The State and Civil Society in the Arab Middle East
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Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 8-2014 The State and Civil Society in the Arab Middle East Stacey E. Pollard Western Michigan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, and the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Pollard, Stacey E., "The State and Civil Society in the Arab Middle East" (2014). Dissertations. 311. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/311 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST by Stacey E. Pollard A dissertation submitted to the Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Political Science Western Michigan University June 2014 Doctoral Committee: James Butterfield, Ph.D., Chair Mahendra Lawoti, Ph.D. Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler, Ph.D. THE STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST Stacey E. Pollard, PhD. Western Michigan University, 2014 While the notion that civil society organizations can democratize authoritarian regimes from below has become an article of faith among many policy makers and democracy promoters, some area experts warn that practitioners and advocates should not overestimate civil society's democratizing role. This dissertation challenges a large body of scholarship on civil society by arguing that while civil society may constitute a democratic force in any given polity it may also be comprised of less democratic, even radically undemocratic forces as well. Therefore, commensurate with the research yielding that finding, this project argues that on an account of the nature of Middle Eastern regimes civil society is more often a key dependent rather than independent variable. To that end, I empirically tested the proposition that it is the expansion of democracy that facilitates more vibrant, liberal and secular civil societies in the region and not the converse, through an analysis of the impact of the formal institutions of the state on voluntary associational participation in five distinctive Arab Middle Eastern political regimes, including Syria, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Lebanon. My expectation was to find that increased measures of democracy have a strong, positive impact on increased levels of vibrancy, liberalism and secularism in civil society and a strong, negative impact on increased levels of fundamentalism and militancy in civil society in each case study. The methodology employed was an empirical data collection process entailing a two-fold snowball interviewing strategy, in which I carried out in-depth interviews with both experts and members of civil society organizations in each country. The study found that without exception expert and activist consensus held that the formal institutions of these states had a far stronger impact on their civil societies than vice versa. However, there was not a single case where all four hypotheses I proposed were substantiated without nuance or deviation. Copyright by Stacey E. Pollard 2014 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my dissertation committee: Dr. Jim Butterfield (committee chair), Dr. Mahendra Lawoti and Dr. Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler. Their generous support, thoughtful advice and constructive criticism were invaluable to the success of this project. I am especially grateful to my advisor, Dr. Jim Butterfield, who consistently provided guidance, understanding and encouragement through the many challenges presented by this undertaking. Second, I would like to thank my wonderful partner in life, Michael Creager, as well as my amazing family and friends without whose patience, insights and confidence I could not have brought this research to completion. Finally, I would like to acknowledge and extend special appreciation to those who participated in this study in Syria, Egypt, the U.A.E., Jordan and Lebanon, many of whom have endured tremendous suffering, and some of whom have lost their lives since the time of my field research in the region. Their bravery, fortitude and generosity of spirit is unmatched by any people I have ever met. Stacey E. Pollard ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................................ ii LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................................... xvi PART I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 PART II. LITERTURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................ 3 Civil Society ................................................................................................................................ 3 Perspectives on Civil Society .................................................................................................. 4 State and Civil Society: Impacts of Political Institutions ............................................................ 6 Arab Middle Eastern Institutions ................................................................................................. 7 Background ............................................................................................................................. 7 The Contemporary Debate ...................................................................................................... 9 PART III. HYPOTHESES .......................................................................................................................... 12 Operationalizing Civil Society .................................................................................................. 13 PART IV. RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................................................... 14 Case Selection ............................................................................................................................ 15 Preliminary Research ................................................................................................................. 15 Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 17 Expert Interviews .................................................................................................................. 17 Participant Interviews ............................................................................................................ 18 Measures .................................................................................................................................... 18 Dependent Variable(s) ........................................................................................................... 18 Independent Variables ........................................................................................................... 19 iii Chapter Design ...................................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER II. THE STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN SYRIA .............................................................. 23 I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 23 PART II. THE MAKING OF THE SYRIAN BUNKER PRAETORIAN REGIME ................................. 24 Historical Background ............................................................................................................... 24 The French Mandate .............................................................................................................. 24 The Era of Sunni Dominance, 1946-1963 ............................................................................. 25 Alawis Dominate the Military ............................................................................................... 25 Alawis Dominate the Ba’ath ................................................................................................. 26 The Roots of Syrian Civil Society ......................................................................................... 29 The Transition of Assad Rule ................................................................................................ 33 PART III. SYRIAN REGIME TYPE INDICATORS ................................................................................ 35 Syrian Executive Authority Characteristics .............................................................................. 35 Syrian Executive Authority Characteristics .............................................................................. 35 Syrian Political Participation Characteristics ............................................................................ 35 Syrian Civil Liberties Characteristics ........................................................................................ 36 Syrian Composite Variable Regime Score ................................................................................ 36 PART IV. MODEL