed in the wake of Mubarak’s ouster.

Within this context, however, puzzling variation exists with respect to two types of oppositions group that sometimes form into a political party and sometimes do not, despite being consistent mobilizers of protest against the authoritarian regime: labor unions and pro-reform activist groups.

Table 4.1: Egyptian Opposition Groups and Party Formation PRE-2011 GROUP Participation Type POST-2011 POLITICAL PARTY Labor Unions Co-opted -- Professional Syndicates Co-Opted -- NGOs Within-System Contestation -- Wafd Party Within-System Contestation Wafd Party Tagammu’ Party Within-System Contestation Tagammu Party Ghad Party Within-System Contestation Ghad Party Labor Party Opposition Party (illegal) Labor Party Al-Wasat Party Opposition Party (illegal) Al-Wasat Party Muslim Brotherhood Extra-System Contestation Freedom and Justice Party Salafi Calling Extra-System Contestation Nour Party Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya Extra-System Contestation Building and Development Party Kifaya Movement Extra-System Contestation -- April 6 Movement Extra-System Contestation --

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The reason that so many new parties form in the wake of or during a political transition is that these groups were denied access to within-system — electoral — contestation during the authoritarian era, either because that specific group was denied permission to form a party or because the regime did not permit any within-system contestation. In the case of Egypt, we would therefore expect to see those opposition groups that had been excluded from within-system contestation forming political parties after Mubarak’s ouster.

As Table 4.1 shows, the political groups that were denied permission to contest the regime through within-system channels form political parties after Mubarak’s ouster. The

Wasat Party, Labor Party, and Muslim Brotherhood all attempted to register legal political parties but were denied legal status. The Salafi Calling’s decision to form a political party was more surprising, however. Other scholars have indicated that one branch of the Salafi movement was directly opposed to participating within the political system, what Wiktorowicz calls the “purist” camp.331 Other branches of the movement, however, were inherently politically oriented; due to their ideological vision of an Islamic society free of corruption, both political and moral, the Salafi Calling was by definition in opposition to the Mubarak regime, and, while not challenging the regime through formal politics, represented an inherent challenge to the Mubarak regime’s western-oriented, largely secular regime. As Boehmer and Murphy show, "Salafis' critique of political

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participation during this time shows that these sheikhs left the door open to the possibility of political participation under the right conditions."332 Rather than staying out of politics for ideological reasons, therefore, these members of the Salafi Calling cited both the corrupt political system and regime repression as the determining factors in keeping the movement out of formal politics.333

According to Nader Bakkar, a Nour party Spokesman, the decision to form a political party was voted upon by the group’s leadership in the following way:

“There are 15 people on the party’s board of directors and they made the decision

to support the creation of a party by voting at three stages. First, whether or not to

enter the political process; it was 70% that said “yes lets make a party.” Second

they voted on whether to be a pressure group like April 6 or to form a party or

support an existing party and we initially thought of the Muslim Brotherhood’s

Freedom and Justice Party [because they are close to our beliefs]. They voted for

starting a new party or supporting an existing one, but not being a pressure group.

Then the last step was to vote on whether or not to form a party or support one.

Nine out of 15 decided to form a new party and to build the party base on the

hierarchy from the Salafi Calling institution.”334

Thus, the evidence supports Proposition 1, in that opposition groups that were banned from extra-system contestation but that attempted to form a political party during the

Mubarak regime indeed formed political parties before founding elections.

331 See Boehmer & Murphy 2012 and Wiktorowicz 2006. 332 Boehmer & Murphy 2012, 18. 333 Ibid. 334 Author interview with a Nour Party Spokesman, Cairo, 11/17/2012, 6:00 PM.

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Despite the Egyptian labor unions’ ability to organize protests against regime policies and break down barriers of fear surrounding public protest, both the Nasser and

Mubarak regimes had successfully co-opted the Egyptian Trade Union Federation through its top-down controls, its targeting of union leaders, and the selective benefits conveyed to the unions.335 As outlined in the previous section, “In Egypt, the labor movement has long been party to a corporatist bargain with the Egyptian state. In exchange for the delivery of worker restraint and political support, the union received essential material and organizational benefits from the state. These included financial subsidies to the union, prestigious political positions for union leaders, and important non-wage benefits for workers, such as job security, social security benefits, and generous leave policy."336 Despite the fact that the regime had rescinded many of these benefits as Mubarak adopted structural adjustment policies in the 1990s, this history of co-optation and the movement’s dependence on the state for selective benefits, undermined labor’s ability and desire to form a coherent, political opposition.337

In line with Proposition 2, rather than creating parties in the aftermath of Mubarak’s downfall, labor unions attempted to utilize the existing union structure to renegotiate their status vis-à-vis the state because this union structure had a proven success record in

335 Kassem 2004. 336 Bellin 2002, 173. 337 Bellin 2002; Lust-Okar 2005 on the effects of co-optation on political opposition, which she argues makes opposition less likely to challenge the regime and risk losing benefits.

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obtaining benefits for workers. This is largely due to the benefits workers obtained via their membership in unions created incentives to remain within the union structure:

“The degree to which membership in state-backed unions guarantees workers

access to significant financial resources can provide significant financial

disincentives against the exit option. In sectors where membership in official

unions guarantees workers access to significant resources, workers will be less

likely to risk losing those resources by exiting the corporatist structure. In the

Egyptian context, unions in the industrial sector [nb: the sector that was the most

militant] had access to greater financial resources, which created greater

disincentives for workers in those sectors to withdraw their membership from

those unions."338

While Bishara’s analysis explains why specific unions did not seek to create independent unions free of state control during the Mubarak regime, her explanation provides insight into why organized labor did not form a party during the transition. The potential benefits conferred by the corporatist structure, left intact after Mubarak was ousted, provided a disincentive for workers to either create independent unions or political parties. Even when the regime reneged upon its promises to workers, unionists aimed to regain those rights via protests, and forced the regime to abide by the terms of its corporatist bargain:

"Their December 2006 strike [of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in the

Nile Delta city of al-Mahalla al-Kubra] set in motion the largest wave of workers'

protests in Egypt since World War II. The strike was prompted by the fact that

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government ministers, the company management, and the union committee

elected in November 2006 failed to deliver on their promise to grant company

workers a two month annual bonus, as stipulated in the prime ministerial decree

467 of 2006...Eventually, workers were granted 1.5 months worth of the 2 months

bonus that they demanded."339

Thus, it makes sense that after the revolution, organized labor did not form a political party but rather sought to renegotiate its relationship to the state via the creation of new independent unions. As a member of the Labor Party340 explained to me:

“Before we didn’t have real labor unions; they were agents of the government.

There was not real organization. Now we have new unions that are independent…

The main thing that happened after the revolution was rebuilding these new

unions. The labor unions were ruined in the past and one of the gains of the

revolution is the rebuilding of the workers unions."341

The fact that labor unions did not seek to gain independent unions and form a political party is interesting. This is perhaps due to the widespread perception that labor unions were neither part of the political opposition nor even political. This idea was echoed in nearly all of my interviews with political activists, party members, and syndicate members. As a member of the Wafd Part told me, "The government governs the workers’ unions; they are not independent.” A member of the Muslim Brotherhood

338 Bishara 2013, 60-61. 339 Bishara 2013, 71. 340 Recall that the Labor Party represented Islamist ideology combined with a social justice platform. The party was not actually a party devoted to the securing of workers’ rights.

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and the Teacher’s syndicate in Tanta gave a similar assessment: “All the workers unions belong to the state. It was all 100% government."342 Ordinary Egyptians repeatedly stated that while some workers did carry out strikes and were brave, labor unions were controlled by the state, and the ETUF was part of the state (and therefore, by default, illegitimate). Egyptians used language such as “the leaders of the unions were close to the regime” or “the union is part of the regime” and despite protest actions by individual workers or workers from individual factories, the unions themselves were seen as either apolitical (“they are for workers, not for politics”) or too close to the regime to be political opposition.343

Indeed, before the 2011 uprising, workers tended to restrict their strike activity to economic grievances, rather than overtly political ones; describing strikes in 1984, Maye

Kassem notes: “What was remarkable was the overtly pro-government position taken by trade unions during such protests.”344 Thus, in line with Proposition 2, the co-optation of the labor movement under the Mubarak regime explains the non-conversion of organized labor into a political party in the post-transition era, despite labor protests, in contrast to events in Poland, Zambia and Brazil, as I will examine in Chapter 4; despite its activism, organized labor was not truly in opposition to the Mubarak regime, just its economic policies.

The same logic governing the formation of political parties by labor unions applies to Egypt’s professional syndicates. In Chapter 3, I described the way in which professional syndicates became substitute sites of political contestation for various

341 Author interview the Labor Party President, Cairo, 11/5/2012, 4:45 PM. 342 Author interview with a member of the MB and teachers’ syndicate, Tanta, 9/7/2012, 2PM. 343 Author interview with a member of the Wafd Party, Cairo, 11/5/2012, 1 PM. 344 Kassem 2004, 106

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political actors who could not contest the regime through within-system channels, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite the professional syndicates’ politically oriented and charitable activities in the early 1990s, such as providing aid during the

1992 earthquake, the syndicates were originally a corporatist form of interest representation established prior to Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser’s regime. As such, interviewees responded that they did not see professional syndicates as part of the political opposition because, like unions, they were intended for the furthering of “professional, not political, goals.” When respondents did identify professional syndicates as engaging in political activity, however, they tended to mention different groups within the syndicates — specifically the Muslim Brotherhood — as being the cause of that political activity. Thus, while respondents viewed professional syndicates as being channels for political activity, they viewed the syndicates themselves as inherently apolitical. Thus, in line with

Proposition 2, the co-optation of professional syndicates explains the non-conversion of the syndicates into a political party.

As I explained in Chapter 3, two famous pro-reform activist groups contested the

Mubarak regime through extra-system channels: Kifaya and April 6. Both of these groups were instrumental in organizing highly visible protests to the regime. However, new

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political parties are generally only successful when they can utilize “a strong organizational base or, more often, some parallel, ‘pre-partisan’ organization” through which collective action and mobilization can be coordinated.345 The structure of the political opposition in the Mubarak regime, in which a select group of opposition parties was permitted to contest the regime, divided the political opposition between opposition parties and those other groups contesting the regime through other channels. Both Kifaya and April 6 acted as umbrella groups that united various different segments of the political opposition, including members of Mubarak-era opposition political parties, for the purpose of engaging in strikes, protests, distributing petitions, and challenging the regime in ways that legal parties could not. The fact that both Kifaya and April 6 co- existed alongside opposition political parties resulted in two consequences that prevented these groups from forming viable political parties during the regime transition.

First, a large number of the members of both groups had ties to other opposition political parties or groups denied legal party status. The pro-reform opposition group therefore shares its membership base with a wide range of other opposition organizations.

This was especially the case for Kifaya, which, as an umbrella organization like the

Czechoslovak Civic Forum, had members from a wide range of ideological backgrounds.

Many of Kifaya’s members were already members of other activist groups, such as April

6, as well as members of pre-existing political parties with leftist orientations, such as

Tagammu’, as well as other social movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.346

Kefaya also included Islamist activists, who were drawn away to both the Muslim

Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, and the Salafi Calling’s Nour Party.

345 Boix 2007, 516.

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When the time came to form political parties, many of Kifaya’s members were drawn away into their “home” organization, so to speak. In the case of Kifaya members who were also members of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, it is easy to see why these members would join the Brotherhood’s party rather than form a party through

Kifaya. Members of the Brotherhood were connected to one another through dense networks of strong interpersonal ties347 due to years of training as a group, movement social events, and shared repression during the Mubarak era.348 Once the movement formed their political party after the uprising, the Brotherhood organization prohibited members from joining another political party and were able to enforce that restriction through the organization’s internal discipline.349

Second, the structure of the opposition under the Mubarak regime — namely the existence of opposition parties — permitted a number of opposition groups with more specific ideological orientations than simply being pro-reform/anti-regime. For example, the Wafd Party expressed personal freedom and centrist economic policies; the

Tagammu’ expressed leftist policies, the Labor Party emphasized both Islam and leftitst policies,350 the Ghad emphasized liberal-secular ideologies, and the Muslim Brotherhood emphasized social justice and Islam. The consequence of these parties’ existence, therefore, was that members in both Kifaya and April 6 who were also members in other parties were connected to those parties by an ideology or identity that was potentially more salient than the anti-regime orientation of both pro-reform groups. Indeed, ideology

346 Author interview with a member of the Socialist Popular Alliance in Cairo, Egypt, on 18 October 2012, 5 PM. 347 See Granovetter 1973. 348 Author interview with senior Muslim Brotherhood member in Alexandria, Egypt, 7/24/2011. 349 Author interview with Muslim Brotherhood youth members, Cairo, Egypt, 10/25/2011. 350 Author interview with a member of the Labor Party and former member of Gema'a al-Islamiyya, Cairo, 11/5/2012 10:00 AM.

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or ideological orientation was a factor stressed as an important party of party formation.

While many of the new parties did not have very well developed party programs, they all had ideological orientations. As one party member explained:

“People support a stream more than a particular party. People can’t really

distinguish between the party programs; but they can distinguish between one

stream or another - liberal, islamist, conservative. The political parties themselves

didn’t focus on the details of the program and instead concentrated on the

orientation. Party lists emphasized items of the stream more than the programs of

the party."351

In my interviews with political party members, all of them expressed the importance of the party’s orientation or ideology in attracting new members and motivating the formation of a party. Members of the Salafi Calling’s Nour Party explained to me:

"Personally I tried to be politically involved before the revolution. but I couldn’t.

After the revolution I had to choose whether to be active on my own or part of a

group. So I felt that it was better to join a group to which I feel they are familiar to

my beliefs and who I knew before. So I decided with the rest of the people I knew

from the Salafi Calling to found the Nour party."352

"We thought that after the revolution we have to make our own party because the

most people who were discriminated against were the salafis and there should be

351 Author interview with a member of the Social Democratic Party, Cairo, 11/28/2012, 12:30 PM.

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some rules to stop the discrimination against us and our ideas, even governmental

discrimination. All Muslims will benefit from this."353

“There was a discussion in the Salafi Calling and the people at high and middle

levels about forming a party and they decided to communicate with other

governorates that has people from the Salafi Calling and they founded the Nour

party. We were already working together and knew each other and shared beliefs

from the Salafi Calling. Dr. Emad [a leader in the party] called me and wanted to

meet other people in Cairo and we started to mobilize people from governorate to

governorate.”354

In contrast to pre-existing parties and other opposition groups such as the Muslim

Brotherhood and Salafi Calling, neither Kifaya nor April 6 had an identity or ideological orientation more specific than their anti-regime stance. When the time came to form parties, these groups’ membership base dissolved in different directions. Muslim

Brotherhood members returned to the Brotherhood, members of opposition political parties resumed their efforts at party organization through those parties, and most of

Kifaya’s leaders with leftist orientations joined other leftist political parties, as a founding member of Kifaya explained to me.355

352 Author interview with a founding member of Nour Party and member of Da'wa Salafiya, Cairo, 11/20/2012, 9 AM. 353 Author interview with a leader of the Nour Party, Alexandria, 8/30/2012, 11 AM. 354 Author interview with a founding member of the Nour Party and member of Da'wa Salafiya, Cairo, 11/20/2012, 9 AM. 355 Author interview with leader of Kifaya, Cairo, 10/13/2012, 6 PM.

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Thus, the organizational consequences of the dominant-party opposition structure meant that both Kifaya and April 6 lost much of their membership base after Mubarak was ousted from power, which explains why neither of these groups formed into political parties.

Summary

The dynamics of party formation — which opposition groups formed parties and which did not — were shaped by the structure of the political opposition during the Mubarak regime. The regime’s co-optation of organized labor and professional associations created a situation that both depoliticized the organizations and created alternative institutions through which to advocate for their interests. This co-optation also created an incentive structure that disincentivized the abandonment of the union structure in favor of a political party. This legacy from the authoritarian era thus explains why Egypt’s organized labor, in contrast to labor unions in Poland, Zambia, and Brazil, did not form a political party, despite a mobilizing base and despite a set of collective interests.

Furthermore, the Mubarak regime’s allowance of within-system contestation in the form of opposition political parties had further legacies for the formation of political parties by activist umbrella groups and pro-reform groups. Due to the existence of political parties, the majority of the members of activist umbrella groups had overlapping membership and personal ties with members of pre-existing political parties and other opposition movements. When the time came to form a party, Kifaya, specifically, could not retain its membership base that it would have need to convert into a political party. In

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contrast, other opposition movements that converted into political parties had more insular membership bases not shared with existing political parties.

Finally, the existence of opposition political parties in the Mubarak regime placed a degree of importance on ideological orientations, even if party platforms were undeveloped. This meant that, unlike in Zambia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, new political parties had to have some kind of ideological orientation, aside from simply opposing the Mubarak regime, in order to form a viable party. In addition, other existing parties and movements had quite well defined ideological orientations, which drew sympathetic members away from pro-reform advocacy groups.

Chapters 5 and 6 show how variation in the structure of the political opposition under authoritarianism creates different party-formation outcomes in Poland, Brazil,

Zambia, and Czechoslovakia. First, though, I turn to an examination of how the political opposition structure during the Mubarak era led to specific outcomes in political mobilization for the 2011 founding elections.

Authoritarian Legacies and Political Mobilization:

Egyptian Electoral Mobilization in 2011

In the aftermath of the political events in the three years between the ousting of Hosni

Mubarak in 2011 and the time of writing, it is easy to forget that, initially, no one knew who was going to be successful at the polls or which political forces would be the most relevant. Many of the predictions that were made at the time turned out to be incorrect.

For example, one scholar of Middle Eastern Politics at the Political Science Institute in

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Paris declared, “There is no [Islamist] bogeyman in Egypt or Tunisia…I don’t see any place where the Brotherhood will win a majority. They will end up part of coalitions.”356

Another scholar from the American University of Cairo stated, “If this revolution has shown anything, it’s that the Muslim Brotherhood does not control the street as everybody believed. Within a very short space of time, using the Internet, secular forces managed to do what the Brotherhood couldn’t do since 1920. Given some openness in the political system, it [would] represent about 25 percent of the electorate.”357 The predictions of poll-watching and electoral organizations, such as the analysts at the

International Foundation for Electoral Systems, were no more accurate: “Analysts expect a highly fragmented political race with no one party or coalition coming close to a majority of the national vote." In fact, when the elections were held between November

2011 and January 2012, and declared free and fair by international observers, the Muslim

Brotherhood won nearly 50% of the parliamentary election votes, with the Salafi Calling capturing another 24%. What explains these outcomes?

The processes of political mobilization in the lead-up to founding elections are conditioned by the political opposition structure of the prior regime. Who is permitted to participate through within-system channels and who is forced to participate through extra-system channels determines who is best able to mobilize supporters during founding elections. Counter-intuitively, repression is an advantage. More specifically, groups that participated through extra-system channels and that managed to survive bouts of regime repression are better able to mobilize supporters than groups that participated

356 Jean-Pierre Filiu, quoted in Flamini 2012, 7. 357 Khalid Fahmi, quoted in Flamini, 2012, 22.

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through within-system channels because they possess organizational and persuasive resources that the latter groups do not have.

In Chapter 2 I outlined a series of propositions based upon this theory; in the following sections I will examine each proposition in turn, in the context of the Egypt case. The political opposition structure, rather than other commonly-cited factors, such as money, religion, or electoral rules, best explains the success of the Muslim Brotherhood’s

Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi Calling’s Nour Party in comparison to other political parties in Egypt’s 2011 elections.

Proposition 1: Parties that emerged from groups that participated through extra-system channels during the Mubarak regime will mobilize supporters better during founding elections than either groups that participated through within-system channels or completely new parties.

Turning to the electoral results, I have arranged the data as follows. If a group ran in coalition with another group, I have listed those groups together because members of the coalition did not all run in all parts of Egypt. Therefore it does not make sense to examine them individually. I have also included new parties that were not pre-2011 opposition groups as a point of comparison with the older groups.

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Table 4.2: Comparison of 2011 Mobilization PARTY TYPE SEATS IN PARTY/COALITION PARLIAMENT

FJP Coalition Coalition: 225 (45.2%) Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Extra-System 216 (43.4%) Al Karama New 6 (1.2%) Al Hadara New 2 (0.4%) Labor Illegal Party 1 (0.2%)

Nour Coalition Coalition: 125 (25%) Nour Extra-System 109 (21.8%) Building & Development Extra-System 13 (2.6%) Al Asala New 3 (0.6%)

Wafd Within-System 41 (8.2%)

Egyptian Bloc Coalition Coalition: 34 (6.8) Tagammu’ Within-System 3 (0.6%) Social Democratic Party New 16 (3.2%) Al Ghad Within-System 0 (0%)

The Free Egyptians New 15 (3%) Reform & Development New 10 (2%) Wasat Illegal Party 9 (1.8%) Revolution Continues New 8 (1.6%) Egypt National Party New 5 (1%) Egyptian Citizen Party New 4 (0.8%) Freedom Party New 3 (0.6%) Union Party New 3 (0.6%) Al Adl New 2 (0.4%) Democratic Peace New 2 (0.4%) Arab Egyptian Union Party New 1 (0.2%) Nasserite Party New 1 (0.2%) Free Egypt New 0? Socialist Popular Alliance New ?

In looking at the national level results of the 2011 elections, it is clear, as my theory predicts, that groups that participated through extra-system channels during the Mubarak regime mobilized supporters better than groups that participated through within-system channels (old opposition parties) or new parties that formed after the 2011 uprising. The coalition headed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party performed the best, winning 45.2% of the seats in parliament. The coalition headed by the Salafi

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Calling’s Nour party (which included al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya’s Building and

Development party) performed second best, winning 25% of the seats in parliament. The old parties — the Wafd, the Tagama’u and the Ghad — came in next, followed by the new parties formed after the 2011 uprising.

Alternative Explanations

Before examining the remaining propositions, I will first address common alternate explanations that could predict why certain groups are better than other at mobilizing supporters after authoritarian collapse. Table 4.3 shows the competing explanations.

Table 4.3: Alternative Explanations Electoral SEATS IN Extra-Systemic Experience Islam Clientelism Party Size PARLIAMENT Pre-2011 FJP Coalition X X X Large 225 (45.2%) Nour Coalition X X Large 125 (25%) Electoral SEATS IN Controlled Parties Experience Islam Clientelism Party Size PARLIAMENT Pre-2011 Wafd X X Large 41 (8.2%) Egyptian Bloc X X 34 (6.8%) Coalition Electoral SEATS IN New Parties Experience Islam Clientelism Party Size PARLIAMENT Pre-2011 Reform & X 10 (2%) Development Wasat X X 9 (1.8%) Revolution X 8 (1.6%) Continues Egypt National X 5 (1%) Party Egyptian Citizen X 4 (0.8%) Party Freedom Party X 3 (0.6%) Al Asala X X 3 (0.6%) Union Party X 3 (0.6%) Al Adl X 2 (0.4%) Democratic Peace X 2 (0.4%) Arab Egyptian X X 1 (0.2%) Union Party Nasserite Party X 1 (0.2%) Socialist Popular X 0

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Alliance

(1) Islam

Perhaps the most common explanation for the success of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling in the 2011 elections was their identity as Islamist political parties.

There are several reasons to dispute this assertion.

First, multiple scholars dispute the notion that there is a one-to-one relationship between the use of Islam as an ideology and electoral success in Muslim-majority countries. In several wide-ranging studies of electoral performance in the Muslim world,

Kurzman and Naqvi make an interesting observation: while there have been several well- publicized instances in which Islamist parties win elections by large margins, including

Egypt’s 2011 election, the success of such groups is hardly the norm and in most cases,

Islamist parties win only a small share of the vote.358

"When we examined results from parliamentary elections in all Muslim societies,

we found a very different pattern: Given the choice, voters tend to go with secular

parties, not religious ones. Over the past 40 years, 86 parliamentary elections in

20 countries have included one or more Islamic parties, according to annual

reports from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Voters in these places have

overwhelmingly turned up their noses at such parties. Eighty percent of these

Islamic parties earned less than 20 percent of the vote, and a majority got less than

10 percent...The same is true even over the last few years, with numbers barely

changing since 2001."359

358 Kurzman & Naqvi 2010c, 50. 359 Kurzman & Naqvi 2010a, 1-2.

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The authors also argue that, while Islamist parties tend to do better in a Muslim-majority country’s first free elections, such as those of Jordan in 1989, Algeria in 1991, Bahrain in

2002, Iraq in 2005, and Palestine in 2006, they also fared poorly in other countries’ first free elections, such as in Yemen in 1993, Indonesia in 199, and Tajikistan in 2000.360

Their study also demonstrates that popular religiosity does not determine the success of

Islamist parties in the Muslim world.361 Thus, the simple assumption that Muslims vote for Islamist parties does not hold up under empirical examination.

The simple assertion that the Freedom and Justice Party and Salafi Calling performed so well because they are Islamist parties in a Muslim-majority country also does not explain the variation in their performance over time, which has not been constant. Martini and Worman examined all of the instances in which Egyptians went to the polls after Mubarak’s ouster in 2011, including the March 2011 referendum, the

2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and the July 2012 presidential elections.362 The authors found that the performance of both the Freedom and Justice Party and Nour Party declined steadily over time. If voters were voting simply on the basis of religion, we would not expect to see the cross-temporal variation.

Second, the argument that voters voted on the basis of religion also does not explain variation between Islamist political parties. As Table 4.3 makes clear, the use of

Islam as a mobilizing ideology did not guarantee electoral success in the 2011 elections.

In comparing parties using Islamist frames against those employing secular or more generically liberal frames, there are no patterns to be discerned; some Islamist parties fared far worse than many of the non-Islamist parties. The Wafd, for example, fared far

360 Kurzman & Naqvi 2010c, 54. 361 Kurzman & Naqvi 2010c, 59.

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better than other parties running on an Islamist platform. This is because not all Islamist organizations and parties are equal, and these organizational distinctions impact their varied ability to mobilize voters. The reason why the Freedom and Justice Party coalition out-performed the Nour coalition to such an extent likely rests on these organizational differences. As I described in the first part of this chapter, the Muslim Brotherhood is a highly organized group, with a national structure that extends down to the district level.

As members explained to me:

"We have different activities in the group; some are organizational or different

committees to work in in the group, and we have some social activities to

strengthen the bonds between the members. We were widespread all over the

country. In every district we have special ties between the members of the

Brotherhood in this district. In Mohandesin (a neighborhood of Cairo) there is a

group and they meet regularly and they are divided into even smaller groups - the

“family” (Usra) - and they meet every week. At the larger level of the whole

district in Mohandesin, we may meet once or twice in a month. The Usra is make

up of 5 or 7 people who are of the same age and are divided according to their

neighborhood so that they share the same interests and problems. The people in

each Usra changes every few years because the aim is the strengthen the bonds

between the members of the Brotherhood.”363

362 Martini & Worman 2013, 9-10. 363 Author interview with a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, 11/22/2012, Cairo 10:30 AM.

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"We have 14 districts in Alexandria and every district has 5 to 6 groups and these

are called “sho’ba.” Each sho’ba has between 5-8 “families”. Each gender has a

parallel one. Each Usra has a leader."364

In contrast, the Salafi Calling as a group was far less organized. They were based on a much more informal structure, with networks of teacher-student linkages in different cities and towns around Egypt. While the Salafi Calling’s networks were strong within each neighborhood, they were not as well connected as an organization at the national level.

"They give Dr. Emad and other strong personalities in the Salafi Calling the

responsibility to lead the party; it is not highly organized like the Muslim

Brotherhood. It is a little like a freelance basis. Until now we are still building the

party. We are not done yet with founding it totally. How are committees formed?

When someone joined the party recently, they got to know his profession and they

position him according to his profession and specialization."365

This difference in the internal hierarchy – or lack thereof -- is likely partly responsible for why the Muslim Brotherhood outperformed the Salafi Calling to such a degree. While both had extensive grassroots networks, the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization had a more specific organizational hierarchy than the Salafi Calling.

Third, the argument that Islamist parties rely on religion to win also does not take into account the geographical variation of their success. This geographical variation

364 Author interview with a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Alexandria, 8/15/2012.

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reflects the fact that these parties — the organizations, the candidates, and their grassroots activities — are embedded in particular networks at the grassroots level, through which these groups engage in deliberate processes of mobilization. As Martini and Worman show,

"While Islamists notched a landslide victory in the initial parliamentary elections,

their performance was not uniform across the country. Islamists captured at least

half of available seats in every governorate; however, their share varied from

highs of 100 percent in the sparsely populated governorate of Marsa Matruh and

89 percent in the governorate of Fayum to a more modest 50 percent of the seats

in Port Said, the Red Sea, South Sinai and Aswan."366

Furthermore, the authors show that in areas in which other political actors also had competing networks, such as the Nile Delta, the Muslim Brotherhood did not fare as well.

The Delta governorates of al-Gharbiya, al-Sharqiya, Daqhliya, Menufiya, and al-

Qalayubia were those in which both the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary candidates and presidential candidate, Mohammed Morsi, did not fare well.367

Finally, the simplistic assertion that Muslim voters vote for Islamist parties overlooks the more nuanced ways in which Islam acted as a mobilizing ideology in

Egypt. As Wickham argues:

“We cannot move from deep structures of religious institutions and beliefs to

outcomes without acknowledging the intervening role of human agency. Cultural

365 Author interview with a founding member of Nour Party and member of Da'wa Salafiya, 11/20/2012, 9 AM. 366 Martini & Worman 2013, 6. 367 Martini & Worman 2013, 9-10.

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beliefs about the sacred, divinity, and the afterlife can be mobilized by both

defenders and opponents of the established order. Likewise, cultural repertoires of

behavior like the da’wa can be used by different actors for opposing ends.

Whether or not such cultural resources are used, and used effectively, depends on

the creative and persuasive abilities of those engaged in political struggle…That

there is nothing “natural” about the success of Islamist outreach in a Muslim

country is indicated by the dominance of leftist movements in the Arab world as

recently as the 1960s and early 1970s. That the reform-minded Islamists

mobilized far greater support than their secular — as well as more militant

Islamist — rivals was the result of discrete features of movement leadership,

strategy, and ideology, elements far more specific than “Islam.”368

The active utilization of Islam as a mobilization ideology, therefore, draws upon meanings and values more complex than a simple appeal to religion. For example, as several respondents told me, voters voted for the Salafi Calling or the Muslim

Brotherhood not because they were Muslim and these groups were Islamist, but because they believed that both groups, because they were religious, were honest and not corrupt, in contrast to party politicians and the Mubarak regime. Respondents equated religiosity with honesty, which was the reason for voting for these groups. Such explanations were also cited in Hama’s electoral victory in the Palestinian territories in 2006, when voters said that they voted for Hamas believing the group would be less corrupt than other candidates. As one respondent explained:

368 Wickham 2002, 207.

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“People relate to them because people think that they are good people and not

thieves and they will regain the rights of the Egyptians that were stolen by the

regime. The corruption of the previous regime gives the Islamists credibility and

credit for themselves."369

This discussion is not to say that Islam played no role in the electoral victory of the

Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling. However, the evidence above should make it clear that while it may have been one factor that contributed to these parties’ success at the polls, other factors — organizational characteristics, geographical locations of networks, and the corruption of the previous regime — are also very important in explaining the outcomes of the 2011 elections.

(2) Clientelism

Clientelism has historically played a large role in elections in Egypt, as multiple scholars have pointed out.370 However, it is so pervasive and widespread — every party that I interviewed used some sort of clientelism in candidate-selection, their campaign promises, or the campaigns themselves — that it is nearly impossible to distinguish amongst them. What would be interesting to examine is the actual funding held by each party; if all parties are using clientelism, then the wealthier parties would have more resources to channel through clientelistic relationships. Unfortunately campaign finances were the one topic about which I could not gain any information; party members and officials were uniformly tight-lipped on the issue.

369 Author interview with a leading member of the Wafd Party and party paper, Cairo, 11/2/2012, 7 PM. 370 See Shehata 2008; Lust-Okar 2008.

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Many of the political parties that I interviewed in Egypt throughout 2012 alleged that the source of the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success was the provision of goods and services that the organization provided to poor Egyptians through these organizations. While this is not implausible, there is significant evidence to the contrary.

First, in a detailed study of Brotherhood charitable organizations in Egypt, Janine Clark found that while poor Egyptians did receive services from the charitable organizations, the bonds of trust, friendship and community that these organizations created and strengthened were in fact horizontal, middle class networks, not vertical networks between the middle class and poor.371 Furthermore, these networks were not being created on the basis of service delivery, but on the basis of logistical needs of the organizations themselves. "The bureaucratic and financial circumstances under which

PVOs in Egypt operate mean that social networks are crucial. For a clinic to be successful, directors and members of the boards of directors must have connections to finances, materials, and skills -- or useful government contacts. The operational needs to

Islamic clinics thus foster the development and maintenance of horizontal, specifically middle-class, ties as opposed to vertical ties to the poor who less commonly have these sorts of resources and connections."372 While the provision of services through charitable organizations did create a form of credibility which I term “substate performance legitimacy” in which bonds of trust, support, and credibility were created through the activities of charitable and voluntary organizations, this credibility rests more on the idea

371 Clark 2004. 372 Clark 2004, 65.

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that Islamists will be able and want to effectively create a better, more equitable society, than a simple transactional exchange of votes for services.373

(3) Prior Electoral Experience

In examining the electoral results in Table 4.3, prior electoral experience does not predict the success of the different parties in mobilizing supporters. It does appear to help, however. The Mubarak-era parties — the Wafd, and the Egyptian Bloc coalition — performed above the new parties, and they had electoral experience. Wafd party members told me that one reason that they were able to win votes, despite lacking grassroots ties, was because the Wafd Party had a historic name and status. The results of Table 4.3 show that prior experience is not enough, however.

(4) Electoral Design

Finally, there has been significant criticism of the electoral rules and re-districting that occurred prior to the 2011 parliamentary campaigns, in that districts were made larger. This re-districting would presumably have benefited the larger parties; smaller parties and independents do not have the same resources with which to cover a large area with materials or campaign visits. Large districts would also place parties with a pre- existing grassroots presence at an advantage for the same reason. No parties that I spoke to were willing to divulge their membership statistics, so I can only hazard a guess at party size and hypothesize that newer parties will tend to be smaller.

Other observers of electoral rules have argued that the electoral rules, “specifically the seat allocation method in the proportional tier [known as the Hare quota], will

373 See also Thachil 2011 for arguments against service provision as simply transactional exchanges.

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actually give a boost to the fractured liberal parties, while depriving the Brotherhood of a majority they would obtain in more commonly used electoral systems. The reason for this is due to the formula used to calculate who wins the two-thirds of seats in the proportional representation tier."374 Jandura explains that the way in which the number of seats is allocated — the quota that is used to calculated how the raw number of votes translates into seats in the legislature — actually contributed to giving smaller parties a larger share of the votes than they actually deserved. Jandura argues that, using this seat allocation system, "Freedom and Justice isn't being specifically disadvantaged; they are actually receiving the number of seats they deserve. It's just that smaller parties are getting more seats than we would expect if the system was perfectly proportional."375

Proposition 2: Groups that participated through extra-system channels in the authoritarian era possess different organizational characteristics immediately post- transition than groups that participated through within-system channels.

Table 4.4, below, lists the various opposition groups in Egypt under the Mubarak regime and their organizational characteristics.

374 Jandura 2011. 375 Jandura 2011.

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Table 4.4: Organizational Characteristics and Contestation Type Participation Legal Grassroots Organization Type Registration Presence Formal Informal Co-Optation Recruitment

Labor Unions x Communication x Infrastructure Within-

System Recruitment Parties x Communication Infrastructure Recruitment NGOs x Communication Infrastructure Recruitment Syndicates x Communication Infrastructure Extra-System Muslim Recruitment x Infrastructure Brothers Communication Recruitment Salafi Calling x Communication Infrastructure Jama’a Recruitment x Infrastructure Islamiyya Communication Recruitment Kifaya x Communication Infrastructure Recruitment April 6 Communication Infrastructure Source: Author interviews.

Within-System Contestation

As can be seen in Table 4.4, the organizational characteristics of the groups that participated through within-system channels are very similar. Labor unions, opposition political parties, NGOs, and professional syndicates were all legally registered organizations, granted permission to operate by the Mubarak regime. These groups all used formal organization for recruitment communication and infrastructure. Labor unions had offices for individual unions as well as a central office in the form of the ETUF.

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Political parties had offices in many of the governorates across the country. NGOs, while mostly located in Cairo, had formal offices, as did professional syndicates, which were located in all of Egypt’s governorates.

These groups used their formal structures for recruitment; labor unions utilized their employment venues and the union offices to gather annual dues and incorporate new members; political parties relied on walk-ins to their party offices for new members;

NGOs relied on individuals applying for employment or volunteer walk-ins for their activities and programs, and syndicates also used the formal professional registration and licensing requirements to incorporate their members.

The one way in which the organizational characteristics of groups in the co-optation and control categories differed is in regard to their grassroots presence. Neither political parties376 nor NGOs, had a grassroots presence. “The various tactics adopted by the government are intended to ensure that political parties do not develop to a level whereby their grassroots links would enable them to mobilize widespread support on their own behalf.”377 Members of the opposition political parties that I interviewed all expressed frustration at their inability to reach out the grassroots, which they attributed to the controls and restrictions imposed upon them by the regime:

"We don’t know how to connect to people!! We don’t have this ability."378

“The Wafd didn’t do this type of organization [used by the Muslim Brotherhood]

because the Wafd didn’t have personal ties with everyone. The Wafd depended on

the charisma of the leader and banners, fliers, etc."379

376 Author interview with a member of the Wafd party in Zagazig, Egypt. 8/15/2012, 1:30 PM. 377 Kassem 2004, 59. 378 Author interview with a member of the Wafd Party and party paper, Cairo, 11/2/2012, 7 PM 379 Author interview with a member of the Wafd Party, 10/18/2012, Cairo, 12:00 PM

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Respondents indicated that the lack of ability to reach out to the grassroots even impeded the ability of the opposition parties to gauge how many supporters they had.

"This is a big problem here. You have card-carrying members and you have other

supporters; you can’t count this correctly even now. You have old members and

new members and inactive members that are still members. Only the Muslim

Brotherhood knows how many members it has.380 "

Finally, members of the opposition parties expressed regret that they had not sufficiently reached out to professional syndicates and used them as “substitute sites” for contestation in the same manner as the Muslim Brotherhood had.381

“If we had worked in the previous years in entering all of these different groups

more effectively, we would have been much stronger.382 "

While NGOs were mostly located in Cairo and Alexandria, and lacked a grassroots presence, labor unions and professional syndicates are slightly different; both of these organizational types were of course composed of ordinary Egyptian workers and professionals (doctors, engineers, dentists, lawyers, etc.). So in that sense, these organizations had a grassroots presence. This is likely the reason that the Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak regimes made an effort to co-opt these two organizational forms in order to prevent them from becoming structures that could be used to mobilize their grassroots members all over the country.

Extra-System Contestation

380 Author interview with member of the Wafd Party, Alexandria, 12/2/2012, 7:30 PM. 381 The Wafd was also active in some syndicates, like the Bar Association, but not to the same extent as the MB. 382 Author interview with member of the Wafd Party and party paper, Cairo, 11/2/2012, 7 PM.

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The groups that participated through extra-system channels during the Mubarak regime had different characteristics than those that participated through within-system channels. First, none of these groups were legally registered making them by default illegal and subject to punishment for their activities. Even during periods of regime toleration, therefore, they were cautious about utilizing formal organizations too openly, as I described earlier when discussing the ways in which these groups obscured their connections to charitable organizations.

Regarding grassroots presence, the Muslim Brothers, the Salafi Calling and the

Islamic Group all had a grassroots presence. The Muslim Brothers carried out its activities throughout Egypt, with branches located in every province, and sub-branches located beneath that at the local level.383 As I discussed in the first half of the chapter, the

Brotherhood’s activities centered on middle class Egyptians, including professionals.384

This grassroots presence was not limited to spreading the message of Islam but also consisted in large part of the community-building and charitable activities discussed previously.

The Salafi Calling, too, had significant grassroots presence: while the group was headquartered in Alexandria, with its prominent leaders not allowed to travel outside of the city, the group spread outside of Alexandria as individual salafis travelled to the city to study under prominent Salafi preachers and then returned to their homes, spreading the message there too.385 As a result, the Salafi Calling had a grassroots presence throughout the country, in both rural areas and in lower-income neighborhoods of urban areas,

383 Author interview with Muslim Brotherhood leader, Alexandria, 7/24/2012, 3:00 PM. 384 Mitchell 1969; Wickham 2002. 385 Lacroix 2012.

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mostly clustered around mosques in which clusters of teacher-student groups were based.

