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ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 753± 772, 1996

Transformationof the corporatist inthe Middle East

ANOUSHIRAVANEHTESHAMI& EMMA CMURPHY

Thisarticle will examine the feature of simultaneous economic and political liberalisationdisplayed by manystates inthe Middle East in the last two decades andthe increasingly apparent tendency of such states toreverse thepolitical aspects ofreform, in substance if not of® cially, as theeconomic elements take root.The article seeks todemonstrate that this may be a functionof the disarticulationof corporatistmodels for political organisation adopted in bureau- cratic±bourgeois states. As thestate seeks tobuild a widerpolitical base in supportof its economic policies, it isitselfresponsible for the breakdown of the corporatiststructures which have provided political stability. The political protestand challenges to the regime which result cannot be contained without resortultimately to the authoritarian assets ofthe state, reversing attempts at politicalreform. The corporatist state is transformedinto an overtlyauthoritarian state.

Corporatiststates in the Middle East Ourstarting point must therefore be the nature of the state in the Middle East beforethe era ofeconomicliberalisation. For many countries in theMiddle East andNorth independence ultimately led to the transfer of power from traditional(usually urban-based land-owning) elites to nationalist and populist regimes.It brought with it a movetowards import-substitution industrialisation (ISI)strategiesfor development which were seen as awayof breakingaway from dependenceon exporting cash cropsand commodities and concentrating instead ondomestic industrialisation and production diversi® cation. 1 Theimplemen- tation of ISI carriedwith it considerableimplications for the organisation and role ofthe state. Newregimes were drawn from populist national movements which claimed to beclassless inas muchas theyrepresented all classes, therebymaking class struggleirrelevant. In practice, however, ISI strategies,with the emphasis on rapidcatch-up industrialisation to supply the domestic market, resulted in the growingimportance of the industrial . In most cases, however,the existingindustrial bourgeoisie was eitherweak and relatively unformed or, in the case ofpreviously colonised countries like , had largely included foreign bourgeoiselements which left or weredisappropriated with independence. When thestate assumed theresponsibility for planning and resource allocation in development,and later for production and distribution, it became in effect the AnoushiravanEhteshami & EmmaC Murphyare atthe Centre forMiddle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University ofDurham, South Road, Durham DH1 3TG, UK

0143-6597/96/040753-20$6.00 Ó 1996Third World Quarterly 753 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY industrialbourgeoisieÐ or created that social class amongits employees and clients. Inthis early populist phase, the state drew the existing but still weak working classes andurban middle classes intoits rank in order to mobilise the resources ofthe country, and their political support, behind its development strategies.In return for their support, the state offered them welfare services and productionand supply of new consumer products. Guillermo O’ Donnellhas calledthis the easy phaseof ISI,2 pointingout that as theprocess of` deepening’ developmenttakes place, so ISI becomesharder to sustain. The need to direct resources intoinvestment and development forced regimes to withdraw welfare provisionsand abandon the alliance with the working classes. Populismwas likewiseabandoned as anythingother than rhetoric and the state assumed an authoritariancharacter. Thestate is ableto do this because, during the ` easy phase’, itdevelops its own` class’ interestsand resources. The ever-growing role of the state in the planningand development of theeconomy, combined with the impact of sudden widespreadeducational opportunities and employment aspirations, mean that the stateapparatus grows accordingly into an in¯ ated, self-perpetuating and self- interestedbureaucracy. This ability of the state to forge or abandon ties with otherclass interestsis referredto bywriters such as NicosPoulantzas and Ralph Milibandas `relativeautonomy’ and is discussedat length elsewhere. 3

Corporatismin less developingcountries Ironically,the dominance of the state is madepossible via the deliberate deconstructionof class mobilisationthat takes place under a bourgeois,bureau- craticstate. Whilesome colonialregimes left in place primitive forms ofparliamentary ,as thestate grew stronger these became decreasingly relevant as fora forpolitical competition. As withcases wherepopulist and nationalist move- mentshad swept away old colonial democratic structures, new political struc- turestook their place. In populiststates, single-party rule on a corporatistmodel becamecommon, with interests being negotiated and incorporated into the state’s decision-makingprocesses throughinternal mechanisms rather than throughexternal challenges. The single party, 4 whichwas supposedto illustrate thevictory of the classless, nationalsociety, became the intermediary between stateand interest groups. The absence of alternative political parties, and the divisionof class interestsbetween established incorporated interest-based organ- isations,prevented the growth of class-based institutionalchallenges to thestate. Politicalsociety was verticallystrati® ed, with the higher echelons of interest- basedorganisations being interchangeable and even indistinguishable from the lowerechelons of the single party which served to mediate the interests of the interestgroup with the state. Equally, the higher echelons of theparty were fused withthe personnel and apparatus of the state. advancement was dependentupon a strictsystem ofhierarchy and ladder-working, with party membershipbecoming both a goaland a quali®cation. The state operated what was,in effect, a divideand rule strategy. Interests could be incorporated into 754 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST politicaldecision making via party mediation, thus diffusing potential grievances againstand challenges to the regime. Interest groups had a chanceof advancing theirinterests so longas theyworked through the established and internalised system ofinterest articulation. By interest groups, we refer hereto functional groupswithin ; agricultural producers, industrial producers, white collar workers,women, the . Within each group would be members fromhigh andlow income groups, from a varietyof socioeconomicbackgrounds. Thus an organisationfor agricultural interests would include a -strickenlandless peasantas wellas acapitalistfarmer anda cooperativefarm manager.An organisationrepresenting women’ s interestsmight include women from pro- fessionaloccupations, housewives, students and mothers. Horizontal class strati®cation was fragmentedand demobilised. Wheninterest groups attempted to air their grievances outside of this sys- temÐfor example by challenging the dominance of thesingle party and its role asanarm ofthestateÐ the regime would claim that they challenged the national consensusand interest and so couldlegitimately be suppressed. considerssociety to be organic, rather like a bodywith many parts functioning harmoniouslytogether but having separate tasks: `Thebrain (the ) andthe nervous system (theparty) control these parts and make sure theywork harmoniouslytogether to achieve a desiredend (once again the technological missionof thestate and society). They must workharmoniously together; just as one’s arms andlegs cannot be atodds with one another if one is towalk,so too thefunctioning parts of the society must be coordinated for the body to live healthily.Occasionally diseases in;foreign bodies (the Jews inNazi Ger- many)must be purged; con¯ ict may produce paralysis; a speci®c functioning partmay atrophy’ . 5 Corporatismalso appeals to the lower-middle classes becauseit offers a channelfor upward mobility for those from poor backgrounds who have bene®ted from newly available educational opportunities but have little else that canwork to their advantage. However, corporatism sees theexistence of organisedlabour to promote working class interestsas potentiallythreatening. Whilethe regime may seek toorganise and mobilise labour in order to co-opt it,it will equally seek tosegment that mobilisation to prevent any challenge or class-based alliances. Oneinterest group which deserves specialmention is thatof thearmed forces. Inorder to enforce its prohibition against con¯ ict within society, and to secure itsdomination over society, the regime must have the full force of the military atits disposal. The military is givena privilegedposition in the vertical strati®cation, both distinguishing its members fromother with whom theymight have shared common socioeconomic, ethnic or culturalinterests, and offeringtangible rewards which aid in defending the armed forces fromsubver- sivein® ltration. The military provide the regime with nationalist camou¯ age and,as inmore overtly praetorian regimes, provide the ` order’necessary to alloweconomic development to take place. Thus a generals/civiliantechnocrats alliancedefends the control of thenow authoritarian bureaucratic regime, while acorporatistpolitical structure provides the channels for mobilisation through whichit can operate. 755 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY

