The Tunisian Democratic Transition in Comparative Perspective

Multiple but Complementary, Not Conflictual, Leaderships: The Tunisian Democratic Transition in Comparative Perspective Alfred Stepan Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/145/3/95/1830770/daed_a_00400.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 Abstract: Many classic studies of leadership focus on strong leadership in the singular. This essay focuses on effective leaderships in the plural. Some of the greatest failures of democratic transitions (Egypt, Syria, Libya) have multiple but highly conflictual leaderships. However, a key lesson in democratization theory is that successful democratic transitions often involve the formation of a powerful coalition, within the opposition, of one-time enemies. This was accomplished in Chile, Spain, and Indonesia. In greater detail, this essay examines Tunisia, the sole reasonably successful democratic transition of the Arab Spring. In all four cases, religious tensions had once figured prominently, yet were safely transcended by the actions of multiple leaders via mutual ideological and religious accommodations, negotiated socioeconomic pacts, and unprecedented political cooperation. A multiplicity of cooperating leaders, rather than a single “strong leader,” produced effective democratic leadership in Tunisia, Indonesia, Spain, and Chile. ALFRED STEPAN, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1991, is Many of the classic studies of leadership focus on the Wallace Sayre Professor of Gov- strong leadership in the singular.1 In this essay, I focus ernment Emeritus at Columbia instead on effective leaderships in the plural, partic- University. He previously taught at ularly in democratic transitions. Some of the greatest Oxford University and Yale Uni- failures of democratic transitions have multiple but versity. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1997. highly conflictual leaderships; whereas many of the His many works, which have been most successful democratic transitions have multi- translated into a dozen languages, ple but complementary leaderships. Cases in which include Crafting State Nations (with multiple leaders have been able to transform initially Juan J. Linz and Yogendra Yadav, conflictual relationships into collaborative and com- 2011), Problems of Democratic Transi- plementary ones have been understudied, and are my tion and Consolidation (with Juan J. primary concern here. Linz, 1996), Arguing Comparative Pol- itics (2001), and Rethinking Military The Arab Spring illustrates three of the classic forms Politics (1988). He has been to Tu- of democratic failure that can come about from mul- nisia six times for his current re- tiple but conflictual leaderships: statelessness; pro- search on Islam and democracy. longed and inconclusive civil wars; and what I call © 2016 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_ a_00400 95 The Tunisian “Brumairian abdication” of the chance to securing their own territorial autonomy. Democratic rule democratically in return for protec- Western interventions have not helped. In Transition in Comparative tion from a nondemocratic actor, such as this context of multiple leaderships in pro- Perspective the military.2 longed and inconclusive civil wars, a peace- Libya is a clear example of the extreme ful democracy in one state is inconceivable. peril–in this case, statelessness–of multi- In Egypt, three generals ruled the country ple oppositions that cannot craft any com- from 1952 until the Tahrir Square protests plementary goals. Qadhafi had for a long of 2011. But after Mubarak stepped down time created, dismantled, and recreated in the face of sustained protests, there were chains of commands and security struc- quite distinct leadership groups in Egypt: tures at will. He supported his sons’ emer- the Muslim Brotherhood, which had not re- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/145/3/95/1830770/daed_a_00400.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 gence as possible dynastic successors, and newed its membership or ideology in over entrusted core security posts to relatives. twenty years and was committed to using Few business groups could assume any po- “sharia as the only source of legislation”; a litically relevant autonomy. It took a civil variety of secular leaders who feared and op- war–and massive help for the rebels in the posed the Muslim Brotherhood as much or form of a un-backed nato bombing cam- even more than they opposed the military; paign–to topple the “Brother Leader.” and the “military as institution,” which Weber asserted that a “state is a human helped overthrow Mubarak as the “military community that [successfully] claims the as government,” but stepped into his shoes monopoly of the legitimate use of force and retained many prerogatives inconsis- within a given territory.”3 It will be a long tent with the democratic spirit of many in time before such a successful monopolistic the opposition. claim can be made in Libya, and likely lon- At the height of the Tahrir Square protests ger before a useable state comes into exis- in February 2011, such multiple-but-con- tence throughout its territory. A reporter