As one Salafi from Alexandria explained to me,

“The Salafi Calling has sheikhs who are older, well known, well loved, people

like his sermons and he gains a following from this. Each area has a prominent

sheikh with followers."386

As I described in Chapter 3, the group also engaged in social service provision, with charities and hospitals throughout the country, especially in low-income areas.387

One way of observing the extensive grassroots presence of both the Muslim

Brotherhood and Salafi Calling is through their ability to run parliamentary candidates in nearly all electoral districts in Egypt. Egypt’s electoral rules stipulate that fifty percent of the People Assembly members must be either workers or farmers, and that each PR party list cannot have two consecutive non-workers or non-farmers.388 This rule puts those parties with a significant grassroots presence at an advantage because parties without a grassroots presence will have difficulty finding enough candidates to fulfill this list requirement. This is likely one reason that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling performed well, and is evidence of the extensive grassroots base of both groups.

With a more limited scope than the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafi Calling, al-

Jama’a al-Islamiyya was strongest in Middle and Upper Egypt,389 and at first focused on taking control of student union organizations in universities.390 In addition to their violent activities, the movement also "had always been keen to develop a real social base through

386 Author interview with Salafis, Alexandria, 8/14/2012, 10:30 PM. 387 Lacroix 2012. 388 IFES 2011. 389 Wickham 1997.

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day-to-day social and religious activities,”391 which made it distinct from other jihadi groups that only focused on violent opposition to the state.

Kifaya also had members throughout the country, though its exact numbers are hard to gauge and it, as well as the April 6 movement, remained centered in Cairo and were much smaller than the other groups, perhaps due to the fact that they were formed much later.

Regarding formal or informal organizational characteristics, the groups that participated through extra-system channels all employed informal interpersonal networks for the recruitment of new members and intra-group communication, in large part due to the periodic repression visited upon these groups by the regime. “The flexibility and decentralization of the parallel Islamic sector were not coincidental; rather, they reflect the Islamists’ efforts to evade government control.”392 While the Muslim Brotherhood had an official headquarters,393 it avoided other obvious formal organizational features that could be monitored and repressed. The movement developed a pyramidal structure connected horizontally at each level by intensive interpersonal bonds; beneath the

Guidance Bureau, the top of the pyramid, each province in Egypt had a leadership board; beneath that, there was a leadership unit at the district level, and a leadership unit at each sub-division of the district.394 Within each branch unit, the Brothers were grouped into so-called ‘families’ of 4-5 members, who engage in weekly activities together, observe each other, and socialize with each other.395 The outreach and da’wa activities took place

390 Mubarak 1997. 391 Lacroix 2012, 2. 392 Wickham 2002, 105. 393 Al-Awadi 2004. 394 Mitchell 1969 395 Author interview with Muslim Brotherhood leader, Alexandria, 7/24/2012 at 3:00 PM.

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through the different families of each branch, across Egypt. These features, and the people in each part of the structure, however, remained secret to anyone outside of the organization.

The Salafi Calling had a less structured and less centralized organization than the

Muslim Brotherhood. The group did establish an administrative council in Alexandria, along with branch councils throughout the country, but the most important organizational groupings were between religious teachers and their students. Due to their obvious appearance, members of the Salafi Calling report feeling ‘visible’ and ostracized, and avoided meeting in groups larger than 5 or 6 people for fear of arrest. Their primary interaction thus occurred in the mosque and study groups.396 The organization also utilized interpersonal networks, especially those between members of the same religious study groups, to mobilize members and pass information,397 and most of their activities remained ‘underground’. 398 The association with a particular mosque was based upon the sheikh who preached there and his religious outlook rather than any formal advertisement.

Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya had a guidance council of sorts but the majority of its leaders were jailed after the group began its violent activities.399 The movement was essentially “a tightly-knit group of several tens of thousands of activists, bound by common experiences of violent confrontation with the state,”400 as such operating largely through informal networks. Kifaya and April 6 were also informally organized groups of activists; as one Kifaya member in Tanta explained to me, “we were not centralized or

396 Author interviews with salafis in Cairo and Alexandria, summer and autumn 2012. 397 Author interviews with salafis in Cairo, November 2012. 398 Lacroix 2012. 399 Mubarak 1997.

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formally organized because it made it easier for state security to catch us or monitor us.

Sometimes we did not know who else was in the group until we showed up at protests.”401

In summary, when reviewing the organizational characteristics of these groups, it is clear that those groups that participated through within-system channels had very different organizational characteristics than those groups that participated through extra- system channels. These characteristics had consequences for their ability to mobilize supporters, as I explain in a following section.

Proposition 3: Groups that contested the Mubarak regime through extra-system channels are perceived as possessing more legitimacy and credibility prior to the revolution than groups that contested the regime through within-system channels.

In the absence of reliable public opinion polls, degree of “legitimacy” possessed by any group is difficult to measure. As a result, through over 100 interviews in Egypt, I repeatedly asked members of the full range of political groups what they thought

“legitimacy” means and whom they thought was the ‘legitimate’ opposition under the

Mubarak regime. I also gained a strong sense of this by living in lower- and middle- income neighborhoods in Alexandria.

Within-System Contestation

According to interviewees and scholarly sources, the groups that participated through within-system channels during the Mubarak regime were not perceived as

400 Lacroix 2012, 2 401 Author interview with a member of Kifaya in Tanta, Egypt. 9/6/2012, 7 PM.

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genuine political opposition, due to the attempted depoliticization of that group by the

Mubarak regime, the ineffectiveness of that group in achieving policy changes, and the group’s engagement with the regime.

The scholarly literature has touched on the topic of Egyptian political party legitimacy in several ways, albeit obliquely. Scholars have described the way in which restrictions on parties and electoral fraud have limited the efficacy of parties during the

Mubarak era. First, the parties that were permitted to form were typically unsuccessful at winning parliamentary seats, due to fraud and campaign restrictions, and were therefore viewed as useless. In a 1994 public opinion poll conducted by al-Ahram, only 36% of those polled said that they believed the political parties were useful.402 They were also viewed as co-opted by the Mubarak regime because “the legal opposition parties were so closely tied to the government (via their support for its campaign against Muslim militants) that their programs were hardly distinguishable from that of the NDP.”403

Even those that did win seats were unable to effect legislative change in the NDP- dominated parliament and were often seen by citizens as cooperating too closely with the regime. As Ellen Lust observed, “the very act of cooperation with the regime tarnished the opposition’s legitimacy and provided these leaders with incentives and opportunities that differed dramatically from those of their constituents.”404 As a result of the inability of political parties to effect change, many of the more dynamic political opposition leaders left party life altogether and attempted change through NGOs focused on narrow issues.405 Of those individuals that remained, political parties were reduced to “an interest

402 Lust 2005, 86. 403 Owen 1992, 154 cited in Kassem 2004, 62. 404 Lust 2005, 87. 405 Langohr 2004.

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group advocating particular interests in elite circles or promoting the fortunes of aspirant politicians hoping for co-optation.”406

These scholarly arguments were echoed in all of the interviews that I conducted; respondents did not see Mubarak-era political parties as “legitimate” opposition to the regime. They were either viewed as co-opted, or having made a secret bargain with the regime in order to gain their party license, for example, or they were viewed as being illegitimate for taking part in clearly fraudulent elections, therefore making the regime appear democratic. Younger activists described political parties as being “hollow”, unable for decades to effect change and yet giving credence to a system that was fraudulent and corrupt.

"When I say that Tagammu’ was connected to Mubarak I mean that before the

Mubarak regime started, we were the only party that opposed the nomination of

Mubarak for the presidency. In 1998 we were neutral, we stepped back and didn’t

express an opinion. We stopped opposing him. In 1990 there was a parliamentary

election and all the parties boycotted the election unless there was a new election

law for the free elections but the Tagammu’ decided to take part in the election. I

was one of four leaders who decided to call for a boycott in the elections and join

the rest of the opposing parties. But the majority decided to join the elections and

this was a big service to the regime. From 1990 until the revolution Rifa’at Said

was always opposing and attacking the Brotherhood in favor of the regime, which

created this impression for the Egyptian people that he is pro-Mubarak and that

attacks the Brotherhood to serve the regime."407

406 Hinnebusch 1990, 201 in Kassem 2004, 77. 407 Author interview with Abdel Ghafar Shokr, Tagammu’ Party, Cairo, 11/20/2012.

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“After the revolution, the people said that the old parties were working with the

past regime. This was a problem. You have to overcome this reputation. The older

parties suffered from this."408

“Before the revolution, these parties were in crisis because they were cooperating

with the regime. After the revolution they tried to regain its credibility and

popularity. But it didn’t manage to do this until now."409

Extra-System Contestation

In contrast to the groups that participated through within-system channels, groups that participated through extra-system channels were viewed as “legitimate” political opposition under the Mubarak regime. This legitimacy was derived from (1) the visible suffering they experienced at the hands of the regime; and (2) in the case of the Muslim

Brothers and the Salafi Calling, the charitable services they provided to their communities, resulting in what I call “substate performance legitimacy”.

Muslim Brotherhood

When asking interviewees who the legitimate political opposition was under the

Mubarak regime, both Muslim Brotherhood and non-Brotherhood respondents overwhelmingly answered that the Muslim Brothers were “true opposition.” The Muslim

408 Author interview with member of the Wafd Party, Alexandria, 12/2/2012, 7:30 PM. 409 Author interview with Abdel Ghafar Shokr, Tagammu’ Party, Cairo, 11/20/2012.

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Brothers suffered visibly,410 with a high numbers of its members arrested and tortured, and interviewees always mentioned this. Arrests were often nearly performative acts, with security force trucks rumbling down the street in the middle of the night, apartments raided, and men hauled away never to be seen again for years. The perception was that if a group suffers physical harm and imprisonment at the hands of the regime, that group must be “genuine”.

When I asked how people knew that a given individual was a Muslim Brother, they invariably responded with “because he was arrested” or “because he went to that mosque.” Physical suffering and religiosity were closely associated with members of the

Brotherhood and the assumption was made, if someone was arrested, that he was a member of the group. Even members of liberal political parties (and thus opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood after 2011) acknowledged that the Brotherhood and suffered severe repression and were therefore genuine opponents of the regime.

“People voted for them due to the fact that they had been opposing the regime

rather than being involved with the regime."411

"We didn’t surrender to corruption or injustice. We suffered from separation,

arrest, ..in order to connect with people and convince them of our ideas."412

“The majority of us were complaining but we were complaining inside our own

homes. They were on the front lines and were tortured and imprisoned.”413

410 Lacroix 2012. 411 Author interview with member of the MB, Cairo, 10/14/2012, 2:00 PM. 412 Author interview with member of the MB, Alexandria, 8/23/2012, 3:30 PM. 413 Author interview with member of the Wasat Party, Cairo, 11/24/2012, 7:00 PM.

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“People wanted to give them a chance. People felt they were the victims of

oppression for decades.”414

“The MB fought against the old regimes since Nasser, so they voted for them out

sympathy."415

"And they were imprisoned many times. They suffered a lot from the last

regime."416

“They got a sympathy vote also. They were real opposition before the revolution

so we should vote for them."417

In addition to the legitimacy they garnered as a result of their suffering, members of the Muslim Brotherhood also gained support through the group’s extensive charitable activities. The services provided by Muslim Brotherhood members of the professional syndicates after the 1992 earthquake is a case in point. At the same time that the state did not provide relief services, the Muslim Brotherhood was helping injured individuals, assisting families, and providing medical relief. Muslim Brothers also routinely provided charity within their own neighborhoods to needy families, to brides needing assistance

414 Author interview with leader of the Wasat Party, Cairo, 10/20/2012. 415 Author interview with member of the Wasat Party, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 7 PM. 416 Author interview with a leader of the Wasat Party, Alexandria, 8/29/2012, 2:00 PM. 417 Author interview with member of Masr al-Houreya Party, Alexandria, 8/26/2012, 3:30 PM.

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paying for weddings, to young couples needing assistance paying for apartments, and school supplies at food sold at lower rates in poor areas.

These charitable activities garnered a sort of performance legitimacy for the

Brotherhood; a fruit seller in Ibrahameya, a lower income area of Alexandria, remarked to me, “They were here for us and helped us for years. They were the only ones.” Thachil has also noted that what is significant about service provision by actors embedded within communities is that this service provision is not a transactional exchange but a way of building bonds of trust and personal relationships. These relationships are particularly potent in the context of poverty and the state’s inability to properly provide for its neediest citizens. In the face of state incapacity, charities and voluntary associations run by the Brotherhood demonstrated the viability, efficacy and morality of Islamic charitable associations.418 These perceptions were also highlighted in my interviews, in which respondents emphasized the personal bonds created by community-based service provision.

“Meat, oil, and rice don’t make people vote for you. The Muslim Brotherhood

really supports people and people feel they are behind them. The Brotherhood is

everywhere; they work hard with the people. They invite people to lectures in the

street and mosque. If you are middle class in the street, you will feel friendly

toward the Brotherhood as politicians, neighbors, and no other group appeared; no

one equals them. No other group is in the street working with the people. Other

418 Clark 2004; Wickham 2002.

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groups tried just giving goods but it didn’t work. You need a long-term

relationship. You have to know the person, hear about his service in the area."419

"The Brotherhood is interacting with all the problems of the people around them.

It is not only concerned with sugar and oil. The Brotherhood did social work.

They helped people all the time and helped them go to hospital and helped them

with materials for lessons all the time, not just around elections. When they help

you, the Brotherhood group handles the whole process from A to Z. They give

you courses in law, economics, all the fields, to qualify you and give you the

political awareness and tell you what was going on, and if you are too poor to

have a good appearance, they buy you suits."420

"We are very much convinced of the important idea of empowering people to help

them help themselves. Not just giving them money and leaving them. The idea of

empowering people is important, not just to give them money and leave. This was

very much remarkable activity of the Brotherhood. We were working for years

over the decades. this was a very important source of our good ties."421

"The Brotherhood had a general ideology and for 80 years were struggling against

the regime and people loved them and they were always against the Mubarak

regime. They were working among the people, getting deep in their problems.

419 Author interview with member of the Shafiq campaign and former NDP member, Cairo 10/13, 2012, 12:00 PM. 420 Author interview with three member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Cairo, 28 November 2012, 4 PM. 421 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, 11/22/2012, Cairo 10:30 AM.

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They feel the problems of the people; it wasn’t that they were buying them off

with oil. It was that they really want to help them.”422

"We have become a trademark for charity - even if I am not in the Brotherhood,

people say that “he is a good man like the Brothers.” We have become a

trademark for honesty and helping people."423

Finally, the Muslim Brotherhood possessed a high degree of symbolic legitimacy as a result of the highly salient mobilizing frames the movement used to explain its goals, highlight the injustice of the regime, and provide an alternate vision of society. “Islamist groups in Egypt [were] unified by their opposition to what they regard as a corrupt and un-Islamic political and social order, and by their alternative program based on

Sharia.”424 The Muslim Brotherhood highlighted the problems facing the vast majority of

Egyptians during the Mubarak era: corrupt politicians, police brutality, occupational dead ends, and miserable economic conditions and provided themselves as an alternative. The idea that ‘Islam is the solution’, as goes the Brotherhood’s slogan, was naturally appealing in its provision of meaning, hope, and an alternative vision of life and the afterlife. The Brotherhood also framed political and social engagement in terms that highlighted the duty of every individual to participate in the public sphere.425 In nearly all of the interviews that I conducted, people emphasized that the Muslim Brothers were

422 Author interview with member of the Wasat Party, Cairo, 11/24/2012, 7:00 PM. 423 Author interview with local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Giza, 11/24/2012, 5 PM. 424 Abdelrahman 2004, 111. 425 Rosefsky Wickham 2002.

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popular not because they were religious in and of itself, but because people equated religiosity with honesty, in contrast to the corruption of the regime and NDP members.

“Newspapers frequently report on the rapidly growing number of

multimillionaires and even billionaires in Egypt. While explicit accusations are

rarely made, the published stories tacitly imply some sort of corruption to explain

the vast accumulation of wealth by so few people, especially in a country where

over half the population struggles in poverty…Most businessmen accused of

corruption are NDP MPs. Businessman Mohamed Abu Al-‘Anein, owner of a

ceramics company and NDP member, notes that most businessmen enter politics

for power or parliamentary immunity, which delivers intractable protection

against legal investigations and accountability.”426

As “a member of the Labor Party explained to me, “people wanted a formerly oppressed person and at the same time someone who is Islamist because this means he will be against the corruption, and who was against the prior regime."427 A former member of the

NDP explained this perception in similar terms: “People believe they are honest because they are religious, they give a good image for politicians.”428

Salafi Calling

426 Arafat 2009, 72. 427 Author interview with leader of the Labor Party, Cairo, 10/18/2012, 2 PM. 428 Author interview with member of the Shafiq campaign and former NDP member, Cairo 10/13/2012, 12:00 PM.

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The Salafi Calling garnered symbolic legitimacy as a movement in a fashion similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood; they garnered legitimacy on the basis of the perceived discrimination against them, and as a result of the charity they provided in poor areas.

While they were not systematically repressed in the same way as the Muslim

Brotherhood, members of the Salafi movement reported feeling highly visible and vulnerable to discrimination because of their appearance and because of the mosques they prayed at, and feared arrest and torture at the hands of the regime.429 This perception was reinforced by my own time spent living in neighborhoods of Alexandria and Cairo. When

I asked friends and acquaintances why they said a given individual was a Salafi, the response was invariably, “You can tell by his beard” or “Because he takes lessons and prays at that mosque”. Respondents also repeated that salafis suffered at the hands of the regime and were persecuted for their religious views. One member of the Tagammu’

Party told me, “I asked a Salafi how he got votes and the Salafi said that it was because he spent time in prison and faced oppression and this is why he got votes. Next time they won’t vote for him because he wont have achieved anything."430

The Salafi Calling also garnered legitimacy through its charitable activities, much like the Muslim Brothers. Salafi charities included hospitals and schools that offered free or low-priced services to low-income families. When I asked community members how they knew that the hospital was a Salafi hospital, they always responded that they knew the owners or founders of the hospital, and they were Salafi. When I visited a Salafi hospital in Alexandria and a Salafi eye surgery clinic in Cairo, it was also clear from the appearance of the staff and the decoration of the facilities that they were conservative

429 Author interview with salafis in Alexandria, autumn 2012. 430 Author interview with Abdel Ghafar Shokr, Tagammu’ Party, Cairo, 11/20/2012.

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Muslims. Community members referred to these clinics as a gift, and said that the Salafis were the only ones taking care of them.

The Islamic Group

The Islamic Group was viewed as legitimate in the eyes of many Egyptians that I interviewed, due to its armed struggled against the Mubarak regime,431 although some people do speak of the group with hesitation due to their violent tactics. Many of the interviewees talked about their violence disapprovingly but always acknowledged that despite this, they were “genuine” opposition to the regime. Many people also talked about the suffering that members of the group suffered, with years in prison and many of the group members tortured. Despite the violence used by the group, interviewees also referenced the forceful repression and often-public humiliation that members of the group suffered. This humiliation was also reflected in stories told by members of the Islamic

Group themselves, who described public arrests in front of their communities. Those arrested for revenge killings of police officers explained their actions by saying that they were humiliated: “I killed him because he came and arrested my wife and dragged her into the street in her night-clothes in front of all the men to see.”432 Such actions — dragging an observant, unveiled woman out into the street — are the kinds of actions the regime committed against the Islamic Group, which otherwise silent community members witnessed and felt were unjust.

Kifaya and April 6

431 Lacroix 2012. 432 al-Zayat interview, 16 Feburary 2002, cited in Kassem 2004, 153.

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Kifaya was viewed as authentic opposition to the regime by most of my interviewees, with the exception of the younger activists, who described the group as defunct and out-of-date. Most interviewees, however, acknowledged that the group crossed the regime’s “red lines” in terms of public protest and activism. Those who described the group as “genuine” explicitly referred to the violence that the group suffered at the hands of security forces during the protests; the beatings, the stripping of female protestors, and the imprisonment of Kifaya members. Interviewees outside of

Cairo tended not to mention Kifaya as much, perhaps because most of the group’s activities were centered in Cairo.

The April 6 group was viewed as authentic opposition to the Mubarak regime, especially when discussing the 2011 uprising and labor protests in Mahalla al-Kobra.

Interviewees mentioned the group’s role in coordinating protests on January 25, 2011 as indicative of their legitimate opposition. Interviewees also mentioned the beatings that the April 6 members suffered as reason for calling them “true” opposition.

In summary, ordinary Egyptians tended to view within-system political participation as ineffective, too close to the regime (thereby likely receiving regime benefits) or legitimating a regime that they viewed as corrupt and unjust. In contrast, my interviewees and those living in my community viewed groups — even groups whose ideology they did not share — as being legitimate if they suffered visible repression, such as beatings, torture, arrests and humiliation at the hands of the regime. The words used to describe these groups included terms such as “true” and “genuine”. They also viewed the

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Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling as legitimate due to the social services and charitable activities they undertook in their communities.

Proposition 4: Parties that emerged from groups that contested the Mubarak regime through extra-system channels will utilize different electoral strategies (reflecting different organizational capabilities) than pre-existing political parties or entirely new parties.

Table 4.5: Mobilizational Strategies in 2011 Elections Flyers, Outreach Outreach Knock- Micro- Outreach Street Banners to “big through on-door voter to women Conferences families” mosques campaign tracking

FJP

Coalition Freedom & X X X X X X X Justice Al-Karama X X X X X X X Al-Hadara X X X X X X X Labor X X X X X X X

Nour

Coalition Al-Nour X X X X Building & X X X X X Development Al-Asala X X X X

Al-Wafd X X X

Egyptian Bloc Coalition Tagama’u X X X Social Democratic X X Party Ghad X X

The Free X X Egyptians Reform & X X Development Wasat X X Revolution X X Continues

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Egypt X X National Egyptian X X Citizen Freedom X X Union X X Al-Adl X X Democratic X X Peace Arab Egyptian X X Union Nasserite X X Free Egypt X X Socialist X X

As Table 4.5 shows, the parties that emerged from groups that participated through extra-system channels utilized very different mobilizational strategies, reflecting a greater grassroots presence and the ability to utilize interpersonal linkages. I examine each of these mobilizational strategies in turn. First, all parties used street conferences and distributed flyers, handouts and pamphlets. These were campaign strategies used by every political party that I interviewed and are an easy and relatively low-cost tools for smaller or poorly funded parties. These strategies also do not require any knowledge of the community or neighborhood, nor do they require interpersonal skills, a fact that prior opposition parties noted in my interviews.

"The important factor is how to interact with people; it is important how close you

are to people. We were not close to them.”433

"The Wafd had no role in the street before. So it was really hard after 25 years in

the party to connect to people in the street."434

433 Author interview with member of the Wafd Party, Cairo, 11/5/2012, 1 PM.

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"In the past the regime pressured us. Now, our position was weak in politics and

the street and this was the main problem for us…Media - ads on television were

very important."435

"The biggest mistake before and after the revolution (most of the parties did this)

is to try to make a campaign that tries to get all the people to vote for us. We

didn’t target a certain sector of people to vote for us. None of the parties have

tried to make their thoughts clearer to the people. It wasn’t a campaign depending

on thoughts. It was depending on printing more papers, making banners."436

“We had posters, banners, flyers, street walks, and television appearances in

Cairo. We were the best at nothing because our campaign in Alexandria was a

total failure. The problems are so many. The money was too short, time was too

short, organization wasn’t good."437

“The Brotherhood had credit in the street; since the 1987 elections they had credit

in the street and among the people. There was only 7 months in 2011 available for

election preparation so the Wasat party didn't have the same credit so we used our

media and big personalities and street conferences in the party offices and tried to

reach voters that way."438

434 Author interview with member of the Wafd, Zagazig, 8/15/2012, 1:30 PM. 435 Author interview with member of the Wafd Party and party paper, Cairo, 11/2/2012, 7 PM. 436 Author interview with member of the Wafd, Cairo, 10/18/2012, 12:00 PM. 437 Author interview with leader of the Wasat Party, Alexandria, 8/29/2012, 2:00 PM.

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While all parties used flyers and posters, the interesting variation in mobilization strategies emerges when examining the micro-mobilizational strategies; I term these

“micro-mobilization” because they required one-on-one or face-to-face persuasion and knowledge of the community.

Organized at community level

The Muslim Brotherhood and Nour parties were the only ones that utilized community-level ties to organize and run campaigns. Most parties tried to have local offices that coordinated the campaigns during the electoral season, but they could not maintain a presence at the local level in all governorates. The Muslim Brotherhood and

Salafi Calling benefited from their grassroots presence as they were able to call upon their supporters and organization members at the grassroots level to run campaigns and reach out to community members.

“The Brotherhood had personal ties with every member of the Brotherhood and

many members in their communities and tried to make personal contact with

people to make them go vote."439

“The area where the candidate lives is responsible for the publicity of their

candidate. We had a committee for running the campaign. The committee made

all the decisions about the campaign. There was also an organization/hierarchy for

438 Author interview with member of the Wasat Party, Cairo, 11/6/2012, 3 PM. 439 Author interview with member of the Wafd, 10/18/2012, Cairo, 12:00 PM.

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the whole campaign at the national level but each area had their own support

hierarchy for each candidate."440

"The Brotherhood has at least one in two members in every street and this

diminishes the expenses of the elections because the members of the group just

donate materials and time. It depends on the human resources more than the

material resources.”441

“We didn’t really need to campaigns like other parties because people knew us

and they liked us because of our service and we knew all of their problems. We

shared with them their moments of happiness and all this made us win their votes.

People would search for the candidate of the Brotherhood and give him his

vote."442

"You can say that in any campaign - state or local - most of the people are not

paid. they are volunteers. they like that because they believe in that. We have a lot

of work done for free for us. And this is the difference. Secondly, we have direct

connection with the people."443

"You can say that the main thing that made the Nour party successful is personal

contact. This is their core. Most of the people who ran for the party were religious

440 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Giza, 11/24/2012, 5 PM. 441 Author interview with 3 Ikhwan, Cairo, 11/28/2012, 4 PM. 442 Author interview with 3 Muslim Brothers, Cairo, 28 November 2012, 5:30 PM. 443 Author interview with local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Giza, 11/24/2012, 5 PM

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men and most of the time they were the Sheikh of the mosque in popular areas. He

is known for his religious views. All conservatives can vote for him because they

know him and he is conservative by nature. Mostly personal contact and all the

knowledge and trust that a candidate gets from that."444

Outreach Through Mosques

The accusation that Al-Nour and the FJP used Imams to urge people to vote for either party was widespread in Egypt. However, when I interviewed people more closely about this, nearly everybody told me that Imams did indeed urge people to vote, but did not name parties; I was told that they urged people to vote for “good Muslims” and that voters interpreted this individually. It is impossible to know without a large survey of

Egyptian voters, but in examining the range of parties drawing on Islam and running on an Islamist platform, it is likely that all such parties would benefit from calls to vote for good Muslims. One member of the Salafi Calling in Alexandria said that some members of the Nour party did talk about elections in the mosques, primarily because the mosque- based networks of teacher-student groups were where these individuals spent their time.

However, not all of the Islamist parties performed equally well in the elections, leaving other variation likely to be more important. Furthermore, those benefiting from the label

“good Muslims” are likely those groups that were “visible” as Muslims and who suffered as a result of their presumed “Islamist” activities — Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Islamic Group.

"In Mubarak’s time we [of the Labor Party] were working in the mosques - they

arrested us many times. But now we think that there is no reason to go to

444 Author interview with member of the Wafd, 10/18/2012, Cairo, 12:00 PM.

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mosques; if I can arrange and organize a rally in the streets or in any hall or

theater why go to a mosque? Let the mosque be calm for people to pray. In

general we don’t think parties should do this for elections. We didn’t do this in

2011."445

“Salafis have members and masses around them in their mosques; they have their

own mosques and it is better than a party headquarters."446

Knock-On-Door Campaign

The knock-on-the door campaign is something that multiple Muslim Brotherhood members explained to me when I interviewed them about their campaign strategies.

Members of the Brotherhood would canvass their neighborhoods and go door-to-door, talking about the Freedom and Justice Party and urging the household to vote for the FJP.

Al-Nour members described a similar outreach strategy (although they did not have a name for it), whereby members of the party would walk around their neighborhoods, speaking to community members, shop-owners and residents. Coalition partners of the

FJP and Nour parties would have benefited from this same strategy, as they ran on the same lists. No other political party that I interviewed carried out any door-to-door community outreach program like this.

Individual Voter Tracking

445 Author interview with leader of the Labor Party, Cairo, 11/5/2012, 4:45 PM 446 Author interview with leader of the Labor Party, Cairo, 11/5/2012, 4:45 PM.

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Individual voter tracking is a strategy that the Freedom and Justice Party carried out in much the same fashion as their community outreach activities. Each Brotherhood member selected a certain number of friends and family — typically 5-25 individuals — and then would contact, persuade and follow up with that individual repeatedly throughout the campaign season, and right up until election day. They periodically reported on this number and on the status of their persuasive attempts to the other members of their usra and to their branch office. No other political party that I interviewed conducted such a campaign. One Brotherhood member told me that this was a method that the Brotherhood developed during the Mubarak-era campaigns as a sort of parallel vote tabulation procedure in addition to a mobilization method.

“We were not successful all the time; sometimes people cannot reach ten people

but it was like we imagined that in order to be able to win, we had to get these

votes. We have 50 Brotherhood members in this district and all the votes in this

district are a certain number and so we calculate that we should each convince 10

people to vote for us. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. some people

can get 20 votes and others can’t get any."447

"Yes this is correct. If people can do 50 or 100 or whatever. It depends on what

they are able to do. Each person has a committed group of acquaintances that they

get to vote and they encourage them to vote throughout the campaign. We asked

who went to vote and who actually voted for us. Before the revolution there was

447 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, 11/22/2012, Cairo 10:30 AM.

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always fraud and this is why they tried to keep track so that they can have the

actual numbers."448

"Yes, this same system was used since 1986 - each person got a certain number of

people to vote."449

"Everyone is responsible for telling a certain number (1-10 for example) of people

to vote for the Brotherhood and then reports to his superior that he told ten people

today to vote. That’s why they had the exact numbers when Morsi won. They

report twice - once before the elections about how many they think they

convinced, and then the next time after the elections they report on whether their

acquaintances they voted for Morsi or not."450

“We interact with people to get votes, to get personal commitments for votes from

people. Each person has a target to get 50 votes from their friends, their relatives,

their family. Each Brotherhood member in Alexandria is, say, 10,000 people, and

then each of those 10,000 people tries to get 50 votes for a candidate."451

“The Wafd didn’t to this method. We couldn’t. The Brotherhood did this.”452

448 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Doctors’ Syndicate, Cairo, 10/15/2012, 4 PM. 449 Author interview with member of the MB, Cairo, 10/14/2012, 2:00 PM. 450 Author interview with member of the Pharmacists’ syndicate and Muslim Brotherhood, Tanta, 9/6/2012, 4:30 PM. 451 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Alexandria, 8/23/2012, 3:30 PM. 452 Author interview with Mahmoud Abazza, Wafd, Cairo, 11/14/2012, 2:00 PM.

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"We didn’t use the personal network strategy that the Brotherhood used."453

Outreach to Women

Finally, the Muslim Brotherhood carried out a specific campaign using its female members and targeting households in lower-income areas. Female Brotherhood members went door-to-door in certain neighborhoods and entered households to speak to women within that household, gaining access that many male non-family members would not have. These female Brotherhoods members talked to household members about why they and their husbands/fathers/brothers/sons should vote for the Freedom and Justice Party.

No other political party that I interviewed carried out such a campaign.

"The women worked continuously during the whole year overall; women do more

activities than men because they have more time than the men and have more time

to deal with the people so during the elections they are already used to dealing

with people and do more work with them."454

"The MB would make use of women to convince people to vote for the

Brotherhood. A woman would approach a man to tell him that I am from the

Brotherhood, we were put in prison, oppressed, and familiarize themselves and

with how this affected her, her husband and so on.”455

453 Author interview with leader of Wasat Party in East Cairo, 11/3/2012. 454 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, 11/24/2012, 5 PM, Giza. 455 Author interview with member of the Wafd Party, Cairo, 11/5/2012, 1 PM.

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“Women have stronger ties socially because women have stronger ties with other

people and men are in work always. Women may have stronger ties with their

neighbors."456

Summary

Thus, in summarizing the results of Table 4.6, the groups that participated through extra- system channels under the Mubarak regime had different organizational capabilities and were therefore able to use different mobilizational strategies than groups that participated through within-system channels. These same strategies — micro-mobilizational strategies

— required the prior development of interpersonal networks and persuasion techniques, which are characteristics of groups that are repressed and operate through informal networks rather than formal structures.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter evaluated both the puzzles of party formation — labor party non-formation the non-formation of a political party by pro-reform activists groups — as well as the puzzles regarding how repressed opposition groups were able to successfully mobilize supporters in the 2011 founding elections. In both cases, I have been able to provide evidence that supports the basic propositions that I put forward in Chapter 2, while simultaneously evaluating alternative explanations for my theory.

First, the non-formation of a labor party by Egypt’s labor movement is indeed due to the fact that the regime was co-opted by the Mubarak regime. While labor unions were able to mobilize protests against various economic policies of the Mubarak regime, the

456 Author interview with member of the Muslim Brotherhood, 11/22/2012, 10:30 AM.

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basic tenor of these protests was economic, voicing demands that the regime fulfill its side of the corporatist bargain. Upon Mubarak’s ousting, therefore, the labor movement has sought to renegotiate its relationship with the state through existing institutional structures, rather than form a political party. Data on pro-reform activist groups also supports the theory. Due to the structure of the political opposition under the Mubarak regime — specifically, the existence of opposition political parties — both Kifaya and

April 6 shared their membership base with existing opposition parties and other social movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Not only did the members have ties to other organizations, but those other parties and groups also represented ideological orientations more developed than simply being pro-reform or anti-Mubarak. Upon

Mubarak’s ousting, many of the members of Kifaya and April 6 were drawn away to pre- existing political parties or opposition groups that represented specific ideological orientations and both pro-reform organizations splintered, thus losing the cohesion that would have been required to form a political party.

The outcomes of political mobilization in the lead-up to the Egyptian 2011 elections were also determined in large part by the authoritarian political opposition structure of the Mubarak era. Who was permitted to participate through within-system channels and who was forced to participate through extra-system channels determined who was best able to mobilize supporters during founding elections. The Muslim

Brotherhood and Salafi Calling were not successful in mobilizing supporters due to a simple one-to-one relationship between their identity as religious political parties and the fact that the Egyptian population is predominantly Muslim. Instead, these groups’

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religious identities contributed to the perception that they were honest — in contrast to the corruption of the Mubarak regime, and thus that they were trustworthy.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling also possessed distinct organizational characteristics — specifically informal networks and a grassroots presence — that both groups developed in response to the repression used against them by the Mubarak regime.

These organizational characteristics aided both groups in their mobilization efforts, as exemplified by the campaign strategies used by both parties. Furthermore, the repression used against both groups endowed them with an “oppositional credibility” in which they were viewed with sympathy, as actors that truly challenged the authoritarian regime, rather than cooperated with it. This credibility was a powerful persuasive resources that also enabled both groups to mobilize supporters, as was also indicated by both groups’ campaign strategies.

Admittedly, the Muslim Brotherhood’s success in mobilizing supporters was rather over determined. In addition to oppositional credibility and organizational resources, the group also had electoral experience and likely considerable financial resources that aided the group in mobilizing supporters. In Chapter 5, the analysis of Tunisian political mobilization weeds out these alternate explanations and isolates the role of the two central mechanisms — organizational resources and oppositional credibility — as leading to the success of the Nahda movement in Tunisia’s 2011 elections. Before expanding on the analysis of Egypt and examining how the theory travels in other contexts, however, it is necessary to say a word about a question many readers may be wondering: what happens to these groups after founding elections?

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A Word on Legacies Beyond Founding Elections

Authoritarian legacies have powerful effects on the reconstitution of political participation after authoritarian collapse. How long do these legacies last? Egypt- watchers, particular, may think of the events in June 2013, when the Muslim Brotherhood suffered a nosedive in popularity and President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a military coup. The question of the duration of the effects of authoritarian legacies, specifically how long the fortunes of opposition groups continue to be shaped by prior legacies, is an important question, empirically and theoretically. Theoretically, the question of the duration of legacies is a point often left unaddressed in accounts of historical legacies.457 Empirically, many of the groups that win founding elections dissolve soon after these elections, while others survive. What accounts for this variation?

While the main focus of this dissertation is on the processes of the reconstitution of political participation during a brief juncture — that of the period between regime collapse and founding elections — what happens to opposition groups beyond that juncture, and their interaction not just with authoritarian elites but authoritarian institutions, is an important one. Chapter 7 examines how legacies of the political opposition structure continue to shape events after founding elections — who survives and who does not — as well as the way in which these groups are shaped by former authoritarian elites and institutions as the processes of democratic consolidation, or, alternatively, authoritarian retrenchment, take hold.

Before addressing the period beyond founding elections, however, Chapter’s 5 and 6 examine the processes of party formation and political mobilization in the other cases of

this study.

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Chapter 5

The Revival of Political Participation in Dominant-Party Contexts:

Tunisia & Brazil

Introduction

Tunisia’s now-famous 2011 democratic transition was spurred by mass demonstrations that began in a poor, provincial city in the interior of Tunisia, far from the more affluent, tourism-funded coastal cities. Brazil’s transition, in contrast, was elite-led and gradual, leading to a negotiated transition after fair (albeit not free) elections in 1982. Despite these differences, both authoritarian regimes were dominant-party ones, where a select group of opposition political parties was permitted to contest the regime through within- system channels.

This chapter expands the analysis of the revival of political participation after a long-term authoritarian regime beyond Egypt. Tunisia serves as a shadow case for Egypt, with a parallel political opposition structure, similarly situated mass uprisings, and geographic proximity. Brazil serves as another case of a dominant-party authoritarian opposition structure, albeit one with only a single opposition political party. Both cases provide confirmation of the theory of party formation beyond the case of Egypt. As in

Egypt, Tunisia had a robust labor union federation, the Tunisian General Labor Union

(UGTT), which was highly active in mobilizing strikes and protests during the Ben ‘Ali regime. The UGTT, like the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, did not form a labor party after the revolution. In contrast, the case of Brazil shows how variation in the opposition structure leads to different outcomes. The Brazilian trade unions were not co-opted by the

457 Grzymala-Busse 2011.

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military regime, which instead allied with wealthy industrialists. Trade unions mobilized extensively in the lead-up to the transition and formed the Worker’s Party prior to founding elections.

This chapter also provides further insight into post-authoritarian political mobilization in cases outside of Egypt. The structure of the political opposition under

Tunisia’s Ben ‘Ali — dominant-party authoritarianism — and the outcome of an opposition group winning founding elections provides a case with parallel values on both the independent and dependent variables, making Tunisia an ideal case through which to test the conclusions established through the examination of Egypt. Furthermore, al-

Nahda’s electoral success in Tunisia offers an opportunity to search for confirming or disconfirming evidence of the mechanisms that I argue underlie political mobilization in the lead-up to founding elections and shed further light on the Muslim Brotherhood’s mobilizational success.

According to my theory, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood possessed the characteristics of successful political opposition movements that convert into a political party, both oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence. However, the group also possessed a hierarchical organizational structure and internal discipline, electoral experience, and a range of societal charitable organizations that lent the group support amongst the population, meaning that its success is potentially over determined. In contrast, due to a higher level of everyday repression in Ben ‘Ali-era Tunisia relative to Egypt, al-Nahda had neither a highly organized structure prior to 2011, nor did it have a network of

Islamic voluntary associations that lent general goodwill toward the organization. Al-

Nahda, therefore, offers the opportunity to test the explanatory weight of oppositional

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credibility and grassroots presence; despite lacking the factors that over determine the

Muslim Brotherhood’s success in Egypt, Al-Nahda only possessed oppositional credibility and an informally organized grassroots presence, as I demonstrate in the following sections. Thus, the parallel values of the independent and dependent variables, in addition to the absence of over-determining additional mechanisms that could lead to electoral success, allow us to test my propositions with respect to Egypt, and lead to a confirmation of my theory.

Brazil, in contrast, offers a slightly different opposition structure and a mixed outcome. Brazil’s opposition structure shifted over time, as the military regime allowed the within-system opposition party greater leeway within which to establish a grassroots presence. However, after the MDB’s surprising 1974 electoral gains, the regime subjected all opposition groups, not just extra-system opposition, to repression, endowing both the MDB and the extra-system opposition (labor unions) with oppositional credibility. The results of the 1982 founding elections show that oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence may be necessary but are not sufficient for electoral victory, thus helping to show the limits of the argument and identify areas for future research.