Themilitary in the Middle East has ahistoryof intervention in civilian lifeÐindeed a strongmilitary institution is oneof thefew historically continuous featuresof theregion. The reformist regimes of , and the Arab world allhad their roots in military activitiesÐ either struggles for independence or militarycoupsÐ and even Israel’ smilitaryplayed a criticalrole in shaping the youngstate. Regime elites were in their early years deeplycoloured by their militarycomposition, not least because, being often drawn from upwardly- mobilelower-middle classes, themilitary were natural challengers to the old traditionaland colonial orders. Once the bureaucratic state was established, however,and despite their continuing dependence on the military, the bureau- crats increasinglysubordinated the military to civilian rule. The military gener- allyultimately accepted this for a numberof reasons; ®rst thebureaucracy ensuredthat the military bene® ted from the economic rewards of state manage- ment.6 Second,the professionalisation of the military, combined with the introductionof more formal types of organisational structuring, reduced the scopefor independent military initiative. Third, ruling regimes established counter-forcessuch as securityservices independentof the military to subvert counter-coups.Fourth, poor military performances in some instancesdemysti® ed themilitary and, ® nally,the in® ltration of military personnel into civilian economicand political spheres ensureda commoninterest between the state and themilitary which underpinned the latter’ s supportfor the former. The potential foreconomic reward for military personnel has offereda commoninterest with thespeculative and trading commercial bourgeoisie which is resistantto political instabilityand has aninterestin cooperatingwith the bureaucratic state. Equally, themilitary has becomemore sophisticated in its in® ltration of civilian ruling circles. (Egypt), Hafez al-Assad () and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali() are primeexamples of ex-military men who have ` civilianised’ theirown images as theyhave acceded to power while retaining their army power-bases. NazihAyubi contends that the reliance of the state upon the military’ s coerciveabilities indicates the weakness of the corporatist state in the Middle East,rather than the strength which is oftenmistakenly associated with sheer size andscope of statefunctions. The state, in hisview, ` isnota naturalgrowth ofits own socio-economic history or its own cultural and intellectual tradition. Itis aª®erceºstate that has frequentlyto resort to raw coercion in order to preserveitself, but it is nota ªstrongºstate because (a) itlacksÐ to varying degreesof courseÐ the ª infrastructuralpowerº that enables states topenetrate societyeffectively through mechanisms such as taxationfor example; and (b) it lacksideological (in the Gramscian sense) thatwould enable it to forgea ªhistoricºsocial bloc that accepts the of theruling stratum’ . 7 Thusa corporatiststate with praetorian tendencies may have a relativelyhigh degreeof autonomy in terms ofbeing immune to pressures exertedby class interests,and be able to exert its own interests, but its power is stillfragile and vulnerableto rapid social changes and economic crises. 8 Whereit appears strong,this is inpart likely to be thanks to the comparative weakness of alternativeorganised social forces. The late integration of the Arab world into thecapitalist European-dominated world, followed by the colonial experience, 756 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST hadensured that classes werepoorly developed and ineffective as mobilisatory polesof social organisation. 9 Indeed,the political that characterises theauthoritarian corporatist state has frustratedany inclination of classes other thanthe bourgeoisie to organise and mobilise themselves. 10 Ithas beenpointed out that this corporatist bureaucratic authoritarian regime typewas thepredominant state form to emerge in the Middle East and North Africaamong those states whichoverthrew or surplantedtraditional orcolonial regimes. Nasser’ sEgypt,the Ba’ thist regimes of Syria and , Ga’afar Nimeiri’s ,Mu’ ammar Gadda®’ sLibya,Boumedienne’ s , Bourguiba’s Tunisia,Ataturk’ s Turkey,Reza Shah’s Iranand even Ben Gurion’ s Israel,all displayed to varying degrees the ideological and structural preference forthis political model. The traditional monarchies also display an alternative formof corporatism, one that is more` organic,solidaristic and communitar- ian’ ,11 butit is corporatismnone the less.

Culture andcorporatism Ayubiraises anotherissue ofparticularpertinence to studiesof theMiddle East, thenotion that corporatism in thedeveloping world is inparta resultof cultural andhistorical precedents, arguing that much of the Arab world has experienced historicalcentralised traditions, reinforced by colonial rule. 12 Thusan expanded bureaucracyand a subsequentlyapparently strong state are notalien to the existingculture. Moreover, the Arab world has enjoyeda dynamiccommercial historybut has hadonly weak industrial entrepreneurial elites in both capital rich andcapital poor states. The state has largelyassumed therole of industrial bourgeoisiein the development process, increasing its autonomy and the extent ofits functions and control. Othersprovide an alternative ` cultural’explanation for corporatism in the MiddleEast. 13 Bill& Leiden’s argumentis thatthe formal vertical institutional strati®cation of society comes naturallyto Arab society, which is vertically strati®ed at informal levels. Informal groups are notcorporate but exist in a diffuseand relatively unorganised manner. Such vertical differentiations include tribe,family, clan, regional af® liation,ethnic or religious background, cliques andfactions. They are extremelyimportant to social organisation in the Arab world,with a correspondingimpact upon political organisation, 14 and to some degreethe same canbe said to be true of non-Arab Turkey, Iran and even the orientalmajority of Israeli Jews. Thesectarian and familial fragmentation of Lebanonin the and 1980s is anexcellent although possibly extreme exampleof thisfeature of Arabsociety. They also argue that institutional groups havetraditionally held a morecentral position in Middle Eastern political history thanhave associational groups, ` althoughparliaments and political parties are recentlyestablished institutional groups, bureaucracies and armies are institu- tionalgroups of a moreancient vintage. While associations are generally twentieth-centuryphenomena in the Middle East, certain institutional groups haveroutes that extend back to pre-Islamic days’ . 15 Theseinstitutional groups are,none the less, fraughtwith the complexities of personal cliques, family loyaltiesand regional factions. Thus one is notsurprised to notethe existence of 757 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY persistentand dominant clan supremacy within Arab state bureaucracies. Take, forexample, the Takriti clan in Iraq, the Oudja clan in Algeria or the Alawite sect inSyria. Just as theseinformal vertically differentiated groups persist within mod- ernisedstate structures, so thepatterns of patronage and clientalism characterise theoperations of theexpanding bureaucracies. As widespreadeducation enables morepeople to struggle for shares inthe diminishing pie of wealth creamed off fromthe development process, so thesetraditional patron± client linkages resur- face withinthe bureaucracy and its alliances. Waterburyrefers tothe cultural antecedents of corporatismwhen he compares therole of the state in managing the interests of the Muslim umma withthe Latin American predisposition to regard the state as infusedwith the valuesand responsibilities of the . 16 Theresulting ` organic ’` imbuesthe state with the purposeful role of achieving the common goodin thename of allof thesociety but independent from any of itsconstituent parts’, aprospectmade viable by the absence of any clearly dominant class. In alaterwork, with Alan Richards, however, he argues that: Whateverhistorical and cultural predispositions there may be for thetwentieth- centurymanifestations of corporatism, we arguethat those manifestations must be seenas new and culturally neutral. They emerge as a functionof state-buildingand marketpenetration in an age when no government can afford to condone wide disparitiesin the distribution of wealth. 17 Onlythe additional feature of a prominentmilitary in the Arab states is consideredto represent a culturalcomponent to modern corporatism, since the militaryitself is probablythe most corporate form of organisation of all.