flicting leaderships did not strike most of who had traveled widely in the country’s the protestors as a problem. Indeed, be- interior just two months before the July cause they believed a headless protest 2012 parliamentary elections document- was invulnerable to “decapitation,” many ed the threats of Libya’s extreme version young protestors were against any kind of of multiple leaderships with absolutely no leadership. complementary goals: This perception missed a fundamental Libya has no army. It has no government. point about the history and theory of suc- These things exist on paper, but in practice cessful versus failed democratic transitions Libya has yet to recover from the long mael- in recent decades. The scholarly literature strom of Qadhafi’s rule. What Libya does on democratic transitions normally makes have is militias, more than 60 of them. a distinction between the tasks of resistance Each brigade exercises unfettered authori- within “civil society” that help to decon- ty over its own turf. There are no rules.4 struct authoritarianism, and the tasks of “political society” that help to construct democ- Obviously, Syria is also a case of multi- racy. Among political society’s construc- ple leaderships in opposition to Assad that tive tasks is to help bring diverse groups of have virtually no complementary goals. democratic opposition leaders–who may Some of these conflicting leaderships have even dislike each other–into agreements included liberal-secular forces, jihadist mi- concerning shared goals and tactics to litias (even before the arrival of isis), and erode the authoritarian regime, and even the Kurds, who are increasingly focused on on plans for an interim government and 96 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for elections capable of generating consti- A key lesson in democratization theory Alfred tution-making authorities with democrat- is that successful democratic transitions Stepan ic legitimacy. often involve the formation of a coalition, Civil society in Egypt was, if anything, within the opposition, of one-time ene- more diverse and robust than in Tunisia. mies. I look very briefly at how this task of However, to this date, Egypt has done re- transforming conflicting multiple leader- markably little to create an effective po- ships into a complementary coalition was litical society. Why, and with what conse- accomplished in three important cases: quences? The leading U.S. scholar of the Chile, Spain, and Indonesia. Then, in great- Muslim Brotherhood, Carrie Rosefsky er detail, I will examine the case of Tunisia, Wickham, has explained that its “leaders the sole reasonably successful transition of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/145/3/95/1830770/daed_a_00400.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 affiliated with the reformist trend have the Arab Spring. What makes these cases never gained more than a marginal pres- noteworthy is that in each, religious ten- ence in the Guidance Bureau, the group’s sions and differences figured prominent- highest decision-making body.”5 Given ly, yet to a large extent were safely tran- this doctrinal opposition within the Mus- scended by the actions of multiple leaders. lim Brotherhood to internal reform, and In 1973, the Christian Democratic Par- the reluctance of secularists to reach out for ty in Chile, with the tacit support of the possible Islamist allies who did not agree U.S. government and the Roman Catho- with the Brotherhood’s political theolo- lic Church, in effect asked General Pino- gy, the multiple potentially democratic Is- chet to overthrow the legally elected so- lamic and secular leaderships never tried, cialist government of Salvador Allende. much less attained, any complementa- After this, from 1973 until the early 1980s, ry goals with each other of the sort I will any possibility of joint cooperation be- document were achieved in Tunisia. This tween the Christian Democrats and So- may account for the fact that in Egypt, af- cialists in order to act against Pinochet ter the fall of Mubarak, but six months be- was impossible. However, starting in the fore the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi be- early 1980s, with the support of the Ger- came president, 62 percent of respondents man Christian Democrat Konrad Adenau- in a survey were already hedging their dem- er Stiftung and the German Social Dem- ocratic bets by agreeing to the statement ocrat Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Chil- that the military “should continue to inter- ean Christian Democrats and the Chilean vene when it thinks necessary.”6 Indeed, a Socialists began to consider whether they columnist in a widely read Cairo publica- hated each other less than they hated Pino- tion, Ahram Online, asserted as early as Sep- chet. Eventually, by the mid-1980s, the two tember 2011 that: “In general, liberal par- parties mobilized joint anti-Pinochet pro- ties would like the constitution to be writ- test demonstrations. These shared activi- ten before the elections take place, fearing ties slowly turned into shared political pro- that a post-election constitution-making grams.

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