The following sections conduct a structured, focused comparison of (1) the authoritarian-era political opposition structures in Tunisia and Brazil; (2) the processes of party formation by opposition groups in these two regimes; and (3) the processes of political mobilization in the lead-up to the founding elections in both countries. I utilize data gathered from over 40 interviews with political party members, professional syndicate members, civil society activists and Islamists conducted in Tunis in the summer of 2013, as well as secondary source material on Brazil, to demonstrate that the political

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opposition structure, rather than other commonly-cited factors, such as money, religion, or electoral rules, explains the outcomes of party formation and the variation in mobilizational success among the different political parties.

TUNISIA (2011)

Authoritarian Era Political Opposition Structure

Zine al-Abedine Ben ‘Ali seized power in a bloodless coup from President Habib

Bourguiba in 1987. Upon coming into office, Ben ‘Ali at first appeared to reverse the authoritarian policies of his predecessor, amnestying and releasing thousands of imprisoned members of the opposition, ratifying the United Nations’ convention on torture, and employing rhetoric that championed human rights and democracy.458 A subsequent crackdown in the early 1990s reversed many of the cosmetic liberalization measures. Ben ‘Ali co-opted one segment of the potential political opposition, permitted selective within-system contestation, which he carefully controlled, and used a mixture of tolerance and repression to constrain opposition actors who contested the regime through extra-system channels. This opposition structure, as I demonstrate later in this chapter, conditioned the processes of both party-formation and political mobilization in the lead- up to the 2011 founding elections.

Co-optation

In parallel to the case of Egypt, the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) was a corporatist structure that centralized and controlled organized labor in exchange for a set

458 Alexander 2010.

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of selective benefits.459 The UGTT was given a prominent policy-making position during the Bourguiba regime after independence, with UGTT members allowed to sit in

Bourguiba’s legislative assembly.460 Since the Bourguiba era, therefore, the state exerted control over the UGTT in several ways. The UGTT was organized as a peak organization, with the UGTT leadership extending centralized control largely at the direction of the regime. Strikes had to be given prior approval by union leadership, as part of an attempt to limit the organization’s activist potential.461 As a result, during the

Ben Ali regime there was significant and regular conflict between union rank-and-file members and UGTT leadership over the policies that the UGTT should support and the ability of regular members to organize strikes against Ben Ali’s economically liberal reforms.462

Within-System Contestation

Tunisia under Ben Ali was a dominant-party regime; opposition parties were permitted to exist. Several opposition parties ran candidates against the dominant party — the

Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) — in both legislative and presidential elections.

These included the Movement of Socialist Democrats, the Tunisian Communist Workers’

Party, the Popular Unity Movement, and the Tajdid (Renewal) Movement.463 Despite the existence of these parties, which had platforms and ideological positions distinct from the

RCD, they were too small to win more than the 75% threshold in any district required for a seat in parliament, a rule created by Ben Ali to ensure that RCD candidates always

459 Sadiki 2008, 120. 460 Alexander 2010; Bellin 2002. 461 Cavallo 2008. 462 Cavallo 2008.

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won.464 However, upon changes to the electoral law in 1994, which set aside 25 percent of legislative seats specifically designated for the opposition, opposition political parties were not able to challenge the fundamental stability of the regime, but they were able to express distinct policy positions and offer muted opposition to Ben Ali.465 As in Egypt, the Ben ‘Ali regime tightly controlled the outreach and activities of political parties, constraining their electoral campaigns and preventing them from having any genuine impact.

Extra-System Contestation

Al-Nahda

One of the central opposition groups during the Ben Ali regime, and one subjected to severe repression, was the Islamic Renaissance movement (Nahda), founded in 1972 by

Rachid Ghannouchi.466 Islamist groups in Tunisia began to constitute a political force after the Iranian revolution; in the subsequent decade they became very popular at the grassroots level due to their criticism of Ben Ali’s economic policies and the “state elite’s

Europhilic and Francophone cultural orientation.”467 The most prominent of these groups was the Nahda movement, which had a journal, an organized structure, mass popular support, and a well-known leader, Ghannouchi.468 In 1981, the group announced that it would attempt to form a legal political party, but was denied permission to do so by the

463 Ibid. 464 Alexander 1997, 1. 465 ICG Middle East/North Africa Report No. 106. 466 Allani 2009. 467 Bellin 2002, 118. 468 Ibid, 118.

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Bourguiba regime, which then imprisoned most of its leaders. Many of these individuals were released from prison when Ben ‘Ali came to power and amnestied political prisoners. However, in 1987, Ben Ali refused to allow the group to form a political party and when its members ran as independents in the first elections during his regime in

1989, they won 14.5 percent of the vote, three times more than any other opposition party.469 In addition to participating electorally, the Nahda movement also mobilized protests against the Ben Ali regime, most visibly during the 1990 Gulf War.470 In a series of military tribunals in 1991 and 1992, the regime managed to decimate the movement, imprisoning a huge number of its members, outlawing the group, subjecting suspected sympathizers to devastating repression and surveillance.471

In parallel to Egypt, when al-Nahda was prevented from taking part in elections, the group began societal outreach to Tunisian universities and participation in activist through activist unions. This move engage in student activism and union activism also coincided with the Ben ‘Ali’s decision to systematically shut down mosques associated with the movement.472 According to one member of al-Nahda, “At the end of the 1980s we began political work and we gained experience from the university activism because many members from al-Nahda belonged to the university and of course had some conflict with other political streams, which raises the political intelligence."473 According to the same member of al-Nahda, “The unions were a source of freedom, a way to oppose the

469 Langohr 2004. 470 Allani 2009. 471 “Tunisia: Routine Muzzling of Dissent”; Langohr 2004; Freedom House 1999; Jourchi 2010. 472 Waltz 1986, 656. 473 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/25/2013, 1:30 PM.

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regime. Unions are an example of the co-existence of the different streams in society, which explains many of al-Nahda’s members acting through the unions.”474

Finally, al-Nahda also engaged in charity during the Ben ‘Ali regime, although the sense that I got from the interviews that I conducted was that these activities were carried out on a much more small-scale, atomized basis than the charitable activities carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling in Egypt. This is due to the fact that the

Ben ‘Ali regime repressed the Nahda movement much more severely and systematically than did the Mubarak regime, as I discuss below. One member of al-Nahda described the way in which the group took part in charitable activities:

“We visited some people and made social services; we helped needy people with

basic needs and we tried to do this for any poor person. When I was young I was

sent to hand out basic goods to children in the neighborhood on my bicycle.

Everyone did these activities in their own neighborhoods. Because of the regime,

we did these things in secret and we told the people that we helped, “Don’t talk

about it.” We would put money under neighbors’ doors in secret. Or we would

give the children of poor people money to give to their parents."475

In addition to al-Nahda, two other opposition political parties were denied the permission to form a political party: the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party and the

Congress for the Republic (CPR). The members of CPR in particular gained a reputation for activism through protests and demonstrations, alongside activist members of the

UGTT. Moncef Marzuki, who would become the party president after Ben ‘Ali was

474 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/25/2013, 1:30 PM. 475 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 5:00 PM.

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ousted from power, gained a reputation in particular for organizing protests against the regime. Members of CPR party were jailed as a result of their activism.

Labor Activism & Protest

In a parallel to Egypt, individual union activists, who were dissatisfied with the UGTT’s co-optation and lack of opposition to regime policies, utilized the UGTT’s structure to contest the regime through extra-system channels, mobilizing workers at the branch and regional level despite orders to the contrary by leadership in Tunis.476 Union rank-and- file also used unions in public sector companies, such as Tunisair and Tunisie Telecom to organize general strikes and force company management to condone the strikes, in conflict with UGTT heads, in order to preserve the support of the management’s ostensive base (rank-and-file members in the company).477 Beginning in the 1970s as worker discontent increased, the UGTT became increasingly activist, organizing wildcat strikes and other protests against government economic policies. The largest of these under Bourguiba’s regime occurred in 1977 and 1978, when a general strike in January

1978 resulted in clashes between security services that killed over 200 and injured more than 1,000.478 In response to these strikes, the Bourguiba regime once again gave the

UGTT influence in economic policy making.479 Branch, regional, and public sector unions increasingly used this power under Ben Ali, including in prominent, and violent, strikes in 2008 and in 2010 in the mining region of Gafsa, both of which were seen as

476 Cavallo 2008. 477 Cavallo 2008. 478 Alexander 2010. 479 Alexander 2010.

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precursors to the 2011 Tunisian uprising.480 In the December 2010-January 2011 uprising itself, various UGTT unions played a similarly central role in organizing protests. The initial protests in Sidi Bouzid were coordinated by the local branches of the secondary school union, the postal workers union, and the health workers union, and the spread of protests from Sidi Bouzid to surrounding towns was similarly aided by union coordination.481 Unions coordinated strikes in Tunis, Sousse, Monastir, and Jendouba, and a UGTT-organized general strike on January 14 was launched on the same day that

Ben ‘Ali fled the country.482 Finally, like Egypt’s professional syndicates, the UGTT also became a “substitute site”483 for political activity by those who felt the political parties were too constrained, and a forum for political dissent and debate.484

Regime response: repression and toleration

The Ben ‘Ali regime was less tolerant of extra-system contestation than the Mubarak regime. During the 1990s, Ben ‘Ali devoted an increasing number of resources to the internal security forces and increasingly relied on the police and coercive apparatus to repress dissent.485 Tunisian human rights activists charged the government with a number of offenses, including torture, blackmail using fabricated stories about people’s personal lives, the monitoring of social media accounts, the seizure of opponents’ passports, falsified detention records enabling the police to hold prisoners for indefinite periods of time, and physical assaults on demonstrators.486 Al-Nahda was treated with particular

480 Arief 2012. 481 ICG Middle East/North Africa Report No. 106 482 ICG Middle East/North Africa Report No. 106. 483 See Garretón 1986 on the concept of “substitute sites” for political activity. 484 Cavallo 2008; Langohr 2004; Sadiki 2008, 120. 485 Alexander 2010, 64. 486 Alexander 2010, 64.

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brutality in the early 1990s after some Islamist groups attacked the office of the ruling

RCD party in the Tunis neighborhood of Bab Souika and the regime arrested over 8,000 people between 1990 and 1992.487 One member of al-Nahda described to me the treatment of Nahda members who were arrested:

"My sister was carrying out charitable activities and she was arrested. She was

stripped and put naked into prison and she was violated verbally and physically.

They told her, ‘Since you are a well-reputed person in the area, we will make you

even well-known as a whore.’”488

The regime’s repression of extra-system contestation led many of these groups to organize themselves through informal networks at the grassroots, which would later have consequences for the revival of participation after Ben ‘Ali’s ouster, as I discuss in the next section.

Summary

In this section I have provided an overview of the political opposition structure under the

Ben ‘Ali regime. As a dominant-party regime, Ben ‘Ali permitted a select number of opposition parties to contest the regime through within-system channels, although he tightly controlled this contestation through electoral rules and constraints on political parties themselves. Ben ‘Ali also attempted to remove organized labor from the political opposition by continuing the Bourguiba-era system of co-optation that provided the

UGTT with a set of privileges and benefits in exchange for cooperation. Those excluded from within-system contestation — al-Nahda, labor activists dissatisfied with the

487 Alexander 1997, 2. 488 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 5:00 PM.

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UGTT’s co-optation, and illegal political parties — contested the regime instead through extra-system channels: grassroots social activism and protest. The regime repressed this extra-system contestation severely, imprisoning political opponents, torturing prisoners and beating protesters. This political opposition structure in turn shaped the processes of party formation and political mobilization by political actors between Ben ‘Ali’s ousting in January 2011 and the Constitutional Assembly elections in October of that same year. I address each of these below.

Party Formation

After Ben ‘Ali fled the country on January 14, 2011, a caretaker government was instituted, made up of the former Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi; this later was dissolved, along with the ruling RCD party, in response to continuing protests. Elections for the Constitutional Assembly were held in October 2011 in which a very larger number of new parties, alongside Ben Ali-era opposition parties, competed. The Nahda

Party reconstituted itself after years of repression, and competed alongside a number of

Ben Ali-era opposition parties. Despite its history of collective activism, however, the

UGTT did not form into a political party.

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Table 5.1: Tunisian Opposition Groups and Party Formation PRE-2011 GROUP GROUP TYPE PARTY FORMATION POST-2011 Etajdid (Renewal) Movement Opposition Party Etajdid Movement Socialist Democratic Movement Opposition Party -- Party of People’s Unity Opposition Party -- Progressive Democratic Party Opposition Party Progressive Democratic Party Social Liberal Party Opposition Party -- Unionist Democratic Union Opposition Party -- Democratic Bloc for Freedom Opposition Party -- Tunisian Communist Workers Party Illegal Opposition Party Tunisian Communist Workers Party Conference Party for the Republic Illegal Opposition Party Conference for the Republic Nahda Movement Islamist movement Nahda Movement Tunisian General Trade Union Federation Trade Union Federation -- Tunisian League for Defense of Human NGO -- Rights General Federation of Tunisian Students Student union --

In Chapter 2, I outlined a set of propositions that should explain the formation of a political party by al-Nahda, as well as the non-formation of a political party by the

UGTT. Tunisia, unlike Egypt, did not have a prominent pro-reform activist group, so I cannot analyze Proposition 3 with respect to pro-reform activist groups in this case.

However, various activist unions within the UGTT did serve as “umbrella” mobilizing structures for union members of various ideological persuasions and an analysis of these members’ overlapping ties to other organizations lends support to my argument, as does an analysis of al-Nahda members’ lack of overlapping ties to other groups. In the following sections I address each of the propositions in turn.

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As explained in the previous section, al-Nahda had attempted to form a political party during the Ben ‘Ali regime, and had participated in one election — the 1987 legislative election — before the regime banned the organization from electoral participation and forced it into extra-system contestation. Similarly, neither the Congress for the Republic (CPR) nor the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party were given permission to gain legal status. After Ben ‘Ali was ousted and parties registered prior to the founding elections, Al-Nahda, CPR, and the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party all formed parties, thus lending support to the theory presented here.

In parallel to Egypt, the UGTT had a ready organizational base from which to launch a political party. The UGTT had a structure, regional, branch, and industry rank- and-file from which to draw candidates, and a history of collective organization.489

Despite the UGTT’s ability to organize protests against regime policies, however, these protests were largely economic in nature, as both Bourguiba and Ben ‘Ali had succeeded in co-opting the UGTT through its organizational controls, selective benefits provided to

489 One difference in the organization of UGTT is that it is divided according to sector of employment (teachers, railroad workers, postal workers, etc.) as opposed to divided regionally, as Solidarity was. Solidarity members, when they wanted representation, went to their regional trade union representation, regardless of work sector, which broke down barriers between sectors and perhaps facilitated unity cross sectorally. In contrast, the strikes and protests organized by the UGTT leaders were always coordinated within sector; the teachers, lawyers, postal workers all mobilized their own local unions. This sectoral division may also have diminished their perception of common interests and grievances. However, the Zambian Central Trade Union shared the UGTT’s organizational structure and was able to overcome this when forming a political party.

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the union and its policy-making role. The UGTT established an unusually high profile and degree of influence around issues pertaining to workers’ rights, including economic policies, and garnered a great deal of prestige from this role.490 Unlike Solidarity and the

Zambian Central Trade Union (ZCTU), both of which avoided co-optation by the regime

(as I show in Chapter 6), the UGTT in Tunisia was an organization given privileges under both Bourguiba and Ben Ali. Despite its activism, therefore, there was a great deal of ambivalence within the organization and outside of it regarding whether or not the UGTT was part of the state or part of the opposition. The UGTT leadership was able to exert considerably more control over the rank-and-file than the leadership of the ZCTU in

Zambia, and the union had received highly visible preferential treatment by the regime.

The high degree of status that the UGTT has retained prior to and throughout the transition process is a testament to the fact that the UGTT, despite the activism of its rank-and-file, was not truly an opposition actor.

At the same time, the UGTT’s status as a governing institution of Tunisia gives it a legal quasi-immunity, providing protection and even refuge to active dissidents.”491 As a result, some unions within the UGTT already had a well-established reputation for being a substitute arena for diverse political debate, expression, and discussion. The UGTT’s unique role and established status are also part of the reason that union leaders never decided to form parallel unions in the face of regime interference, despite the fact that no law existed preventing them from doing so.492 In line with Proposition 2, the active role that the UGTT is currently playing in 2013 — coordination between the Nahda party and the main opposition parties — further emphasizes the organization’s existing status and

490 Cavallo 2008. 491 Cavallo 2008, 248.

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influence, without being a political party. According to one member of the PDP, some of the activist members of the UGTT who wanted to break away from the union structure attempted to form a Labor Party, but they did not succeed in attracting other members away from the union: "The UGTT base tried to form a party - the PTT (Tunisian Labor

Party). They tried to make this a party for labor activists. They tried to drain some union members from the UGTT but they didn't succeed."493 A human rights activist with ties to activist members of the unions also explained, "labor activists are convinced that you can work successfully through the union, where you could work, gain access to things, etc."494 Thus the fact that the UGTT was co-opted by the Bourguiba and Ben ‘Ali regimes with a cluster of benefits and privileges along with the fact that the UGTT did not form a political party after Ben ‘Ali’s ousting both give support for the theory presented here.

While there was no umbrella, pro-reform activist group in Tunisia, it is possible to view the effect of the opposition structure — specifically the existence of opposition political parties — on the membership ties of both the UGTT’s activist unions and al-

Nahda. If the theory presented here gives further insight into the patterns of party

492 Cavallo 2008. 493 Author interview with member of the PDP, Tunis, 5/31/2013, 4 PM.

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formation in this case, we would expect to observe members of activist unions having overlapping membership ties to existing parties; conversely, we would expect members of al-Nahda to not have overlapping membership ties to other political parties.

Unlike Solidarity in Poland, Charter ’77 in Czechoslovakia, or the Zambian Central

Trade Union, examined in Chapter 6, due to the structure of the opposition under Ben

‘Ali, members of the UGTT were also members of pre-existing political parties. Indeed, much of the union activism in the Ben Ali era was in part coordinated through these overlapping networks between activists who were members of the UGTT and political parties.495 When the Ben Ali regime collapsed, many of these UGTT members pursued electoral activity through their pre-existing political party connections,496 particularly through parties representing leftist political orientations.497 Party elites that had been sidelined throughout Ben Ali’s regime re-emerged as the primary political actors, drawing supporters, party members, and associates back into the party framework. Pre- existing membership in different political parties by UGTT members also entailed pre- existing political orientations that were not homogenous and therefore not conducive to the formation of a single party; as Abdellatif Hamrouni, a leader in the UGTT, explained,

“it is important to note that you will find all political trends represented in the federation -

- Baathists, nationalists, Trotskyites, Stalinists, social democrats, even a few Islamists.

So, even if the UGTT has a lowest common denominator stance, my reading of the political situation might differ from that of the colleague to my right or the one to my left.

494 Author interview with employee of Tunisian League for Human Rights, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 11:30 AM. 495 Cavallo 2008; Langohr 2004. 496 Cavallo 2008. 497 Author interview with Mohammed Brahmi, Secretary General of the People’s Movement Party, and UGTT activist, in Tunis, 5/29/2013, 11 AM.

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And the same is true of others.”498 A member of the PDP summarized the nature of the

UGTT’s ideologically diverse membership base: “Because the UGTT is not composed of people of just independents or unionists; many of these were already in parties - PDP, communist party, nationalist parties.499

In contrast, the membership base of al-Nahda was quite different. For one thing, there was considerable hostility along the Islamist-secular divide in Tunisia and it was unlikely that members of other political parties would partner with Nahda members in the creation of a new party. This hostility was in part a product of the repression of Nahda during the Ben Ali era; “the regime has considered dealing with the Islamists, particularly the Renaissance Movement, but has accused the party of being a terrorist movement seeking to establish theocratic rule…This official policy had an important impact during the 1990s during which it succeeded in virtually isolating the Renaissance Movement, as most other parties avoided any contact with it.”500 It was also partly the result of the way in which the Bourguiba and Ben ‘Ali regimes had at times played Islamist and secular opposition groups off of each other.501

Members of Nahda, shunned by other groups, were often only able to socialize with other Islamists and thus the strength of their interpersonal ties facilitated a high degree of cohesion among the movement’s members.502 Their isolation was in some cases so severe that they were shunned even by members of their own family. Those that were not imprisoned stayed away from politics altogether under the prior regime to avoid further

498 Toensing 2011, 2. 499 Author interview with member of the PDP, Tunis, 5/31/2013, 4 PM. 500 Jourchi 2010, 113. 501 Alexander 1997. 502 Author interview with Nahda member in Tunis, May 2013.

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repression.503 Several members of al-Nahda described the social isolation they experienced during the Ben ‘Ali regime:

"My husband was imprisoned for 11 years during Ben 'Ali's regime, and we were

rejected by the whole society."504

“People didn’t even greet each other in the street; when I walked outside I didn’t

say hi to anyone because we will be accused of having a relationship."505

“A friend of mine, who has six sons… her husband was imprisoned; her father

asked her to leave the house because they would be harmed by accepting her into

their house. Even a father did not help his daughter."506

As a result of this isolation, and the Islamist-secular divide, al-Nahda members were not involved in other civil society organizations or political parties, nor were other individuals involved with al-Nahda. Thus, when it came time to form a political party al-

Nahda did not lose members to other organizations or political parties.

Summary

The political opposition structure — who the regime co-opted, who it permitted to participate through within-system channels, and who it forced into extra-system contestation — shaped the processes of party formation prior to founding elections. The lack of party-formation by labor unions is explained by the group’s co-optation by the

503 Author interview with Nahda member in Tunis, May 2013. 504 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 2:00 PM. 505 Author interview with four Salafis, members of Jibhat al-Islah Party, Tunis, 5/23/2013, 1:00 PM. 506 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 5:00 PM.

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Bourguiba and Ben ‘Ali regimes, and the structure of benefits it received as a result of this co-optation. Union members, therefore, sought to find a new political role for the union structure while maintaining its current status, rather than form a political party in

2011. The party formation of al-Nahda, in turn, was shaped by the fact that it sought, and was denied, legal party status under the Ben ‘Ali regime. Upon regime collapse, therefore, the group formed a party once again. This was facilitated by the group’s coherent membership base; unlike pro-reform activist groups in Egypt, or the activist labor unions in Tunisia, al-Nahda’s membership base did not have overlapping ties to other political parties as a result of the repression and isolation the group suffered under the Mubarak regime.

Political Mobilization

The processes of political mobilization in the lead-up to founding elections are conditioned by the political opposition structure of the prior regime. Groups that contested the regime through extra-system channels and managed to survive bouts of regime repression are better able to mobilize supporters than groups that participated through within-system channels because they possess organizational and persuasive resources that the latter groups do not have. In Chapter 2 I outlined a series of propositions based upon the theory; in the following sections I will examine evidence for each proposition in turn.

Proposition 1: Parties that emerged from groups that participated through extra-system channels during the Ben ‘Ali regime will mobilize supporters better during founding

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elections than either groups that participated through within-system channels or completely new parties.

In looking at the national level results of the 2011 elections, it is clear, my theory holds up, with a few exceptions, which I discuss below. Al-Nahda won a plurality of the votes, followed by another party that was illegal and whose members, and leader, Moncef

Marzouki, were jailed and persecuted by the regime. Marzouki, as noted earlier, was also a leading activist in the Tunisian League for Defense of Human Rights. The three political parties that participated through within-system channels — Ettakatol, the

Progressive Democratic Party, and Ettajdid — won between two percent and nine percent of the seats in the Constitutional Assembly. Parties with members and leaders of the Ben

‘Ali regime, al-Moubadira and Afeq Tunis, did poorly in comparison to the groups based upon prior opposition. The huge number of new parties were the least successful in mobilizing supporters.

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Table 5.2: Tunisian Electoral Results in 2011

SEATS IN PARLIAMENT EXTRA-SYSTEMIC Al-Nahda 89 (41.1%) CPR 29 (13.3%) Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party 3 (1.38%)

SEATS IN PARLIAMENT WITHIN-SYSTEM Ettakatol 20 (9.22%) PDP 16 (7.37%) Ettajdid 5 (2.31%)

SEATS IN PARLIAMENT OLD REGIME FIGURES Al-Moubadira 5 (2.31%) Afek Tounes 4 (1.84%) NEW PARTIES SEATS IN PARLIAMENT Al-Aridha Al-Sha’bia 26 (11.98%) Movement of Socialist Democrats 2 (1%) Harakat al-Sha’b 2 (1%) “Al-Oumma” 1 (0.4%) Democratic Patriot’s Movement 1 (0.4%) Democratic Social Nation Party 1 (0.4%) Equity & Equality Party 1 (0.4%) Free Patriotic Union 1 (0.4%) Maghrebin Liberal Party 1 (0.4%) Neo Destour Party 1 (0.4%) Progressive Struggle Party 1 (0.4%) Social Struggle List 1 (0.4%) Al-Amal (“Hope”) List 1 (0.4%) The Voice of the Independent List 1 (0.4%) Al-Wafa (“Fidelity”) List 1 (0.4%) The Independent 1 (0.4%) A Tunisian Patriotic Front List 1 (0.4%) Justice List 1 (0.4%) Loyalty to Martyrs List 1 (0.4%) Tunisian Labor Party 0 Source: Tunisia Live507

Two results are surprising. First was the surprise success of a new party, al-Aridha al-Sha’bia (“Popular Petition”), in winning twenty-six seats or eleven percent of the

Constitutional Assembly. Second is the lack of successful mobilization on the part of the

Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party, another party that was denied legal status and

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whose activists participated through extra-system channels during the Ben ‘Ali regime.

Despite these factors, the party only won 3 seats, or 1.38 percent of the Constitutional

Assembly. A look at the alternative explanations helps to shed light on these outcomes.

Alternative Explanations

Common alternative explanations for the electoral success or lack thereof are electoral experience, Islam, and clientelism. Table 5.3 shows the competing explanations.

Table 5.3: Alternative Explanations ELECTORAL SEATS IN EXTRA-SYSTEMIC EXPERIENCE IDEOLOGY CLIENTELISM PARLIAMENT PRE-2011 Al-Nahda X Moderate Islam 89 (41.1%) CPR Center Left 29 (13.3%) Tunisian Workers’ Marxist 3 (1.38%) Communist Party ELECTORAL SEATS IN WITHIN-SYSTEM EXPERIENCE IDEOLOGY CLIENTELISM PARLIAMENT PRE-2011 Social Ettakatol X 20 (9.22%) Democratic PDP X Center Left 16 (7.37%) Ettajdid X Secular Leftist 5 (2.31%) ELECTORAL SEATS IN OLD REGIME EXPERIENCE IDEOLOGY CLIENTELISM PARLIAMENT FIGURES PRE-2011 Al-Moubadira X Secular 5 (2.31%) Afek Tounes X Secular 4 (1.84%) ELECTORAL SEATS IN NEW PARTIES EXPERIENCE IDEOLOGY CLIENTELISM PARLIAMENT PRE-2011 Al-Aridha Al-Sha’bia Moderate Islam X 26 (11.98%) Movement of Socialist Social Dem. 2 (1%) Democrats Harakat al-Sha’b Leftist 2 (1%) “Al-Oumma” Nationalist 1 (0.4%) Democratic Patriot’s Leftist 1 (0.4%) Movement Democratic Social 1 (0.4%) Nation Party Equity & Equality Party 1 (0.4%) Free Patriotic Union Free market 1 (0.4%) Maghrebin Liberal 1 (0.4%) Party

507 http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/10/24/tunisian-election-results-tables/

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Neo Destour Party 1 (0.4%) Progressive Struggle 1 (0.4%) Party Social Struggle List 1 (0.4%) Al-Amal (“Hope”) List 1 (0.4%) The Voice of the 1 (0.4%) Independent List Al-Wafa (“Fidelity”) 1 (0.4%) List The Independent 1 (0.4%) A Tunisian Patriotic 1 (0.4%) Front List Justice List 1 (0.4%) Loyalty to Martyrs List 1 (0.4%) Tunisian Labor Party Labor Rights 0

(1) Religion

As in Egypt, many may expect that a political party that utilizes an Islamist platform in a

Muslim-majority country will be automatically popular. Given the evidence, what role did the use of Islam play in Tunisia? In addition to the variety of academic studies cited in the previous chapter that demonstrate that Muslims do not, in fact, vote for parties espousing Islamist platforms with any regularly or frequency,508 a poll conducted by the

International Republican Institute in May 2011 lends weight to the notion that Tunisians would not vote for a political party on the basis of religion alone. The poll asked respondents, "Please tell me if that individual's opinion has a strong influence, some influence, or has no influence on you and your opinion on current events and politics."

Table 5.4: 2011 International Republican Institute Poll No Influence Some Influence Strong Influence Religious leader 50% 22% 24% Union leader 58% 24% 13% Political Party leader 58% 22% 14% Head of Household 26% 17% 52%

508 See Kurzman & Naqvi 2010a; Kurzman & Naqvi 2010c.

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The results demonstrate that the majority of respondents were more influenced by members of their own families than a religious leader, union leader, or head of a political party. Furthermore, unlike in Egypt, only two of the top ten parties that succeeded in mobilizing voters — Al-Nahda and al-Aridha al-Sha’bia — used Islam in their party platform, while the other eight espoused secular party platforms and ideas. It is possible, however, that al-Aridha’s success is due to the use of religion, especially because the party won a majority of votes in the rural, underprivileged interior.

The failure of the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party to attract a larger number of votes could also potentially be explained by religion. While a range of political parties in

Tunisia espoused liberal, secular ideas, the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party (POCT) constantly fought the image that it was anti-religious. "Members of the leadership considered removing the word "communist" from the party name. This reflects the complicated relationship that POCT has had with religion in Tunisian politics. Although the party is Marxist and secular, it has tried to characterize its attitude towards religion as similar to those of other secular parties, as less religious or non-religious, but not anti- religion."509 In contrast, the other secular parties simply advocated for freedom of religion and the separation of religion and politics.

(2) Clientelism

The second reason that al-Aridha al-Sha’bia could have won such a surprising number of votes is clientelism.510 In contrast to Egypt, the topic of clientelism in political campaigns rarely arose in any of my interviews in Tunisia, except with respect to al-

509 McCurdy 2011, 18. 510 Fisher 2011.

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Aridha. For example, according to a member of the Mubadira Party whom I interviewed,

"Aridha Sha’bia… has a president that gave irrational promises to people like free health care and low bread prices. so people voted for them that were from certain regions Sidi

Bouzid, Sfax, from rural and poor areas."511 These promises were broadcast via the private television state of the party’s president, Mohamed Hechmi al-Hamidi, who was a businessman that lived overseas during the Ben ‘Ali regime. These perceptions were echoed by international observers who studied the political parties and their campaigns.

(3) Campaign Funds

Another possible explanation for the variation in success of different political parties was campaign finances. Some members of leftist political parties told me that Al-

Nahda received funds from the Gulf countries, which supported al-Nahda’s religious orientation. While impossible to verify either way in the absence of hard data on the amount of money each campaign spent, other evidence points to the fact that money, while important, is not a sufficient factor that explains success. One of Tunisia’s wealthiest political parties, the Free Patriotic Union, was funded by Slim Riahi, an oil tycoon who invested over $20 million on the Tunisian economy during the summer of

2011.512 Observers also noted evidence of the party’s funds in the widespread advertisements for the party during the campaign period. The electoral results, however, show that money was not enough — the Free Patriotic Union only won 1 seat (0.4% of the seats) in the Constitutional Assembly.

511 Author interview with Mubadira Spokesperson, Tunis, 5/30/2013. 512 McCurdy 2011, 17.

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(4) Electoral Rules

A final alternative explanation that could explain the results of the elections is the effect of electoral rules. The method used to allocate seats to the parties, however, was the same as the one used in Egypt — the Hare quota, or largest remainder method. As noted in Chapter 4, this seat allocation method actually privileges smaller parties at the expense of larger ones, slightly inflating the allocation of seats to smaller parties. It is unlikely, therefore, that electoral rules as the central cause of the results observed here.

Within-System Contestation

As in Egypt, groups that participated through within-system channels, specifically legal opposition parties, had different organizational characteristics than those that participated through extra-system channels. Legal opposition parties faced a rigid system of controls, as I described when discussing the opposition structure during the Ben ‘Ali regime, political parties were easily controlled, monitored and constrained, to the extent that they were unable to forge ties to the population at large and lacked grassroots ties or a grassroots presence. As a member of the legal opposition party, the PDP, explained to me:

“We had headquarters in the most important cities - Tunis, Sfax Gabes, Sousse,

Tatawin, and Jandouba. But these headquarters were under harassment

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continually from security services and also informants from the regime. I was

monitored everywhere I went. The campaigns were conducted with difficulty.

Public meetings were hard, even getting electoral funds came too late, so our

financial abilities were weak. And we were afraid to do these activities too."513

Extra-System Contestation

In contrast to the legal opposition parties, the groups and organizations that took part in extra-system contestation utilized a network of informal ties between activists and had a more extensive grassroots presence. In the case of the human rights NGOs, while these organizations had a formal structure, the activists themselves utilized informal networks and underground linkages within the community of leftist activists. These networks linked activist unions within the UGTT, activists within the LTDH, and activists within the CPR.514

Al-Nahda also utilized informal networks and an informal structure even after its formal structure was destroyed during the Ben ‘Ali regime, thereby maintaining a grassroots presence throughout the country, albeit disconnected and disorganized. Most members of Al-Nahda to whom I spoke were quite vague on the organization of the group from the 1990s onward; their responses were similar to those of the Salafi Calling in Egypt, in that they had trouble describing the shape of the organization within the country. This is likely due to the fact that various groups at the grassroots level were unconnected to others. As Alexander notes, “Base cells remained largely intact, casting about for their own responses to what they saw as the government’s final campaign to

513 Author interview with member of the PDP, Tunis, 5/30/2013, 7 PM. 514 Author interview with activist in the LTDH, Tunis, May 2013.

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destroy al-Nahda.”515 The interview data also indicate that the group maintained its grassroots presence through a web of disconnected informal networks whose members carried out a range of secret charity and self-help activities and tried to survive.

“Any activity would result in your arrest and our relationships were private ones;

all our activities were carried out person-to-person.”516

“We held religious study meetings were in secret. We had a method of how to go

into the house; for instance you make a secret gesture to draw attention to other

members, and we would have a mirror in our hand and we used the mirror to see

if anyone was following us. We would take different paths each time we went to

the house [where the study sessions were held]; also, each girl of the five in the

group would enter through a different entrance."517

"The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is older than the Nahda movement in

Tunisia. They did their activities in public in Egypt but here we were forced to

work in secret for about 20 years. There was too much pressure [from the regime]

for the "usra" structure the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood used. There were no

links between leaders and regular members and between different groups at the

local level."518

515 Alexander 2010, 60. 516 Author interview with Al-Nahda Constitutional Assembly member, Tunis, 5/22/2013, 10:00 AM. 517 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 5:00 PM 518 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 2:00 PM

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"Ben Ali’s regime was highly discriminatory and he responded to the Nahda

members in a violent way. Thousands of Nahda members were arrested after this

election; it was like a stream of arrests. Tunisia turned into prison for all political

activists and Islamists; I spent eleven years in prison. Even though I left prison in

2001 I discovered that it was the same outside and inside prison. Al-Nahda

became organized in secret; all members were monitored by the police force. Our

concern was to provide the basic needs for our families because we were followed

by the police. Despite the long time in prison, after 2006 there were attempts to

find a way to participate in the political sphere but it was very small activism, not

linked to wider groups.”519

Of note is the fact that most people who I interviewed were reluctant to talk about

"underground" activities, as if these were taboo. This is probably because Ben 'Ali went to great lengths to paint Islamists as extremists and terrorists. In my interview with one member of Al-Nahda, I was told in advance by her relative that she took part in secret study sessions in her home for other women and that she did this while her husband was in prison; in my interview, however, she did not mention these activities. However, given the interview data and the way in which the group went about re-organizing after Ben

‘Ali was ousted from power, there is considerable evidence that the group maintained a grassroots presence made up of disconnected, personal networks. These networks were the base upon which the organization was reactivated. As Lynch noted after a trip to

Tunisia in 2011, in which he interviewed and observed numerous Nahda members and leaders, "Al-Nahda threw itself into tireless organizing and mobilization, with

519 Author interview with Al-Nahda Constitutional Assembly member, Tunis, 5/22/2013, 10:00 AM

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Ghannouchi himself visiting 22 out of the 24 provinces since his return to the country. If al-Nahda is better organized and more present at the local level than its rivals, this is due less to some natural "Islamist" appeal than to a tireless organizational campaign…The core leadership immediately reached out to the tens of thousands of former activists now out of prison, many of whom were now locally respected business or civic leaders."520

This variation in grassroots presence — the absence of grassroots presence on the part of legal opposition parties, and the existence, however disconnected, of grassroots networks on the part of leftist human rights activists and al-Nahda members, supports my theory that groups that groups that participate through extra-system channels have different organizational capabilities at the point of political transition than groups that participated through within-system channels during the authoritarian era.

Proposition 3: Groups that contested the Ben ‘Ali regime through extra-system channels are perceived as possessing more legitimacy and credibility prior to the revolution than groups that contested the regime through within-system channels.

In Chapter 4, I demonstrated that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood garnered credibility among the general population as a result of the group’s successful social service provision through Islamic charities and voluntary associations, through a positive image of the group on the basis of the other Islamic service organizations throughout the country (even if not directly connected to the Brotherhood), through the organization’s visible suffering at the hands of the Mubarak regime, and through the perception that the group was “honest” due to its religious credentials.

520 Lynch 2011, 2.

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Throughout my interviews with activists and political party members in Tunis, the issue of oppositional credibility arose over and over again. When I asked why different parties performed better than others, a member of the CPR told me, “The vicious circle is that we are still discussing who used to be activists and who was not."521 In the following examination of the perceptions of legal opposition parties during the Mubarak era, the perceptions of the UGTT as an organization, the perception of the Nahda and CPR, and the perception of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human rights, I give further evidence that groups that participated through extra-system channels had more credibility and legitimacy among the population than the UGTT union structure, or groups that contested the regime through within-system channels.

Co-opted Groups

In all of my interviews, respondents distinguished between the UGTT union leadership and structure, and the local-level unions and activists. The former was seen as an arm of the state, or as a structure that cooperated with the regime, while the latter was viewed as credible and legitimate opposition that directly contributed to Ben ‘Ali’s ousting.

“The leadership of UGTT was cooperating with Ben Ali’s regime but the

professional structures at the local level — the original unions and professional

syndicates, the secondary education syndicates, postal workers, and transport

syndicates — were the ones that opposed Ben Ali’s regime and who were active

521 Author interview with member of CPR, Tunis 5/31/2013, 12 PM.

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at that time. The base of the UGTT was monitored and waiting for the opportunity

to express themselves.”522

"I think that the UGTT’s leadership board was not really a real opposition — it

was timid and it made a lot of concessions to the regime and one time in 2008,

they made a statement saying, “We wanted Ben Ali.” The base of the UGTT was

the real opposition. The local unions. And even in the revolutions when we went

out to the streets it was not from the office of the PDP, it was from the office of

the local unions - we all marched from there, all of us. Parties, workers, and so

on.”523

“This is complicated; a lot of the unionists were resistant to the regime but the

leaders sometimes were supportive of the regime - they fluctuated in their

support. But even though the leaders were close to the regime, they did not

represent the members of unions.”524

Within-System Contestation

Those opposition groups that participated through within-system channels were not viewed as credible or genuine political opposition. As Bellin explains, writing of the Ben

‘Ali era, “The failure of muscular, mass-based opposition parties to emerge in the country has constituted an extremely important barrier to the development of truly competitive politics. Tunisians complain that they do not have an opposition worthy of them and the

522 Author interview with member of Ettakatol, Tunis, 5/28/2013. 523 Author interview with member of PDP, Tunis, 5/31/2013, 4 PM.

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responsibility for this failure rests with both the regime and the independent political elites.”525 The notion that opposition parties did not constitute “worthy opposition” was echoed in the perceptions of my interviewees, who described the opposition parties as useless and legitimating the regime. In particular, “the PDP played the card of concession, of trying to improve the old system.”526 The May 2011 poll conducted by the

International Republican Institute provides further evidence that 70 percent of Tunisians, at the point of Ben ‘Ali’s ousting, did not view existing political parties as legitimate, useful opposition. The poll asks, "Which of the following statements best describes the role that political play in Tunisia?"

Table 5.5: Attitudes Toward Parties (2011) 43% I think that political parties are only interested in power and political gain. 27% I think that political parties can play a positive role in Tunisia, but they have not done so yet. 19% I think that political parties represent people's interests and seek solutions to benefit the country. 11% I don’t know.