Corporatism,the state andthe privatesector Oneof corporatism’ s majorvirtues has beenthe fact that it allows regimes to disguisethe abandonment of commitmentsto social with mechanisms for incorporatedinterest articulation. This was extremelyimportant for those Middle Easternstates whichhad adopted the ideological rhetoric and economic aspira- tionsof . MiddleEastern ` socialism’has almostalways in been a combinationof eÂtatism andwelfarism. ` Socialist’regimes came topower not by but bymilitaryand palace coups. New ruling elites were not vanguards of mobilised masses butapplied top-down interpretations of socialist structures and ideologi- calconcepts. The evolving practice of engaging the state as principleor sole producerdid not signify a retreatfrom and programmes for social justicewere more likely to be motivated by the desire to eliminate opposing power-basesthan to genuinely to transform society. Even in Israel, the centre- pieceof the workers’ economy, the Histadrut,actedas employeras muchas tradeunion. Itwas trueto say thatin most cases thenew ` rulingclass’ ,thebureaucratic bourgeoisie,had not previously been, and initially did not become, an owner of themeans ofproduction. Composed of essentially middle-class and upwardly- 758 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST mobilelower-middle classes, thebureaucrats could not exert their patronage in theform of directlydistributing capital. Instead, they either controlled the means ofproductionor they offered access tochannelsfor making pro® t: tradelicences, access tocredit, , government and state-owned enterprises contracts, andemployment opportunities. Either way, the expansion of the state’ s econ- omicrole had initially been a matterof development strategy rather than ideologyand, while the bureaucracy was formallycommitted to the notion of wealthdistribution, it increasingly found ways of preventing that distribution in favourof channelling funds into investment. Sincethe bureaucracy and its industrial bourgeois elements aspired towards economicdevelopment through modernisation and industrial development, the privatesector was neverentirely excluded from the economic sphere and, as the bureaucratsbegan to develop into a class oftheir own, accumulating the spoils oftheir own power, they too sought investment opportunities and ways to increasetheir own wealth. Thus they became a bureaucraticbourgeoisie. This was notsimply a case ofindividuals rent-seeking from lucrative deals (although therewas undoubtedlyan element of that); it was aquestionof sustaining the roleand functioning of the state (and their place within it) even as thefunds to doso dried up.

Theimpact of ISI failure

Whenthe initial ISI strategiesbegan to falter in the Middle East, when growth declinedand world recession highlighted its over-dependence on unearned oil-basedincomes, regimes turned to the private sector to introduce foreign capitalto supplement dwindling national capacities to invest and produce. To avoidthe kind of economic crisis whichaccompanied the growing debts, the balanceof payments and ® scal de®cits, and in view of its own failure to modernisethrough industrialisation, the bureaucracy became increasingly reliant onthe abilities of the commercial bourgeoisie to provide the appearance of economicsuccess (importsof consumer goods) and the ingredient of ® nance capital(foreign investment). This could only be done by providing greater freedomfor the commercial bourgeoisie to manoeuvre,removing restrictions on imports,foreign investment and private sector activity. Thus the state itself beganto provide the momentum for limited economic liberalisation. The bureaucraticbourgeois alliance was expandedto include the commercial bour- geoisie,the traders who imported luxury goods and consumer items, who managedthe export deals for the public producers or introducedand channelled theforeign investment capital. These middlemen were both sponsored by, and thebene® ciaries of, the transformation of thebureaucracy into a bourgeoisclass initself. Indeed, personnel interchanges were as commonas betweenthe industrialbureaucracy and the bourgeois bureaucracy and together they gorged themselveson the pro® ts ofrent and speculation. Henri Barkey has interpreted thisearly economic liberalisation as `thestates’ elite’s desireto broadenthe base oftheir support, especially since the state itself has beenunable to resume its traditionalrole as theengine of growth’ . 18 Thisform of corporatism is thusconsidered by some to` havebuilt in 759 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY tendencieswhich make it transitional’ , 19 themajor element of this transitional characterbeing that, while the corporatist nature of thestate seeks toundermine potentialclass-based mobilisation,the bureaucracy’ s growingrelations with the industrialand commercial elements of society reinforces and consolidationof the bourgeois class.

Earlypolitical liberalisation Aproblemnow emerged for the bureaucratic± authoritarian state. As thestate alloweda limiteddegree of economicliberalisation, the commercial bourgeoisie, andindeed those elements of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie who were pursuing theiraccumulatory interests, began to demand representation of their interests in politicaldecision making. Reassurance was neededthat the state would not simply` moveback in’ , shouldit so choose. Moreover, it became clear that economicpolicy making could no longer be determined by bureaucratic or power-holdingconsiderations, but must be determined increasingly by the rationaleof the market if pro® ts wereto be made. Thus for both the functional reasonof economic necessity, and because the liberalising elements of the bureaucraticbourgeoisie needed to cement their alliance with their commercial counterparts,political liberalisingÐ and what amounts to power-sharingÐ came ontothe agenda. This would be ® ercelyresisted by those elements of the bureaucraticbourgeoisie who believed that power-sharing represented power- loss andwho were more interested in preserving their existing privileges than riskingall for accumulatory possibilities. Themost threatened group of all in thissituation are thecore elements of the singleparty who recognise that multiplicity of parties means theloss oftheir ownmonopoly on power. The state is forcedto assert itsautonomy from the party,which in turnrisks becomingpolitically redundant. In its efforts to restrain thepace of change, the Party looses any remaining vestiges of reformism. Because theParty and the state have been so intricatelyinterwoven, this process is extremelycomplex and manifests itself in power-struggles within the ruling elitesand regime. The state cannot afford simply to ditch the PartyÐ not only becausethe Party represents the ideological source of regime legitimacy, but becausethe Party has providedthe route for co-opting society through its positionas intermediarybetween state and corporate groups. Equally, the Party cannotsimply dissociate itself from the state. To do so wouldbe to lose its access topowerand, since the state is theproduct of theParty in ideological and personnelterms, the Party would be undermining its own credibility. The level offusion between personnel in Party and state further complicates matters. The Headof State is usuallythe Party leader as well,and his key personnel will almostcertainly have risen through Party ranks to achieve their position in the bureaucracy.Thus there is acertainelement of con¯ icting interests within the statebureaucracy itself which weakens and destabilises the regime. Some elementsof the bureaucracy are themselvesthreatened by the changes, for examplethrough cuts in public sector manpower and privatisation. The state musttherefore rise aboveitself, with and power being vested in a smallernumber of handsand with personalities rising to in¯ uence over both the 760 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST

Partyand the general bureaucracy. (What are ineffect ` changemanagement teams’ becomea featureof liberalisingdeveloping economy elites, with the state facilitatingtheir protection from political pressures). 20 TheEgyptian In® tah is acase inpoint. The economic In® tah of 1974 was accompaniedby anapparentpolitical opening. At ®rst thesingle party, the Arab SocialistUnion ( ASU),simplyevolved into three allowed factions, centre, left andright, which were later allowed to operate as distinctpolitical parties in 1977.The law allowed the formation of new political parties, so longas they werenot religiously or class-based; forsuch parties might be capable of mobilisingmass support.Instead, and against the wishes of those corporate organisationslike the trade unions who bene® ted from the corporatist system, the dissolutionof the ASU representedthe fragmentation of thepolitical party which couldhave stood in theway of Sadat’s economicliberalisation measures. Asone commentatornotes, ` Sadat,having destroyed the centres of power, now estab- lishedthe power of thecentre’ . 21 Byensuring that the president retained most of thepowers normally invested in political parties, and that the could notdevelop in a credibleand forceful manner, his apparent move to amultiparty system didnot mean a reductionin the power of the state. Nor did it mean the dismantlementof corporatism, merely the decapitation of the corporatist organ- isationsto prevent vested interests from interfering with his economic policy. Thecommercial bourgeoisie were given new to organise and lobby, resultingin the establishment of clubs and organisations such as theEgyptian± USChamberof Commerce, the Egyptian Businessman’ s Cluband the Feder- ationof Egyptian Industries to defend their interests. 22 `PresidentSadat’ s re-modelledpolitical system provideda numberof spaces inwhich private- sectorinterests could use theirin¯ uence to affectmajor policy decisions, notably throughthe specialised committees of thePeoples’ Assembly and the public role assignedto major business groups like the important Egyptian Businessmen’ s Associationwith its three representatives on the board of the National Invest- mentAuthority’ . 23 Withtheir preferential access tothe President and his coterie of pro-liberalisa- tionadvisors and aides, they were able to advance the In® tah.Ironically,it was thelabour unions and the working classes whichopposed the apparent democratisation,since the new economic policy was notperceived to beintheir interestsand since their only access topower was throughthe corporatist system headedby the ASU. Aless drasticstrategy was pursuedby ChadliBen Jedid in Algeria. During his ®rst termof of® ce from1979 to 1984, Chadli introduced limited economic reforms whichincluded encouragement of the private sector to assume alarger role.He proceeded relatively slowly, using the time to remove prominent Boumedienne-istswho opposed restructuring, and transferring power away from theparty to the Presidential of® ce. For example, he slimmed down the ruling FLN’sPoliticalBureauÐ the party’ s highestorganÐ from 17 to seven members, transferredsome ofitsfunctions to himself, allowed a seriouslylimited political liberalisationthat disguised a realclampdown on Berber and Islamic opposition, andappointed sympathetic army commanders to sensitive posts. In effect, he usedminor apparent liberalisation and reductions in the power of the FLN to 761 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY disguisethe increase of his own presidential power, with which he could introducea moreradical economic package in his second development plan. 24 Ina studyof democratisation in Syria, Raymond Hinnebusch presents a versionof this argument. 25 Withthe Ba’ thist state the principle employer and routefor upward mobility for some 40%of the population, a decelerationin economicgrowth poses seriousproblems for the state. Unable to sustain direct deliveryof economic rewards, the regime is increasinglyunder pressure to de¯ect discontent by allowing greater economic and personal freedom, es- peciallyfor those middle class elementswho now seek economicrewards throughsmall-scale private endeavour rather than through a decliningstate. However,this does not necessarily translate into demands for democratisation, sincethe middle class has previouslybeen a bastionof Ba’thism, is cutoff from themasses andhas beendenied the opportunity to develop liberal political partiesthat can challenge the regime through mobilisation. Assad, upon coming topower, had on the one hand apparently liberalised the inthe formof establishing the Progressive National Front and a multipartyparliament evenas heconcentrated power in the hands of the presidency. 26 As thebureaucratic bourgeoisie accedes tocommercial bourgeoisie demands foraccess tothe political pie, the military must assess theimpact that this will haveon its own interests. It may decide that it too has accumulatoryinterests whichcan bene® t froma gradualliberalisation (as inthe case ofTunisia or Egypt)or, if chaosor a reductionin itsown status seems tobethe likely impact ofpolitical liberalisation, it may choose to intervene (as inAlgeria or brie¯ y in Turkeybetween 1980 and 1983) to halt the process. Its freedomof manoeuvre willdepend on the degree to which its interests have been harmonised with that theof ruling regime, the degree to which it has beendepoliticised and the potentialoutcomes of any political liberalisation. A®nalpoint needs to be made regarding this initial move towards some politicalliberalisation. Modernisation theorists would argue that the process of economicdevelopment introduces its own dynamics for political liberalisation. Theyargue that economic advancement (including technology and better com- munications,as wellas consumerism)brings with it new values of rationality, achievement,long-term perspectives, tolerance and individuality. New political demandsare madefrom populations which a regimemust either suppress or ful®l. It is notnecessarily the case thatmodernisation will bring political democratisation,but it may well be the case thatit will increase demands for moreparticipation and good and accountable government. 27 Whilethis approach has comeunder ® re forits failure to grasp cultural or historicalrelativities, it is importantto bear in mind that the sociopolitical demands of are not staticbut responsive to awareness ofalternatives and failures of existing scenarios.