Extra-System Contestation

In contrast to the perception that neither UGTT leadership nor political parties were legitimate or credible opposition to the Ben ‘Ali regime, there was the widespread perception that al-Nahda was legitimate opposition to the regime. The party’s president,

Rachid Ghannouchi, had been in exile for years in London and only returned to Tunisia after Ben ‘Ali left power. Thus, in contrast to the leaders of other political parties, he was not seen as having compromised with the regime. As Jamel Dridi, editor of Tunisian news site Kapitalis, wrote, “Al-Nahda was immediately perceived as a 'break' with the past. Tunisians no doubt chose al-Nahda because it represented the enemy to Ben 'Ali's

524 Author interview with member of Afeq Tunis, 5/29/2013, 11 AM. 525 Bellin 1995, 134.

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regime."527 Observers from the National Democratic institute echoed this perception:

“The party won at least two seats in every Tunisian district and secured nearly five times the popular vote of the second-place CPR. Although al-Nahda benefited to some extent from its Islamist identity, the party also owes its gains to its distance from the Ben ‘Ali regime, which lent the party a unique appeal for many voters eager for a complete break from the past.”528

My interviewees, from all political persuasions, said that Tunisians were sympathetic to al-Nahda because they had been genuine opposition to the regime, as demonstrated by their suffering. This was the first answer that respondents gave when I asked them to list reasons for al-Nahda’s electoral success (the second answer people gave was that al-Nahda was well-organized).

“…People knew that they had suffered and been oppressed."529

"The movement had many thousands of imprisoned people all around the country

and there wasn't a family without someone who had been imprisoned. Every

family knows about the party and that the members of that party were imprisoned,

which leaves a trace and encourages you to search it out and to belong to that

whole idea."530

526 “PDP Crushed, Party in Chaos” 527 Mahjar-Barducci 2011. 528 National Democratic Institute 2012, 20. 529 Author interview with Mubadira Spokesperson, Tunis, 5/30/2013. 530 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/25/2013, 1:30 PM.

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"People were sympathetic to the Nahda because we were oppressed during Ben

Ali’s regime.”531

The Congress for the Republic Party was also viewed as credible opposition to the

Mubarak regime because of the party’s lack of participation in the system, and the activism of the party’s president, Moncef Marzouki. Marzouki had been involved in leftist networks linking CPR, the Tunisian League of Human Rights, and the activist unions of the UGTT. According to one member of CPR, "Moncef Marzouki is famous because of his history of activism. He was the president of League of Human Rights and was a powerful, visible activist against Ben Ali. He founded a party of opposition. He called for popular protests in 2006…the history of the CPR was not linked to the regime.”532

Finally, the League of Human Rights was also viewed as credible opposition to the

Ben ‘Ali regime. Many interviewees described the way in which the League’s activists had been arrested and spoken truth to power. According to one member of the Mubadira

Party, "The League of Humans Rights was also credible opposition and they paid a high price for this."533 According to another, “The human rights activists from the League of

Human Rights — as individuals they were very effective."534

Proposition 4: Parties that emerged from groups that contested the Ben ‘Ali regime through extra-system channels will utilize different electoral strategies (reflecting

531 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 2:00 PM. 532 Author interview with member of CPR, Tunis 5/31/2013, 12 PM. 533 Author interview with Mubadira Spokesperson, Tunis, 5/30/2013. 534 Author interview with member of PDP, Tunis, 5/30/2013, 7 PM.

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different organizational capabilities) than pre-existing political parties or entirely new parties.

Table 5.6: Mobilizational Strategies in the 2011 Elections Flyers, Café Door-to- TV Public Seats in Extra-System Banners Meetings door Broadcasts Meetings Parliament campaigns Al-Nahda X X -- X -- 89 (41.1%) CPR X X X X -- 29 (13.3%) Tunisian -- Workers’ X X -- X 3 (1.38%) Communist Party Door-to- TV Public Flyers, Café Seats in Within-System door Broadcasts Meetings Banners Meetings Parliament campaigns Ettakatol X X X X -- 20 (9.22%) PDP X X X X -- 16 (7.37%) Ettajdid X X X X -- 5 (2.31%) Door-to- TV Public Flyers, Café Seats in Old Regime door Broadcasts Meetings Banners Meetings Parliament Figures campaigns Al-Moubadira X X X X -- 5 (2.31%) Afek Tounes -- X X X -- 4 (1.84%) Door-to- TV Public Flyers, Café Seats in New Parties door Broadcasts Meetings Banners Meetings Parliament campaigns Al-Aridha Al- X -- X -- X 26 (11.98%) Sha’bia Movement of -- Socialist X X X X 2 (1%) Democrats Harakat al-Sha’b X X -- X -- 2 (1%) “Al-Oumma” 1 (0.4%) Democratic -- Patriot’s X X -- X 1 (0.4%) Movement Democratic Social Nation 1 (0.4%) Party Equity & 1 (0.4%) Equality Party Free Patriotic 1 (0.4%) Union Maghrebin 1 (0.4%) Liberal Party Neo Destour 1 (0.4%) Party Progressive 1 (0.4%) Struggle Party Social Struggle 1 (0.4%) List Al-Amal 1 (0.4%) (“Hope”) List

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The Voice of the 1 (0.4%) Independent List Al-Wafa 1 (0.4%) (“Fidelity”) List The Independent 1 (0.4%) A Tunisian Patriotic Front 1 (0.4%) List Justice List 1 (0.4%) Loyalty to 1 (0.4%) Martyrs List Tunisian Labor 0 Party

Table 5.6 shows the strategies used by the different political parties that I interviewed. In striking contrast to the results from Egypt, nearly all the parties that I interviewed used identical electoral mobilizational strategies. It is possible that this was due to the fact that all of the major political parties received campaign and electoral training from the

National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute before the campaigning began, a fact that both political party members mentioned to me during interviews.

However, as I explained in Chapter 4, campaign strategies like going door-to-door require a greater grassroots presence and knowledge of the community in which campaigners are working in order to be effective. Therefore, despite the fact that all campaigns used door-to-door campaigns, it is interesting to observe what the parties had to say about these techniques and how they viewed them as useful. Most of the parties that I interviewed (Moubadira, Ettakatol,535 PDP,536 Afeq Tunis,537 Harakat al-Sha’b,538

Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party,539 Democratic Patriot’s Movement,540 Ettajdid, and

535 Member of Ettakatol, Tunis, 5/31/2013, 2:30 PM; Member of Ettakatol, Tunis, 5/28/2013. 536 Member of PDP, Tunis, 5/31/2013, 4 PM; Member of PDP, Tunis, 5/30/2013, 7 PM 537 Member of Afeq Tunis, 5/29/2013, 11 AM. 538 Mohammed Brahmi, Harakat al-Sha'ab, Tunis, 5/29/2013. 539 Author interview with member of Tunisian Communist Workers' Party, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 4:30 PM

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al-Aridha al- Sha’bia)541 just mentioned door-to-door campaigning alongside the other techniques they used, with no context or detail added. CPR noted that their door-to-door campaigning was carried out by the party’s younger members, in contrast to the other techniques, which were done by everyone.

In contrast to the other parties, Al-Nahda respondents that mentioned the door-to- door campaigning put the technique in context, explaining why it was used and when it was effective. For example, one member told me, "In 2011, people knew us in our neighborhoods and so we were well-reputed in our areas. Each person went family-to- family to campaign for the party in their neighborhood.”542 Another member said, "We went door-to-door. We did public meetings, but mostly door-to-door. The local campaigns that had candidates from that region did the door-to-door method but those who didn’t have any candidate from that area only did public meetings in the street."543

Both of these responses indicate that the Nahda members used this door-to-door method when a personal tie could be utilized to convince someone to vote for the party; in instances in which no personal tie was available to be used, the party did not use the door-to-door method.

Thus, it is possible that while all of the parties used the door-to-door campaigning as a result of electoral training provided by international organizations, they may not have used the technique with the same level of awareness of its utility. The responses of al-

Nahda members mirror or evoke those of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi calling. The door-to-door campaigning was not just another campaign tool, but one that

540 Author interview with member of WATAD, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 9:30 AM; Author interview with member of WATAD, Tunis, 5/24/2013 541 Author interview with member of Al-Aridha al-Sha'bia, Tunis, 5/23/2013, 4 PM 542 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 5:00 PM.

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reflected an active awareness of the placement of these parties within their local, grassroots networks. Because al-Nahda had been repressed to a greater degree, it is not surprising that they did not have had candidates in all neighborhoods the way that the

Muslim Brotherhood did. However, their awareness of the utility of door-to-door campaigning, and its role in individual linkage and persuasion, reflects a more sophisticated awareness of grassroots dynamics and purpose of such campaign strategies.

This awareness was not reflected in interviews with other political parties in Tunisia, who saw door-to-door campaigns as just another strategy in their electoral toolbox.

Summary

In this section I have shown that the processes of political mobilization that led to the victory of al-Nahda in Tunisia are similar to those that led to the success of both the

Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling in Egypt. The structure of the political opposition during the Ben ‘Ali regime determined which members of the political opposition possessed the organizational and persuasive resources to effectively mobilize supporters in the run-up to the 2011 founding elections. The groups that contested the regime through extra-system channels and that formed political parties — specifically al-Nahda

— had a presence at the grassroots and the oppositional credibility as a result of contesting the regime and suffering repression at the hands of the security apparatus.

These two resources enabled al-Nahda to mobilize supporters better than other parties, as reflected in their campaign strategies. In the following sections, I expand the comparative analysis to another dominant-party authoritarian regime: that of Brazil.

543 Author interview with member of Al-Nahda, Tunis, 5/27/2013, 2:00 PM.

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BRAZIL (1982)544

Political Opposition Structure

Brazil’s authoritarian era began when Brazilian generals came to power through a military coup in 1964.545 The nature of political participation under successive military regimes between 1964 and the transition to multipartism in 1982 was determined by the way in which the regime structured the political opposition: who was co-opted, who was permitted to contest the regime through within-system channels, and who was forced to contest the regime through extra-system channels. As we shall see in the following sections, the case of Brazil offers further confirmation for the theory of party formation in this juncture, but also shows the limits of the mechanisms driving political mobilization in the other cases. Unlike the other cases in this study, the group that we expect to win founding elections – the Workers’ Party – does not in fact do so, losing out to larger, wealthier, more experienced parties. The divergent results of this case help to set the agenda for further research.

Co-optation

Distinct from the strategies of the regimes in both Egypt and Tunisia, the military regime in Brazil did not attempt to co-opt or incorporate organized labor into the regime in 1964.

This variation was due to the fact that the regime in fact was allied with Brazil’s industrialists, not organized labor. As Bellin explains, “The private sector was gripped by fear of a revolutionary insurgence. Widespread poverty, a radical left eager to mobilize the economically disadvantaged, and a cold war context gave substance to the private

544 The analysis in this section draws heavily from several excellent works: Collier 1999; Moreira Alves 1984; Skidmore 1988; and Keck 1986.

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sector’s fear of social revolution. Both factors led the private sector to support the rise of an authoritarian regime, given its promise to sponsor the development of the private sector and contain the left.”546 This variation in the relationship between the regime and organized labor affected the processes of party formation in the lead-up to Brazil’s first fair multiparty elections in 1982.

Within-System Contestation

Slightly varying with both Egypt and Tunisia, the successive military regimes permitted in some ways more, and in some ways less, within-system contestation. Upon coming to power in 1964, the military regime at first held indirect elections for the president in an attempt to garner legitimacy and later instituted a two-party system, comprised of the ruling party, Aliança de Renovação Nacional (ARENA, Alliance for National

Renovation), and a single opposition party, Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB,

Brazilian Democratic Movement).547 Authoritarian-era Brazil, like Egypt and Tunisia, was a dominant-party regime, with both a ruling party (ARENA) and an opposition party

(MDB) competing with each other in elections. Thus, the military regime was dominant in a dominant-party regime with only one legal opposition party, meaning that the within- system contestation was slightly narrower than in both Egypt and Tunisia but wider than the Polish, Zambian, and Czechoslovak one-party regimes explored in Chapter 6. MDB politicians were subjected to censorship, they had to submit their speeches to the government in advance, and party members were frequently arrested in the lead-up to elections. In 1970, a particularly well-known sweep of opposition party members culled

545 Collier 1999. 546 Bellin 2002, 166.

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over 5,000 opposition activists and party members, known as “Operation Birdcage.”548

The military regime also used a set of electoral rules that, for the most part ensured that

ARENA candidates would win elections at the local, governorate, and national levels.

For example, electoral rules mandated that voters must select all the candidates from a single party, from the local level up to the national level. Simultaneously, ARENA candidates at the local level had constructed vast patron-client relationships. These two factors ensured that, due to clientelistic relationships built by ARENA at the local level, the party secured votes all the way up to the national level. Thus, the regime controlled the MDB not through fraud, but rather through punctuated repression and electoral rules that ensured ARENA’s victory.

In the mid-1970s, however, then-president Ernesto Geisel decided to implement a controlled liberalization, called “The Decompression,” which altered the political opposition structure.549 During Decompression, the regime essentially broadened within- system contestation by lifting censorship laws, giving the MDB the right to use television and radio networks for its campaigns, while simultaneously maintaining national security legislation that permitted the regime to suspend civil and individual liberties and utilize the coercive apparatus at will.550 The regime relied upon its presumed popularity, the electoral rules that privileged ARENA, and the ever-ready coercive apparatus to maintain its dominance. The changes to the contestation structure permitted MDB candidates to

547 Collier 1999; Moreira Alves 1984. 548 Skidmore 1988. 549 Moreira Alves 1985, 142. 550 Moreira Alves 1985, 142.

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more visibly and effectively contest the regime, which led to a surprise breakthrough election in 1974 in which the MDB won a large number of seats.551

The MDB’s performance stunned the regime; ARENA retained a majority but no longer had sufficient seats to amend the constitution.552 In response, the regime shut down Congress and issued the “April package of 1977,” which once again altered the electoral law in ways intended to give ARENA an advantage.553 This electoral victory coincided with rising labor activism, as I describe below, leading to an indiscriminate and brutal crackdown on all opposition actors, including the MDB. As I describe later in this section, the initial widening of within-system contestation, followed by the subsequent repression, had consequences for the MDB’s mobilizational capabilities in the run-up to the first multiparty elections in 1982.

Extra-System Contestation

As only one opposition party was allowed to contest the regime, other opposition actors contested the regime through extra-system channels, as in Egypt and Tunisia. Outside the party system, a range of secular and Catholic civil society organizations sprung up at the grassroots level. The Brazilian Catholic Church itself operated a range of organizations to conduct pastoral and charitable work in poor areas throughout Brazil.554 A phenomenon of bottom-up mobilization began through these local organizations, called Ecclesiastical

Base Communities (CEBs),555 whereby community members acted within neighborhood associations to mobilize themselves in both rural and urban areas, developing class and

551 Skidmore 1988. 552 Skidmore 1988. 553 Collier 1999. 554 Moreira Alves 1984.

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political consciousness and avoiding patron-client ties with politicians.556 In 1984, there were over 350 local neighborhood associations in Rio de Janeiro and “in all major cities of Brazil there [was] a similar pattern of mobilization from the local base in each district."557 These organizations, like charitable associations in Egypt, appear to have been largely ignored by the military regime.

As noted above, labor unions also contested the state. Neither co-opted and incorporated into the state, nor represented by the somewhat elitist MDB, Brazil’s organized labor contested the state through extra-system channels. Organized through the trade unions, the workers’ movement was central to organizing massive strike waves that eventually led to the transition away from the military regime. The regime attempted to control the workers’ movement in several ways. First, the regime organized trade unions in vertical peak organizations according to sector, as they were in Egypt and Tunisia, an attempt to prevent the kind of cross-sectoral organization and mobilization that Solidarity had organized in Poland,558 while simultaneously using labor laws to intervene in union activity, restrict the functioning of unions, and control unions’ finances.559 Second, the regime imposed a set of union leaders, called pelegos, to control and demobilize workers.560 These controls resulted in two phenomena: first, rank-and-file workers became increasingly disconnected from the union leadership; and second, the activist rank-and-file, called autênticos (authentics), formed linkages outside of the union structure with grassroots organizations, both secular and Catholic.561

555 Bruera 2013. 556 Bruera 2013; Moreira Alves 1984. 557 Moreira Alves 1984, 77. 558 Moreira Alves 1984. 559 Moreira Alves 1985, 183. 560 Moreira Alves 1984. 561 Moreira Alves 1984; Collier 1999.

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Like the Copperbelt mineworkers in Zambia, as I discuss in Chapter 6, one sector of the Brazilian unions was particularly large and particularly militant: the metalworkers sector.562 Labor unions overcame attempts at government control by using intra-union elections to place opposition leaders on union boards.563 The large, factory-based industrial unions also began a militant protest movement that undermined the regime’s legitimacy and contributed to the implementation of Decompression in the mid-1970s and the subsequent change to a multiparty system.564 The autenticos within the labor unions used their ties to community organizations and CEBs to spread the protest movement outside of the unions themselves, linking to and stimulating a larger culture of protest at the grassroots.565 This so-called “new unionism”566 in effect “worked to undermine government attempts to control and limit the party system and created room for the entry of a political left.”567

At the same time as the Geisel government issued the April Package to control electoral outcomes in the coming 1978 elections, in 1977, the regime also instituted a new mechanism for calculating workers’ wages, leading to a 34 percent reduction in real wages for the average worker. In response, the Metalworkers Union of Sâo Bernardo do

Campo and Diadema, led by the charismatic leader of the union, Luís Inácio da Silva, launched a massive strike wave to force the government to rescind the changes.568

Between 1977 and 1978, the Metalworkers’ Union continued their strikes, with over

562 Moreira Alves 1984. 563 Moreira Alves 1984. 564 Collier 1999. 565 Moreira Alves 1984; Collier 1999. 566 Collier 1999. 567 Collier 1999, 133. 568 Moreira Alves 1984.

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500,000 workers striking in 1978 throughout 15 states,569 and over three million striking in 1979.570 By this time, labor activists were increasingly impatient with politicians:

“they wanted to create an organizational opportunity for workers to speak for themselves.”571 The workers’ movement began making explicitly political demands and linking their strikes and protests to a call for direct presidential elections in the early

1980s.572 This broadening of the movement was facilitated by the autenticos’ links to

CEBs and the larger network of neighborhood associations at the grassroots across

Brazil.573 These links to broader movements and the initiation of such massive strikes nation wide transformed the nature of political opposition in Brazil from one of written manifestos, articles and speeches, to one of mass protest.574

Regime Response: Repression

While the regime had initially responded to the MDB’s surprise electoral victory in 1974 with new laws and changes to the electoral rules, this wave of worker activism led the regime to resort to its immense repressive apparatus. The regime had, since 1964, monitored and repressed extra-system political participation using military, paramilitary, and police squads, as well as a web of laws, including the National Security Law (1969), to keep a lid on challengers, prohibiting demonstrations, restricting freedom of assembly, and establishing the practice of military trials for civilians.575

569 Moreira Alves 1984. 570 Collier 1999, 135. 571 Keck 1989, 58-59. 572 Collier 1999. 573 Moreira Alves 1984. 574 Collier 1999. 575 Skidmore 1988; Moreira Alves 1984.

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The strike wave of the late 1970s, in conjunction with the 1974 electoral results, led the regime to indiscriminately crack down on all opposition. “During an eighteen-month period, the forces of repression conducted another national blitz, seeking out militants of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and the Maoist Communist Party of Brazil (PC do

B). Opposition members of all ideological persuasions were arrested in this dragnet.

Amnesty International reported that over 2,000 persons were detained throughout Brazil during this period. Of those initially arrested, about 700 remained in custody, and 240 were subsequently “adopted” by Amnesty International. Amnesty International also reported that, during the eighteen-month period, it received numerous allegations of torture, all substantiated by physical evidence.”576

What was different about this period was that the regime’s repression, while always used against striking workers, was now also applied to members of the upper classes. As

Moreira Alves explains, “The violence of repression was a personal threat to all members of civil society…The internal enemy was, potentially, anywhere, in all classes and all sectors of the political and civil society. Membership in a key elite group was no longer a protection, and after the enactment of Institutional Act No. 5, the violence of repression severely affected middle and upper classes. Attacks on middle- and upper-class university students in the streets of São Paolo in 1977 and the death under torture of an important journalist showed all groups that repression was not necessarily class-selective.”577 The alternation between the toleration and repression of the MDB, combined with the extra- system contestation and subsequent repression of the working classes, converged into

576 Moreira Alves 1985, 157. 577 Moreira Alves 1985, 170.

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particular processes of party formation and political mobilization, as I show in the next sections.

Summary

In contrast to the Egypt and Tunisia cases, the Brazilian military structured the opposition slightly differently, even though it was also a dominant-party regime. Unlike the other former cases, Brazil did not attempt to co-opt organized labor because the military coup which brought the regime into power was supported, in part, by Brazil’s industrialists, which meant that the regime relied on a different base of support. Like the Egyptian and

Tunisian regimes, however, the Brazilian military regime permitted one opposition political party to contest the regime through within-system channels. While the regime was therefore a dominant-party one, it only permitted a single party to contest regime policies, which had later consequences for party formation and political mobilization.

Furthermore, the regime initially attempted to control the opposition party through electoral rules rather than fraud, which created a different set of constraints under which the opposition party operated.

Neither co-opted nor included in the opposition political party, Brazil’s labor movement contested the regime through extra-system channels, including strikes, sit-ins and protests. Unlike Egyptian and Tunisian workers, the strikes organized by Brazil’s working class leveraged political, as well as economic, demands. Another distinction was that the regime alternated between the repression and toleration of extra-system contestation, at times utilizing its repressive apparatus indiscriminately, targeting the opposition party as well as other opposition groups. These particular characteristics of the

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opposition structure shaped the processes of party formation and political mobilization ahead of the first multiparty elections in 1982.

Party Formation

In 1979, the current military president, General Figueiredo (1978-1985), made the decision to allow the formation of additional opposition parties, transforming the political system from two-partism to multipartism as part of an attempt to gain more legitimacy for the regime.578 ARENA transformed itself into the Partido Democrático Social (PDS,

Social Democratic Party), and the MDB reconstituted itself into the Partido Movimento

Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB).579 At the same time, the government prohibited parties from forming coalitions by requiring that voters could only vote for candidates from a single party.580 During this period, the autênticos from the workers’ movement, led by

Luís Inácio da Silva, decided to form the Workers’ Party (PT).581 The Metalworkers’

Union had already suggested the formation of a workers’ party as early as 1979, when

Lula announced the idea at a conference.582 Later that year, 100 union leaders and activists met in São Bernardo and created a national board tasked with the formation of the PT.583 The Catholic Church as an institution refused to take part in formal politics and did not sponsor or form a political party, and the majority of CEBs instead joined the

PT.584 Other elites formed a number of other new parties.585

Table 5.7: Brazilian Opposition Groups and Party Formation

578 Bruera 2013. 579 Skidmore 1988. 580 Moreira Alves 1984. 581 Collier 1999; Keck 1986. 582 Keck 1986. 583 Keck 1986. 584 Moreira Alves 1984. 585 Skidmore 1988.

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PRE-1982 GROUP GROUP TYPE PARTY FORMATION 1982

ARENA Regime Political Party PDS MDB Opposition Political Party PDMB Pelegos Labor Union PDMB Autênticos Labor Union Workers’ Party CEBs Church Association Workers’ Party Neighborhood Associations Community Association Workers’ Party

In Chapter 2, I outlined a set of propositions that should explain the patterns of party formation of a political party by Brazil’s working class. The military regime did not prohibit any particular opposition groups from forming political parties in the way that

Tunisian and Egyptian regimes denied certain groups legal status, but it did restrict the opposition to a single party, meaning that members of the opposition who may have wanted to form a new party would not have been able to do so. I evaluate Proposition 1 in light of this difference. In the following sections, I address the puzzle of labor party formation in light of Proposition 2, and examine the unions’ membership base in light of

Proposition 3.

Given the political opposition structure of the Brazilian military regime, the constraints upon party formation were slightly different than those of Egypt or Tunisia and Proposition 1 is more difficult to evaluate. In contrast to the latter two cases, the

Brazilian military regime did not selectively exclude particular opposition groups from within-system contestation; it simply forced opposition actors to engage in within-system contestation through a single opposition party.

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However, it is likely that members of the MDB had, at a certain point, wanted to form an independent party but could not. Two of the new parties that formed, the Partido

Trabalhista Brasileiro (Brazilian Labor party, PTB) and the Partido Democrático

Trabalhista (PDT, Democratic Labor Party), indicate that this could be the case. The PTB was composed of pre-military regime elites: Ivete Vargas, the niece of the former president Getulio Vargas; the former president Jânio Quadros; and the former governor of

Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Lacerda.586 The PDT, too, was composed of former elites: members of the political opposition who had been exiled when the military came to power, including the Rio Grande do Sul governor Leonel Brizola.587 Therefore, the fact that two of the four new major parties that formed were composed of exiled or former members of the political elite indicate that these individuals wanted to form separate parties earlier but could not do so, thereby lending support to Proposition 1.

In contrast to the cases of Egypt and Tunisia, Brazilian labor was never co-opted by the regime; the labor movement was a central part of the extra-system opposition to the regime. The structure of the opposition, and the way members of the labor unions responded to attempts at regime controls, ensured that a large segment of the workers’ movement was truly in opposition to the regime. While the Brazilian regime attempted to

586 Moreira Alves 1985, 218. 587 Moreira Alves 1985, 219.

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control the labor unions from above, it was not successful in co-opting labor. As a result, the Brazilian labor movement developed distinct internal trends — the pro-regime pelegos and the militant autênticos. Despite the loyalty of the pelegos to the regime, the autênticos became disconnected from labor leadership, forged broad ties to grassroots organizations, and were at the center of the crippling strikes waged by labor that led to the opening up of the political system.588 Because strikes were illegal, union activists underwent great personal risk and increasingly brutal police repression to wage strikes.589

Furthermore, as strikes progressed, workers’ demands became increasingly political and focused on issues of social justice and class concerns.590

Thus, in contrast to labor in Tunisia and Egypt, Brazil’s autênticos were genuine political opposition that challenged the regime through extra-system channels. As such, union members were not faced with the same internal ambivalence that faced Egyptian and Tunisian workers when it came time to form a political party during the transition, because the labor movement had no incentive to remain within the union system in order to secure their gains. The Brazilian regime’s use of control and repression, rather than co- optation and inclusion, meant that a labor-based political party did form in Brazil.

588 Keck 1986; Moreira Alves 1984. 589 Moreira Alves 1984.

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While Brazil did not have an umbrella pro-reform activist group, it is worth examining the nature of the membership base of the labor movement to see whether the evidence confirms the basic tenets of Proposition 3. The way that the Brazilian regime structured the political opposition into a single political party meant that the ideological orientation of the within-system opposition was determined by the members of the single opposition party, the MDB, which was elite-dominated. As a result, there were few personal ties between members of the MDB and members of the labor movement, which was based in the working class. For the same reason, the ideological orientations of the

MDB did not appeal to the majority of labor movement; “the PMDB, controlled by conservative sectors, was unwilling to defend workers' rights and to take up strongly the banner of union organization and agrarian reform.”591 Lula da Silva and other leaders of the workers’ movement feared that joining the PMDB would simply continue the trend of elite-dominated politics,592 and worried that the PMDB members would view labor as the lesser partner and abandon their policy priorities when push came to shove.593

Instead, the members of the labor movement shared personal ties and a history of activism, as well as a common ideological orientation, with the communidades de base

(CEBs) and other grassroots organizers. Members of the labor movement thus drew upon the dense network of ties between the union militants, the CEBs, and community organizations that had partnered with union autenticos in mobilizing grassroots activity across Brazil.594 Because the Catholic Church refused to enter into formal politics,595 and

590 Seidman 1994, 37 in Collier 1999, 137. 591 Moreiera Alves 1984, 95. 592 Keck 1986. 593 Skidmore 1988. 594 Keck 1986. 595 Moreira Alves 1984.

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because union activists had already linked with CEBs and grassroots organizations throughout the country, the PT was able to draw additional members into the party.

Finally, in an interesting contrast to the situation in Egypt and Tunisia, where pre-existing opposition parties had distinct ideological positions, the PT was able to attract politicians who had leftist sympathies away from the PMDB, since, as a big tent party, this point of view was not expressed there already.596

Thus the political opposition structure of the military regime also influenced the structure of the membership base of the workers’ movement in a way that disincentivized labor activists from joining the PDMB and incentivized the formation of a party comprising the labor movement and the grassroots organizations with whom the movement’s members shared ties. These outcomes, therefore, provide evidence in support of the general claim in Proposition 3.

Summary

Returning to one of the puzzles of party formation that I addressed in Chapter 2, the formation of a labor party from the Brazilian labor movement lends support for the theory presented here; labor movements will form parties when they have not been co-opted by the regime. Furthermore, I have shown that the membership base — the personal ties of the members — is also influenced by the structure of the opposition. While Brazil did have one opposition political party, the ideological orientation of the within-system

596 Keck 1986.

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opposition was determined by the members of that one party, who happened to be conservative and elite-led. Workers’ interests, therefore, were not represented by the

PMDB, nor did the labor movement have interpersonal ties to members of the party.

Therefore, when the time came to form a party, it is not surprising that the labor movement allied with the other grassroots organizations with which its members shared personal ties and ideological orientations. In the following section, I examine how the political opposition structure of the military regime in turn shaped the political mobilization in the lead up to the first multiparty elections in 1982.

Political Mobilization

The political opposition structure of the military regime was slightly different than that of

Egypt and Tunisia, with the result that several opposition groups gained oppositional credibility. The military regime maintained its repressive apparatus during the

‘decompression’ phase, which it leveraged rather indiscriminately at any opposition group or actor. At the same time, however, the regime altered the opposition structure by permitting more genuine within-system contestation and it was this variation in opposition structure that determined what happened in this case. Dominant-party opposition structures create a more competitive playing field between opposition parties, in contrast to the cases in the following chapter.

The cases of Tunisia and Egypt show that, when within-system contestation is restricted by state controls, extra-system actors are the ones that develop oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence, allowing them to out-compete the within-system political parties. However, the unique way in which the Brazilian military regime attempted to control within-system contestation, through electoral laws rather than fraud,

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and its alternating toleration and then restriction of the MDB, led the MDB to establish a grassroots base, in contrast to opposition parties in Tunisia and Egypt. Additionally, by allowing the within-system political opposition — the MDB — greater political space after 1974 to contest the regime while simultaneously repressing all political opposition, the regime endowed both within-system and extra-system actors with oppositional credibility. This heightened the level of competition between within-system and extra- system opposition in Brazil’s 1982 elections.

The case of Brazil, while in some ways lending support to the existence of the mechanisms theorized to facilitate political mobilization, also shows the limits of the argument. While the groups that contested the regime through extra-systemic channels indeed develop a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility, the party that we expect to win the founding elections – the Workers’ Party – only won 3% of the vote.

Despite these two resources, it is not able to out-compete the larger, more experienced

PMDB, especially in the context of the electoral rules imposed by the military regime.

These factors help to set the agenda for future research by delineating the conditions under which oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence are not sufficient in and of themselves to win elections.

In the following sections I examine the electoral results, possible alternate explanations for the outcomes in this case, and then illustrate how the opposition structure in Brazil endowed both within-system and extra-system opposition groups with oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence, thus making the electoral field significantly more competitive for intra-opposition actors than in Tunisia. These results

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shed light on the factors that contributed to the Muslim Brotherhood out-performing the

Salafi Calling in Egypt as well as help to show the limits of the argument.

Proposition 1: Parties that emerged from groups that participated through extra-system channels during the successive military regimes will mobilize supporters better during the first open elections than either groups that participated through within-system channels or completely new parties.

Brazil’s first fair597 multiparty elections since the beginning of the military regime took place on November 15, 1982. “For the first time [since the military regime began] the four opposition parties (PMDB, PDT, PT, and PTB) gained a larger share of the popular vote than the government party (PDS) in the legislative elections (48.0 percent against 36.6 percent).”598 The results, in Table 5.8, show that the PMDB, the party that emerged from the within-system opposition party, the MDB, won more than the other opposition political parties.

Table 5.8: Results of Brazil’s 1982 Multiparty Elections SHARE OF PARTY PARTY TYPE VOTES PDS Regime 36.6% PMDB Within-System + Extra-Systemic 36.4% PDT New/pre-Auth. figures 4.9% PTB New/pre-Auth. Party 3.7% PT Extra-Systemic 3% Null/invalidated n/a 15.1% Source: Moreira Alves 1984.

As Table 5.8 shows, the regime’s ruling party, the PDS, won the majority of votes by only 0.2 percent of the votes. The ruling party’s success, as will be explained in the

597 While the elections were considered fair, in the absence of fraud, they were not completely free, as the “alternative explanations” section explains. 598 Martins 1986, 88.

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following section, was due primarily to a set of electoral rules that gave the ruling PDS party an advantage over the other parties. Table 5.8 also shows, however, that the PMDB, the party that emerged from the sole within-system opposition party, the MDB, fared far better than the other popular grassroots opposition organization that contested the regime through extra-system channels: the PT. As one scholar notes, “The results of the 1982 elections were a profound shock and disappointment to the PT. Its performance fell far below the minimal goal of 5 percent nationally and 3 percent in each of nine states.

Indeed, the party won more than 3 percent in only two states: São Paulo, with 9.9 percent, and Acre, with 5.4 percent."599

What explains the PMDB’s success and what does it mean for the theory? I first examine possible alternate reasons for the PMDB’s mobilizational success and then demonstrate that, due to the rather unusual events of the Geisel government’s

‘decompression’ period, which altered the structure of the political opposition, the PMDB had both oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence. Combined with the party’s electoral experience, it was able to out-mobilize the PT. These results, while explainable, however, illustrate the limits of the argument.

Alternate Explanations

Several alternative factors likely contributed to the outcome seen in the Brazil case.

Table 5.9: Alternate Explanations Electoral Seats in Regime Ruling Party Experience Electoral Rules Clientelism Parliament Pre-1985 PSD X X X 36.6% Electoral Seats in Within-System Experience Electoral Rules Clientelism Parliament Pre-1985

599 Keck 1986, 87.

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PMDB X X 36.4% Electoral Seats in Pre-Authoritarian Experience Electoral Rules Clientelism Parliament Parties Pre-1985 PDT X 4.9% PDB X 3.7% Electoral Seats in Extra-Systemic Experience Electoral Rules Clientelism Parliament Pre-1985 PT 3%

(1) Electoral Rules

One factor that could have contributed to the PMDB’s electoral success — and the PT’s lack of success — is the electoral rules kept in place by Brazil’s military regime during the 1982 elections. While the elections were fair — they were not fraudulent — the rules governing the elections ensured that they were not completely free. First, in November

1981, the regime declared new electoral rules — called the “Pacote de Noviembro” — in order to secure the PDS’s success without resorting to fraud.600 It attempted to prevent the opposition parties from running in coalitions by stating that each political party had to run a candidate at every level, from municipal to national, in order to qualify in the elections.

Second, voters could only vote for a slate of candidates from a single party; a voter could not, for example, vote for a mayor from the PDS, a federal deputy from the PMDB, and a senator from the PT. If a voter did split his vote between parties, the ballot was invalidated. These rules interacted with the ruling party’s ability to establish large clientelist relationships at the local level to ensure that voters chose a local PDS candidate and then voted for PDS candidates all the way up the ticket.601 Keck has shown that there

600 Martins 1986, 86-87. 601 Moreira Alves 1985, 223.

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was significant evidence that this rule impacted the PT, as a smaller party, in that it ran incomplete slates in certain regions, thereby serving to invalidate the ballots of those voting for PT candidates in those areas.602

The second way in which the electoral rules may have contributed to the results was the ban on the use of television and radio by opposition parties for two months prior to the elections. The military regime implemented this rule, called the “Lei Falcão” in order to control the PMDB’s outreach to a broader audience, as it had done in the 1974 electoral campaign when it won an unexpected number of seats. Because the PT was a newer party with fewer resources, this law may have disproportionately harmed the party’s outreach and publicity efforts.603

(2) Societal Cleavage/Class Divide

Another factor that could have contributed to the PMDB’s electoral success is the class divide in Brazil, which could have split the electorate between middle- and upper-income voters supporting the PMDB or the PDS, and lower-income voters supporting the PT.

Accounts of the PT’s base, however, make this unlikely; the PT, while built on the labor movement and union structure, encompassed a wide range of actors:

"Although it began with a strong base in the industrial working class from the

modern sector, the PT is not a class party in the classic sense. With a general

orientation toward social empowerment, the party included from the beginning a

heterogeneous set of social actors: middle-class intellectuals; "new" working-class

sectors (Bank workers, teachers, university professors); social-movement activists

602 Keck 1986, 87. 603 Moreira Alves 1985, 227.

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from more traditional neighborhood movements; members of Catholic base

communities; activists from "new" social movements (women, black people,

ecologists, homosexuals); and members of clandestine organized Left parties,

including Trotskyists and various offshoots (or offshoots of offshoots) of the

Brazilian Communist Party."604

One divide upon which the PDMB did deliberately capitalize was the pro- regime/anti-regime division; the PDMB represented itself as the best chance of defeating the military regime at the polls. Indeed, “perceptions of the electoral environment seemed to confirm the PMDB's argument that the relevant polarization was still

"government versus opposition" rather than competition for power among a broad spectrum of political parties."605 Given the fact that the PMDB had established itself as a genuine opposition party in the preceding years with oppositional credibility, as I discuss below, this strategy may have been a critical one.

(3) Electoral Experience

Finally, it is possible that the PDMB’s prior electoral experience gave it a leg up on the

PT, who had no prior experience in elections.606 While electoral experience may have been a contributing factor in the results, the cases of the Salafi Calling’s Nour party in

Egypt, and both the Aridha Sha’bia and the CPR in Tunisia, none of whom had electoral experience, indicates that electoral experience is not the determinative factor.

604 Keck 1986, 70; also see Bruera 2013, 29. 605 Keck 1986, 85. 606 Moreira Alves 1985, 220.

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Instead, as the following sections show, what appears to be more pivotal in determining the PDMB’s success relative to the PT is that the PDMB also has oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence, in addition to electoral experience.

Thus, as the following sections show, the unique way in which the Brazilian military regime attempted to control within-system contestation, through electoral laws rather than fraud, and its alternating toleration and then restriction of the party, led the MDB to establish a grassroots base, in contrast to opposition parties in Tunisia and Egypt.

Proposition 2: Groups that participated through extra-system channels in the authoritarian era possess different organizational characteristics at the point of transition than groups that participated through within-system channels.

Within-System Contestation

In a previous section of this chapter, I explained how the Geisel government instituted a policy of controlled liberalization, in which the regime allowed the 1974 and 1978 elections to be fair, although not free. In contrast to the Mubarak and Ben ‘Ali regimes, the way in which the Geisel government controlled the opposition party in the lead up to the 1974 elections was through electoral rules, rather than brute repression or restriction of the party’s contact with the masses. Before the 1974 elections, therefore, believing that the regime had the advantage in the elections, the regime had permitted the MDB to utilize television and radio to campaign.607 However, after these freedoms led to the

MDB winning an unexpectedly large number of seats in the 1974 elections, the regime once again restricted the party’s activities, similar to the way in which the Mubarak

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regime alternately tolerated and repressed the Muslim Brotherhood. Feeling under threat, the regime also utilized its coercive capacity, which it had institutionalized through national security legislation, to crack down on the opposition indiscriminately, rounding up MDB members alongside labor activists and striking workers.608

This series of events had several consequences for the organization of the MDB.

First, the fact that the regime initially permitted the MDB to use television and radio ads under the assumption that electoral rules would be enough to ensure the ruling party’s victory in the 1974 elections showed the MDB that it could, in fact, win a large number of seats if it simply figured out how to reach out to the masses effectively. This is in stark contrast to the Mubarak and Ben ‘Ali regimes, which had both controlled the opposition political parties through fraud in the former and a limited number of allocated seats in the latter, leading to widespread disillusionment among opposition party members. Second, the rescinding of the MDB’s right to utilize television and radio for the party’s campaign in the 1978 elections, alongside their awareness that the party could, in fact, win seats, led the MDB to find alternate ways to reach the electorate. This led MDB members directly to the strategy of establishing a presence at the grassroots. “Because access to radio and television was denied the MDB candidates, the party was forced to seek support in the grass-roots networks, which were fighting for human rights, union rights, and associative or political rights.

Hence an unanticipated consequence of the extension of the Lei Falcão to the 1978 elections was to join the MDB to the grass-roots movement, bridging the gap between

607 Moreira Alves 1985, 143. 608 Moreira Alves 1985, 202.

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formal politics and grass-roots, base-related politics.”609 Thus, the unique way in which the Brazilian military regime attempted to control within-system contestation, through electoral laws rather than fraud, and its alternating toleration and then restriction, led the

MDB to establish a grassroots base, in contrast to opposition parties in Tunisia and

Egypt. The PMDB’s electoral success in 1982, therefore, is not so surprising; the opposition structure during the authoritarian regime determined the organizational resources available to the PMDB at the point of the 1982 elections.

Extra-System Contestation

As predicted by the theory, the PT also had extensive grassroots networks of community organizers, Catholic associations, and labor unions. “The PT followed an organizational format that closely resembled that of the comunidades de base. It was composed of cell units organized at the base level—the núcleos — charged with the organization and running of the party. Local directorates were formed by members of each núcleo in the area. The different directorates then chose a regional coordinating board to form a state committee.”610 Evidence from the PT’s electoral results also shows that it utilized its grassroots network for its campaign; the areas in which the PT gained the most votes were those in which the party structure was most closely linked to the grassroots through labor union organizations and communidades de base.611 Furthermore, the fact that the

PT, in contrast to other small parties like the PTB and PDT, was able to field a slate

609 Moreira Alves 1985, 152. 610 Moreira Alves 1985, 219. 611 Moreira Alves 1984, 96.

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(though not always complete ones) of candidates at all the municipalities of the country, demonstrating a widespread presence at the grassroots.612

Thus, in line with the theory, and with other opposition groups that participated through extra-system channels in Egypt and Tunisia, the PT had an established grassroots base throughout the country at the point of the 1982 elections. Why did the PT do so poorly then? The difference between the Brazil on the one hand and Egypt and Tunisia on the other is that in Brazil, the within-system opposition party also had a grassroots presence due to the way in which the military regime attempted to structure the political opposition. This factor demonstrate that a grassroots presence is not in itself sufficient to win founding elections.

Proposition 3: Groups that contested the Brazilian military regime through extra-system channels are perceived as possessing more legitimacy and credibility prior to the 1982 elections than groups that contested the regime through within-system channels.

Within-System Contestation

Due to the way in which the military regime controlled the MBD — through electoral rules rather than fraud — and the alternating toleration and restriction before and after the

1974 elections, respectively, the within-system opposition party was able to develop a grassroots base, unlike within-system opposition in both Egypt and Tunisia. These same factors, along with a policy of indiscriminate repression of all opposition groups during the same time period, led the MDB to develop oppositional credibility in the period between 1974 and 1982.

612 Moreira Alves 1985, 224.

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First, after the regime allowed the MDB access to radio and television for its campaigns in the lead up to the 1974 elections, the MDB utilized these media avenues to gain publicity for the party and publicly engage regime figures in debate. This was a miscalculation on the regime’s part; “MDB candidate Paulo Brossard carried on heated debates with ARENA candidate Nestor Jost. By early August, the two had agreed to a televised debate, the first such experience since before AI-5 in 1968. The intense audience interest in and the political repercussions of this debate encouraged other MDB candidates to take a more aggressive political stance and use the available media.”613

These debates invigorated the general public and the MDB campaign gained numerous volunteers during this period.614 The MDB also became bolder about highlighting regime repression, economic inequality, the National Security Law and other taboo topics.615 The discourse surrounding the MDB in the run-up to the 1974 elections was that voting for the party would equal voting against the regime, and the results of the 1974 bore this out.616

Second, even after the regime instituted the Lei Falcão in the wake of the MDB’s startling success in 1974, the law did not speak to the use of radio and television in between campaigns. Therefore, the MDB exploited this loophole in order to continue to use national media to criticize the regime and establish a reputation for the MDB as an opposition party. In 1977, before the campaigning period that would precede the 1978 elections, the MDB aired a program criticizing the regime around the issues of economic

613 Moreira Alves 1985, 143. 614 Ibid. 615 Ibid. 616 Moreira Alves 1985, 144.

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development, workers’ wages, political economy, and electoral rules.617 “The day after the program was aired, a Jornal do Brasil survey indicated that approximately 70 percent of the population of all major cities had watched the address. Of those who watched, 69 percent expressed “complete and strong” approval of the viewpoints of the opposition party.”618 The 1978 election once again served as a plebiscite on the military regime, with the MDB actively portraying itself as a party in opposition to the regime, rather than in favor of any given policy platform.619 At this point, Moreira Alves described the MDB as having made the transition to a “real opposition party”.620

Finally, the MDB also gained credibility through the regime’s indiscriminate repression that it leveraged against all opposition groups in the wake of 1978, including the MDB. This repression was more concerted and more severe than that exercised against individual opposition party members in Egypt or Tunisia. According to Moreira

Alves, this repression served to further garner sympathy and endow the MDB with legitimacy in the eyes of the population at large.621 Thus, the relationship between the within-system political opposition and the regime was more complex in Brazil. After the military regime lifted restrictions on within-system contestation, the MDB was not subject to the same constraints that hamstrung political parties in Tunisia and Egypt. In contrast, the MDB was able to both develop a grassroots presence and genuinely oppose the military regime, thus garnering oppositional credibility.

Extra-System Contestation

617 Moreira Alves 1985, 151. 618 Moreira Alves 1985, 151. 619 Moreira Alves 1985, 152. 620 Moreira Alves 1985, 152.

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By the middle of the 1970s, the labor rights movement, coordinated through the labor unions, had become an increasingly vocal, powerful and widespread voice of criticism not only of labor policy but also of the regime itself. During this period, the labor unions also gained increasing credibility as an opposition movement, both as a result of its public opposition to the regime, and as a result of the repression inflicted upon it by the coercive apparatus.

After the labor movement initiated a strike wave during the 1977 Wage Recovery

Campaign, Lula da Silva became a nationally known figure. “The opposition press and politicians called on him to speak for the labor movement. His importance was confirmed in 1978 as his union led the first major strike in a decade, which spread to other sectors to include some 500,000 workers, and in 1979 by his leadership in a strike wave set off by metalworkers that eventually involved more than three million workers.”622 This high visibility opposition to the regime and the enormous mobilizing potential of the labor movement, gave both Lula and the labor unions a great deal of oppositional credibility.

Second, the labor unions were also endowed with legitimacy after they were swept up in the same wave of violent repression visited upon the MDB and other opposition figures. While the regime had permitted a degree of liberalization in the within-system sphere, it remained very repressive in the extra-system sphere, through the national security legislation it had strategically kept in place. When the labor movement began to strike, the military police directly engaged striking workers, causing death and bodily harm, not to mention highly visible mayhem in the streets.623 “The cities of São Paulo itself resembled an armed camp. Over 10 thousand troops were moved into the area under

621 Moreira Alves 1985, 152. 622 Keck 1986, 78.

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the command of an army general, head of the Second Army Division. The streets were occupied by troops, army trucks, armored vehicles, jeeps, and helicopters in a joint military operation with the São Paulo military police. Workers were literally followed and beaten in the streets. The top leadership which remained out of jail were kidnapped from meetings in spite of the efforts of opposition congressmen and senators to protect them."624

Thus, the Brazilian labor unions, and the PT, went into the 1982 elections with a high degree of oppositional credibility as a result of its extra-system contestation of the regime. Its lack of mobilizational success, however, was due to the fact that the MDB also had these same resources at this point. The highly competitive environment of

Brazil’s 1982 elections, therefore, helps to trace the contours of the theory’s limits. The

MDB’s greater size, resources, and electoral experience, combined with oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence, made it a more robust competitor than the PT.

Proposition 4: Parties that emerged from groups that contested the military regime through extra-system channels will utilize different electoral strategies (reflecting different organizational capabilities) than pre-existing political parties or entirely new parties.

Unfortunately, unlike the cases of Egypt and Tunisia, where I was able to conduct field interviews, I was not able to conduct interviews regarding electoral strategies in

Brazil’s 1982 electoral campaign. The secondary source accounts also do not provide

623 Moreira Alves 1984, 89. 624 Moreira Alves 1984, 92.

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much information on the campaign strategies used by different parties. However, given the available information, I can make several inferences.

First, we know from the Lei Falcão that none of the political parties were able to use television or radio in their campaigns. Second, we know that the ruling party, the

PSD, had a history of using clientelism at the local level in order to capture votes and force voters to select an entire slate of candidates from the PSD, thus securing numerous votes. Third, we know that both the PMDB and the PT had established a significant grassroots presence, the former after it was restricted from the use of television and radio in 1977 and the latter due to the nature of the labor movement. Fourth, the other parties observed in this study that had an extensive grassroots presence utilized this grassroots base strategically to establish direct contact with voters and persuade them to vote for their party. Moreira Alves observed that the PT indeed used its network of communidades de base to conduct the campaign; “District residents set up and organized local rallies, for the PT concentrated on politicizing workers to emphasize the importance of achieving a voice in government.”625 We can assume that the PMDB did the same, since it had succeeded in the 1978 election using this strategy. Finally, Moreira Alves tells us that the

PMDB explicitly used its identity as a party in opposition to the regime — i.e., it drew on its oppositional credibility — in order to persuade voters to vote for PMDB candidates by urging voters to vote “usefully,” in other words to vote for the party with the best chance of defeating the regime.626

Summary

625 Moreira Alves 1985, 225. 626 Moreira Alves 1985, 225.

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In this section I have shown that the processes of political mobilization that led to the victory of the PMDB in Brazil’s first fair multiparty election are the result of a slightly different political opposition structure. These results both confirm and trace the limits of the theory. When the military regime instituted the policy of controlled liberalization, or

“Decompression,” the PMDB was allowed to reach out to voters through television and radio, openly challenging the regime and thus securing a surprising number of seats in the

1974 elections. This led to the public viewing the PMDB as an increasingly credible opposition actor and showed the PDMB that, with the right means of reaching the public, it could win more seats in the next elections. However, at the same time, the regime realized that it had miscalculated, and brutally cracked down on both the PMDB and other members of the political opposition who were contesting the regime through extra- system channels: the labor movement.

During this period, and in contrast to the political opposition parties of Egypt and

Tunisia, Brazil’s PMDB gained oppositional credibility as a result of the repression that it suffered at the hands of the regime. In addition to utilizing repression, the regime also changed the electoral laws before the 1978 elections, barring the PDMB from using television and radio in their campaigns. Having seen the success of their previous outreach efforts, the PDMB thus turned to a deliberate grassroots campaign, where it attempted to create a grassroots presence as a result of the changed electoral rules. Thus, in contrast to the within-system political opposition of Tunisia and Egypt, at the point of the 1982 multiparty elections Brazil’s PMDB had gained a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility, in parallel to the main opposition actor that contested the regime through extra-system channels: the labor movement.

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As a result, when both the labor movement and the MDB entered the 1982 elections, the playing field had been leveled, in a certain way, because the MDB had also developed a grassroots base and credibility during the “decompression” years, when the regime alternated between toleration and repression. The PMDB’s grassroots base and oppositional credibility, in combination with electoral experience and material resources, ensured that the PMDB out-performed the PT in the elections. The way in which the regime altered the opposition structure allowed the opposition party to develop the same resources as those possessed by the labor movement.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter provided both confirmation and further refinement of the theory. Tunisia, as a shadow case for Egypt, shared the same political opposition structure as Egypt. Brazil, too, was a dominant-party regime, albeit one with only a single opposition party. The military regime also changed the opposition structure over time by simultaneously allowing the opposition party more leeway to reach out to voters and then utilizing repression against the party, rather than tactics of control, to constrain the party’s electoral outreach during the authoritarian era.

Both Tunisia and Brazil enabled confirmation of the theory regarding party formation by organized labor. The case of Tunisia provides a parallel opposition structure regarding labor and a parallel outcome to Egypt: the UGTT was co-opted during the Ben

‘Ali regime and did not form a labor party after Ben ‘Ali’s ouster. The case of Brazil, in contrast, offers further confirmation through variation: labor was not co-opted during the

Brazilian authoritarian era and in turn forms a political party in the lead-up to the multiparty elections.

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The examination of Brazil and Tunisia also lent confirmation to the puzzle of why certain pro-reform groups form political parties in some instances and not in others.

While neither Brazil nor Tunisia had pro-reform activist groups like Kifaya in Egypt and

Charter ’77 in Czechoslovakia, I nonetheless tested the basic premise of the theory on the other opposition groups in these two cases. The structure of the opposition determines the nature of the membership base of these groups: when opposition political parties exist, pro-reform groups do not have an exclusive membership base, but rather a base that consists of individuals with ties to other political parties and social movements. This second set of ties is based upon ideological orientations or identities are stronger than those between the members of the pro-reform group. Thus, at the point of party formation, these pro-reform groups lose much of their membership base to the other organizations. The labor party in Brazil and al-Nahda in Tunisia illustrate the insight of this claim in that the inverse applies to both of them; the membership base of both of these groups was composed of people without competing ties to other organizations.

This chapter also extended the claims regarding the structure of the political opposition and post-authoritarian political mobilization, as well as provided areas for further research. Tunisia once again offered confirmation through parallelism; al-Nahda in Tunisia, as an opposition group that contested the regime through extra-system channels had a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility that enabled it to mobilize supporters better than other political parties. Al-Nahda also suggests that the other resources possessed by the Muslim Brotherhood — electoral experience, societal goodwill from charitable activities, and a strong internal group organization — are contributing factors to the group’s success but not necessary ones.

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An examination of the Brazil case confirms this insight. In the Brazil case, the single opposition political party, the MDB, developed a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility as a result of the way in which the ruling regime altered the opposition structure in the 1970s; as a result, the MDB had a grassroots presence, oppositional credibility, financial resources, and electoral experience, similar to the

Muslim Brotherhood. Despite the fact that the Workers’ Party (PT) formed from the labor movement and had a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility, the electoral experience and financial resources of the MDB enabled it to out-perform the PT, just as the Muslim Brotherhood out-performed the Salafi Calling. (The extent to which the MDB did so was likely due to the electoral rules, as I discussed in the Brazil case study.) The pattern of mobilization in the Brazil case, therefore, provides further insight into the factors that enabled the Muslim Brotherhood to mobilize more supporters than the Salafi

Calling, despite having other similarities. Finally, the examination of mobilization in each of these cases indicates that post-authoritarian mobilization in dominant-party regimes is quite competitive, in contrast to the cases in the next chapter.

Chapter 6 continues to extend the analysis beyond Egypt, and beyond dominant- party regimes by altering the political opposition structure even further. In Chapter 6, I examine how party formation and political mobilization are shaped by the legacies of one-party regimes.

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Chapter 6

The Revival of Political Participation in Single-Party Contexts:

Poland, Czechoslovakia & Zambia

Introduction

In June 1989, after roundtable talks with the Polish communist regime, Solidarity, the trade-union-turned-political party, scrambled to organize and mobilize an electoral campaign that could compete with the full might of the Polish United Workers’ Party.

Ash, observing events first-hand writes,

“With hindsight it begins to seem obvious that Solidarity should have

won a landslide victory on Sunday 4 June, in the first round of the closest

thing to a free election that Poland had seen for half a century. They must

have known they would win! But they didn't...Despite all the starting

handicaps, the lack of organization, money, offices, staff, and, most of

all, media, the Solidarity-opposition campaign had become a festival of

national improvisation."627

Not only did Solidarity sweep these elections, but the trade union managed to do what Egypt’s Trade Union Federation and Tunisia’s General Trade Union could not: it formed a political party. Next door in Czechoslovakia, a year later, the Civic Forum, an umbrella pro-reform group, also managed to form a political party, in contrast to Kefaya and April 6 in Egypt, and also swept that country’s founding elections. A year later, in

Zambia, the umbrella Movement for Multiparty Democracy carried out the same feat,

627 Ash 1990, 25.

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winning the 1991 founding elections and piggybacking on the organizational infrastructure of the Zambian Central Trade Union. What explains the formation of political parties by trade unions and umbrella groups in these cases, as well as these groups’ electoral successes?

The analysis so far has examined the revival of participation in former dominant- party regimes. How do opposition groups in former one-party regimes enter the fray, form parties, and mobilize supporters? This expands the analysis of the revival of political participation after a long-term authoritarian regime beyond dominant-party regimes by analyzing the political opposition structure of single-party authoritarian regimes, and the consequent processes of political party formation and political mobilization in these contexts. The cases selected for examination here are useful in several ways.

First, they begin to break down assumptions of homogeneity regarding the political opposition structure in the Communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe. By comparing Poland and Czechoslovakia side by side, we see significant variation in terms of the degree of repression used, as well as the different strategies employed by these regimes regarding the control and co-optation of organized labor. The inclusion of the

Zambia case furthers this goal by demonstrating that parallels in the political opposition structure — the absence of opposition political parties — is the causal variable in shaping patterns of political mobilization the lead up to founding elections.

Second, the cases examined in this chapter provide different outcomes regarding party formation: unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, trade unions and umbrella pro-reform groups formed political parties. In both Zambia and Poland, the regimes did not co-opt

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organized labor, while the Czechoslovak regime did. This variation in the co-optation of labor allows us to further test the claims made about labor party formation outside of the dominant-party context and show that it is not the presence or absence of political parties that conditions labor party formation, but variation in regime co-optation that explains variation in this outcome. Furthermore, these cases also provide variation in the formation of parties by pro-reform activist groups. The formation of the Civic Forum in

Czechoslovakia provides useful contrast with the non-formation of Kifaya and April 6, providing an opportunity to evaluate the proposition that the presence or absence of political parties shapes the nature of these groups’ membership bases and the likelihood that they will either form into a political party or fragment at this juncture.

Third, these cases provide confirmation that opposition groups that contest authoritarian regimes through extra-systemic channels possess similar resources — a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility — as a result of their shared experiences suffering repression, evading regime controls, and visibly opposing these regimes at personal risk. This chapter shows that these resources were not particular to one opposition group in one country but are shared features that result from extra-system contestation.

The following sections conduct a structured, focused comparison of (1) the authoritarian-era political opposition structures in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Zambia;

(2) the processes of party formation by opposition groups in these three regimes; and (3) the mechanisms of political mobilization in the lead-up to the founding elections in all three countries. For the analysis of Czechoslovakia, I utilize data gathered from a small number of interviews with members of the Civic Forum, underground church, and

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Charter ’77 conducted in Prague in November 2012, as well as secondary source material on Poland and Zambia. The political opposition structure, rather than other commonly- cited factors, such as money, religion, or electoral rules, best explains the processes of party formation and the variation in mobilizational success among the different political parties.

POLAND (1989)

Authoritarian Era Political Opposition Structure

Pre-1989 Poland was a one-party regime, headed by the Polish United Workers’ Party

(PUWP), the ruling party. Similar to other Soviet bloc countries, several puppet political parties were allowed to co-exist with the regime: the United Peasant Party, a business party, and a pro-Soviet Catholic group.628 During elections, however, the PUWP first approved the candidates from these other parties, which then ran under the PUWP candidates on their same party lists.629 As such, these parties were prevented from evolving into independent opposition parties with distinct platforms and remained essentially arms of the ruling party. No other actors were allowed to contest regime policies or compete for representation through within-system channels.

Co-Optation

Unlike Czechoslovakia, the Polish regime did not attempt to co-opt workers with any special package of economic benefits. The regime did, however, attempt to co-opt the

Polish Catholic Church and partially succeeded. As I show later in this section, the Polish

Catholic Church as an institution did not consistently or openly support the political

628 Gandhi & Przeworski 2006. 629 Lovenduski & Woodall 1987.

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opposition; instead, it tended to display pro-regime opinions in exchange for the freedom to conduct its own affairs within the country.630

Extra-System Contestation

In line with the fact that one-party regimes by definition prohibit within-system contestation, they are empirically less tolerant of political plurality in general. In these contexts, the majority of secondary association activity is tied to or orchestrated by the ruling party.631 As such, throughout most of the Communist regime, oppositional collective action in Poland was organized through two main avenues: trade unions and the Committee for Workers’ Defense (KOR). The KOR was an organization founded after workers were killed in clashes with police in the 1970s and they raised money to donate to legal defense funds for workers arrested in strike activities.632

Another group that contested the regime through extra-system channels were workers mobilizing through the labor union structure. Poland used the Soviet Union’s model of trade union organization, whereby the unions were controlled by the PUWP through the Central Council for Trade Unions, which disciplined individual unions below it.633 However, beginning in the 1970s, after economic crises spurred the advent of price increases, trade unions soon became the center of massive strikes directed at state policies and methods of centralized control began to break down.

In December 1970, trade union members at the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk, which employed 17,000 people, organized a strike, marched to the city center and attacked the

630 Ost 1990. 631 Linz & Stepan 1996. 632 Crampton 1997. 633 MacShane 1983.

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headquarter of the PUWP.634 When over 75 strikers were killed by security forces in clashes between the unionists and police, additional strikes erupted in several other cities including in Gdynia and Szczecin, calling for the establishment of independent unions.635

The PUWP secretary, Edvard Gierek, eventually visited Gdańsk to appeal directly to the strikers to cease their activities but the unionists in Łodź refused to give in and, in a startling development, the regime reversed the price increases.636 Throughout this strike activity, the trade unions established interfactory strike committees (IFSCs) to organize their strikes and coordinate their demands; Lech Wałęsa, the future first post-Communist president, was the leader of the IFSC in the Lenin shipyard.637 The strike activity continued over the next ten years and the trade union, known by then as “Solidarity” for the symbol it used (Solidarność), became Poland’s first legal independent trade union in

1980.638 The union utilized an unusual structure; rather than being organized according to industry, as trade unions in other countries such as Egypt and Tunisia are, Solidarity was organized according to region, which gave it unusual mobilizational strength and eliminated potential competition or conflict between workers from different sectors.639

Regime Response: Repression and Negotiation

In response to Solidarity’s growing power, political symbolism and rising strike activity,

Poland’s minister of defense imposed martial law on 13-14 December 1981; Solidarity leaders were imprisoned and the organization was largely driven underground for the

634 Szporer 2012; Crampton 1997. 635 Crampton 1997. 636 Crampton 1997. 637 Szporer 2012. 638 Crampton 1997. 639 MacShane 1983.

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next few years.640 The organization continued publishing samizdat, or material not submitted to government censors, and periodically organized strikes in 1985 and 1986.641

In the meantime, the organization created the Provisional Coordinating Commission of

Solidarity (TKK), to maintain leadership and organizational structure until the union could regain its legal status; this commission became the Provisional Council of

Solidarity, or TRS, in 1986 when the government granted amnesty to political opposition members.642 Through 1988, Solidarity continued to organize strikes and protests against additional price hikes; “by the spring of that year the illegal union had unleashed industrial guerrilla warfare with a rash of strikes across the country.”643

Viewing continued repression as untenable, the regime and opposition forces, represented by Solidarity, began a process of negotiation in 1987 that would ultimately culminate in the transition away from communist rule.644 During this process, the regime agreed to re-legalize Solidarity as a union in January 1989, and agreed to roundtable talks between a coalition of non-governmental groups and the regime.645 The structure of the political opposition under the Communist regime determined the processes of party formation and political mobilization in ways that differed from the cases of Egypt,

Tunisia, and Brazil, as I demonstrate in the following sections.

In summary, in contrast to Brazil, Tunisia, and Egypt, the political opposition structure of Poland’s one-party regime did not permit any within-system contestation by political opposition. The regime co-opted the Polish Catholic Church but did not confer

640 Ost 1990. 641 Crampton 1997; Ost 1990. 642 Ost 1990. 643 Crampton 1997, 380. 644 Ost 1990. 645 Crampton 1997.

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any special benefits to Poland’s workers. The only outlet for political opposition was through within-system channels, as the strikes and demonstrations by the labor unions makes clear. These factors shaped both party formation and political mobilization on the run-up to the 1989 elections.

Party Formation

The roundtable negotiations that were held between the Polish Communist regime and the opposition produced an agreement that partly-free legislative elections were to be held in June 1989, in which 100 Senate seats were to be fully contested along with 35 percent of the seats in the lower house. Solidarity effectively converted into a party at this juncture, headed by Lech Wałęsa. In Chapter 2, I presented three propositions regarding opposition party formation; because Proposition 1 specifically addresses the formation of parties from groups that attempted to form parties but were denied permission to do so

(thus referring to dominant-party authoritarian regimes), it does not apply to the Polish case. I examine the evidence for Proposition 2 and 3 in the following sections.

In contrast to the cases of Egypt, Tunisia, and Czechoslovakia, and in parallel to

Brazil, Polish organized labor was never co-opted by the regime, and labor unions were at the heart of the extra-system opposition to the regime. Solidarity had come to

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symbolize and embody political opposition in Poland at the time. While it was originally a state-sanctioned union, the actions of its members — strikes, protests, and sit-downs — were highly oppositional in a regime that banned collective organization and which prided itself on representing workers’ interests. “In a monolithically structured command economy, with no buffers of capitalist owners, management, labor unions, or other associations between the state and the workers, everything economic and social was also political. This had the effect of dramatizing the party’s responsibility for the plight of the workplace.”646 The fact that one of Solidarity’s demands was the right to independent unions represents how radical their claims were; union independence, more than just the reversal of price hikes, represented a desire to break away from the very structures of the regime rather than seeking better policies via the regime. The fact that Solidarity’s strikes led to the imposition of martial law in 1981 is itself evidence of the oppositional nature of its actions and the degree of threat that the regime perceived as a result. Advocating for workers’ rights became the same thing as advocating for political change;647 therefore, the formation of a political party to challenge the regime and the regime’s policies was not met by resistance from the rank-and-file or Solidarity leadership, and was seen as the best mechanism by which to improve workers’ rights. Thus, the structure of the political opposition in Poland — specifically the fact that Polish workers were not co-opted through any special benefits, and were instead controlled and repressed — led to the formation of a party from the labor union structure in Poland.

646 Laba 1991, 123. 647 Laba 1991.

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While Poland did not have an umbrella pro-reform activist group, it is worth examining the nature of the membership base of Solidarity and the ideological orientation of other opposition groups to see whether the evidence confirms the basic tenets of

Proposition 3. The labor union structure provided a natural organizational base upon which to construct a political party, as the evidence from the processes of political mobilization in the following section show us. In addition, Solidarity’s members did not, for the most part, have competing ties to other organizations; due to the political opposition structure, there were no political parties to which Solidarity’s members already had loyalty. While many of Solidarity’s members also belonged to the much smaller KOR, the latter did not attempt to form into a political party and therefore presented no competition for membership.648

Furthermore, KOR’s ideological orientation was not in conflict with that of

Solidarity. A distinct array of policy platforms and ideological cleavages would emerge in the years following the transition away from Communism, as a result of the political opposition structure — specifically, the lack of any opposition political parties — in the late 1980s leading up to the transition itself. As such, the central ideological orientation shared by all opposition groups was that of opposing the regime and its over- politicization of all parts of life, a phenomenon referred to by scholars of the former

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Soviet Union as “anti- politics.”649 While those on the anti-regime side included a diverse range of individuals — Catholics, atheists, workers, intellectuals — members of the opposition were united in their rejection of the policies of the regime and the PUWP rather than united in concrete policies more specific than calls for democratic elections.650

Thus, even for those members with ties to KOR, this overlap in membership did not constitute a drain on Solidarity’s membership base. As will be discussed in Chapter 7, this fact is reflected in the disintegration of Solidarity as a coherent political party in the years following 1989; party leaders disagreed over policy alternatives once the regime collapsed, processes of democratic politics resumed, and society began to coalesce around different political orientations.651 Thus, the basic tenet of Proposition 3 is confirmed.

Summary

In the above sections I have demonstrated that the political opposition structure — who the regime did or did not co-opt, and the lack of any within-system contestation — shaped the process of party formation in the lead-up to the 1989 elections. Returning to one of the puzzles of party formation that I addressed in Chapter 2, the formation of a party from Poland’s labor unions confirms the theory presented here; labor movements that contest the regime through extra-system channels will tend to form parties when they have not been co-opted by the regime. Furthermore, an examination of Solidarity’s membership base — the personal ties of the members and competing ideological

648 Szporer 2012. 649 Ost 1990. 650 Crampton 1997. 651 Vachudova 2008.

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orientations expressed by different organizations — is also influenced by the structure of the opposition. The absence of any other political parties meant that members of

Solidarity were not simultaneously members of groups with more salient ideological orientations than simply being anti-regime. In the following section, I examine how the political opposition structure of regime in turn shaped the political mobilization in the lead up to the semi-free elections of 1989.

Post-Authoritarian Political Mobilization

The pattern of political mobilization in the first semi-free elections since the beginning of

Communist rule in Poland provides further confirming evidence that the political opposition structure influenced the resources possessed by different groups at the point of the elections. In Chapter 2, I presented a series of propositions regarding political mobilization; in the following sections I shall examine the evidence for each of my propositions in turn.

Proposition 1: Parties that emerged from groups that participated through extra-system channels during the communist period will mobilize supporters better during the first free, multiparty elections than completely new parties.

The electoral rules governing the June 4, 1989 elections were rather complex and deserve explanation before addressing the results. During the roundtable negotiations between various opposition actors, including Solidarity, and the regime, it was decided that semi-free elections would be held. As such, elections would take place in the lower house, the Sejm, and the upper house, the Senate. For the elections to the Sejm, 65

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percent of the seats would be reserved for Communist Party candidates and the puppet opposition parties; voters would either leave the list of names untouched and submit their ballots, thereby endorsing the Communist Party candidates, or they could strike a line through the names before submitting the ballot, thereby voting against them. The other 35 percent of the seats were free contests between Solidarity candidates, other opposition candidates, and the Communist Party candidate.652 In the Senate, voters selected two names from the ballot and the candidates that won majorities won seats. In the case of pluralities or ties, the two highest candidates competed in a second round runoff.653 The regime also ran a national list, with only thirty-five candidates for thirty-five seats, composed of Communist Party members, in order to guarantee another thirty-five regime-friendly members of the legislature. Voters had to simply submit the national list ballot in order to vote for the candidates. The results of these three contests are shown in

Table 6.1.

Table 6.1: Results of the 1989 Polish Legislative Elections SEJM NATIONAL LIST PARTY RESULTS SENATE RESULTS PARTY RESULTS TYPE (NO. OF (NO. OF SEATS) (NO. OF SEATS) SEATS) Extra- Solidarity 161/161 99/100 -- Systemic Regime party Old Regime 3/261 1/100 2/35 and affiliates Source: Castle 2003, 147.

As the results of Table 6.1 show, Solidarity succeeded in securing all the seats that it was eligible to run for; the regime, in contrast, was actively voted out of office.

652 Ost 1990, 206. 653 Castle 2003, 147.

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Alternate Explanations

In addition to the theory proposed here, there are two other factors that could have influenced these results: the electoral rules, and the role of the Catholic Church.

(1) Electoral Rules

It may seem obvious that Solidarity would win at least some seats in the legislature, given that it was the only opposition party, there is no guarantee that the Solidarity candidates would have defeated their Communist party opponents; indeed, the perception in the run- up to the election was exactly the opposite.654 Furthermore, in order to win a seat to the

Sejm, the candidate had to win a majority of votes; thus, simply running was not enough to win a seat. Thus, the members of Solidarity that gained seats in the legislature had to be actively chosen by the electorate, in the same way that the results reflect the fact that the electorate actively rejected the Communist Party candidates. Finally, there was actually come competition between different opposition figures for the seats. In several regions, there were multiple opposition figures competing against Solidarity and in some cases, more than one Solidarity candidate competing in the same region for the same seat.655 Therefore, the success of the Solidarity candidates was not as predictable as one may expect.

(2) The Role of the Catholic Church

Another factor that could have contributed to the success of Solidarity in the 1989 elections was the role played by the Catholic Church. As I highlight later in this section

654 Ash 1990; Castle 2003. 655 Castle 2003, 176.

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when I examine whether Solidarity had oppositional credibility, Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poland in 1983, and his meeting with Lech Walęsa, endowed Solidarity with a great deal of moral authority, especially since Poland is a Catholic-majority country and the

Pope was himself Polish.

Is it possible, therefore, that Solidarity performed so well in the elections not because they had a greater grassroots presence than other groups along and oppositional credibility but because the Polish Catholic Church endorsed the group? The evidence indicates that this is not the case as the role of the Polish Catholic Church as an institution was considerably more complicated than the popularity of the Pope’s visit would indicate.

While Pope John Paul II’s visit was wildly popular (as I discuss in the following section), the Polish Catholic Church as an institution had a rather corporatist relationship with the regime and did consistently or openly support the opposition.656 Barbara Falk argues that, during the worker strikes in the late 1970s, and the 1980 Gdánsk strike that led to the creation of Solidarity as independent union, the Church played an intermediary role:

“The Church maintained its independence and while sympathetic to Solidarity’s

aims, officially attempted to mediate in a corporatist manner between opposition

and party-state. In fact, the regime and the Episcopate were necessarily

conciliatory toward each other, the party-state in terms of recognizing the Church

as an institution with which it could bargain (and it sorely needed some partner

representative of Polish society), and the Church by taking advantage of the

situation by pressing for its own needs. The state attempted to co-opt popular

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national and religious ideology as a result of its own internal legitimation

crisis.”657

David Ost is more critical of the Church, arguing that it actually pro-regime and

“impatient” with Solidarity: “In December 1980, in the midst of an official campaign against Solidarity’s advisers, [Father Alojzy] Orszulik, as spokesman of the Polish

Episcopate, openly weighed in on the government’s side with his own public attack against Jacek Kuroń.”658 Thus, the evidence indicates that the Polish Catholic Church — the institution to which most Poles were directly connected — was not actually supportive of Solidarity or its aims. Thus, whether or not Solidarity’s success was attributable to the support of the Catholic Church is more complicated than a simple one- to-one relationship.

Proposition 2: Groups that participated through extra-system channels in the authoritarian era possess different organizational characteristics at the point of transition than other new parties.

In contrast to the lack of direct evidence that links either electoral rules or the

Church to the electoral results, there is significant evidence that proposed mechanisms of the theory presented here are responsible for Solidarity’s electoral success. Even though there are no other parties with whom to compare Solidarity’s grassroots organizational presence at the point of the elections, it is still possible to compare Solidarity’s organizational resources with those of the other opposition groups considered in this

656 MacShane 1983, 96. 657 Falk 2003, 54. 658 Ost 1990, 156-157.

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dissertation — the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Calling in Egypt, Brazil’s Labor

Party (PT), Tunisia’s Al-Nahda, and the Czech Civic Forum.

In parallel to the experiences of the other opposition groups that I examine here,

Solidarity was driven underground into informal networks at the grassroots level, when the regime imposed martial law in 1981. Members of both Solidarity and KOR were rounded up and arrested.659 The Solidarity leaders who were imprisoned debated whether the remaining members of Solidarity should go underground or not; despite the fact that

Solidarity leaders had originally wanted to be an above-ground, legal organization, they decided that “a diverse and loosely organized underground was the only way to proceed in 1982. There was simply no way to organize anything else. Telephone lines were cut for four weeks and openly wiretapped for nearly a year after that.”660 Leaders who had not been arrested organized a “Temporary Coordinating Commission” (TKK) to coordinate the underground activities of the unions, diving Poland geographically into four regions.661 Zbigniew Bujak was the most prominent Solidarity member to escape arrest and became the default leader of the TKK.662 The TKK fell back upon the pre- existing informal networks to organize the movement, based upon the union structure of

Solidarity; these were linked to groups of KOR activists and local “activist” parishes of the Catholic Church.663 Because Solidarity itself had been located primarily in big cities, the majority of the underground unions and networks were in urban and industrial areas.664

659 Zuzowski 1992, 223. 660 Ost 1990, 152-153. 661 Stokes 1993, 106. 662 Ost 1990, 152. 663 Laba 1991, 129. 664 Castle 2003, 87.

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Thus clustered into informal cells and loosely-organized networks at the grassroots level, these underground groups engaged in a range of opposition activity. The groups published underground newspapers, published books by Polish authors, and distributed dissident pamphlets. “The first issue of Tygnodnik Mazowsze (Warsaw Region Weekly), the main Solidarity newspaper underground, appeared only two months after martial law began.”665 The Minister of Internal Affairs recorded 1,600 illegal organizations and 1,200 illegal printing houses between the onset of martial law in 1981 and May 1986.666 Marek

Kaminiski describes the scope and effect of these activities:

“In 1985, I was running an underground publishing house, STOP, that employed

about twenty full-time workers and up to 100 moonlighters. Between 1982 and

1989, we published about thirty-five titles of more than 100,000 books combined.

We were a part of a decentralized network that included about 100 underground

publishing houses, hundreds of periodicals, thousands of trade union

organizations with a hierarchically organized leadership structure, a few Nobel

Prize winners, and even underground theaters, galleries, and video rentals. We

called it an ‘independent society.’”667

The TKK also established dissident radio and television broadcasts, which would later be copied by the Charter ’77 activists in Czechoslovakia, enabling Solidarity activists would jam official broadcasts and transmit their own,668 resulting in “a series of sensational penetrations of state-run airwaves.”669 In such a way, Solidarity managed to expand into and create a network of underground activists in response to the repression of the martial

665 Stokes 1993, 106. 666 Zuzowski 1992, 231. 667 Marek Kaminski 2004, 2 in Clark, Golder & Golder 2012, 305. 668 Falk 2003, 53.

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law period, which maintained the organization’s presence at the grassroots level. This presence in turn aided the organization in its campaigns during the 1989 elections, as I demonstrate below.

Proposition 3: Groups that contested the Communist regime through extra-system channels are perceived as possessing more legitimacy and credibility at the point of the first free elections than new parties.

There is also significant evidence that Solidarity was seen by the Polish population as “credible” or “legitimate” opposition to the authoritarian regime. This credibility was established through the group’s highly visible oppositional activities, the moral authority endowed upon the group by the Pope’s 1983 visit, the personal charisma of Lech Walęsa and what he represented, the repression the group suffered during the implementation of martial law, and the concessions Solidarity achieved by taking part in the roundtable negotiations.

The first way in which Solidarity gained oppositional credibility was through its highly visible, open contestation of regime policies, and the consequent securing of concessions from the regime. In a one-party context, any organized opposition to regime policies is highly visible; in a Communist regime, the fact that this opposition came from workers was even more devastating.670 “Merely by existing, Solidarity entered into symbolic conflict with the party-state. Its symbol — SOLIDARNOŚĆ — its strikes, its worker-leaders, and its monuments to its worker dead undermined the claim of the party

669 Ost 1990, 153. 670 Crampton 1997, 364.

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to the heritage of the socialist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”671

Without opposition political parties, there was no obvious actor endowed with the mission to represent opposition forces and contest the state; Solidarity thus constituted “a new "collective actor" undertaking action on the scale of the entire society."672 Solidarity as a single union showed unions and workers in other regions that unsanctioned, oppositional collective action could have massive consequences. As a result of the

Gdánsk strikes in 1980, the regime rescinded price increases and granted the union independent legal status.673 That striking workers were able to win such concessions was path breaking in the context of Central and Eastern Europe during the 1970s and 1980s and was hugely inspirational for other dissatisfied groups of people; the strikes in Gdánsk in 1979 and 1980 sparked further strike waves in other regions of the country after

Solidarity won concessions from the regime.674 As Castle notes, “One must remember the symbolic importance and indeed moral weight, that strikes and industrial workers have had in Poland. The role that strikes played in previous decades of the People’s Republic, forcing reversals of economic policy and bringing down governments, and the significance of major industrial plants in the popular consciousness give such phenomena in Poland an importance out of proportion to their immediate economic impact.”675 That

Solidarity dared to contest regime policies openly and visibly and that it was able to win concessions endowed the group with enormous credibility. It was also perceived as threatening to the regime, leading directly to the imposition of martial law in 1981.

671 Laba 1991, 145. 672 Bakuniak & Nowak 1987, 2. 673 Heyns & Bialecki 1991, 352. 674 Bakuniak & Nowak 1987, 405. 675 Castle 2003, 42.

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The union’s oppositional activities were made even more visible by the symbols members of the group used during strikes and to decorate their flags, posters and monuments. The union’s symbol — the name “SOLIDARNOŠC” in red letters, in a specific font, on a white background — was first displayed during the groundbreaking

1980 strike in the Gdánsk shipyard and was repeatedly used thereafter.676 Solidarity also used other symbols that distinguished the union from the regime; “Strike gates were not only decked with flowers, portraits of the pope, and the Częstochowa Madonna, but they also projected such messages as ‘humankind is born and lives free.’ Where the party-state absorbed and represented everything and everyone, the mere act of drawing a line between the people and the state was revolutionary.”677 After 1980, the union also commemorated — through monuments and ceremonies — the anniversary of the 1980 strike and linked the 1980 strike to the earlier 1970 workers’ strikes, where workers had been killed.678 These commemorations not only served to reinforce the image of

Solidarity as a group that had opposed the regime in the past, but also created new opportunities to contest the regime — and suffer the consequences. In August 1988, workers commemorating the anniversary of the Gdánsk strike marched to a monument commemorating those who had been killed in 1970; on the way there, riot police blocked the group, dispersed the march, and beat the marchers.679 Furthermore, after the regime amnestied Solidarity members in 1985, the union began a new wave of strikes demanding re-legalization, further thrusting the group into the spotlight. These events, both the

676 Laba 1991, 133. 677 Laba 1991, 135. 678 Kemp-Welch 1991, 209 679 Kemp-Welch 1991, 209.

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commemorations and the new contestation, repeatedly highlighted the group’s oppositional nature.