Theimpact of economic liberalisation onpolitical structures Oncethe state has embarkedupon the process ofeconomic liberalisation, howeverrestricted this may initially be, it seems thatit is impossibleto reverse 762 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST theprocess. The impact for the corporatist state is equallymomentous. As Richards& Waterburywere to prophesy in 1990: Perhapsthe most profound challenge to solidarism and corporatism will emerge in thegeneral process of streamlining,if not reducing, the degree of stateintervention intheeconomy. The political controls that corporatism affords various regimes will bedif® cult to maintain if thestate begins to cede important economic resources to theprivate sector. 28 Itdid not take long for observers of , East and South East Asia, EasternEurope and even sub-Saharan Africa to notice that the process of economicliberalisation appeared to occur simultaneously with a process of politicalliberalisation and even democratisation in authoritarianstates. One must statefrom the start that these two concepts are notone and the same: Politicalliberalization involves the expansion of public space through the recogni- tionand protection of civiland political liberties, particularly those bearing upon the abilityof citizens to engage in free politicaldiscourse and to freely organise in pursuitof common interests. Political entails an expansion of politicalparticipation in sucha wayas to providecitizens with a degreeof realand meaningfulcollective control over public policy. 29 Nowherewas thistrend more evident than in theMiddle East. Cynics were quick topoint out that while this was oftena case ofre-democratisation for states elsewherein theworld which had experienced more liberal political traditions in thepast, the Middle East did not have such a pastto which it could return. 30 However,there did appear in the 1980s to be an apparent political opening in muchof the Arab world and beyond. Electoral competition made its mark in the 1980sand 1990sÐ in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, , , Kuwait, Lebanon,Sudan, , Turkey and even Islamic Iran. The discourse on politicalliberalism moved from the realms ofacademics and non-governmental organisationsand appeared to in® ltrate government policies in the form of new freedomsfor the press, amultiplicityof parties and pressure groupsand often surprisinglyfree elections. 31 However,and much as thecynics had suggested, no sooner had tentative movestowards democracy begun, than they appeared to be dissolving into reimposedand often reinforced authoritarianism. This reimposition has taken twoforms; societieshave witnessed on the one hand the withdrawal of formal participatoryrights, such as thecancellation of multipartyelections in Algeriain 1991.On the other, civil and human rights have been under renewed attack by themilitary and security forces inefforts to crush the opposition which has emergedwith political liberalisation or socialforces unleashedby the economic crisis andthe policies of economicliberalisation which have been undertaken to remedy it. Itmay seem oddto reimpose authoritarian systems ofgovernment so soon afterthe sprouts of politicalliberalisation were allowed to blossom. The reasons liein two principle factors: ®rst,as wehave seen, political liberalisation was usuallyintroduced as astrategywhereby economically liberalising elements of thestate could further advance their own interests against those of resisting 763 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY elements;it was rarelyif ever part of agenuineattempt to democratisepolitical society(Jordan may be theclosest to an exceptionhere). Thus the strategy could beand was alteredas objectivecircumstancesÐ and regime survivalÐ demanded.Second, that same process ofeconomic liberalisation unleashed socialforces whichchallenged the state itself. In the absence of a welldeveloped civilsociety, and without established channels for the diffusion of these explosionsof popular angst, the regimes were faced with political chaos, instabilityand a threatto themselves. For the sake ofself-preservationÐ and to resist pressures toalter their economic policiesÐ they used the means available tothem, the security forces, to reimpose their authority. Anadditional factor was that` democratisation’had often been shaped, as Ayubiputs it, ` forthe Yankees to see’ . 32 Inother words, it was acosmetic alterationin the structure of power-holdingdesigned to pleaseWestern creditors andpotential investors. Just as theterminology and polemics of economic liberalisationhave been ` borrowed’from the developed world, so thevocabu- lariesof democracy have been adopted by regimes to sweeten the pill of economicreforms. Just as RogerOwen points out the dif® culties of measuring thereal impact of external pressures andin¯ uences on economic reform programmesin developing states, 33 soit isimpossibleto quantify the real impact ofdemocratic on politically liberalising states.

Political democratisationas astrategyfor enhancing elite power Duringthe last two decades, a numberof Arab countries have embarked upon apparentprocesses ofdemocratisationÐ establishing an institutional basis for greaterpublic participation in policy making. The form which this takes is almostuniversally the replacement of the single party system withone of multipleparties, and the introduction of competitive elections between these parties. Forthe most part, the change is initiatedby apresidentand his coterie of aides inorder to disempower both the existing single party and the bureaucracy relativeto themselves. Only thus can they reduce structural resistance to policies whichtransfer economic management from the state± single party alliance which has dominatedit forso longto thenew state bourgeoisie± private sector alliance. Movestowards democratisation are inevitablyfavoured by the population, givingthe president and his elite a newdegree of legitimacyin what is otherwise generallyregarded as anideologically bankrupt political environment. This process has beendescribed as `anewruling bargain by which popular acquies- cenceto dif® cult economic reform is obtainedthrough the creation of a new democraticbargain’ . 34 Thisessentially structural analysis has beenlinked by GuillermoO’ Donnellto the rational choice approach, the result being a theory of` transitions’which highlights the failure of authoritarian regimes to ful® l promisesof socialjustice and their subsequent need to seek supportfrom outside theregime. The success ofthe strategy hinges on the regime’ s abilityto ` ®x’ electionsand ensure that its own elite will win more than others. 35 Acomparable andsometimes complementary strategy is tocreate the impression of popular consultation,formalising democratic bargains through national pacts with poten- 764 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST tialopposition parties and interest groups (such as theTunisian National Pact of 1988).36 Insome instancesof successor regimes,such as thatof Chadli Ben Jedid of Algeria,Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt or Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, democratisationis apoliticaltool used to mark out new presidents from their authoritarianpredecessors andto drawas broada base ofsupport as possiblefor alterationsin policy directionÐ notably in favour of economic liberalisation. Thisis alsoa process necessitatedin some degreeby the need to increase governmentrevenues (as directand indirect oil rents diminish) through increas- ingthe breadth of thetax base andthe ef® ciencywith which it istaxed.Luciani has explainedthat ` noArabstate, with the exception of Morocco and to a lesser extentTunisia, has embarkedon signi® cant reform and expansion of its ® scal base fora periodof overtwenty years. The level of directincome tax collection isludicrouslylow in mostArab states inwhicha personalincome tax exists, and ina goodnumber of them such a taxdoes not even exist’ . 37 As economicliberalisation has becomeformalised in structural adjustment programmes,the state has beenrequired to improve its tax-derived resources. It maybe easier toimpose taxes on importsor indirectly, but these have the effect ofdistortingprices on thedomestic market and undermining the very liberalisa- tionthat the state is tryingto enact.Thus regularising and extending income tax is acrucialelement of most structural adjustment programmes, yet it is surely oneof themost politically sensitive and dif® cult to impose. Income tax directly affects thepocket of themajority of citizensand thus is doomedto beunpopular. Tolegitimise this aspect of their reform programmes, regimes can only be temptedto spread the blame, as itwere, and to seek legitimacyin the guise of `taxationwith representation’ . Thestrategy relies to a largeextent on the weakness of organised political opposition.Decades of severe repressionof opposition limits the ability of oppositionparties to mobilise signi® cant parts of the population behind their cause.Indeed, the of Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Jordan havebeen careful to legalise only those parties which offer no real challenge. Communistand leftist parties, abandoned early on intheindependence years and oftenbrutally suppressed thereafter, have little ideological credibility in the aftermathof the collapse of theSoviet Union and the submission of communist economiesaround the world to the capitalist wave. Political parties emanating fromthe bourgeoisie are unlikelyto offer any platform signi® cantly different fromthat of the dominant previously single party. Their interests will lie in the same policiesof economic liberalisation that the government (still of® cially representedby the former single party) is pursuing.In thiscase, theintroduction ofa degreeof plurality provides the government with an increased number of peoplewith whom to share theblame for the unpleasant effects ofausterityand liberalisationmeasures. 38 Suchbourgeois parties may contribute to thedeepening ofcivil society and to restraining the still ` ®erce’ characterof the state by emphasisingthe need to liberalise civil life. Ultimately, however, the fact that theyshare class interestswith the bourgeois state makes theman ally of thestate ratherthan genuine opposition. Aninteresting angle to this appearance of liberalbourgeois parties is thefact 765 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY thatsuch parties are oftenthe descendants of offshoots of the single partyÐ liberalwings which split off in earlierdays over either ideological or personality issues. Thusthey are organicallylinked to the party of independence and their leadershave little credibility with the popular masses. Neitherleftist nor bourgeoisparties in this emerging democratic environment are mass-based partieswith grassroots support. They prove all too willing to cut deals with the regimeso as toget a sliceof the power pie and offer little or no genuine alternativeto the regime. Nowappears one of theparadoxes of this strategy of politicaldemocratisation: withouta strongsingle party to negotiate their interests through existing corporatestructures, and without credible party-based alternatives replacing the dominanceof the single party as ameans forarticulating from govern- mentpolicies, the people of the country ® ndgovernment more, not less inaccessible.Interests are less mediatedand more directly expressed, through criticismof the government in the media, through and demonstrationsand eventually even through violent action. The regime, which initiatedthe strategy of political democratisation as ameans ofdefensive self-preservation,must now either face thechallenge and alter those of its policieswhich incite the resistance or suppress it.The experience of the Arab worldhas so far beenoverwhelmingly one of suppression. Thus political liberalisationis reversedÐthe media are moreheavily censored, the and securityservices are givenmore freedom to abuse civil and human rights, politicalactivities are limitedor banned and the preceding democratisation is revealedas theillusion it always was. One may fairly say thatthe ` ®erce’ characterof theArab state is revealed,as are theweaknesses ofits institutional andideological base. Political democratisation does not necessarily lead to or correlatewith political liberalisation, although it has beenargued that even this limitedtactical process ofdemocratisation may have a residualand long-term effecton .

Thesociopolitical consequences ofeconomic liberalisation Theheart of thedilemma for liberalising regimes is thatthe effects ofeconomic liberalisationare feltdisproportionately among the population. While there maybe popular consensus over the need for reform, there is decreasinglyso overthe strategy of economic liberalisation, and particularly IMF-negotiated structuraladjustment programmes, the bene® ts ofwhich are usually` deferred, uncertain,and diffused’ . 39 Initialausterity measures resultin the cutting of governmentfunds and subsidies. While, as GiacomoLuciani has pointedout, thereis noreason why such cuts should automatically be targeted at the poorer sectionsof society (Arab governments could go a greatdeal further in cutting militarybudgets for example), the reality has beenthat ` speci®c austerity measures tiedto structural adjustment can be linked to particular eruptions of mass ’. 40 DavidSeddon has demonstratedthat the phenomenon of austerityprotests has doggedthe Middle East and Arab world since the early economic liberalisation programmesof Morocco and Egypt in the 1970s. Moreover, in the absence of 766 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST effectiveways for protesters to in¯ uence government policy making, wereincreasingly directed towards demanding political liberalisation as wellas ahaltto the more acute austerity measures. In1977 Sadat’ s introductionof suddenand dramatic price increases ledto a series ofriots, an experience repeated(although less violently)in 1984. Morocco, which had experienced widespreadopposition to its 1978 three year stabilisation programme, suffered severe socialunrest in 1980, 1981 and 1984 in response to attempts to cut governmentexpenditure. The pattern was repeatedelsewhere in theArab world; inTunisia in 1984, in Sudan in 1985, Algeria in 1988 and Jordan in 1989. Seddonargues that over the past 20 years,the major shifts in macro-economic policyrepresented by structural adjustment have generated or sharpened struc- turalcontradictions and the potential for social con¯ ict. His ` comparative anatomyof protest’ illustrates that the scale ofthe riots, demonstrations, strikes andmarches whichhave rocked the Middle East has beenso large as tomake itimpossible for regimes to ignore them. Sparked off by price rises offoodand basicgoods, the more violent riots invoked the language of hunger and poverty. Meanwhile,trade unions would mark their opposition to governmentpolicy with strikesand marches, and organised interest groups would lobby through marches andpetitions. Opposition to government policies has beenwidespread through- outboth country and population, rather than being con® ned simply to one elementor urbanarea. The of® ces ofthesingle party or were frequenttargets for attack, and in many instances the role of the IMF and World Bankin pushing unpopular policies was explicitlyreferred to by protesters. Protestsare notthe result of speci® c organisations,although leftist and Islamic groupsboth participate and claim to lead them. In sum, they have been at least semi-spontaneousand mass expressionsof popular concern over the impact of structuraladjustment upon ordinary lives. 41 As has beenargued by others, `Popularprotest is notmerely a responseto economic and social adversity, it is alsoa demandfor social justice and for renewal of the between stateand civil society, in which the role of the state is toensure the economic andsocial welfare of all in society’ . 42 Regimesare facedwith a starkchoice; to heed the voice of the protesters and slowdown or halt the pace of economic liberalisation, or to repress the demonstrationsof discontent. In the case ofBourguiba in Tunisia in 1984, he revokedthe price rises whichhad sparked the riots, although this was as much atacticof internalregime as ofconcernover popular feeling. Likewise, Sadatand Mubarak of Egypt have responded to large-scale demonstrations by allowingthem to slow the pace of reform. Egyptian liberalisation has beena zigzagof stops and starts, dictated by the leaders’ unwillingness or inability to imposefaster changesand sustain stability simultaneously. The Jordanian monarchywas eagerin 1989 to demonstrate its concern over public discontent andto appear to be listening to complaints. Yet, while regimes may be preparedÐor forcedÐ to take account of popular dissatisfaction with the nega- tiveimpact of economicliberalisation programmes, and to allow it todictate the speedof reform,they have not reversed the overall direction of policiesand have actedto restrict the space withinwhich genuine opposition can operate. Regimes cannotafford to ignore protest, but nor can they allow it to challenge the state 767 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY ortheirown interests; thus a retractionof liberalisationmeasures inthepolitical spherebecomes evident.