Second, Solidarity was endowed with further moral authority after the Pope’s visit in 1983. While the regime saw the Pope’s visit as being religious, rather than political, for the population at large, his visit symbolized something much greater: “the visit took on the character of a plebiscite on the popularity of persons, institutions and ideology...What under different circumstances would not carry any direct political references, was then recognized as a political failure for the authorities." During this visit, the Pope met Lech

Walęsa, which was obviously hugely symbolic. While the regime attempted to give the

Catholic Church independence within Poland in exchange for the institution’s further cooperation, the Pope refused, instead meeting with Walęsa. This not only endowed

Walęsa, personally, with legitimacy, but gave Solidarity its own moral weight in the eyes of the general population.680 Solidarity capitalized upon this symbolism by displaying

Catholic symbols — color photographs of the Pope, a crucifix, and others — during their public events and on the gates of the Lenin Shipyard.681

Third, Solidarity had oppositional credibility as a result of Lech Walęsa’s highly visible leadership in the union’s strikes and his personal charisma.682 Walęsa was known for leading the Inter-Factory Strike Committee at the Lenin Shipyards, and, despite being banned from the shipyards, famously scaled the shipyard’s walls on August 14, 1980.683

“Solidarity (especially its logo) remained the symbol of the emerging independent society

680 Weigel 1992, 154. 681 MacShane 1983, 95. 682 Heyns & Bialecki 1991, 354. 683 Szporer 2012, 147.

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and Wałęsa remained its personification.”684 Walęsa’s credibility was solidified when, on the night that martial law was declared, the police took him to Warsaw and attempted to force him to cooperate with the regime. He refused.

Fourth, Solidarity gained a good deal of credibility through the visible repression that the regime used against union members. In addition to explicitly linking both

Solidarity and the 1980 strikes in Gdánsk to the 1970 workers’ strikes in which workers were killed, the union was itself repressed during and after the implementation of martial law in 1981. Average citizens witnessed riot police breaking up strikes and rounding up

Solidarity members while the military simultaneously closed Poland’s borders; “most of the Solidarity leadership was arrested, enterprises militarized, miners shot, telephone communications interrupted and strikes broken by specially trained forces.”685 In response to this repression, widespread support for Solidarity spread, rather than contracted, at the grassroots level, through spontaneous demonstrations, graffiti, and other small oppositional actions.686 Finally, Solidarity also gained oppositional credibility through its participation in the roundtable negotiations, as it was seen as having, yet again, secured concessions from the regime. As Castle explains, “The Solidarity-based opposition had consciously used the public stage of the roundtable to establish itself in the eyes of the Polish public as a responsible and coherent political force.”687

Further evidence of Solidarity’s oppositional credibility comes in the form of electoral results. As I described earlier, Solidarity’s organization was the strongest in urban and industrial areas, and weaker in rural areas. However, the regions in which

684 Stokes 1993, 121-122. 685 Stokes 1993, 103. 686 Stokes 1993, 108. 687 Castle 2003, 134.

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Solidarity performed best in the elections, and where voters selected the group’s candidates with the highest margins, were the rural areas,688 indicating that voters were selecting the group for a reason other than a strong, organized grassroots presence in these areas. As I show in the following section, this oppositional credibility was explicitly used during the electoral campaign.

Proposition 4: Parties that emerged from groups that contested the Communist regime through extra-system channels will utilize different electoral strategies (reflecting different organizational capabilities) than entirely new parties.

Finally, if the theory presented here explains Solidarity’s electoral success in 1989, then there should be evidence that the party used electoral strategies that utilized their grassroots presence and oppositional credibility. First, accounts of the electoral campaign indicate that Solidarity indeed used its grassroots presence, and informal network structure, to run an effective campaign. “To the surprise of the campaigners themselves, the skills and adaptability required for illegal political activity proved to meet the demands of a short competitive election campaign better than did the skills and experience of a ruling party organization.”689 The campaign was run centrally, with regional civic committees implementing the campaign at the local level.690 In areas where Solidarity’s organization was not as strong, local activist parishes lent their organizational assistance to the campaign.691 By using the network and structure of the underground Solidarity cells, the group was, against all odds, able to campaign

688 Heyns & Bialecki 1991, 358. 689 Castle 2003, 176. 690 Castle 2003, 171. 691 Heyns & Bialecki 1991, 355.

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throughout the country despite the lack of financial resources. Members of the group that had run underground newspapers quickly took on the task of publishing campaign materials.692 “The most urgent priority…was creating the capacity to reach voters in every town and village with leaflets, posters, and candidate meetings. The first results were impressive, with regional Solidarity civic committees coming together throughout the country by mid-April and soon bolstered by town and district civic committees either created from above or forming out of local initiatives.”693 Castle’s observation of the campaign directly supports the theory presented here: “the very deficiencies that at first looked like a handicap may have turned out to be an advantage, assuring flexibility for meeting the short and intense new challenge of a competitive election campaign.”694 As a former member of the ruling party noted, “We weren’t prepared for the leaflet battle which Solidarity forced upon us. I mean, we had a huge base, we had huge possibilities, but it turned out that as a party we weren’t prepared for this. Solidarity, seasoned in leafleting for a whole decade, was more efficient in this. Getting out with leaflets to apartment buildings, to individual people, that postering campaign, it was carried out well.”695

Second, there is also evidence that the campaign deliberately drew upon the symbols that highlighted the group’s oppositional credibility throughout the campaign.

All of the campaign materials, including the lists of candidates, included the famous

Solidarność logo; because candidates were listed on the ballots without a party label, a major challenge for the campaign was make sure that voters would be able to identify the

692 Castle 2003, 174. 693 Castle 2003, 171. 694 Castle 2003, 171-172. 695 Castle 2003, 177.

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name of the Solidarity candidates.696 Furthermore, the campaign materials also featured

Lech Walęsa’s photograph and quotes from his speeches,697 and each candidate’s campaign featured a poster with a photograph of the candidate standing with Lech

Walęsa, with slogan “Wałęsa’s Team”.698 Members of Solidarity who had worked in the underground newspaper and pamphleting production during the martial law period, wore badges displaying the name of their underground newspaper and peppered regime figures with challenging questions at press conferences; “Helena Łuczywo went public as the long-time editor of Solidarity’s official underground paper, Tygodnik Mazowsze, and would soon convert it into the first legal opposition daily in Eastern Europe, with an initial circulation of 500,000.”699 The campaign explicitly made use of the notion that it was the opposition to the regime and that it could change the system.700 The use of these images, slogans, and symbols ensured that "While Solidarność status as an opposition organization was well established, during the course of the campaign Solidarność claimed and successfully appropriated the entire antigovernment campaign."701 In contrast, the campaigns of the regime candidates deliberately obscured any reference to the

Communist Party or the regime, even avoiding the use of the color red.702

In summary, accounts of the electoral strategies of Solidarity give evidence in support of the fact that Solidarity possessed unique organizational characteristics as a result of its extra-system participation as well as oppositional credibility as a result of visibly opposing the regime.

696 Castle 2003, 159. 697 Heyns & Bialecki 1991, 353. 698 Castle 2003, 178. 699 Ost 1990, 206. 700 Castle 2003, 181. 701 Heyns & Bialecki 1991, 355. 702 Stokes 1993, 126; Castle 2003, 179.

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Summary

In this section I have shown that the processes of political mobilization that led to the victory of Solidarity in the 1989 elections are the result of the political opposition structure of the Polish regime. In contrast to Egypt, Tunisia, and Brazil, the Polish regime did not permit any within-system contestation. The group that contested the regime through extra-system channels possessed organizational characteristics and oppositional credibility, both of which were demonstrated in the choice of electoral strategies employed by Solidarity in the 1989 electoral campaign. In the following sections, I expand the analysis to another one-party authoritarian regime: Czechoslovakia.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA (1990)

Authoritarian-Era Political Opposition Structure

Pre-1990 Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPCS) since

1948, after which time all voluntary associations and civil society organizations — trade unions, student unions, and so on — were subsumed by the CPCS or dissolved.703 A number of puppet, or ‘satellite’ parties existed alongside the CPCS but “their activities were confined largely to mobilizing their members to support the aims and policies of the

Communist Party.”704 Therefore, the Federal Assembly during the Communist period was neither a genuinely representative body nor a legislative one.

Co-optation

703 Wolchik 1991; Bugajski 1987. 704 Wolchik 1991, 22.

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While, in terms of ideology and party structure, Communist regimes intend to implicitly co-opt or incorporate workers into the state, the literature on the Czechoslovak regime indicates that it was better at doing so than the Polish regime. This was perhaps due to the fact that, in contrast to the other Communist states of East and Central Europe, the

Czechoslovak economy was performing quite well.705 “Czechoslovak planners…managed to keep relatively plentiful supplies of food in the stores, even meat.

In 1989 one of the arguments the regime used to defuse public dissatisfaction was to compare the Czechoslovak standard of living to that of Poland, where long lines for simple groceries were commonplace.”706 This better-than-average economic performance allowed the regime to devote special privileges to workers: no sudden price hikes, less unequal wages as compared to white collar employees, and vacation cottages in the countryside outside of Prague.707 The success with which the regime provided for workers in particular could explain why, in contrast to events in Egypt, Brazil, Tunisia,

Egypt, and Poland, Czechoslovakia’s workers and trade unions did not enter into any anti-regime demonstrations until the very end of the regime, in December 1989.

Extra-System Contestation

The period of “normalization” that followed the 1968 Prague Spring under Gustáv Husák was a good deal more repressive than the situation in Poland,708 perhaps explaining why fewer extra-system opposition organizations existed, and why their membership was

705 Stokes 1993, 149. 706 Ibid. 707 Shepherd 2000, 37. 708 Bugajski 1987.

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smaller. Nevertheless, there was a diverse range of opposition groups and individual dissidents that collectively comprised the resistance community.

First, by far the largest and most well-known group that formed during this time was Charter ’77. After the Helsinki declaration in 1975 a group of intellectuals and dissidents formed the Citizens’ Initiative, later known by the declaration the group issued: Charter ’77.709 The group obtained 243 signatures initially and listed a number of ways in which the Czechoslovak regime violated the very principles it had signed on to in the Helsinki declaration; as such it aimed to provide “a moral challenge to the cynicism of officials, to the apathy of the public, and to the empty materialism of both.”710 The publication of this charter was closely tied to the tradition of publishing and distributing illegal samizdat texts, or material not submitted to censors.711 The formation of Charter

’77 increased the publication of samizdat exponentially; “Zdena Tominová described the veritable explosion of a “typewriter culture”. First there was the variety of informational bulletins about Charter 77, and their authorized documents, communiqués, and open letters. Second a parallel industry of alternative presses focusing on literature, history, philosophy, and music emerged. Academic books, novels, essays, feuilletons, and collections of poetry were all published.”712 Over a period of ten years, Charter ’77 published 572 of its own documents consisting of appeals, letters, and essays, all of which were screened and signed by several Charter ’77 members.713 According to

Barbara Falk, the significance of these publications went beyond violating the rules put in place by the regime; “their work collectively bears witness to the abuses of an era. They

709 Crampton 1997. 710 Crampton 1997, 348. 711 Bugajski 1987. 712 Falk 2003, 94.

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carefully monitored and documented the injustices of an authoritarian communism, from the workplace to the prison system.”714

Charter ’77’s structure revolved around three “spokespersons” that represented the three ideological or intellectual strands in the movement: ex-communists, liberals, and

Christians.715 As such, it was founded as and remained an umbrella activist group united by the commitment of its members to human rights. In 1980, as a consequence of increasing arrests of its members, Charter ’77 developed a more definite structure, creating a 15-person leadership group to assist the spokespersons if any of them were arrested.716 The group grew in size over the years, reaching over 1,000 in 1987, and organized a range of intellectual debates and lectures, performances of banned plays, and other activities.717 The movement aimed to construct a parallel culture alongside the official one, a culture of people “willing to live in truth” of which Václav Havel was the center.718 This community, in attempting to construct a parallel culture, transformed everyday spaces into fora for community-building, experience-sharing, and mechanisms through which to, in Havel’s own words, “transform people and the climate of their lives.”719 Second, even more so than in Poland, the Catholic Church did not maintain even a facade of independence from the regime and in fact collaborated with it to a great extent.720 A so-called ‘underground’ church community, composed of both Catholics and

Protestants who had been expelled from their ministries or prohibited from giving sermons, arose. In an interview with me, Jakob Trojan, a member of Charter ’77 and the

713 Falk 2003, 251. 714 Falk 2003, 251. 715 Bugajski 1987. 716 Bugajski 1987. 717 Bugajski 1987. 718 Stokes 1993, 149. 719 Havel 1991, 213 in Falk 2003, 225.

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underground church community, explained the activities of New Orientation, a group of underground Protestants:

“The activity that we developed between the end of the 1960s through to the

revolution was a series of seminars in Prague and other big cities. What we tried

was to understand the essence of the biblical message and tradition and church

traditions, and we invited guests from abroad and particularly those who came

from Holland were very active…We held these from one private flat to another —

over 15 years, I changed my flat four times because of this. We met in private

houses; there were 15-20 people at a time, every two weeks. It was a fixed day

and fixed hour. We didn’t take any measures to hide it; we presumed that our

members wouldn’t tell anyone. The secret police found out about it over the

course of the meeting, and sometimes there was a person standing in front of the

door and everyone who entered had to show their papers. We were well aware

that whenever 2 or 3 people met, one of them was a member of the secret police.

We spoke freely because we were understood by the regime as being non-

conformist people, so we acted and spoke non-conformist. And if we had some

information that should not be transmitted to the secret police, then we normally

put it on the paper and showed each other to avoid being overheard by bugs.

Particularly if someone had to be protected; this was the biggest issue that we

were aware of. Not to tell anything that could hurt some person.”721

Finally, a number of other smaller groups proliferated in the late 1980s, many of which had overlapping membership with Charter ’77 and the underground church, such

720 Falk 2003, 100. 721 Author interview with Jakob Trojan, Charter '77 and New Orientation, Prague, 9/11/2012, 1:30 PM.

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as the Helsinki Committee, the Initiative for Social Defense, the Czech Children, the

Movement for Social Liberties, and the Democratic Initiative.722 All of these groups were committed to human rights and frequently have overlapping memberships.723

Regime Response: Repression

Despite the activities of a few, brave opposition activists, opposition and civil society groups were largely crushed by intensive police surveillance, an enormous and pervasive network of informers, and public disillusionment following Prague Spring.724 Individuals suspected to be members of the opposition were surveilled, followed, and harassed; their apartments were bugged, they were threatened and blackmailed, their apartments were searched, and their property was seized.725 Those who were unfortunate enough to be detained were subjected to interrogation, threats and insults in police custody; “Nearly all the original Charter signatories have undergone interrogation at some stage, and a few have reported being physically mistreated while in custody during the course of intensive questioning. Karel Soukop, a member of the collective of Charter 77 spokespersons, was beaten both prior to his interrogation in September 1981 and following questioning in his apartment when he refused to discuss his contacts and activities. Similarly, Zdena

Tominová, former spokeswoman, was assaulted by police officers and apparently threatened with rape in October 1981.”726 The regime used political trials throughout the period leading up to the Velvet Revolution in November 1989.727 Other members of the

722 Wolchik 1991, 42. 723 Wolchik 1991. 724 Bugajski 1987; Shepherd 2000. 725 Bugajski 1987, 81. 726 Bugajski 1987, 83. 727 Falk 2003, 99.

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opposition were involuntarily committed to psychiatric wards by the secret police, held against their will, and “treated” for mental illness, as was the case of a member of the underground Church, Augustin Navrátil, who was punished in such a way after collecting signatures on a petition in favor of religious rights.728

In late 1989 a series of demonstrations erupted in Prague, beginning on 17

November, which led to the unexpected fall of the regime. Riot police beat students that marched peacefully but without permission on Narodní Avenue near Wenceslaus Square, seriously injuring many.729 In response, students marched across the country and another demonstration of over 200,000 people again poured out onto Wenceslaus Square on

November 19, while a general strike was called for on November 27.730 The regime agreed to roundtable talks with the opposition, which led to the holding of the first free parliamentary elections in June 1990. As the following sections demonstrate, the structure of the political opposition under the Czechoslovak communist regime determined the processes of party formation and political mobilization that followed the roundtable negotiations in ways that paralleled the Polish case and differed from events in Egypt, Tunisia, and Brazil

In summary, in contrast to Brazil, Tunisia, and Egypt, and in parallel with Poland, the political opposition structure of Czechoslovakia’s one-party regime did not permit any within-system contestation by political opposition. The regime co-opted both workers and the Catholic Church. Members of the political opposition contested the regime through extra-system channels, publishing petitions and declarations criticizing the regime, constructing a “parallel society” of intellectual honesty and religious inquiry,

728 Bugajski 1987, 87. 729 Falk 2003.

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and publishing a series of essays and tracts on the immoral nature of life under the

Czechoslovak regime. These factors shaped both party formation and political mobilization in the first free elections in June of 1990.

Party Formation

During the demonstrations at the end of 1989, the networks of dissidents from Charter

’77 and affiliated groups came together in a meeting on November 18, led by Václav

Havel, who proposed the creation of an umbrella political group uniting all dissidents under the name Občanski Forum (Civic Forum), including Charter ’77, the Jazz musicians network, intellectuals, students, and others.731 The Civic Forum proceeded over the next days to craft a political program and set of proposals advocating electoral democracy.732 In a set of roundtable negotiations in December of 1989, the opposition and the regime agreed to hold free and fair legislative elections in 1990 and the government resigned on December 1989. In Chapter 2 I presented three propositions regarding opposition party formation; because Proposition 1 specifically addresses the formation of parties from groups that attempted to form parties but were denied permission to do so (thus referring to dominant-party authoritarian regimes), it does not apply to the Czech case. I examine the evidence for Proposition 2 and 3 in the following sections.

Proposition 2: Labor unions form political parties after a regime transition as a way to attain access to policymaking only when organized labor was part of the political

730 Falk 2003. 731 Stokes 1993; Wolchik 1991; Falk 2003.

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opposition. When organized labor was co-opted by the regime, labor unions will seek to remedy existing institutional arrangements to secure preferred policy outcomes.

In contrast to the cases of Poland and Brazil, and in parallel to the cases of Egypt and Tunisia, Czech labor was co-opted by the regime. Although Czech labor unions would have provided an organizational structure from which to launch a political party, workers had never contested regime policies, quite understandably, because they were already given a set of privileges, such as country cottages, no sudden price hikes, and relatively equitable wages. Czech workers did not join in any protests against the regime or engage in oppositional activity, until the very end of 1989. Thus, in line with

Proposition 2, Czech labor unions did not form a political party prior to the 1989 elections.

Charter ’77, as I explained earlier in this section, was an umbrella group comprised of a diverse set of individuals, united in their opposition to the Czechoslovak regime, and which contested the regime through extra-system channels. In contrast to both Kifaya and

April 6 in Egypt, Charter ’77 formed into a political party at the end of 1989 and competed in the 1990 legislative elections. The formation of the Civic Forum as a political party was shaped by the political opposition structure of the Czechoslovak

732 Stokes 1993.

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regime, specifically the absence of opposition political parties, which shaped the nature of Charter ’77’s membership base and the different incentives and pressures facing members at the time.

In contrast to both Kifaya and April 6, the members of Charter ’77 did not have ties to any other opposition political parties. Thus, in contrast to events in Egypt, members of

Charter ’77 — Christians, intellectuals, atheists — were not drawn back to political parties that expressed each individual’s particular ideological orientation and its members had already rejected participation in the Communist Party. While the membership base of

Charter ’77 overlapped with other opposition groups such as the Committee for the

Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted, jazz groups, and others, all of these groups shared the same anti-regime ideological orientation. Thus the pattern of party formation in the

Czech case was one in which, rather than lose its membership base to political parties,

Charter ’77 joined its membership base with the other anti-regime organizations, overcoming the problem of membership competition that Charter ’77 may have faced. As

Ivan Havel, brother of Václav Havel, explained to me in an interview, "Anti-communism unified people of completely different backgrounds. There was a group of people [in the

Civic Forum] who were Catholics and Christians. Some others were Trotsky-ists. It was a heritage of Charter ’77, all of these people with different ideas and backgrounds. What brought them together was a common enemy.”733 Thus, Charter ’77 was not faced with the same problem of a splintering membership base, faced by Kifaya and April 6, because the political opposition structure of the Czechoslovak regime precluded within-system contestation and opposition political parties.

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Summary

Czechoslovak case helps us to understand both of the puzzles of party formation that I addressed in Chapter 2. Regarding the first puzzle, that of variation in the formation of parties by labor unions, the non-formation of a party from Czechoslovak labor unions confirms the theory; labor unions that have been co-opted by the regime with a system of special benefits will not form a political party. Regarding the second puzzle, that of the variation in the formation of political parties by pro-reform activist groups, the formation of a party by Charter ’77 also confirms the theory. Due to the absence of opposition political parties, the membership base of Charter ’77 was not splintered in the same way that the membership base of both Kifaya and April 6 was. Furthermore, the organizations with which Charter ’77 members did share ties were all organizations that shared Charter

’77’s ideological orientation: anti-regime. The decision by Charter ’77 leaders to unite all of these groups into a single party, the Civic Forum, was the final factor that shaped the formation of a political party from Charter ’77’s base. In the following section, I examine how the political opposition structure of regime in turn shaped the political mobilization in the lead up to the first free elections in 1990.

Political Mobilization

The pattern of political mobilization in the first free multiparty elections following the collapse of the Czechoslovak communist regime provides further confirming evidence

733 Author interview with Ivan Havel, Prague, 6 November 2012, 8 PM.

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that the political opposition structure of the Czechoslovak Communist regime shaped the revival of political participation in the immediate post-transition juncture. I shall examine each of my propositions in turn, using secondary sources as well as data gathered from a small number of field interviews with former Civic Forum members and dissidents conducted in Prague in November 2012.

The first free multiparty elections after the communist period took place in June

1990, six months after the Velvet Revolution. The results are displayed in Table 6.2.

Table 6.2: Results of the 1990 Czechoslovak Elections PARTY PARTY TYPE SHARE OF VOTES Civic Forum Extra-Systemic 66% Communist Party Old Regime 13% Movement for Self- New 7.9% Governing Democracy Christian Democratic Union New 6% Green Party New 6% Agrarians New 6% Slovak National Party New 3.6% Others New 13% Source: European Election Database734

As the results in Table 6.2 show, the Civic Forum, the party that united several different dissident groups that had contested the regime through extra-system channels, won a majority of seats in the Czechoslovak legislature, as predicted by the theory. The

Czechoslovak Communist Party won the second highest number of seats, a fact that I discuss in more detail in Chapter 7. The other new parties won very small vote shares.

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What was the cause of the Civic Forum’s victory? The following sections evaluate the evidence as to whether the Civic Forum indeed had a grassroots presence (relative to other parties), whether the group was viewed as credible opposition, and what can be inferred from the Civic Forum’s campaign strategies.

Proposition 2: Groups that participated through extra-system channels in the authoritarian era possess different organizational characteristics at the point of transition than other new parties.

In the examination of the political opposition structure during the authoritarian era,

I demonstrated that the actors who contested the regime through extra-system channels

— Charter ’77 members, church activists, and other dissidents — were under constant harassment and surveillance by the police state. As a result of this surveillance, members of these organizations relied on informal networks and clandestine activity to maintain their opposition to the regime, rather than succumb to the repression and fail to organize any resistance at all. As Jan Urban, a Civic Forum founding member explained to me,

"There was constant harassment - in 1988 and 1989, we couldn’t even meet in a

group of 3. I would have police searching my flat and was detained many times.

Some of our activities were organized in a clandestine manner. For example, we

wanted to jam official TV frequencies and insert our own broadcasts onto them; if

you smuggle jamming equipment to and from Poland, you don’t want the

authorities to know about it because they will shut it down. Other activities, like

734 European Election Database: http://eed.nsd.uib.no/webview/index.jsp?study=http://129.177.90.166:80/obj/fStudy/CZPA1990_Display& mode=cube&v=2&cube=http://129.177.90.166:80/obj/fCube/CZPA1990_Display_C1&top=yes

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journalists, or intellectuals, were totally public in the country. Charter 77’s

preparatory activities, however, were clandestine and underground."735

He also explained that Charter ’77’s samizdat projects, in which dissidents published papers and articles outside of official censors, were established through informal, underground networks, some of which were linked to Poland. As Urban explained, “In 1988 we started the first larger circulation publication - The People’s

Newspaper (a monthly), which was xeroxed. And secret police estimated that it may have had up to 50,000 [readers] in Prague and outside of Prague. Whenever we needed to publish something in larger quantities, like books, we went to Poland. We got them back through couriers. A section of the Polish and Czech border was open, so tourists could meet and exchange the same bags and move on."736

Given the high costs associated with political activism however, few other groups or actors had any kind of organized presence at the grassroots level outside of these organizations. At the point of the 1990 elections, therefore, the Civic Forum was the only organization that had a presence, however small, in most major cities of the country,737 including areas of Slovakia, such as the eastern Slovak capital of Kosice.738 The evidence of the Civic Forum’s grassroots presence and utilization of informal networks gives confirming evidence of the theory presented here.

735 Author interview with Jan Urban, Civic Forum Founder, Prague, 11/8/2012, 10:30 AM. 736 Author interview with Jan Urban, Civic Forum Founder, Prague, 11/8/2012, 10:30 AM. 737 Author interview with Monika Pajerova, Charter ’77 and Civic Forum member, Prague, 11/8/2012, 2 PM. 738 Glenn 1999, 199.

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If the theory presented here indeed is the cause of the Civic Forum’s victory in the

1990 elections, there should be evidence that the group was regarded as legitimate or credible opposition to the Communist regime. An examination of secondary source materials reveals that Charter ’77 and the Civic Forum were endowed with credibility from the figure of Václav Havel himself, and the visibility of Charter ’77 as one of the few groups that dared to stand up to the regime and suffer the consequences. In contrast, the failure of another new political party, a union of Christian Democratic Parties, was directly attributed to the charge that the party’s leader had collaborated with the

Communist Regime.

Václav Havel, a leading member of both Charter ’77 and the Civic Forum, was one of the most well-known and respected dissidents and intellectuals of the Czechoslovak opposition. His reputation was first established as a playwright, when his plays began to address the Communist regime, its repressive nature, and its detrimental effects on society. In discussing political themes and criticizing the regime, Havel’s plays were political. “Havel the playwright cannot be divorced from Havel the political thinker — they are the same person. On the basis of plot development and content alone, Havel’s plays are political.”739 As a result of the themes of his plays, his work was blacklisted and he was targeted by the regime.740 His essay “the Power of the Powerless” used the story

739 Falk 2003, 199-200. 740 Falk 2003, 209.

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of a greengrocer to illustrate the way in which ordinary people could defy the regime and use personal honesty to carry out a sort of passive resistance to Communism.

“He stops voting in elections he knows are a farce. He begins to say what he

really thinks at political meetings. And he even finds the strength in himself to

express solidarity with those whom his conscience commands him to support. In

this revolt, the greengrocer steps out of living with the lie. He rejects the ritual

and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity

and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt

to live within the truth.”741

In this piece, Havel argued that simple actions on the part of average individuals like the greengrocer could destroy the regime:

“By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has

exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the

fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing

apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie.

He has broken through the exalted facade of the system and exposed the real, base

foundations of power. He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the

emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his

action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer

behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the

741 Havel 1991, 146.

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truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The

principle must embrace and permeate everything.”742

According to Barbara Falk, this essay was “the single most-important theorization of the dissident movements in East-Central Europe prior to 1989…It circulated widely in samizdat among Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Poles, and was published abroad in various editions.”743 Because Havel suffered the consequences of this publication — he was imprisoned for a number of years and sentenced to hard labor — his writings transformed him into a highly credible opposition figure. His membership in the Civic

Forum, as we see in the next section, also endowed the group with oppositional credibility, which they used in the 1990 electoral campaign.

Charter ’77 members were also viewed as credible opposition due to their highly visible activities that carried great risk. Despite the fact that the repressive tactics of the regime had made most Czechs turn away from politics and avoid any confrontation with the state, the dissidents that made up the Civic Forum were observed opposing the regime and suffering for it, even if their neighbors only acknowledged this role by shunning them, as Weigel notes.

“Kamila Benda, wife of philosopher and Charter 77 activist Václav Benda,

recalled, that, during the eight years she and her husband were denied a telephone,

not one neighbor in her apartment building ever offered Mrs. Benda the use of a

phone; the neighbors had, doubtless, observed the fifteen searches that the [secret

police] had conducted in the Bendas’ flat, and had surely noted that every visitor

to the apartment was subsequently interrogated by the internal security forces.

742 Havel 1991, 220. 743 Falk 2003, 215.

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Sympathy — in the form of a friendly word, or a few clothes for the Benda

children, or a little money — was always expressed privately, never publicly: “It

was always one-on-one,” said Mrs. Benda. “There was never three.”744

This awareness of the dissidents’ suffering was reflected in the numerous letters of support and sympathy that average Czechs sent Havel after he was arrested in the beginning of 1989.745

This oppositional credibility was cemented by the Civic Forum’s participation in the roundtable talks between the Communist regime and the opposition in December

1989; their oppositional credibility was both the justification for their participation, as well as a further result of it. As Calda notes, “Most of the “founding members” of the

[Civic Forum] had been involved in oppositional activities like Charter 77, which gave them a high degree of legitimacy for the task of dismantling the old system.”746 Eyal also notes that the Civc Forum members justified their participation in the roundtable negotiations on the basis of their opposition to the regime.747

A final piece of evidence that the Civic Forum’s mobilization capability was enhanced by the group’s oppositional credibility is the fact that failure of the Civic

Forum’s leading opposition — a union of Christian Democratic Parties — was caused by the inverse: that group’s alleged participation with the former regime. “Its primary rival in the Czech lands, a union of Christian Democratic Parties, was badly hurt at the end of

744 Weigel 1992, 170. 745 Wolchik 1991, 45. 746 Calda 1996, 161. 747 Eyal 2003, 147.

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the campaign by charges that Josef Bartončik, leader of its main political force,

Czechoslovak People’s Party, had collaborated with the secret police.”748

Finally, if the theory presented here explains the Civic Forum’s mobilizational success in 1990, then the party should have utilized electoral techniques that demonstrate their grassroots presence and oppositional credibility. Unfortunately, a very limited amount of information on the campaign strategies of the Civic Forum is available in the existing scholarly literature. I was able to speak to several Civic Forum members about the nature of the campaign, and newspaper articles about the elections provide clues as to the slogans being used by the party.

First, there is evidence that the Civic Forum utilized the existing structure, however small, of the network of Charter ’77 members around the country. As Monika Pajerova explained to me in an interview,

“The main target was to establish regional networks because everything was

happening quite centrally in Prague; the demonstrations happened in Prague, the

main universities were in Prague, Havel and Charter ’77 were mostly from

Prague, the student movement was mostly based in Prague. Our main goal was to

bring [the campaign] to the regions as much as possible. In the regions we had to

always link people who were already there. In Northern Bohemia, we tried to put

together the local student leaders with the couple of people who signed the

748 Wolchik 1993, 51.

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Charter 77 in the region, along with trade unions and people in the factories who

wanted to protest. This is how the local [branches of] Civic Forum were

created."749

Jan Urban emphasized the financial difficulties of building upon the pre-existing structure of Charter ’77:

"We campaigned and toured the country. We needed to find some financing

which initially had to come from abroad. I smuggled 40,000 USD from Vienna

from the National Endowment for Democracy and they changed it in the Czech

National Bank for Czech crowns. Some of us wanted to have Civic Forum

campaign centers [actual offices] in major cities that would be kind of political

democracy teaching courses… We wanted to have them equipped with xeroxes

but we didn’t get funding for most of it. Concerning campaign, it was a regular

campaign, talking to people, having meetings in and outside Prague."750

Monika Pajerova also highlighted the fact that coordinating with the regional offices of Charter ’77 and Civic Forum was exhausting.

"Between January and June we were coordinating these 14 Civic Forum offices in

the regions and we were organizing posters, billboards and trips to the regions.

People in the regions wanted to see people from Prague. It was interesting

because they had their local Charter ’77 people and yet they wanted to see us

people from Prague…We had to physically go to these different places.

749 Author interview with Monika Pajerova, Civic Forum Member, Prague, 11/8/2012, 2 PM. 750 Author interview with Jan Urban, Civic Forum Founder, Prague, 11/8/2012, 10:30 AM.

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Organizing meetings and concerts and talking to people, and then after two days

going back to Prague exhausted."751

There is also evidence that the Civic Forum campaign made deliberate use of their reputation as credible opposition to the Communist regime. An article in the Christian

Science Monitor noted the role Havel himself played in the campaign: "The president has been seen everywhere, presenting his anticommunist message, urging people to vote for those who fought openly against the totalitarian regime"752 (emphasis added). In an interview with Ivan Havel, brother of Václav Havel, the former dissident also explained to me that the Civic Forum deliberately juxtaposed itself with the former regime:

"What is funny is that the very word “party” was a dirty word because up to the

revolution Party equaled Communist Party. The Civic Forum had a slogan in June

1990 - the slogan was “Parties are for Party members and we are for everybody”

to use the dirtiness of the word “party” as a slogan for attracting people. Some

people call this the part of the a-political politics; politics without politics; doing

things without traditional party life."753

Thus, the data above gives evidence in support of the fact that the Civic Forum’s campaign strategies reflected both a grassroots presence, however small, and the deliberate use of their oppositional credibility as strategies to mobilize voters.

Summary

In this section I have shown that the processes of political mobilization that led to the victory of the Civic Forum in the 1990 elections are the result of the political opposition

751 Author interview with Monika Pajerova, Civic Forum Member, Prague, 11/8/2012, 2 PM. 752 Christian Science Monitor 1990, 1.

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structure of the Czech regime. In contrast to Egypt, Tunisia, and Brazil, and in parallel with Poland, the Czech regime did not permit any within-system contestation. I have shown that the group that contested the regime through extra-system channels possessed organizational characteristics and oppositional credibility, both of which were demonstrated in the choice of electoral strategies employed by the Civic Forum in the

1990 electoral campaign. In the following sections, I expand the analysis to another one- party authoritarian regime, this time moving out of Eastern Europe: Zambia.

ZAMBIA (1991)754

Authoritarian-Era Political Opposition Structure

Pre-1991 Zambia was a one-party regime, headed by the ruling United National

Independence Party (UNIP). Immediately after independence in 1964, Zambia had a multiparty electoral system that coalesced into a two-party system, with competition between the UNIP and the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC was not able to contest the UNIP equally well in all regions and was strongest in the Southern and

Central provinces, meaning that the UNIP was virtually guaranteed to win elections.755

Over the next few years, the regime converted into a one-party system, in which a state of emergency prohibited the formation of opposition political parties and restricted the ability of opposition groups to form and mobilize.756 Members of the UNIP that criticized

753 Author interview with Ivan Havel, Prague 11/6/2012, 7:30 PM. 754 The following analysis draws heavily from several works: Baylies & Szeftel 1999; LeBas 2001; Bartlett 2000; and Bellin 2002. 755 Baylies & Szeftel 1999, 84-85. 756 Ibid.

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the party were expelled and the state security services were used to repress any other dissent.757

Co-optation

In contrast to the cases of Egypt, Tunisia, and Czechoslovakia, and parallel to Brazil, organized labor actively resisted co-optation by President Kaunda or the UNIP. As I explain later in this chapter, the regime attempted to incorporate the Zambian Central

Trade Union into the party, but the unions immediately resisted this by forming alternate district committees (DCs) at the local level and prohibiting union leaders from holding posts in the UNIP.758 This resistance to co-optation had consequences for the formation of the labor union structure into a political party.

Extra-System Contestation

Similar to the situation in Poland and Czechoslovakia, opportunities for collective action and political opposition were very limited. “State repression…dampen[ed] enthusiasm for independent associationalism in Zambia. The UNIP state had, for instance, violently repressed non-mainstream religious organizations in the 1960s and 1970s. Even after the opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) was banned in 1972, UNIP continued to target individuals suspected of UPP sympathies.”759 During the decades leading up to the holding of multi-party elections in 1991, there were only three main avenues for political opposition: state-sanctioned professional and state-created civic associations, the

757 Ibid. 758 Mihyo 1995, 208. 759 LeBas 2011,151 fn. 14.

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Churches, and the Zambian Central Trade Union, which became the main channel of opposition collective action.760

There were a number of state-created professional and civic associations, including the Law Association of Zambia, the Zambia Institute of Mass Communications, and the

UNIP Women’s League. These organizations were sometimes substitute arenas761 for muted and small-scale opposition against the regime, “[standing] in for a political opposition prohibited under the single-party constitution.”762 The Economic Association of Zambia similarly served as a forum in which criticisms of government economic policies could be aired.763 For the most part, however, the state had successfully co-opted these organizations and they were not used as mobilizing structures for opposition against the regime.764

The churches, on the other hand, contributed to vocal opposition against the regime.

The Christian press was the only independent media organ in Zambia and often published criticism of the regime.765 In 1990 and 1991, at the height of calls for the return to multiparty democracy, the Catholic Secretariat ran a full-page advertisement in the Times of

Zambia that “criticized the political system and attacked the regime for inefficiency and corruption.”766 Businessmen, too, developed into an oppositional class after the UNIP attempted to implement ‘socialist development’ policies.767 Most of these businessmen joined the opposition ranks after they were expelled from the UNIP for one reason or another.

760 Baylies & Szeftel 1999; LeBas 2011; Bartlett 2000. 761 See Garretón 1986 for more on substitute sites of political contestation in authoritarian regimes. 762 Baylies & Szeftel 1999, 89. 763 Baylies & Szeftel 1999. 764 LeBas 2011. 765 LeBas 2011. 766 Bartlett 2000, 432.

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In parallel to Poland, the most active opposition group was the Zambian Central

Trade Union. The Zambian trade union movement had pre-existed the UNIP government and had been an active mobilizing force in the pre-independence era, holding massive strikes in 1935 and 1940, and developing a repertoire of contentious action through which it secured regime concessions.768 Workers represented a powerful mobilizational force that was tightly linked to state interests: Zambia’s economy highly dependent on extractive industries, particularly copper mining.769 Exports from copper mining made up over 91% of the country’s export earnings in 1980 and mineworkers constitute a very large share of the country’s workforce, all concentrated geographically in the

‘Copperbelt’ region.770 Due to the workers’ organizational potential and economic significance, the UNIP government attempted to bring the ZCTU under its control in a number of ways: it attempted to install a UNIP-controlled leadership to exert top-down control; it tried to dissolve the union altogether and create a new structure; and finally in

1971 the Industrial Relations Act banned all strike activity and required that all unions be a member of the ZCTU.771

These attempts to control the unions did not have the desired effect. Instead of submitting to a leadership that attempted to bring the ZCTU in line with government policies, the rank-and-file members of the union became increasingly militant and disconnected from the leadership.772 Instead of organizing openly, rank-and-file members of the mineworkers unions moved their meetings underground.773 “By the mid-1970s,

767 Bartlett 2000, 34. 768 LeBas 2011. 769 Bellin 2002. 770 Howard 1988; Bellin 2002. 771 LeBas 2011. 772 LeBas 2011, 87. 773 LeBas 2011.

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workers regularly refused to stop strikes on the request of branch and national union leaders, and they often publicly accused these officials of disloyalty to workers.”774 This political activism of the ZCTU rank-and-file increased throughout the late 1970s and

1980s. Frederick Chiluba, the president of the mineworkers union, because an increasingly outspoken critic of the UNIP and President Kaunda himself.775 Waves of strikes began in 1978 leading to the loss of almost 300,000 workdays and strike waves continued into the 1980s when IMF-imposed structural adjustment programs created a series of price adjustments, inflation, and increased unemployment.776 When, in 1986, the government increased the price of breakfast cornmeal, an enormous wave of strikes led to the UNIP’s reversal of the price adjustments.777

The ZCTU was at the forefront of criticisms of the UNIP’s economic policies because of the immediate economic difficulty the policies transferred to workers, and in

December 1989, ZCTU leaders publicly began demands for a transition to multi-party democracy, which it saw as the solution to the economic mismanagement of the country.778 The ZCTU coordinated strike waves across the country in 1989, 1990 and

1991. After a coup attempt failed in 1990 — during which citizens openly celebrated in the streets, thinking it had succeeded — President Kaunda and the UNIP agreed to relax the restrictions barring opposition political parties and to hold multi-party elections in

1991.779

774 LeBas 2011, 87. 775 Baylies & Szeftel 1999. 776 LeBas 2011; Baylies & Szeftel 1999; Bellin 2002. 777 LeBas 2011. 778 Bartlett 2000; Baylies & Szeftel 1999. 779 Baylies & Szeftel 1999.

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In summary, in contrast to Brazil, Tunisia, and Egypt, and in parallel with Poland and Czechoslovakia, the political opposition structure of Zambia’s one-party regime did not permit any within-system contestation by political opposition. The regime attempted and failed to co-opt members of the largest and most active group that contested the regime through extra-system channels — the Zambian trade unions — and resorted to repressing the movement instead. These factors shaped both party formation and political mobilization on the run-up to the 1991 multiparty elections.

Party Formation

The leaders of the ZCTU, including Frederick Chiluba and Newstead Zimba, met with trade union activists, members of the business community opposed to the regime, and members of professional organizations that had opposed the UNIP, and formed a party called the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) in July 1990. In Chapter 2 I presented three propositions regarding opposition party formation; because Proposition 1 specifically addresses the formation of parties from groups that attempted to form parties but were denied permission to do so (thus referring to dominant-party authoritarian regimes), it does not apply to the Zambian case. I examine the evidence for Proposition 2 and 3 in the following sections.

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In contrast to the cases of Egypt, Tunisia, and Czechoslovakia, and in parallel to

Brazil and Poland, Zambia’s trade unions had actively resisted co-optation by the Kaunda regime. The ZCTU had been a visible, obvious opposition organization to President

Kaunda and the UNIP.780 The ZCTU, driven by the militancy of the rank-and-file, especially of the Mineworkers Union, had repeatedly contested the regime through extra- system channels, organizing strikes and protests.781 In contrast to organized labor in

Egypt and Tunisia, "Zambia's labor movement emerged as one of the most enthusiastic campaigners for democratization,”782 not just economic policy change. The open calls for democracy on the part of ZCTU leadership, and the criticism directed specifically at president Kaunda, were inherently political; “in the closed political environment of the one-party state, these attacks were surprisingly harsh.”783 The continuous strikes waged against the UNIP in opposition to its economic policies and the refusal to accept co- optation by the UNIP, led to the perception in the country that “the ZCTU 'emerged as a de facto opposition party'. Organized labor became 'an "enemy" of the party'."784 By the end of 1989, the ZCTU General Council had decided to actively push for regime change in the form of the return to multi-partism.785 When the ZCTU decided to form a political party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), in conjunction with other members of the opposition, Chiluba was appointed the organizing secretary of the party because of his position in the trade union leadership and his links to the trade union structure upon which the MMD was to be based.786 The MMD used the ZCTU’s

780 Bellin 2002. 781 Howard 1988. 782 Bellin 2002, 172. 783 LeBas 2011, 94. 784 Bartlett 2000, 435. 785 Bratton 1992, 85. 786 Ibid.

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organizational structure, particularly its nationwide district committees, as the backbone of the party structure, and the MMD initially used the ZCTU offices as the party’s offices.787 Local leaders of the MMD party were, for the most part, drawn from the district committee leadership at the subnational level.788 While the party incorporated other individual opposition members, the structure and leadership of the party was drawn from the ZCTU leadership, membership, and the group’s history of oppositional collective action to the Kaunda regime. Thus, the structure of the political opposition in

Zambia — specifically the fact that Zambian workers actively resisted co-optation by the regime and instead called for political change — led to the formation of a political party based upon the leadership and organizational structure of the ZCTU.

As stated earlier, the MMD party was constructed through the conjoining of the

ZCTU structure with a diverse set of other opposition actors, including the Churches and the business community. While the membership base of the ZCTU did not overlap with other political parties or organizations, its leadership did; the ZCTU leaders had ties to leaders of other opposition strands in the opposition community. In contrast to Egypt,

Tunisia, and Brazil, neither the ZCTU, the Churches, nor the business communist had to

787 LeBas 2011. 788 Ibid.

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compete with existing political parties for their membership bases and the three different groups instead decided, like the members of the Civic Forum did, to pool their organizations into a single party, the MMD, all of whom were united in their opposition to the Kaunda regime. The MMD utilized the ZCTU’s structure, from the national level down to the branch level. The ZCTU General Council gave approval for the unions to coordinate the flow of funds to all branch party offices, and the ZCTU district committees were converted or used as a base structure for local-level party offices.789 The shared ideological orientation of the members of the MMD was reflected in the early organizing meetings of the group; these meetings did not focus on the assertion of particular party platforms or policy agendas and instead focused on criticism of Kaunda, the UNIP, and the system of one-party rule.790 As there were no other political parties that had already established policy positions, and civil society had been so flattened during the Kaunda regime, the MMD did not have to compete with other organizations, parties, or movements for the expression of the anti-UNIP cleavage.

Summary

Returning to one of the puzzles of party formation that I addressed in Chapter 2, the formation of a party from Zambia’s labor unions confirms the theory presented here; labor movements that contest the regime through extra-system channels will tend to form

789 LeBas 2011. 790 LeBas 2011; Baylies & Szeftel 1999.

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parties when they have not been co-opted by the regime. Furthermore, an examination of the ZCTU and MMD’s membership base — the personal ties of the members and competing ideological orientations expressed by different organizations — is also influenced by the structure of the opposition. The absence of any other political parties meant that members of the MMD were not simultaneously members of groups with more salient ideological orientations than simply being anti-regime. These factors contributed to the strategic decision to join rather than fragment the opposition into a single party. In the following section, I examine how the political opposition structure of regime in turn shaped the political mobilization in the lead up to the multi-party elections in 1991.

Political Mobilization

The pattern of political mobilization in Zambia’s first free multiparty elections in decades provides confirming evidence that the political opposition structure of the Kaunda regime influenced the resources possessed by the different opposition actors at the point of the

1991 elections. I shall the evidence for examine each of my propositions in turn.

Proposition 1: Parties that emerged from groups that participated through extra-system channels during the authoritarian period will mobilize supporters better during the first free, multiparty elections than completely new parties.

The first free multiparty elections since President Kaunda came to power took place on October 25, 1991, with candidates competing both for legislative seats as well as the presidency.791 The results are displayed in Table 6.3.

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Table 6.3: Results of the 1991 Zambian Elections LEGISLATIVE PRESIDENTIAL PARTY PARTY TYPE ELECTION ELECTION MMD Extra-Systemic 74.8% 76.25% UNIP Old Regime 24.24% 23.75% New Parties New <1% -- Source: Baylies & Szeftel 1999

As the results in Table 6.3 show, the MMD, the party that formed based upon the

Zambian Trade Union structure along with other assorted opposition actors, won a majority of seats in the parliamentary elections. The MMD’s presidential candidate,

Frederick Chiluba, also a leader in the ZCTU, won the presidential election. Was the

MMD’s electoral win a result of the same organizational characteristics and oppositional credibility that gave the Muslim Brotherhood, the Civic Forum, Solidarity, Al-Nahda, and the PMDB mobilizational strength? The following sections evaluate the evidence as to whether the MMD had a grassroots presence at the time of the elections and whether the group had oppositional credibility amongst the larger population.

Proposition 2: Groups that contested the Kaunda regime through extra-system channels possess distinct organizational characteristics at the point of the elections than new opposition parties.

There is significant evidence that the MMD had an extensive presence at the grassroots level, in parallel to the other opposition groups examined in this dissertation.

This grassroots presence was primarily due to the fact that the MMD was, in large part, the ZCTU, with addition disparate opposition actors linked to the union.792 In response to efforts by the ruling regime to co-opt the unions and incorporate them into the ruling

791 Mihyo 1995.

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party, the ZCTU had previously established district committees (DCs) throughout the country during the 1970s as a way to ensure the union’s independence; “at the time, the committees were seen as a means of protection and self-preservation. They helped the

ZCTU establish an organizational presence in areas beyond the towns and industrial areas that clustered on Zambia’s north-south line of rail. To some extent, the DCs built community and an incipient collective identity for workers across Zambia.”793 Because the MMD was built directly on top of the ZCTU structure, the party inherited this same grassroots network of DCs, which became the local party offices.794 Funds from the

MMD central office were dispersed directly to these DCs at the local level. The DCs were the best organized and the largest in the areas of the country in which the ZCTU was also the strongest, the Copperbelt region, and the party quickly made the strengthening of these DCs the priority in preparation for the campaign,795 as I discuss below. Despite the fact that the ZCTU maintained autonomy as a union throughout this process, it remained closely linked to the MMD as a party and played a central role in the mobilization efforts during the campaign period. Apart from the churches, which were also incorporated into the MMD party, no new party or group had such an extensive network of organizations at the grassroots level prior to the 1991 elections.796 In

792 Baylies & Szeftel 1999, 91. 793 LeBas 2011, 159. 794 Ibid. 795 LeBas 2011, 160. 796 LeBas 2011, 162. LeBas also notes: “Despite its strong base in the labor movement, MMD party- building relied heavily on defections from the ruling party. Defectors from the ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) quickly filled leadership positions within the MMD and provided means of resolving party nominations…Apart from a handful of ZCTU officials and trade unionists, the national leadership structures of the MMD were soon dominated by former ruling party politicians, including both recent defectors and those who had been purged from the party in earlier periods…A ZCTU official active on the first steering committee of the MMD commented, “if one crossed over to the new political party, one was welcome, because what we wanted was to be strong.” Thus, it is interesting to note that while the leadership of the MMD was in fact a mixture of old regime figures who had been expelled from the party,

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summary, the organizational resources of the MMD at the point of the 1991 elections were unrivaled. The party had an extensive grassroots network of local level structures throughout the country, which it had inherited from the ZCTU. The ZCTU, in turn, had developed these local level structures as an evasive and self-protective response to attempts by the regime to co-opt and control the unions. No other party possessed these organizational resources.

Proposition 3: Groups that contested the Kaunda regime through extra-system channels are perceived as possessing more legitimacy and credibility at the point of the first free elections than new parties.

In addition to possessing an extensive grassroots presence at the point of the 1991 elections, there is also significant evidence that the MMD had oppositional credibility due to three factors. First, the ZCTU became a highly visible opposition group as a result of the union’s protests, strikes, and political opposition to the Kaunda regime, beginning in 1978. In parallel to Poland and Czechoslovakia, in a political context in which no opposition political parties were permitted to exist, the activist oppositional activity of the

ZCTU would have stood out. Utilizing the ZCTU’s massive mobilizational potential, with a membership of over 400,000 workers,797 the union also quickly became the most vocal critic of the Kaunda regime’s economic, governmental and political policies,

“which have earned them respect not only from union members but grudging notice from political leaders. The labor movement has also earned the notice and respect of the

the mobilizing structures and base were based upon the union structure, which is why the party was successful. I address the presence of former regime figures in the MMD in Chapter 7. 797 VonDoepp 1996, 32.

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majority of Zambians for their consistency in progressive criticism of government."798

While the strikes organized by the union were initially in response to the regime’s structural adjustment programs in response to IMF pressure, the unions’ claims became more political, and the ZCTU evolved into a “viable de facto opposition party.”799

A second reason why the ZCTU had a great deal of oppositional credibility in the lead up to the 1991 elections was that the unions had successful resisted co-optation by the UNIP. Rather than use a strong coercive apparatus to control extra-system contestation, Kaunda typically used co-optation as the way in which to control opposition to his rule.800 While others had been drawn into the ruling circle with material incentives or positions of power, both the ZCTU leadership and union structure resisted such incorporation. Frederick Chiluba himself repeatedly refused offers of a seat on the UNIP

Central Committee.801 As Bartlett explains,

“In the 1960s UNIP had made repeated interventions in the unions to secure their

co-operation in development. The ZCTU was established in 1965 to advance this

purpose. In the wake of the Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence,

security legislation was used to ban strikes and lockouts and, in 1970, Zimba, then

the leader of the teachers' union, was detained with others. Zimba was elected

president of the ZCTU in 1971. The loss of UNIP influence in the ZCTU was

confirmed in 1974 when Chiluba was elected president and Zimba became

general secretary. In January 1981, UNIP's Central Committee expelled seventeen

798 Hamalengwa 1992, 119. 799 Woldring in Mihyo 1995, 201. 800 VonDoepp 1996, 30. 801 Bratton 1992, 85.

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union leaders, including Chiluba and Zimba, for being 'anti-party' after miners'

leaders opposed the 1980 Local Administration Act."802

Finally, the ZCTU gained oppositional credibility from also suffering repression by the UNIP, although this repression was nowhere near as severe as the coercive measures exercised by other regimes in this study. "Intimidation, surveillance and detention were also used by the government to frighten and silence ZCTU leaders. On several occasions in 1980 and 1986, ZCTU leaders were arrested, detained and released without being charged."803 Frederick Chiluba was himself imprisoned. Thus, although repression was not used as the central tool of the regime’s attempt at controlling contestation, it is likely that these actions — repressing and intimidating ZCTU members — would nonetheless be quite visible, especially in the context where repression was a rarer event.

Proposition 4: Parties that emerged from groups that contested the Kaunda regime through extra-system channels will utilize different electoral strategies (reflecting different organizational capabilities) than entirely new parties.

Finally, if the theory presented here accounts for the MMD’s mobilizational success in 1991, then there should be evidence that the party utilized electoral strategies that demonstrated their grassroots presence and oppositional credibility. LeBas notes that there is, unfortunately, little information available on the strategies and mechanisms of the campaign;804 however, what evidence there is indicates that the MMD indeed utilized the ZCTU’s grassroots presence and district committee infrastructure to effectively mobilize supporters at the local level throughout the country.

802 Bartlett 2000, 435. 803 Mihyo 1995, 208.

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The MMD benefited tremendously from the use of the infrastructure provided by the ZCTU for its campaign. Rakner observed, while conducting fieldwork in Zambia during the elections, that the MMD campaign vehicles were actually ZCTU vehicles that had been repainted with the MMD colors.805 The local DCs were also instrumental in identifying and linking to local businessmen, who provided financial assistance for the

MMD’s first rallies, flyers, and campaign materials.806

The ZCTU structure also provided the MMD with the ability to organize campaigns at the local level throughout the country. These DCs enabled the MMD to carry out

“large rallies nationwide within two months of its formation.”807 As a result of the wide network of DCs, the MMD was able to run candidates in all but one of the country’s 150 electoral districts.808 When the campaigning began, local ZCTU unions became “self- mobilization” cells, organizing quite spontaneously, with little direction from the MMD central office. “In April 1991 secondary school teachers began an open campaign for the

MMD. The National Union of Communication Workers (NUCW) joined the campaign, and its networking on behalf of the MMD so alarmed the authorities that a month before the general elections the Posts and Telecommunications management issued a circular ordering the union to restrain its members from actively participating in politics during working hours.”809 These orders were not effective, and the union structures across the country began similar self-organizing campaigns for the MMD.810

804 LeBas 2011, 158. 805 Rakner 1992, cited in LeBas 2011, 161. 806 LeBas 2011, 161 807 LeBas 2011, 160. 808 LeBas 2011, 159. 809 Mihyo 1995, 210. 810 LeBas 2011, 158.

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The MMD’s campaign also benefited from oppositional credibility and the party’s perceived distance from the UNIP. Rakner argues that the MMD was successful in mobilizing supporters in part because of “a long history of struggle against undemocratic policies and tendencies.”811 The MMD also accepted former UNIP members who publicly renounced the party and defected to the MMD. During rallies, former UNIP members, who were often prominent individuals, turned in their UNIP membership cards and publicly apologized for supporting the ruling party.812 These rallies, combined with the history of the ZCTU’s opposition to the regime, painted a picture in which the MMD was the credible opposition, distinct from the ruling party and Kaunda.

Finally, the sub-national variation in the electoral results provides further evidence that the union structure was key to mobilizing support. As stated earlier, the ZCTU had

DCs throughout the country. However, the union structure was stronger and more established in the Copperbelt region, which was the heart of the mining industry. “The

MMD’s support in parliamentary elections was uniformly high in Copperbelt, Luapula and Southern Provinces and (except for Isoka East) Northern Province, with no MMD candidates receiving less than 60% of the valid votes. In Luapula the MMD won all seats with at least 79% of the vote. UNIP’s victories in Eastern Province [where Kaunda had personal and clientelistic relationships] were also broadly secure. In a few constituencies, mostly in Western Province, contests were tightly fought, but these were exceptional.”813

These results thus provide further evidence that the ZCTU’s infrastructure and grassroots presence was central to the MMD’s ability to mobilize supporters.

811 Rakner 1992, 57-69 in Mihyo 1995, 202 812 LeBas 2011, 216-217.

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CHAPTER SUMMARY

The cases in this chapter broke down assumptions of homogeneity regarding the political opposition structure in the Communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe.

By comparing Poland and Czechoslovakia side by side, we saw significant variation in terms of the degree of repression used, as well as the different strategies employed by these regimes regarding the control and co-optation of organized labor. The inclusion of the Zambia case further demonstrated that parallels in the political opposition structure — the absence of opposition political parties — is the causal variable in shaping patterns of political mobilization the lead up to founding elections.

This chapter also lent confirmation to the claims that I put forward in Chapter 2 regarding the puzzles of labor party formation. In both Zambia and Poland, the regimes did not succeed in co-opting organized labor, while the regime did in Czechoslovakia. In both Poland and Zambia, organized labor formed political parties, while the

Czechoslovak labor movement did not. Furthermore, these cases also lent confirmation to the theory regarding the formation and non-formation of political parties by pro-reform activist groups.

The formation of a party by the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia provides useful contrast with the non-formation of Kifaya and April 6 in Egypt, which allowed us to find further evidence for the fact that the presence of absence of political parties shapes the nature of these groups’ membership bases and the likelihood that they will either form into a political party for fragment at this juncture. An examination of the membership bases of other groups that did form political parties in these cases — Solidarity in Poland

813 Baylies & Szeftel 1999, 95-96.

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and the MMD in Zambia — provided further opportunity to test the plausibility of these claims.

This chapter also provided further support for the theory that opposition groups that contest authoritarian regimes through extra-systemic channels possess similar resources

— a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility — as a result of their shared experiences suffering repression, evading regime controls, and visibly opposing these regimes at personal risk. This chapter showed that these resources were not particular to one opposition group in one country but are shared features that result from extra-system contestation.

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Chapter 7

Epilogue:

Authoritarian Legacies Beyond Founding Elections

The political opposition structure of the authoritarian era – who was co-opted, who was included, and who was excluded -- plays a powerful role in shaping the revitalization of political participation and competition after the end of an authoritarian regime. The political opposition structure of the authoritarian era endows certain groups with the organizational and symbolic resources to better mobilize supporters in the lead up to the first free post-authoritarian elections. But how long do these resources last?

Theoretically, this question is especially important in light of the fact that accounts of historical legacies in general tend to under-specify temporal dimensions of historical effects, specifically how long legacies continue to exert causal force.814 Empirically, this question is also interesting; an examination of the events following the first free elections in the cases studied here reveals the fact that some aspects of the political opposition structure turn out to be ephemeral while others become increasingly important over time.

First, oppositional credibility, while very important in the transitional juncture, has a surprisingly brief half-life, especially in the face of economic difficulties. Second, the political opposition structure of the authoritarian era continues to be important, albeit in new ways: rather than affecting the mobilizational strength of different groups, the political opposition structure affects the likelihood of group survival or dissolution after founding elections. Finally, authoritarian elites and institutions, which did not play a

814 See Grzymala-Busse 2011 and Wittenberg 2012 on the various ways in which accounts featuring historical legacies are underspecified.

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central role in events during the transition, play an increasingly important one in the post- transition era, even impacting the likelihood of democratic consolidation.

Oppositional Credibility & Organizational Legacies of Repression

Political repression, and the suffering experienced by opposition groups during the authoritarian era, endows them with a symbolic resource, oppositional credibility, among the population at large. This resource helps particular groups to mobilize supporters in the lead-up to founding elections. But what happens to this resource after founding elections, and what explains why some groups that were once exceedingly popular swiftly lose that popularity?

Scholars have previously pointed to the ephemeral quality of symbolic resources. In explaining variation among the success of Christian Democratic parties in Central and

East Europe, Grzymala-Busse shows that these parties were successful in countries in which they had performed a nation building role during the interwar years; they benefited from popularity generated not by any recent performance but from the memory of positive governance over fifty years prior.815 However, this popularity was ephemeral and only lasted one or two electoral cycles; “these historical resources, however, have a half- life. Over time, parties develop their own political records and supplant historical reputations. Their statements, governing patterns, policy decisions and choice of coalitions all influence voter perceptions and loyalties, replacing the parties' historical reputations.”816

815 Grzymala-Busse 2013, 326. 816 Grzymala-Busse 2013, 327.

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The symbolic resource of oppositional credibility has a similar half-life. Unlike organizational legacies, which can be much longer lasting, as I show later in this chapter, symbolic legacies are temporary, as the cases here show. Suffering years of prison or torture appears to provide a brief bubble of popularity that is soon forgotten shortly after the first free elections. The transitory nature of symbolic popularity is likely linked to the fact that most new democracies face crippling economic conditions, among other challenges, and economic reforms in this juncture are often extremely painful for multiple segments of the population.817 In the face of inflation, bread lines, a decline in

(or sudden absence of) social services, and unemployment, it is understandable that the average citizen would care less about how badly the current president suffered in the past than about how he or she does not have the money to provide for his or her family.

Indeed, the only opposition group examined here that did not suffer a loss of popularity was Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT). This is likely due to the fact that the PT did not win the 1982 elections and was not held responsible for political or economic difficulties the country experienced in the following years. To the contrary, the PT as a workers’ party was able to increase its popularity over time by continuing to champion the economic conditions facing Brazil’s lower-income populations.

The drop in quality of life and social service provision was felt acutely in many of the former Communist countries of East and Central Europe, including the two cases studied here. While the Civic Forum was hugely popular in Czechoslovakia in early

1990, for example, the group’s popularity declined swiftly by the end of the year, manifested in the rapidly diminishing support for Civic Forum candidates in local elections and public opinion polls. “Such attitudes… reflect growing popular impatience

817 Kaptein & Converse 2008.

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with the pace of reform, fear of the consequences of economic changes, and frustration that the economic situation will not be as easy to improve as many citizens had hoped and expected.”818

Tunisia’s Al-Nahda has suffered a similar drop in popularity. “Many Tunisians who voted for [Al-Nahda] as the party of change last October have been disappointed by its inability to improve the economy."819 Increasing protests against the Constituent

Assembly in 2013 led to the resignation of the Nahda-led government in late September

2013 and the appointment of a new, independent cabinet to organize legislative elections.820 An opinion poll conducted in August of 2013 showed that only 28 percent of

Tunisians had confidence in Al-Nahda and over 60 percent believed “their country is moving in the wrong direction.”821 Those polled said that their lack of confidence was specifically due to the lack of physical security and the economic situation.

The most dramatic loss of popularity among these groups was the meteoric rise and subsequent nosedive of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. While this loss of popularity was most obvious in the mass demonstrations that wracked the country in late June 2013 and the subsequent military coup that removed President Mohammed Morsi from power, support for the Brotherhood had begun to decline since late 2012, when President Morsi made a series of politically tone deaf unilateral decisions and administrative appointments. These actions were likely motivated by a desire to bring the various institutions of Egypt’s “wide state”822 under his administrative control, as I discuss later in this chapter, but they were inflammatory actions in an already polarized country that

818 Wolchik 1991, 80. 819 Marks 2012, 1. 820 Slavin 2013. 821 Slavin 2013.

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led to violent street clashes between Brotherhood supporters and opponents in November and December 2012. In January 2013, Morsi had to ask the military to defend his residence against demonstrators.823

The discontent was manifested in other areas of society as well. In March 2013, the

Brotherhood lost majorities on several student union boards when non-Brotherhood candidates won seats instead, such as representatives of Students’ Voice election list, comprised of members of the Destour Party, Revolutionary Socialists, and April 6 movement.824 And after the July 2013 coup, in early December 2013, the Muslim

Brotherhood lost its majority on the board of the Doctor’s syndicate for the first time in decades, when members of the Independence List, a group of non-Brotherhood doctors, won the majority on the board, and Mona Mina, a leftist activist, won the position of

Secretary General.825

In addition to the post-election loss of popularity suffered by nearly all of the groups examined here, another group-level legacy of authoritarian-era repression may be a tendency toward insularity on the part of groups that were systematically repressed during the authoritarian regime. The Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, tended toward insularity and rigidity during the Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak eras, due to the repression the group suffered. "Under the oppressive state apparatus of Presidents Nasser, Anwar

Sadat, and Mubarak, the Brotherhood became less flexible and more paranoid."826 This lack of flexibility was actually itself responsible for the formation of the Wasat Party during the Mubarak era, which was founded by middle-generation members of the

822 Brown 2013. 823 Kandil 2013. 824 Taha 2013. 825 “Profile: Mona Mina, new sec gen of the Doctor’s Syndicate.”

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Brotherhood, who had unsuccessfully pushed for change within the organization.827 This rigidity and insularity may have been responsible for the Brotherhood’s inability — or unwillingness — to form political coalitions with non-Brotherhood groups and parties, which directly contributed to the group’s loss of popularity.828

Such insularity also prevented the Brotherhood from understanding the sources of societal outrage over several of Morsi’s unilateral decisions. In my own interviews with members of the Brotherhood in late 2012, many of them remarked to me that the discontent at the time was unjustified and that the political appointments of Brotherhood members to various state bureaucratic positions were essential to effective governance, an issue I discuss later in this chapter. Rather than considering ways in which to placate various segments of society and forge coalitions with different political groups, my interviewees expressed frustration and the perception that they were being unfairly criticized. As one mid-level Brotherhood member told me,

"The demands of the people have again changed; now people are protesting

against us because they feel like we are taking over the government. But we only

have four ministers in the government; we still don’t control the government and

are unable to meet the demands of the people. After any revolution the people

have very high expectations and they are always disappointed. But due to the last

30 years we have been left with major problems that can’t be solved in such a

short time… But we are moving forward with our plan and our projects on the

ground. Our success rate is not bad. Many political problems just popped up, from

826 Blaydes 2013, 2. 827 Wickham 2002. 828 Blaydes 2013, 3.

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the powers that are against us, like the judges, the Ministry of the Interior, the

SCAF."829

Whether such insularity is generalizable to other contexts is a subject for future research. Al-Nahda in Tunisia, for example, suffered brutal repression at the hands of the

Ben ‘Ali regime and yet has not behaved with the same degree of political tone-deafness and stubbornness that contributed to the Brotherhood’s demise. Al-Nahda won a plurality of the vote and has sought to rule in coalition with other political parties, rather than display the majoritarian rhetoric used by the Muslim Brotherhood during Morsi’s presidency. Similarly, the Nahda-led government resigned in September 2013 and appointed a new body to organize elections, rather than refuse to leave office. Whether al-Nahda behaved differently after seeing how events unfolded in Egypt, or was simply less insular for other reasons is a matter for future research.

In summary, while one powerful legacy of the authoritarian era is the symbolic resource of oppositional credibility, the cases studied here have illustrated that this resource is very transitory. Like other symbolic resources, oppositional credibility quickly fades once an opposition successor party has won office and the typically dismal economic realities of the post-authoritarian period rise to the surface. A more lasting group-level legacy of repression, however, is possibly the tendency toward insularity and paranoia, as the case of the Muslim Brotherhood has shown. Whether this insularity is particular to the Brotherhood, or is a quality displayed more generally by formerly repressed groups, warrants further inquiry.

Movement Cohesion or Dissolution

829 Author interview with Muslim Brotherhood member, Cairo, 28 November 2012, 5:30 PM.

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This dissertation illustrated the ways in which patterns of participation under authoritarian rule affect the organizational characteristics of various opposition groups, endowing them to varying degrees with the resources to mobilize supporters in the post- transition era. The previous section has demonstrated that the symbolic resources that groups develop during the authoritarian era are very ephemeral and tend to fade away very quickly, especially in the face of economic difficulties. What of organizational resources, however? If the authoritarian era endows opposition groups with organizational advantages, why do we see some of these groups splinter in the years immediately following the first free elections, while other groups survive this juncture?

The cases under examination here exhibit variation in the survival or dissolution of the opposition successor parties that emerged from the opposition movements during the authoritarian era. Solidarity and the Civic Forum both dissolved in less than three years after both countries’ first free elections. The Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Nahda have, at the point of writing, remained cohesive organizations, despite, in the former case, suffering renewed repression by the state. Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT), despite not winning the first fair multiparty elections in 1982, remained organizationally cohesive and went on to win the largest share of votes in successive parliamentary and presidential elections. Finally, Zambia’s MMD persisted as an organization, despite losing a large segment of its original organizational base.

Most new governments face strains after taking office upon the end of an authoritarian regime, especially when dealing with crippling economic difficulties.

Opposition successor parties come under increasing strain as well, during this time, as those who are in power must often make decisions that are unpopular with certain

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segments of the population, and may even alienate segments of the movement’s original constituency.830 Movements, parties, and organizations are more likely to remain cohesive when their members share a common identity or ideological perspective. These shared identities generate loyalty, prevent defection, and facilitate mobilization over time.831 When the members of movements, parties and organizations begin to diverge in their opinions regarding the most effective course of action or ideological priorities, they are more likely to splinter, lose momentum and decline in their ability to collectively mobilize.832 What determines whether groups fracture or maintain a cohesive organization? The likelihood that an opposition successor party, and the base movement, will remain cohesive under these pressures is, at least in part, shaped by the political opposition structure of the authoritarian era.

As the previous chapters have shown, the political opposition structure of authoritarian regimes shapes the kind of political parties that emerge out of opposition organizations. In one-party regimes, in which no opposition parties were allowed to exist, the political parties that contest founding elections tend to be coalitions of pro-reform, anti-regime opposition groups that initially overlook their very distinct ideological differences. These differences emerge, however, after founding elections and these political parties divide into a number of ideologically coherent parties. In Chapter 6, I demonstrated that the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia was comprised of a diverse group of individuals from different ideological persuasions, including Christians, social democrats, proponents of neoliberal economic policies, and Trotskyists. The natural ideological divisions between these groups began to manifest themselves in

830 See Grodsky 2012. 831 Tilly 1978, McAdam 1982, and Gould 1981 in LeBas 2011, 43.

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organizational cracks by the second half of 1990, the same year that the Civic Forum won the June elections.833 A member of the original Civic Forum explained that, despite the group’s unity against the communist regime, there were serious divisions over specific policies once the party moved into government:

“It became clear that there were fundamental problems regarding the economy,

dealing with the totalitarian past, and even about foreign policy. Whenever we

had to vote, both wings of the group voted differently. When we first got to work,

we had to pass laws about restitution, privatization, the speed at which changes

should be made, how to deal with past crimes, and so on. For example, some of us

wanted to declare openly that the regime was illegitimate, and we wanted to

abolish the statute of limitation for past crimes. The worst part of the regime took

place thirty-five years prior and if we didn’t punish them, this was a terrible

message to the young generation about committing crimes and getting away with

it. Another example was what to do with agricultural cooperatives, because

technically farmers never lost the titles to their land but sometimes on the land

there were new buildings. There were a lot of problems about how to compensate

them. And on each of these concrete steps there were clear splits within the Civic

Forum.”834

By January 1991, when the Civic Forum held a congress, the group split into two main groups. On the one side, a new party called the Civic Democratic Party was led by

Václav Klaus, the Czechoslovak Finance Minister and a proponent of neoliberal

832 Goodwin & Jasper 2009, 373. 833 Wolchik 1991, 53. 834 Author interview with Pavel Bratinka, member of Civic Forum, Prague, 11/11/2012, 8 PM.

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economic reforms;835 on the other side was the Civic Movement, led by Pavel

Rychetsky,836 and was comprised of intellectual-dissident members, who favored more social-democratic economic policies.837 The Civic Democratic Party went on to win between 29.73% (1992) and 35.38% (2006) of the legislative votes in the coming decade.

The situation in Poland was similar. After failing to win elections in 1993 and 1995, the original party formed on the network of Solidarity-affiliated unions broke up into different groups, based upon differing views on economic policies, religion, and reform priorities.838 These parties occupy the center-right and center-left of the ideological spectrum, including the Democratic Union, the Liberal Democratic Congress, and the

Freedom Union. A new party that explicitly drew on Solidarity’s image and organization, the Solidarity Electoral Action, won a plurality in the 1997 parliamentary elections, but disintegrated again and failed to win a large number of seats in the 2001 elections, largely due to the fact that “the only unifying narrative that held Solidarity Electoral Action together was a shared nostalgic anti-communism and a desire to defeat the communist

Democratic Left Alliance electorally."839

In Zambia, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was also composed of a diverse membership base comprised of trade unionists, businessmen, members of the

Church, and intellectuals.840 In contrast to Solidarity and the Civic Forum, the MMD also had included a number of former regime elites from the ruling UNIP, and although the

MMD had utilized the Zambian Central Trade Union’s organizational base and

835 Hanley et al 2008, 427. 836 Wolchik 1991, 81-82. 837 Hanley et al 2008, 427. 838 Hanley et al 2008, 422. 839 Hanley et al 2008, 429. 840 Bartlett 2000, 434.

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oppositional symbolism for the 1991 multiparty elections, the majority of the party’s membership was actually composed of businessmen.841 In the years following the 1991 elections, the MMD began to splinter over disagreements related to economic policy, as businessmen, former regime elites, and trade unionists disagreed over the best economic policies and the degree of structural adjustment that should be undertaken.842 Rather than dissolving into different groups, however, the MMD leadership instead began to exclude organized labor, members of the church, and businessmen from decision-making.843 As I discuss further in the following section, the MMD as an organization survived, or rather evolved, by incorporating old regime elites alongside the MMD leadership, and jettisoned trade unionists, members of the church, and businessmen who were against MMD policies. However, a party formed that united the trade union base of the MMD, the

Patriotic Front (PF), and went on to utilize the ZCTU’s organizational structure and ideological orientation to successfully mobilize votes in 2006 in urban areas and the

Copperbelt province, where the labor unions were strongest.844

In contrast to the pattern of opposition successor party dissolution in former one- party contexts, in Chapter 5 I demonstrated that political parties that form out of opposition groups in dominant-party contexts tend to be ideologically coherent; this fact means that they do not tend to collapse into multiple factions of disparate ideological orientations in the years following the first free elections in the post-authoritarian era. In

Brazil, the Workers’ Party (PT), united on the basis of working class issues and excluded from the elite-led PMDB, remained organizationally cohesive after their initial electoral

841 Baylies & Szeftel 1999, 97. 842 Bratton 1992, 93; LeBas 2011, 222. 843 LeBas 2011, 223. 844 LeBas 2011, 230.

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defeat in 1982. The party responded to its initial lack of success by learning more effective mobilizational tactics, specifically the use of the media, which it had been denied in the 1982 elections, as well as incorporating candidates with middle-class backgrounds to appeal to a broader segment of the population beyond the working class.845 The party went on to win surprising victories and, from 2002 onward, the PT was consistently out-performing the PDMB in legislative and presidential elections.

In both Egypt and Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Nahda have remained organizationally cohesive organizations, despite facing significant opposition from various parts of society. Al-Nahda remains a cohesive organization and political party that intends to compete in the parliamentary elections, the details of which are currently being organized, and has seen none of the organizational fracture that Solidarity, the

Civic Forum and the MMD experienced. The Muslim Brotherhood has also remained a cohesive group despite the severe repression the group has been subjected to by the military and security services after the July 2013 coup that removed President Morsi from power. After several weeks of demonstrations against the coup, on August 14, 2013, the security services forcibly dismantled two encampments of Brotherhood members in central Cairo, killing over one thousand of them and injuring many more.846 The state continued this repression by imprisoning nearly all of the Brotherhood’s leadership and thousands of its members in a widespread crackdown, which included classifying the

Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.847 Middle-ranking members of the Brotherhood leadership, who I had interviewed in 2012, reported to me that they fled the country in the middle of this crackdown and escaped to London, where they continue to organize

845 Keck 1986, 90. 846 Kirkpatrick 2013.

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opposition against the current government. Brotherhood members still living in Egypt have retreated to the informal organizational structure that it used during the Nasser and

Mubarak regimes; “it is becoming more decentralized, but also more cohesive and rigid, as its members abandon activities like preaching and social work and shift their attention to a virtually singular goal: resistance to the military-backed government."848 The group has remained cohesive despite the physical repression and arrest of its members, continuing to hold meetings and organize ongoing protests on university campuses.849

This sustained cohesiveness is also likely due to particular features of the Muslim

Brotherhood itself, such as its internal organizational structure, the strong interpersonal ties forged by the group’s activities, and the previous experience with state repression; however, its cohesion is also shaped, like the PT’s and Al-Nahda’s, by the ideological coherence of its membership base.

In summary, one phenomenon that commonly occurs after founding elections is the dissolution of opposition successor parties into splinter organizations. Variation in the likelihood of dissolution or cohesion, I argue, continues to be shaped, at least in part, by the political opposition structure of the authoritarian era. In former one-party regimes, opposition successor parties often form from diverse groups whose members are united by a shared opposition to the prior regime; after founding elections, these groups typically fracture over discordant views on policy options and reforms that the new government must undertake. In contrast, opposition successor parties in former dominant- party regimes tend to be more ideologically coherent due to the prior existence of opposition political parties during the authoritarian era. As a result, these groups are less

847 Fahim 2013. 848 Fahim 2014, 1.

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likely to splinter into different groups because group members share a common identity and common ideological orientations.

Authoritarian-Era Institutions and Political Parties

While this dissertation has focused on the legacies of patterns of political participation in the authoritarian era and the way in which these legacies impact participation post- transition, another kind of legacy — that of authoritarian institutions and elites — also interacts with opposition successor parties in the post-transition era. The previous section demonstrated the way in which the authoritarian-era political opposition structure shapes the likelihood of opposition successor party dissolution or cohesion, focusing on the ideological coherence or discordance within different opposition successor parties. As this section shows, however, the fate of opposition successor parties after the first free elections in the post-authoritarian era is also influenced by the varied inclusion or exclusion of authoritarian elites and the persistence of authoritarian institutions in the post-transition political landscape.

State institutions and political parties are both vehicles through which authoritarian elites and members of the old regime can protect their interests in the democratic era, although, as the cases here show, authoritarian institutions may provide more of a threat to eventual democratic consolidation than authoritarian successor political parties do.

Democratic consolidation refers to the stage at which all political actors believe that democracy is the “most right and appropriate” system of governance for society, with no significant anti-system actors attempting to change the political landscape.850 Political

849 Fahim 2013. 850 Diamond 1999.

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parties that represent former authoritarian elites are potentially more conducive to the process of democratic consolidation than the persistence of authoritarian state institutions because parties offer former elites a means through which to represent their interests while still playing within the boundaries of the democratic ‘game.’851 Authoritarian state institutions, however, are potentially more damaging to the likelihood of democratic consolidation because institutions actively shape the rules governing the new political landscape and can impede the ability of new governments to govern effectively.

As the cases of Poland and Czechoslovakia show, political parties that represent authoritarian elites can help to reshape and institutionalize the ideological terrain of the new political party system and provide robust competition for the opposition successor parties. The extensive literature on the consolidation of new democratic regimes in the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe has established that communist successor parties continue to shape the political landscape of the new democratic regimes. Grzymala-Busse has demonstrated that when communist elites dispersed into multiple new parties, voters had difficulty identifying and distinguishing party platforms, which led to greater “nationalist outbidding” and a more shallow commitment to democracy and democratic procedures.852 The absence of a coherent communist successor party, which typically occupied an ideological position to the left of center, also meant that “a single political actor could continue to dominate the political scene, and draw…private benefits and questionable policy decisions” without the threat of genuine competition or replacement, as was the case of Vaclav Klaus’s Democratic

851 See Wright & Escriba-Folch 2012, 284 for the way in which political parties act as guarantees for former elites. 852 Grzymala-Busse 2006, 24.

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Forum in the Czech Republic.853 In contrast, when communist elites did not disperse into multiple parties and instead solidified into a single, left-of-center political party, voters could more easily identify who was who; the degree of political competition in the new system was much higher; policy debates focused on economic issues rather than nationalist ones; and a single party was prevented from continuing to rule without fear of replacement, thus improving the quality of policy-making, as was the case in Poland.854

Similarly, in Zambia, former UNIP elites were incorporated into the new political system, albeit through inclusion in the MMD, which had consequences for the party’s evolution and helps to explain the puzzling abandonment of labor-friendly economic policies after the ZCTU had provided the organizational and mobilizational backbone of the party in the lead up to the 1991 elections. It also helps to explain the increasingly authoritarian turn of the MMD itself after 1991. When the MMD was forming, as I noted in Chapter 6, the party accepted defectors from the ruling UNIP into its ranks. Multiple

MMD legislative candidates have served in government under Kaunda, notably several of the UNIP’s proponents of free-market economic policies.855 Many of the leadership positions in the party were filled by former UNIP party members.856 After the MMD won the elections in 1991, decision-making became increasingly centralized and did not take the interests of labor, members of the church, or businessmen — all former opposition to

Kaunda — into account. “After its election in 1991, the MMD leadership also grew increasingly authoritarian in its tactics toward internal dissent, opposition parties, and ordinary voters. Many individuals, including those who had crossed to the MMD from

853 Grzymala-Busse 2006, 25. 854 Grzymala-Busse 2006, 5. 855 Baylies & Szeftel 1999, 105 856 LeBas 2011, 216.

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the UNIP, blamed these developments on the replication within the MMD of the political culture that had been prevalent in UNIP.”857 The presence of a large number of former authoritarian elites in the MMD may have contributed to the continuation of the patrimonial political culture that characterized Kaunda’s regime.858 Thus, the incorporation of former elites into the opposition successor party in Zambia, rather than into new political parties as in Czechoslovakia and Poland, helped to turn the MMD into a new “ruling party” after several years, with little-to-no subsequent alternation in power.