Transformationof the corporatiststate DanielBrumberg has statedthat Arab states have,by virtue of thereimposition oftheirauthoritarian characters, ultimately excluded themselves from the general trendof transition pacts towards democratisation. 43 Inmost of Latin America, anddespite the fragility of such pacts, democratic norms are graduallytaking rootas themilitary is increasinglyforced back into the barracks. In Eastern Europeand the former , and despite the reassertion of leftist and nationalistforces, political challenges are directedagainst policy directions ratherthan against democracy itself. In the Arab world, however, democratic developmentsare rapidlyproving to be illusory and political is actuallyin retreat.Apparent democratisation has notre¯ ected a sincerecommit- mentto power-sharing,merely a tacticalrestructuring of mechanismsfor control. Inthe case ofcorporatistbureaucratic bourgeois states, such as Egypt,Algeria, Syriaand Tunisia, this is unsurprising.Economic liberalisation creates arestruc- turingof interests.The nature of thecapitalist market is onewhich distinguishes betweenthe owner of themeans ofproductionand the means ofproduction itself (includinglabour). In other words, the position of one citizen vis-aÁ -vis another, andof the citizen vis-aÁ -vis thestate is determinedby his or her relations to capital,to the means ofproduction and ultimately by source and extent of income.When the nation’ s productiveresources are concentratedincreasingly in thehands of the private sector, as opposedto the public sector, income distributionand standard of living are determinedless bysocial justice and principlesof equitable distribution than by status in the hierarchy of capital. Socialstrati® cation is increasinglyhorizontal. Citizens identify less withfunc- tionaldifferentiation than with socioeconomic differentiationÐ especially since theprocess ofeconomic liberalisation affects differentsocioeconomic strata to differentextents. Put simply, previously weak and fragmented class interests beginto deepen and consolidate. Suchclass interestsare notimmediately evident, since the citizen will initially seek toimprove his or her lot relative to others and in absolute terms through theestablished vertical structures for interest mediation; ie, through his func- tionalinterest group structure. However, these structures become decreasingly ef® cientfor two reasons. First, the interest group itself begins to fragment. A wealthyland-owning member of an agriculturalists’ organisation will have less incommon with a landlesstenant farmer oran agricultural trade union worker ashebecomes more interested in new opportunities for pro® t, new possibilities forexporting overseas andreducing costs throughremoval of labour protection laws.Industrialists will cease tosee theirinterests as lyingin the same organisationas theirfactory workers when losing subsidies forces themto make redundancies.Women who ® ndthemselves channelled into low-paid factory workwill have less incommon with middle-class professional women who are partof the process whichexploits the formers’ labour. Second,as wehave seen, the state increasingly transfers itsfunctions and 768 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST powersaway from the single party, either through the of powers and/orthrough partial democratisation. It may even decentralise power away fromcentral party organisms to weaken party control as opposedto itsown. The singleparty loses itsintermediary function and no longeroperates effectively to channelinterests through to the state mechanisms. No other intermediary replacesthe party, since newly legalised political parties are neithermass representativeparties nor entirely distinct from the state and previous single party.Opposition to state policy on behalf of interest groups is nowexpressed moredirectly, through criticism of the state, through demonstrations, strikes, protestsand even riots. Although the state may take heed of grievances and allowthem to slow the process ofeconomicchange, it willnot deviate from the overalldirection of that change since it is inthat direction that its own interests andsurvival lie. Thus it has littleoption but to reimpose its authoritarian nature andrepress popularopposition. Opposition which takes place outside the sphere ofthe supposedly legitimate competitive party system is declaredillegitimate, disruptiveand detrimental to the security and stability of the country. Thesocial groups which suffer mostfrom economic liberalisation in theshort term,the working and lower-middle classes whoface growingunemployment, risingprices, new tax impositions and reduced social and welfare provisions, are alienatedand excluded from the political system, indicating the disarticulation of thecorporatist model. If thelegal political parties fail to develop into genuinely representativebodies in a functioningdemocracy, and with the redundancy of thepreviously dominant single party and interest group structures, there remains avacuumin terms ofviable political structures which is ®lledincreasingly by politicalchaos and a governmentresponse of authoritarianism. Astatewhich can make economic liberalisation work speedily enough to supplya generalincrease in living standards may be able to contain opposition withinan existing competitive political system withoutfacing real challenges to itself.Those Middle Eastern states whichmaintain their essentially rentier characteristicsare unlikelyto beableto doso andauthoritarian responses tothe breakdownof the corporatist system willlead to socialchaos and severe regime instability.The strategy of economic liberalisation as ameans forregime survivalas thestate consolidates its bourgeois class interestsclearly carries with itmajor political risks as wellas opportunities.It requires a complexpolitical andeconomic balancing act, as wellas thecon® dent support of the military. It alsorequires that the party of the regime is subordinatedto, rather than the partnerof, the state. It remains ultimately supportive of the regime, even as its powersdiminish, since its ideological bankruptcy and political history make it dependentupon the alliance for its own political survival.

Creatingspace forpolitical Islam One® nalfeature of the disarticulation of corporatism in the Middle East is the tendencyof political Islam to® llthe political vacuum described above. In the MuslimMiddle East, the secular state’ s inabilityto overcomethe endemic crisis prevalentin society has producedits own anti-thesis: protest in the form of politicalIslam. 44 Islam offers aninclusory community for those who not only 769 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY

®ndtheir interests threatened by economic liberalisation but ® ndpolitical structuresincreasingly inadequate for the expression of their fears. Evenas formalvertical political structures become increasingly ineffective, so traditional informalsocial structures also come under threat from the intrusive cultural impactof Western companies and their brand names, Western models of organisation,management and indices, and unfamiliar divisive forces thatarise fromeconomic competition. Capitalist production bombards and eventuallysocially and economically fractures supportive extended family units, so vitalto the renewal of Muslim cultural values. Islamicpolitical movements offer a culturalfamiliarity that resounds with localauthenticity and which offers membershipin a classless, nationalsocial movement,stressing the virtues of socialjustice (not so differentfrom the early populiststate). Islamic political movements have used the language of their oppositionto the so-called ` CocaCola culture’ syndrome to voice the protest of thosedisempowered by authoritarianism and economically disadvantaged by economicliberalisation and thus to challenge the regimes of the Middle East. Theydifferentiate themselves from both state and co-opted secular opposition partiesalike by asserting a religiousmandate which places economic consider- ationssecond to social preservation and which offers anentirely alternative but historicallyfamiliar form of political organisation to one which is perceivedby manyto have so drastically failed. Itwould seem thenthat, for the moment, the deterministic view of thosewho arguethat economic and political liberalism are joinedat the hip has proved premature.Paul Starr was morecorrectly prophetic when he concluded that: `Eventhose of us whotake satisfaction in theremarkable rebirth of civilsociety inthe East and revitalisation of the liberal state in the West ought to know that thisis onlyanother season ofour passions and not history’ s laststop’ . 44

Notes 1 Elsewhere, inSouth America forexample, itwas notthe process ofwinning independence from colonial masters whichprovided the impetus for change but the political crisis whicharose fromthe depression of the1930s and the failure of traditional norms for engaging in international trade toensure the prosperity of mostor all social classes. 2 See discussionof bureaucratic authoritarianismin John Waterbury, TheEgypt of Nasser andSadat , New Jersey: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1983,pp 3± 20. 3 Nicos Poulantzas, L EÂtat,le pouvoir,le socialisme ,Paris:PUF, 1978; and Ralph Miliband, ClassPower and State Power,London:Verso, 1983. Other writers haveasserted thatthe bureaucracy increasingly represents bourgeoisinterests. When they are thedominant class theymay chooseto abandon state mechanisms and advancedemocratic structures,or simply concentrate onthe authoritarian elements ofthe state toprotect theirposition. This theme has beenadvanced by writers suchas FuadMursi, Ben Romdhane and Michal Kalecki, whileJohn Waterbury would argue that the state bourgeoisiein theMiddle East has demonstrated that,rather thanbeing a bourgeoisiein transition, it is determinedto retain as muchpower as possible throughcontrol of the state. 4 Forexample, theBa’ thin Syria and Iraq, the FLN inAlgeria, the Neo-Destour in Tunisia and the National Union(later the ASU) in Egypt. 5 AlanRichards & JohnWaterbury, APoliticalEconomy of the Middle East, State, Class and ,Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1990,p 337. 6 ElizabethPicard, ` State andsociety in the Arab world:towards a new rolefor the security services’ ,in 770 CORPORATIST STATE INTHE MIDDLE EAST