As I demonstrated in Chapter 5, in Brazil, the military regime had created the ruling

ARENA political party during the authoritarian period. In the run-up to the first multiparty elections in 1982, ARENA changed its name to the Social Democratic Party

(PDS), and competed in subsequent elections in this form. The presence of an authoritarian successor party provided an avenue for former military regime officials to maintain their interests in the post-authoritarian era by running as candidates in the PDS and subsequently securing positions in the legislature, from which they could advocate on policy issues relevant to their interests.859

While political activists in both Egypt and Tunisia have denounced the presence of authoritarian elites in new political parties,860 it is the variation in the persistence of authoritarian institutions that has set these two countries on very different tracks since each country’s transition. In contrast to authoritarian successor political parties, the persistence of authoritarian institutions can continue to actively shape the rules governing post-transition politics and directly undermine the ability of opposition successor parties

857 LeBas 2011, 221. 858 Bratton 1992, 93. 859 Mainwaring 1988, 96.

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to effectively govern. In studying Poland and Czechoslovakia, Grzymala-Busse has argued that the reform of state institutions in the wake of these countries’ transitions ensured that former regime members fully exited state institutions; “the communist exit was important not only for the formal institutional space it opened up, promoting the rise of institutions that favored no play ex ante, but also for its informal aspects. Communist parties lost their privileged position, and their ability to continue to benefit privately en masse from public assets and institutions."861

In contrast, due to the way in which the transitions unfolded in Egypt, state institutions were not dismantled systematically and were largely left in place once Ben

‘Ali and Mubarak exited power.862 From one perspective, this could have been a positive feature of the aftermath of the 2011 uprising; strong institutions and organized bureaucracies are the cornerstone of effective, depersonalized governance.863 The particular characteristics of Egypt’s state institutions, however, and their pattern of development under Hosni Mubarak, has created a set of conditions has that impeded the ability of newly elected civilian actors to consolidate the political transition.

The Egyptian state under Mubarak was composed of multiple institutions that were permitted a “very considerable degree of internal autonomy,”864 a situation that Nathan

Brown has described as “the balkanization of the state.”865 These institutions include the judiciary, the security and intelligence apparatus, the media, and the military. The legacy of these Balkanized institutions, and their persistence in the post-uprising era, have had

860 See Marks 2013a on the fears of many Tunisians that old regime forces are returning in the form of new political parties. 861 Grzymala-Busse 2006, 19. 862 Kandil 2013, 1. 863 Huntington 1968, 24-25. 864 Brown 2013, 5. 865 Brown 2013.

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important consequences for subsequent events in Egypt. In contrast to the Constitutional

Assembly in Tunisia, which has largely operated free from constraints imposed by other institutions, President Morsi repeatedly engaged in head-on battles with all of these institutions in attempts to effectively govern and consolidate a degree of control over the various arms of the state. As Brown explains,

“The Brotherhood-dominated lower house of parliament (which met from

January to June 2012), the Morsi presidency (June 2012 to July 2013), and the

briefly active upper house of parliament (with legislative authority from

December 2012 until July 2013) each made forays at controlling some state

bodies (the judiciary was one target; state-owned media saw changes in the

senior ranks; the Ministry of Religious Affairs was made more Brotherhood-

friendly turf), while working to placate or negotiate with others (such as the

military, al-Azhar, and the security apparatus)."866

In fact, while some have accused President Morsi and the Freedom and Justice Party of

“Brotherhoodizing” the state by appointing members of the party to key positions in various institutions,867 these moves by Morsi, while polarizing, can also be seen in another light: as attempts to bring the “wide Egyptian state”868 under his administrative control for the sake of effective governance.

While the media, judiciary, and various arms of the state bureaucracy are all important to the ability govern, the military in particular is one institution that is central to the consolidation of a new democratic order, and subordinating the institution and its

866 Brown 2013, 8. 867 El-Amrani 2012. 868 Brown 2013.

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leaders to civilian democratic control is key to this endeavor.869 Bellin famously pointed to the role of the coercive apparatus in repressing mass mobilization and long preventing a transition to democracy in the Middle East and North Africa in particular.870 After the

2011 wave of uprisings throughout the region, Bellin again highlighted the varying role of the coercive apparatus in Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, honing in on whether or not the military responded to mass mobilization with repression.871 She showed that these militaries’ choices in at critical junctures – specifically regarding whether or not to fire on mass demonstrations -- were pivotal in determining the course of each country's uprising.

While Bellin’s argument focuses on the role of the coercive apparatus in preventing or facilitating a mass uprising, the persistence of the military as a political actor beyond the juncture of the transition has clear negative consequences for the course of democratic consolidation, as the case of Egypt shows. The position of the Egyptian military vis-a-vis civilian actors is an institutional legacy of the Mubarak era that has had significant consequences for events since 2011. Since the Free Officer’s Coup in 1952, the army has “long been considered the final guarantor of political power”872 and maintained a great deal of both political and economic autonomy during the Mubarak era.873 Indeed, the military’s economic interests place it in a compromised position with respect to the institution’s ability to stay out of the political fray: “The military's economic ventures, blessed and protected by the [Mubarak] regime, accounted for a

869 See Huntington 1991, 231; Kohn 2001, 275; Macdonald & Van Antwerp 2013; O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986; Stepan 1988. 870 Bellin 2004. 871 Bellin 2012. 872 Blaydes 2013, 2. 873 See Marshall 2013 and Friedman 2011 on the economic interests of the Egyptian military.

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significant share of its economic privilege (as well as its national mission, subsequent to the negotiation of a cold peace with Israel.) As such, the military had strong reasons to be invested in the status quo."874 Post-transition, the military has successfully maintained its position vis-a-vis civilian authorities and has resisted subordinating itself to democratic civilian rule. In particular, the legacy of a powerful, autonomous military has affected the path of political events since 2011 in several ways: the military has succeeded in maintaining, not reducing, its political influence and autonomy; it, along with other institutions, sabotaged the ability of the Morsi government to govern effectively; and it increased political repression after the coup that removed Morsi from office in July 2013, leading the country back to an increasingly authoritarian order.

First, the military and other personnel left at the helm of various state institutions undermined the ability of the Morsi government to effectively govern, which increased the level of public hostility toward him and the Muslim Brotherhood. The military continued the practice of appointing governors to ensure its control of patronage networks, development projects, and political control at the subnational level, increasing the number of military officers in such posts since the Mubarak era and undermining the ability of civilian leaders to implement reforms.875 In June 2013, Morsi appointed twenty- five new governors in June 2013, all of them civilians; in August, after the coup, the military reversed these appointments and replaced them with new individuals, eighteen of whom were retired generals.876 Some have alleged that these efforts to undermine the efficacy of the new government included the halting or slowing of various basic services,

874 Bellin 2012, 134. 875 Martini & Taylor 2011, 4. 876 Sayigh 2013, 2.

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which had the effect of significantly decreasing the quality of life in Egypt under

Morsi.877 As Kandil summarizes,

"With at least part of the revolutionary movement acting as cover, remnants of the

old regime now began to use their (still) powerful positions throughout the

national bureaucracy, as well as in the state-controlled unions, the media and the

judiciary, to sabotage the Brotherhood's attempts to govern. Administrative

obstacles and delays reduced the flow of Turkish and Qatari investments, public

sector strikes brought the economy to a near-standstill, and every major law the

Islamists passed was revoked...The old regime's strategy was supplemented by

generous handouts to security-vetted thugs charged with maintaining a degree of

disorder on the streets."878

Combined with the polarizing efforts of Morsi to appoint members of the FJP to various state positions and the Brotherhood’s increasing deafness to spreading discontent, the inability gain control over the various arms of the state and resume effective governance helped contribute to discontent amidst a large portion of the population. When mass protests erupted against President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in June of 2013, the negotiations between the SCAF and President Morsi were unsuccessful, largely due, according to several reports, to the military’s refusal to accept suggested means for compromise and reconciliation.879 The military, instead, removed President Morsi from power on July 3, 2013, and has ruled Egypt since then, alongside a civilian caretaker government.

877 Hubbard and Kirkpatrick 2013. 878 Kandil 2013, 5. 879 Kirkpatrick, Baker & Jordan 2013.

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Second, beginning in January 2011 when Mubarak was ousted from office, the military has succeeded in blocking attempts at security sector reform and has sought to deepen, not reduce, its influence and autonomy. Despite the fact that security sector reform was one of the demands of the 2011 uprising,880 both the military and internal security services have been able to prevent attempts to hold the institutions accountable for misconduct.881 President Morsi attempted to reassert civilian control over the military, by removing the head of General Intelligence and several senior military personnel in August 2012,882 and through an addendum to the 2011 constitution that subordinated the military to civilian oversight.883 However, the military largely reversed these moves and permanently ensuring the its autonomy through the new constitution that was passed, at General Al-Sisi’s public urging, in January 2014; “in effect, it is no longer treated as part of the executive branch of government but rather a branch unto itself.”884

Finally, after the coup, the military has intensified repression and turned toward increasingly dictatorial tactics to control public unrest. In the constitution passed in

January 2014, the military has been granted the right to try civilians in military courts, under certain vaguely worded conditions that are ripe for abuse.885 Similarly, a new protest law requires that any meeting of ten people engaged in discussion "of a public nature" receive advance permission to do so by submitting a written notice of the meeting to the police station who has jurisdiction in that area, at least three working days prior to the event.886 Finally, in addition to killing protestors and jailing multitudes of

880 Sayigh 2013, 1. 881 Kandil 2013, 3. 882 Lynch 2012. 883 Brown 2013b. 884 Brown & Dunne 2013, 2. 885 Brown & Dunne 2013, 2. 886 "Full English Translation of Egypt's new protest law"

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Brotherhood members and leaders, the SCAF has also imprisoned several members of the political opposition, who also objected to the SCAF’s repression of the Brotherhood, such as Ahmed Maher of the April 6 Movement and Alaa ‘Abd al-Fattah, as well as charged

Egyptian academics who voiced dissent with crimes of espionage and sedition.887

Thus, authoritarian-era institutions in Egypt, rather than authoritarian-era elites, have undermined and directly conflicted with the ability of newly elected civilian actors to implement a set of reforms that would lead to democratic deepening and the continuation of the political transition away from the Mubarak era. In contrast, next door in Tunisia, the military never played a large role in either Ben ‘Ali’s regime or his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, who deliberately circumscribed the role of the military so that it not conflict with that of the ruling party.888 As such, the Tunisian military has, to the time of this writing, not obstructed democratic reforms.889 Similarly, Brazil’s military for the most part submitted to democratic, civilian oversight, although it maintained a number of prerogatives in the realm of economic policymaking.890 Brazil’s authoritarian elites, instead, continued to participate in the new democratic system through the PDS and competed alongside other parties for representation in government.

As the cases here have shown, political parties can offer authoritarian elites vehicles through which to participate in the new democratic order, thus potentially contributing to the consolidation of democracy. They can also increase the level of party competition in new democracies and help to hold opposition successor parties in check.

The persistence of authoritarian institutions, however, is more detrimental to the

887 Brown 2014. 888 Bellin 2012, 146 fn. 32. 889 Marks 2013b. 890 Macdonald & Van Antwerp 2013.

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consolidation of the new political order. As the case of Egypt shows, the persistence of autonomous institutions from the authoritarian era can directly undermine the ability of the new government to rule effectively and can lead the charge back to greater authoritarianism.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

In an effort to avoid the tendency to view political transitions through discrete temporal “snapshots,” it is important to examine the affect and temporal persistence of historical legacies of the authoritarian era on the period after founding elections. Indeed, while the authoritarian-era political opposition structure shapes the revival of political participation in the lead-up to founding elections, the period after founding elections also continues to be shaped, to a varying degrees, by these same legacies.

Oppositional credibility is a key mechanism that enables opposition successor parties to mobilize supporters during campaigns for founding elections. However, like other symbolic resources, opposition credibility is a very transitory phenomenon. After founding elections, the population at large becomes focused on the pace of economic change, the nature of new reforms, and the way in which quality of life declines or improves in the wake of the transition. Most of these countries experience economic difficulties in the wake of transition, as the new governments struggles to implement reforms that will bring the economy away from decades of mismanagement and corruption. As the cases here show, these economic difficulties lead to a rapid loss of popularity on the part of opposition successor parties; whatever symbolic resources these groups had at the point of transition is quickly forgotten in the following years.

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A more lasting legacy of the authoritarian era, however, is the likelihood of group cohesion or dissolution in the period following founding elections. Groups, movements, and parties are more likely to remain cohesive when their members share a common identity or ideological perspective, as these shared identities and beliefs generate loyalty, prevent defection, and facilitate continued collective mobilization. In former one-party contexts, in which no opposition parties were allowed to exist, the political parties that contest founding elections tend to be coalitions of pro-reform, anti-regime opposition groups that initially overlook their very distinct ideological differences. These differences emerge, however, after founding elections and these political parties divide into a number of ideologically coherent parties. In contrast to the pattern of opposition successor party dissolution in former one-party contexts, these same groups tend to remain coherent in former dominant-party contexts. Political parties that form out of opposition groups in dominant-party contexts tend to be ideologically coherent; this fact means that they do not tend to collapse into multiple factions of disparate ideological orientations in the years following the first free elections in the post-authoritarian era. Thus, the organizational legacies of the political opposition structure in the authoritarian era contribute to the likelihood of party coherence or dissolution in the post-transition period.

Finally, while authoritarian elites and institutions did not play central roles in the events leading up to founding elections, they took on increasing importance in the years following this juncture. State institutions and political parties are both vehicles through which authoritarian elites and members of the old regime can protect their interests in the democratic era, although, as the cases here showed, authoritarian institutions may provide more of a threat to eventual democratic consolidation than authoritarian successor

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political parties do. Political parties provide former regime elites with the opportunity to participate in the new democratic order and can even help to institutionalize the post- transition party system by helping to hold new political parties accountable and increase the level of party competition. The persistence of authoritarian-era institutions, in contrast, can be very detrimental to the consolidation of a democratic political order, because institutions play a direct role in shaping the “rules” governing politics and society. As illustrated through the events in Egypt between the 2011 uprising and the July

2013 coup that removed President Mohammed Morsi from power, the persistence of authoritarian institutions can undermine the ability of newly elected politicians to effectively govern, prevent the implementation of badly needed reforms, such as the reform of the security sector, and can actively lead the march back to authoritarianism.

The persistence of authoritarian-era institutions, therefore, could be viewed as a litmus test of the likelihood of democratic consolidation after the initial post-transition euphoria that generally greets the fall of an authoritarian regime.

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Chapter 8

Conclusion

This project opened with an empirical puzzle: how and why did the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that had been alternately repressed and tolerated under three successive authoritarian regimes, go on to win Egypt’s first free elections after the 2011 popular uprising, only to be removed from power in a military coup following massive anti-

Brotherhood protests? This arc — the rapid rise and subsequent fall of an opposition- group-turned-political-party — was not unique to Egypt and was mirrored in several other countries, including Solidarity in Poland, the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia, and, to a certain extent, al-Nahda in Tunisia. What explains this pattern?

The unexplained empirical variation in the processes of party formation and political mobilization prior to the first free post-authoritarian elections warrants a focus on the varying organization, resources, and mobilizational success of opposition successor parties. Rather than being highly contingent events, as some scholars of democratic transitions argue, the reconstitution of the political landscape after authoritarian collapse is rooted in the processes of empowerment and repression that existed between an authoritarian regime, civil society, and the political opposition prior to transition. Which opposition groups form into political parties (if at all) and how well new parties compete with pre-existing ones, are outcomes shaped by the methods of co- optation, control and repression used by the prior authoritarian regime to maintain its political, social and economic dominance. In other words, legacies of political participation under the authoritarian regime linger through the transition and feed into the

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resources, strategies and legitimacy of different groups in the post-transition political context.

In contrast to elite- and institution-centered approaches to studying regimes and transitions, a focus on the interaction between authoritarian regimes and collective societal actors illuminates the dynamics that shape party formation and political mobilization after the end of an authoritarian regime. The findings here reveal an understanding of authoritarian-era political participation and opposition that emphasize the salience of political activity that takes place off the grid and outside of formal political institutions. The dynamism of this kind of political activity, and the role it plays in constructing parallel societies outside the immediate reach of authoritarian regimes, is often missed in accounts of political participation and civil society that focus on formal organizations and democratic contexts. Uncovering the way in which patterns of political behavior solidify throughout an authoritarian regime and persist past the point of transition adds nuance to accounts that over-emphasize contingency and widens the causal lens to include variables before the juncture of regime transition.

This chapter proceeds in three parts. First, I briefly review the theoretical and empirical puzzles that motivated this project and summarize the argument and major findings; second, I highlight the contributions to our understanding of regime transitions, political mobilization, and participation in authoritarian contexts; finally, I discuss areas for future research.

Puzzles of Post-Authoritarian Party Formation and Political Mobilization

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The processes of party formation at the juncture of regime transition offer several puzzles, all revolving around the mismatch between pre-transition popular mobilization and post-transition party formation. In authoritarian contexts, many of the groups that are most successful at mobilizing supporters, winning regime concessions and even contributing to regime collapse are groups outside of the formal party system, such as labor unions and pro-reform activist groups. Despite their track record of representing the interests of a broad base and mobilizing collective action, however, not all of these groups form political parties during and after a political transition. While labor unions have played central roles in democratization and subsequent political party competition in numerous countries,891 in only some instances do they form political parties. Pro-reform activist groups, too, mobilize opposition to authoritarian regimes in multiple cases, through protests and demonstrations, petitions, underground presses, and leaflet campaigns, yet in only some cases do these groups form political parties.

The patterns of political mobilization in the lead-up to the first free post- authoritarian elections also present a set of puzzles. The existing literature on political mobilization has established that legal, formally organized groups, such as political parties, are better at mobilizing supporters than illegal, informally organized groups. In many cases, however, opposition groups, despite being illegal, informally organized, and suffering repression, have won the founding elections of numerous countries, mobilizing far more supporters than established political parties. How do previously repressed groups win founding elections while older, established parties with financial resources and electoral experience do not?

891 Valenzuela 1989, 447; Collier & Mahoney 1997.

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Political Opposition Structure and Post-Authoritarian Outcomes

The answer to both of these puzzles lies in the way in which authoritarian regimes influence and shape the organization and behavior of political parties, civil society organizations and social movements. The central causal factor that shapes both party formation and political mobilization in the brief time period leading up to founding elections is the political opposition structure of the prior authoritarian regime.

Specifically, the regime structures political contestation by removing certain actors from the opposition through co-optation, permitting some actors to contest the regime through within-system channels, such as elections, and denying others the ability to engage in within-system contestation, thus forcing them into extra-system contestation. The authoritarian-era political opposition structure shapes the organizational form of opposition groups, the ideas contested within the system, and the variation in resources possessed by different members of the political opposition. These factors in turn shape the processes of party formation and political mobilization at the point of regime transition.

Authoritarian regimes can be classified according to the degree of contestation they permit, thus structuring the political opposition in different ways: one-party regimes and dominant-party regimes. In dominant-party authoritarian regimes, the regime divides the political opposition by permitting a select set of opposition political parties to contest the regime and the ruling party electorally, even though these parties’ activities are controlled and they have no genuine expectation of winning elections. Groups that are not granted permission (or do not wish) to form a political party instead contest the regime extra- systemically, through public protests and demonstrations, violent attack, or other non-

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electoral, extra-institutional means. One-party regimes, in contrast, unify the political opposition in the sense that they do not allow any opposition groups to form political parties and contest the regime or the ruling party through within-system channels, forcing all opposition groups into extra-system contestation.

The political opposition structure explains both the variation in party formation by labor unions and pro-reform activist groups and why repressed opposition groups have such powerful mobilizational potential. First, the likelihood of labor party formation is rooted in the opposition structure of the authoritarian regime, specifically in whether or not the regime co-opted organized labor. When labor has neither been co-opted nor permitted to contest the regime’s policies through within-system means, then labor is part of the political opposition. When labor has been co-opted by the regime, then labor is not part of the political opposition; labor simply engages in extra-system contestation when the corporatist institutional arrangement fails to provide for labor’s interests. Labor unions only form political parties upon the end of an authoritarian regime when the unions were part of the political opposition (Brazil, Zambia, and Poland); if the authoritarian regime had co-opted organized labor then these labor unions will attempt to renegotiate or remedy existing institutional arrangements to secure preferred policy outcomes rather than form parties (Egypt, Tunisia, and Czechoslovakia).

Second, the likelihood of party formation by pro-reform activist groups is also shaped by the political opposition structure. For new political parties to be successful, they require establishing networks, recruiting leaders and rank-and-file participants, paying for offices and publicity materials, and setting down physical infrastructure. As such, new political parties are generally only successful when they have a ready-made

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base through which collective action and mobilization can be coordinated.892 In dominant-party contexts, pro-reform activist groups typically act as umbrella groups that unite various different segments of the political opposition, including members of opposition political parties, for the purpose of engaging in strikes, protests, distributing petitions, and challenging the regime in ways that legal parties cannot. The fact that these pro-reform opposition groups co-exist alongside opposition political parties results in two consequences that prevent these groups from forming viable political parties during the regime transition.

First, a large number of the members of the pro-reform activist group have ties to other opposition political parties or groups denied legal party status. The pro-reform opposition group therefore shares its membership base with a wide range of other opposition organizations. Second, the legal opposition political parties and the other opposition groups denied legal party status likely have more specific ideological orientations than simply being pro-reform/anti-regime. Thus, members’ overlapping membership in other organizations is based upon an ideology or identity that is potentially more salient than the anti-regime ideology. These two factors, caused by the existence of within-system contestation and opposition political parties means that pro- reform activist groups are likely to lose their membership base as soon as the transition occurs, as many of their members are pulled away to other, more ideologically salient, organizations.

In contrast, in one-party contexts, no within-system contestation is permitted. Pro- reform groups do not share a membership base with opposition political parties, because there are none, but they may share a membership base with other pro-reform groups.

892 Boix 2007, 516; LeBas 2011.

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These overlapping membership ties, however, do not pull members away from the pro- reform group at the point of transition because they share the same ideological orientation; members are not drawn away by more salient identity or ideology groups in the lead-up to founding elections. More common in these contexts is that the various pro- reform groups unite within a single political party, thus pooling, not dividing, their membership bases. Thus, the case study examinations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Egypt,

Tunisia, and Zambia, show that pro-reform activist groups in dominant-party contexts do not form political parties before founding elections and instead lose much of their membership base to pre-existing opposition parties or social movements. In contrast, pro- reform activist groups do form political parties before founding elections in single-party contexts and may pool their resources with other pro-reform groups within a single party.

Turning to the second puzzle, that of post-authoritarian political mobilization, the political opposition structure during the authoritarian determines the resources available to various groups at the point of transition, making some more able to mobilize supporters than others. As a result of the way in which the process of political mobilization works and the ways in which authoritarian political regimes alter the organization and behavior of political groups, parties that form from opposition groups that contested the regime through extra-system channels are better able to mobilize supporters than pre-existing political parties or new parties. This advantage stems from two mechanisms: organizational characteristics and oppositional credibility.

Groups that contest the authoritarian regime through within-system channels operate through formal organizational structures and are legal, resources that would serve as advantages for mobilization in democratic contexts. However, in authoritarian

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contexts, these groups are very easily monitored and controlled by the regime, due to their formal organizational characteristics and legal status, thus constricting the extent of their grassroots presence. As a result, after authoritarian collapse, these groups do not have extensive grassroots networks, they often do not have a presence outside of major urban centers, and they are not experienced in actively mobilizing supporters.

In contrast, case studies of Solidarity in Poland, the Civic Forum in

Czechoslovakia, al-Nahda in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Calling in

Egypt, and the Zambian Central Trade Union, show that groups that contest the regime through extra-system channels have different characteristics. They are illegal, they have low visibility, and they rely on interpersonal networks for their recruitment, communication and coordination. Rather than control these groups through laws, regimes tend to alternately tolerate and repress these groups, further incentivizing them to organize through informal networks. These interpersonal networks provide massive mobilizational potential once they are activated.893 An examination of the electoral strategies used by the different opposition groups in the six cases here, showed that these groups used these grassroots networks to better establish contact with voters and persuade them to vote for these groups.

Second, comparative qualitative analysis of the different opposition groups in these six cases revealed that parties that form from groups that contested the regime through extra-system channels have greater persuasive capabilities than those that form from groups that contested the regime through within-system channels. These persuasive capabilities are rooted in the credibility they garner through their visible opposition to the regime and the suffering that they experience at the hands of the coercive apparatus when

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the regime resorts to repressive tactics. Opposition groups gain credibility through a peculiar logic of suffering; in an authoritarian context, most citizens know that the regime will repress any opposition that cannot be controlled or co-opted. When a group is repressed by the regime, that group is therefore viewed as challenging the regime, rather than making a bargain with the regime that benefits the group. Groups that contest the regime through within-system channels, in contrast, do not suffer visible repression on a systematic level. While individual members of these groups may suffer repression, as a group they are not systematically and thoroughly beaten, jailed, tortured and executed in full view of their communities. Instead, they attempt to effect change through the state’s own institutions, and are therefore viewed as less credible than groups that act outside the system and that suffer the consequences for it.

Finally, Chapter 7 examined the persistence of the legacy of the authoritarian-era opposition structure in the period after founding elections. While this dissertation’s primary focus has been the processes of party formation and political mobilization during a brief juncture — that of the period between regime transition or dissolution and the first free elections since the imposition of authoritarian rule — what happens to opposition groups beyond that juncture, and their interaction not just with authoritarian elites but also with authoritarian institutions, is an important one. This question is especially important in light of the fact that accounts of historical legacies in general tend to under- specify particular temporal dimensions of legacies, such as how long the legacy continues to exert causal force.894

893 Passy 2003, 120. 894 See Grzymala-Busse 2011 and Wittenberg 2012 on the various ways in which accounts featuring historical legacies are underspecified.

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While authoritarian legacies are powerful, how long do these effects last? The symbolic resource gained by opposition groups as a result of the suffering they experience under the authoritarian regime is a very transitory resource. Like other symbolic resources that scholars have identified, oppositional credibility has a brief half- life. Unlike organizational legacies, which can be much longer lasting, symbolic legacies are temporary. Suffering years of prison or torture appears to provide a brief bubble of popularity that is soon forgotten shortly after the first free elections. The transitory nature of symbolic credibility is likely linked to the fact that most new democracies face crippling economic conditions and economic reforms in this juncture are often extremely painful for multiple segments of the population.895 Indeed, the only opposition group examined here that did not suffer a loss of popularity was Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT).

This is likely due to the fact that the PT did not win the 1982 elections and was not held responsible for the political or economic difficulties the country experienced in the following years. Indeed, the PT was able to increase its popularity by continuing to champion the economic conditions facing Brazil’s lower-income populations.

The likelihood of opposition successor party dissolution or cohesion in the years following the first free elections is also linked to the authoritarian-era political opposition structure. In some cases — Poland and Czechoslovakia — the opposition successor party dissolved soon after the first elections and in Zambia, the opposition successor party broke with its working class base. In contrast, opposition successor parties in Egypt,

Tunisia, and Brazil remained organizationally coherent, despite suffering other challenges. In one-party regimes, in which no opposition parties were allowed to exist, the political parties that contest founding elections tend to be coalitions of pro-reform,

895 Kapstein & Converse 2008.

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anti-regime opposition groups that initially overlook their very distinct ideological differences. These differences emerge, however, after founding elections and these political parties divide into a number of ideologically coherent parties, as was the case in

Poland, Czechoslovakia and Zambia. In contrast to the pattern of opposition successor party dissolution in former one-party contexts, political parties that form out of opposition groups in dominant-party contexts tend to be ideologically coherent; this fact means that they do not tend to collapse into multiple factions of disparate ideological orientations in the years following the first free elections in the post-authoritarian era, as was the case in Egypt, Tunisia, and Brazil.

Finally, the persistence of authoritarian elites and institutions impacts the likelihood of democratic consolidation. New political parties that represent former authoritarian elites, such as those in Poland and Czechoslovakia, can help to reshape and institutionalize the ideological terrain of the new political party system and provide robust competition for the opposition successor parties. Similarly, in Zambia, former

UNIP elites were incorporated into the new political system, albeit through inclusion in the MMD, which had consequences for the party’s evolution and helps to explain the puzzling abandonment of labor-friendly economic policies after the ZCTU had provided the organizational and mobilizational backbone of the party in the lead up to the 1991 elections. It also helps to explain the increasingly authoritarian turn of the MMD itself after 1991; the presence of a large number of former authoritarian elites in the MMD may have contributed to the continuation of the patrimonial political culture that characterized

Kaunda’s regime.896 Thus, the incorporation of former elites into the opposition successor party in Zambia, rather than into new political parties as in Czechoslovakia and Poland,

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helped to turn the MMD into a new “ruling party” after several years, with little-to-no subsequent alternation in power.

The persistence of authoritarian institutions can continue to actively shape the rules governing post-transition politics and directly undermine the ability of opposition successor parties to effectively govern. Events in Egypt between the 2011 uprising and the July 2013 coup that removed President Mohammed Morsi from power show that the persistence of authoritarian institutions can undermine the ability of newly elected politicians to effectively govern, prevent the implementation of badly needed reforms, such as the reform of the security sector, and can actively lead the march back to authoritarianism.

Regime Transitions: Structured Outcomes, Cross-Regional Comparisons, and

Societal Actors

In addition to shedding light on several empirical puzzles of party formation and political mobilization, the argument provides greater nuance to our understanding of the dynamics of regime transitions more generally. First, connecting pre-transition and post-transition variables moves away from the tendency to study and conceptualize regime transitions as distinct phases divided around the point of transition. Many of the works that explore the phenomena related to regime transitions focus on the preconditions that must be met in order for a democratic transition to occur,897 the mechanics of the transitions themselves,898 or the consolidation of democracy after a transition has taken place.899 Few

896 Bratton 1992, 93. 897 Lipset 1959. 898 Rustow 1971; O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986; Karl 1980. 899 Diamond 1999; Huntington 1991; Stepan 1988.

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of these accounts, therefore, bridge the different “stages” of the transition process and their explanatory scope is thus limited by the notion that transitions proceed in sequence, with each sequence a distinct phase.

In contrast, we can gain considerable insight into the revival of political participation after authoritarianism through a neo-institutionalist perspective. While political actors in transitional settings possess and display tremendous agency and strategic behavior, the short time frame between authoritarian collapse and founding elections results in the fact that most actors are still coping with the consequences of several decades of political repression, co-optation and control. The evolution of organizational form, the integration into and establishment of interpersonal networks, and the persistent depoliticization of many formal organizations are processes that unfold and solidify throughout the duration of an authoritarian regime. Political outcomes during this juncture — actors’ decisions and the constraints within which they act — are therefore necessarily shaped by the patterns, practices and routines of participation that existed prior to the transition.

The argument also weighs in on the debate between structure and contingency in the context of regime transitions. Much of the literature has focused on the high degree of uncertainty that presumably characterizes founding elections and political transitions more generally, forgoing attempts to put forth generalizable claims about regularity in these contexts. Other scholars, however, have argued just the opposite, that there are features of the prior authoritarian regime that insert a degree of regularity into transition outcomes. This study steps into the debate on the side of those who discern such regularity in transitional contexts. The structure of the political opposition under

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authoritarianism — which groups the regime co-opts, which actors are permitted to contest the regime through extra-system channels, and which actors are forced into (or choose) extra-system contestation — strongly shapes both the processes of political party formation and political mobilization in the lead up to the founding elections. In addition, the authoritarian-era political opposition structure has consequences for the likelihood of opposition party dissolution in the years following the first free elections post-transition, making some more likely to dissolve and others more likely to remain cohesive organizations.

A cross-regional study such as this one also moves away from the understandable tendency within the literature on political transitions to highlight factors, norms, and patterns of socio-political organization that are particular to the historical and cultural features of specific countries and regions.900 The case selection employed here, and the focus on a generalizable causal factor — the authoritarian-era political opposition structure — demonstrates the value of an approach that does not presuppose region- specific commonalities that preclude the possibility of cross-regional regularities. Making use of the wealth of new empirical material available for cross-regional comparison provided by the 2011 Arab uprisings, this project has shown that post-transition outcomes are not conditioned by geographic region, authoritarian regime type, or transition type, but rather by the authoritarian-era political opposition structure. As the case analyses showed, while both Poland and Czechoslovakia share similar characteristics due to their shared status as Communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe, the level of state repression in Czechoslovakia was much more comparable to the case of Tunisia than to

900 See O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986 on Latin America and Southern Europe; Bratton & Van de Walle 1994 and 1997 on sub-Saharan Africa; Kitschselt et al 1999 on Eastern Europe.

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the case of Poland (or to Zambia). What Czechoslovakia had in common with both

Poland and Zambia, however, was the structure of the political opposition during the authoritarian era, specifically the absence of opposition political parties. This aspect of the opposition structure shaped the processes of party formation and political opposition in the lead up to these countries’ first free elections.

Furthermore, the case studies analyzed here included not only cases from different geographical and cultural backgrounds, but political transitions of different types, specifically pacted and non-pacted transitions. Because pacts “establish formulas for sharing or alternating in office, distributing the spoils of office, and constraining policy choice in areas of high salience to the groups involved, while excluding other groups from office, spoils, or influence over policy,”901 one might conclude that this type of transition is not comparable, in terms of the resources opposition actors have, to transitions of other types. It might be tempting, for example, to argue that political opposition actors who participate in pacts are automatically guaranteed electoral victory afterward. However, the resources possessed by opposition actors are determined by the political opposition structure of the authoritarian regime before the pact takes place. All of the extra-system opposition actors examined in these case studies, whether from countries in which pacted transitions took place (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Zambia), countries in which a gradual process of liberalization took place (Brazil), or countries in which the transition was led by societal forces (Egypt and Tunisia), possessed the same resources — a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility. This examination shows that, contrary to what accounts of pacted transitions may imply, the question of which

901 Geddes 1999, 120.

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particular opposition actors take part in the negotiations is in many cases actually a function of the prior political opposition structure, not some other contingent factor.

Finally, many of the works focusing on the dynamics of negotiated transitions privilege elite actors and the state as the twin drivers of causation, thereby obscuring the role of collective societal actors leading up to the point of negotiation, and in some cases conflates the form of the transition (negotiation) with its causes. For example, one of the central assumptions of elite-led pacts is that the transition is, by definition, elite-initiated; in many cases, however, these pacts are themselves undertaken in response to pressure exerted at the mass level, while in other cases they are initiated in response to regional, external, or other factors. In fact, as this dissertation demonstrated through its examination of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Brazil and Zambia, the very factors that led to elites’ willingness to negotiate or liberalize were the actions of collective societal actors.

Incorporating a role for societal actors back into analyses of negotiated transitions thus sheds further light on the dynamics driving elite calculations in the lead-up to negotiations.

Political Participation, Mobilization, and Party Formation

This dissertation also advances our understanding of the nature of political participation in authoritarian contexts by moving away from a focus on formal institutions. Much of the literature on democratization prioritizes a focus on the way in which formal institutions and organizations bring about gradual liberalization, at the expense of attention to social movements and informal networks.902 While political parties are important in channeling participation through formal institutions, which is central to

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democratic consolidation,903 this dissertation has shown that much more of the contentious, salient political activity under authoritarian regimes is actually taking place outside of formal party politics. Groups that seek to challenge authoritarian regimes outside of legal constraints often do so through extra-system contestation, typically outside of formal institutions, as the examinations of Al-Nahda, the Muslim Brotherhood,

Charter ’77, and the Zambian trade unions demonstrated.

Unfortunately, the literature that does address civil society organizations under authoritarian regimes becomes bogged down in the distinction between what Foley and

Edwards term ‘civil society 1’ and ‘civil society 2’, whereby the former represents organizations that do not challenge the state and the latter represents those organizations that play a political, advocacy or watchdog role.904 This distinction presupposes the fact that ‘civil society 1’ organizations are not playing a political role in pre-transition society because they are typically not doing so overtly, through formal organizations or through party politics. This project, in contrast, highlights the ways in which ostensibly apolitical groups and informal networks construct “parallel societies” that challenge, symbolically and organizationally, regimes’ control over society.

Similarly, the argument here has also demonstrated the counter-intuitive finding that repression, not patronage, can be a political and organizational advantage in authoritarian contexts. The existing literature on political mobilization makes several predictions about which groups will be best able to mobilize supporters. First, in order to mobilize supporters, an organization must be able to make contact with and persuade individuals to support the group. Legal, visible groups can more easily persuade and

902 Schedler 2006; Lindberg 2009; Mainwaring & Scully 1985. 903 Huntington 1968.

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provide information to individuals as well as openly attempt to alter their cost-analysis, because illegal, low visibility groups must rely on interpersonal networks for their mobilizational efforts and cannot as openly provide material incentives or reduce costs for participation.905 This indicates that established political parties, not formerly repressed resistance groups, should mobilize voters best in the context of founding elections. Along the same lines, much of the literature on contentious mobilization in authoritarian settings has illuminated the ways in which the state mobilizes supporters or co-opts existing structures, such as labor unions, and then identifies ways in which societal actors can break away from the state using those same mobilizing structures to challenge the regime and contribute to authoritarian breakdown.906

In contrast, looking outside formal organizations and honing in on informal networks and associations, societal actors that have been given structural or other resources by the state are at a disadvantage, organizationally and symbolically, after the end of a regime. While the intuitive logic would be that groups permitted to organize formally would have a leg up when it comes to political mobilization after the end of a long-term authoritarian regime, regimes instead more tightly control those groups upon which it endowed the privilege of formal, legal organization. Furthermore, groups that are not permitted to organize legally and are repressed are the ones that develop the organizational resources — specifically a grassroots presence — and the symbolic credibility that better equips these groups to mobilize supporters after the end of an authoritarian regime.

904 Foley & Edwards 2002. 905 Passy 2003. 906 Collier & Collier 1991; Bishara 2013.

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Finally, the literature on party formation fails to consider the forces, considerations and constraints shaping the construction of new political parties outside of democratic contexts. While institutional incentives, strategic goods, rational cost-benefit analyses, and deep-seated societal cleavages have been shown to be important in democratic,

Western European contexts, the forces shaping which groups form political parties during regime transitions are unknown. The argument and evidence examined here indicate that the forces shaping party formation at these junctures does include considerations of membership bases and ideology, but that these factors are of varying importance depending on the prior authoritarian context. Furthermore, a societal group’s position within the particular political context of the prior era also shapes individual actors’ notions of the best institutional means – sometimes not political parties – through which to effect policy changes. Finally, a group’s prior history of mobilization and collective action is not sufficient to guarantee party formation at this juncture, resulting in the surprising tendency of some opposition groups to simply fade out of view once a political transition occurs.

Future Research Agenda

The findings uncovered here open up several avenues for further research. First, the cases examined here were, with the exception of Brazil, cases in which repressed opposition groups won founding elections. The case of Brazil, however, demonstrated the limits of the argument. While both the PT and PMDB possess oppositional credibility and a grassroots presence, in this particular context, they were not sufficient to guarantee

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electoral success. Undoubtedly, the PMDB’s greater comparative resources and size led it to out-compete the smaller, poorer PT.

Similar cases come to mind, specifically Indonesia. In Indonesia, a within-system political party won the country’s founding elections in 1999, partly because extra-system opposition groups did not form political parties. Having established that repressed opposition groups do indeed develop a grassroots presence and oppositional credibility, further inquiry into negative cases such as Indonesia would shed light on when and why other variables lead to electoral success at this juncture.

In a similar vein, further research into cases in which no prominent opposition groups develop prior to authoritarian collapse would provide interesting insight into the boundary line between repression that “aids” opposition groups and repression that simply crushes them. All of the cases examined here had, by definition, opposition groups that contested the regime in various ways. What of zero-contestation regimes, or those in which no groups are permitted to contest the regime in any organized fashion?

How does political life reconstitute in these contexts and what legacies of the absence of organized opposition persist in subsequent electoral and political competition? Similarly, the cases examined here were those in which repression of an opposition group produced credibility among the society at large. Cases come to mind, however, of opposition groups that were so badly vilified that they were feared, rather than embraced, by the general populace, such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Further investigation could explain this difference.

Finally, further specification of the temporal boundaries of these legacies is warranted. The cases under consideration here were instance of long-term authoritarian

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regimes of ten years or more. How long – or how brief – must an authoritarian regime be for these patterns of participation to take hold and feed into future events? Similarly, how long do such legacies last? The account here established that oppositional credibility is a very transient resource and began to draw up trends in the persistence of the legacies of the opposition structure on organizational dissolution or coherence. Both of these questions, however, are empirical ones that warrant further research.

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