BahgatKorany, Paul Noble & RexBrynen, eds, TheMany Faces ofNational Security in the Arab World , London:Macmillan, 1993, pp 258± 274. 7 Nazih NAyubi, Over-statingthe Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East ,London:IB Tauris, 1995, p 3. 8 IanRoxborough, Theoriesof ,Basingstoke:Macmillan, 1979, p 123. 9 See Halim Barakat’ ssummary ofthe works of Hanna Batatu and Philip Khoury (among others) in The Arab World:Society, Culture and State ,Berkeley,CA: Universityof California Press, 1993,pp 75± 78. 10 Ibid., p 95. 11 Ayubi, Overstatingthe Arab state , p 3. 12 Patricia Springborghas givenevidence of large andimpersonal bureaucracies existingin Mesopotamiaand inancient Egypt as far backas thesecond and third millenia BC.See `Theorigins of liberalinstitutions in theancient Middle East’ ,inTim Niblock& Emma Murphy,eds, Economicand Political Liberalization in theMiddle East ,London:British Academic Press, 1993,pp 26± 40. 13 James Bill& Carl Leiden, Politicsin the Middle East ,Boston:Little, Brown, 1984, pp 74± 97. 14 Theextreme versionof this argument might be the so-called ` mosaic approach’posited by analystssuch as CarltonCoon, who deny the relevance ofclass analysisat all inthe Middle East, arguing that the categories ofsect, tribe,ethnic group, village and region are thekeys to understanding Arab social organisation. 15 Bill& Leiden, Politicsin the Middle East , p 77. 16 JohnWaterbury, TheEgypt of Nasser andSadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes ,Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1983,pp 14± 15. 17 Ibid, p 338. 18 `Introduction’in Henri Barkey, ed, ThePolitics of Economic reform inthe Middle East ,New York:St Martin’s Press, 1992,p 6. 19 Tim Niblock,in Niblock & Murphy,eds, Economicand Political Liberalisation in the Middle East , p 57. 20 JoanNelson, ` Thepolitics of economic transformation: is ThirdWorld experience relevantin Eastern Europe?’ , WorldPolitics ,Vol45, No 3, 1993, p 436. 21 Waterbury, TheEgypt of Nasser andSadat , p 367. 22 Gorm RyeOlsen, PoliticalPower and Economic Change in the Arab World ,Copenhagen:Centre for DevelopmentResearch, 1994,p 84. 23 Roger Owen, State,Power and Politics in the Making of theModern Middle East ,London:Routledge, 1992, p 144. 24 Emma Murphy,` Theinitiation of economic liberalisation in Algeria, 1979± 1989’ , inGerd Nonneman,ed, Politicaland Economic Liberalization: Dynamics andLinkages in Comparative Perspective ,Boulder,CO: LynneRienner, 1996, pp 181± 199. 25 RaymondHinnebusch, ` Democratization inthe Middle East: theevidence from the Syrian case’ ,in Nonneman,ed, Politicaland Economic Liberalization ,pp153± 169. 26 VolkerPerthes, ThePolitical Economy of Syria under Assad ,London:IB Tauris,1995, pp 135± 139. 27 Bill& Leiden, Politicsin the Middle East , pp 9±37. 28 Richards& Waterbury, APoliticalEconomy of the Middle East , p 351. 29 RexBrynen, Bahgat Korany & PaulNoble, ` Introduction:theoretical perspectives in Arab liberalisationand democratisation’, inBrynen,Korany & Noble,eds, PoliticalLiberalization and Democratization in the Arab World,Boulder,CO: LynneRienner, 1995, p 3. 30 See, forexample, Lisa Anderson,` Theprospects for democracy inthe Arab World’, inMartinKramer, ed, MiddleEastern Lectures NumberOne 1995 ,Jerusalem: TheMoshe Dayan Centre forMiddle Eastern and African Studies,1995, pp 59± 71. 31 Theorigins of thisapparent in® ltration of liberal political norms into Arab societyhave been hotly debated. Thedebate has progressedinto one about the relative impositionsof culture upon political society and whethersupposedly ` Western’ liberalpolitical practices are foreignimpositions upon and alien to theArab world.Patricia Springborghas arguedthat liberal political institutions, which included representative features, were aliveand kicking in the ancient Middle East andthese traditionshave continued through institutionssuch as the majlis and masjid.Somewriters haveargued that Islamic principlesof shura provide thechannel for obligation and accountability on thepart of rulers, while others have argued that Arab and/or Islamic valuesare basicallyincompatible with democratic practice (emphasisingIslamic beliefin divine rather thanpopular sovereignty for example). Fora comprehensivesurvey of the cultural aspects ofthe debatesee thechapters byMichael Hudson and Lisa Anderson,in Brynen, Korany & Noble, Political Liberalizationand Democratization in the Arab World . 32 Ayubi, Overstatingthe Arab State , p 411. 33 Owen, State,Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East , p 140. 34 Daniel Brumberg,` Democratic bargainsand the politics of economic stabilization: the case ofEgypt in comparative perspective’, paperpresented to the 1989 MESA annual conference, pp1± 2. 35 See Daniel Brumberg,` Authoritarianlegacies andreform strategies’ ,inBrynen, Korany & Noble,eds, PoliticalLiberalization and Democratization in the Middle East ,pp229± 259. 771 ANOUSHIRAVAN EHTESHAMI &EMMA CMURPHY

36 DirkVandewalle, `BenAli’ s new era: pluralismand economic privatization in Tunisia’ , inBarkey, ed, The Politicsof Economic Reform in the Middle East ,pp105± 128. 37 Giacomo Luciani,` Resources, revenues,and authoritarianism in the Arab World:beyond the rentier state’ , inBrynen, Korany & Noble,eds, PoliticalLiberalization and Democratization in the Middle East, p 217. 38 Ayubi,Overstating the Arab State , pp 1±2. 39 Nelson,` Thepolitics of economic transformation’ , pp433± 462. 40 Luciani,` Resources, revenues,and authoritarianism in the Arab World’, p215.Luciani points out that this doesnot, however, usually result in fundamental political instability. 41 DavidSeddon, ` Austerityprotests in response to economic liberalization in the Middle East’ ,inNiblock & Murphy, Economicand Political Liberalization in the Middle East , pp 88±112. 42 Brumberg,` Authoritarianlegacies andreform strategies’ ,p329. 43 See AnoushiravanEhteshami, ` Islamic fundamentalismand political Islam’ ,inRichard Little, Michael Smith& BrianWhite, eds, Issues inWorld Politics ,London:Macmillan, 1996. 44 PaulStarr, ` Thenew life ofthe liberal state: privatisationand the restructuring of state± society relations’ , inEzra NSuleiman& JohnWaterbury, eds, ThePolitical Economy of PublicSector Reform ,Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1990,pp 22± 54.

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