Roots of Stability: Arab Civil-Military Relations During Times of Political Crisis
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2018 Roots of Stability: Arab Civil-Military Relations During Times of Political Crisis Jonathan Andrew Barsness University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Barsness, Jonathan Andrew, "Roots of Stability: Arab Civil-Military Relations During Times of Political Crisis. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2018. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/5024 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Jonathan Andrew Barsness entitled "Roots of Stability: Arab Civil-Military Relations During Times of Political Crisis." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Political Science. Ian G. Down, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: William Andrew Paul, John M. Scheb, Krista E. Wiegand Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Roots of Stability: Arab Civil-Military Relations During Times of Political Crisis A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Jonathan Andrew Barsness August 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Andrew Barsness All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To Dan Gillison, David Mincy, and Jacob Herring iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my Committee members Dr. Ian Down, Dr. Krista Wiegand, Dr. John Scheb, and Dr. Drew Paul. This project would not have been completed without your support during my coursework at the University of Tennessee, my fieldwork in Jordan, and throughout the dissertation writing process. I am deeply grateful for your guidance, insights, and constructive criticisms. Any errors or shortcomings of this study are purely my own. Thank you to the US Department of State and to the National Security Education Program for supporting my Arabic studies and dissertation fieldwork through the Critical Language Scholarship and Boren Fellowship. This study would not have been possible without the financial, logistical, and other forms of support these programs provided. Thank you to my family and friends in the United States and Canada. It is impossible to finish a PhD program without humor, support, and perspective. You and your families keep me grounded and positive despite the intensity of my work. In no particular order, thank you Jason Tyler, Sam Cochenour, Michael Moen, Mick and Lindsey Morrison, Teru and Cadi Olsen, Jessica and Alex Eschen, Mallory and Shaft Williams, Michiel and Claire Moore, Katie Lent, Cooper Depner, Colin King, Tyler Loseke, Shawn and Kelsey Stapleton, and Payvand Seyedali. I also want to thank my cousins Paige, Jamie, Kyle, and Kendra Nelson and the rest of my extended family. You are all wonderful people and you inspire me to be more like you. To my friends in the Middle East, I will thank you directly. Although I am categorically NOT CIA, you understand my hesitation to add your names to this document. A special thank you to my host families in Oman and Jordan. I look forward to reuniting with you in the near future. To Treston Wheat, we argued about war the first day we met. I don’t expect anything will ever change. Thank you for your friendship and for challenging me. I’ve grown tremendously as a thinker and as a person because of your influence. Most importantly, thank you to my family, Roy, Marie, and Jordan Barsness for supporting me throughout my academic and professional pursuits. I know my work has placed a burden upon you, but that you are also proud of me. Whatever positive impact I may have, I owe it all to you. iv ABSTRACT Militaries generally play a vital role in the survival of states, neutralizing both domestic and foreign threats. In addition, during moments of political crisis when political institutions and processes break down, militaries play an integral part of a particular regime’s survival. Each chapter of this study analyzes a critical component of military decision-making and regime survival in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Jordan is the central case study for each chapter. Through the collection of data from interviews with security personnel in Jordan, this study offers an in-depth investigation of civil-military relations in the MENA region. There is a shortage of research on this topic, and this study seeks to fill the gaps in important places in the political science literature. In order to fill these gaps, this study begins by establishing a new and alternative approach to understanding security decision-making called the identity-rationalist model. This new model incorporates notions of identity into cost-benefit analysis. Then the study tests hypotheses on military loyalty, finding that integration of the military into the political economy of a country has the greatest explanatory power for military defection. Finally, this study gives a detailed exploration of Jordanian intelligence services to understand why the institutions are effective at maintaining state stability despite the volatility of the MENA region. Together the three core chapters each contribute to the literature on civil-military relations and understanding the complexity of security forces in the Arab world. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter Two The Identity-Rationalist Model: Interpreting Civil-Military Relations in Jordan and the Middle East and North Africa…… 24 Chapter Three Military Defection During the Arab Uprisings: The Centrality of Military Integration into State-level Economy …………………………. 89 Chapter Four Foundations of Regime Durability: Jordanian Intelligence and Tribalism………………… 165 Chapter Five Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………… 216 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………. 224 Vita ………………………………………………………………………………………... 243 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Case Conditions and Outcomes ..............................................................................160 Table 2. Summary of Military Conditions During the Arab Uprisings ................................219 vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION In academic, policy, defense, and even revolutionary circles, an unusual degree of consensus exists around the notion that militaries play a critical role in determining the outcomes of popular uprisings.1 Indeed, scholars have argued that no institution matters more to a state’s survival than the military, and no revolution within a state can succeed without the support or at least acquiescence of its armed forces.2 While the comparative politics literature has increasingly recognized Arab militaries as crucial to determining the outcomes of the post-2010 pro-reform movements, scholars have directed less attention to the causal mechanisms associated with military decision-making within a given regime. As a means to investigate military decision- making during periods of political unrest, this study looks at three areas of civil-military relations. First, the study looks at how an individual’s identity is incorporated into decision- making during cost-benefit analysis. Second, the study compares military involvement in the political economies of states within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and how this impacts loyalty to regimes. Finally, the study assesses the intelligence community in Jordan and why it is an efficient and effective organization as it is a quintessential element for stability in the country.3 This study argues that one of the most important security and political issues concerning the future stability of the region is civil-military relations. To understand defection and stability, this study will assess three problems. First, the study will establish a new and alternative 1 Hicham Bou Nassif, “A Military Besieged: the Armed Forces, the Police, and the Party in Bin ʿAli’s Tunisia, 1987–2011,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47, no. 01 (2015), p. 66. 2 Zoltan Barany, “Comparing the Arab Revolts: The Role of the Military,” Journal of Democracy 22, no. 4 (2011), p. 28. 3 This study focuses on the question of regime stability, rather than the broader topics of societal or economic stability (although the latter frequently will be pertinent to the former). 1 theoretical construct for interpreting, analyzing, and understanding civil-military relations. This theoretical construct is called the identity-rationalist model, and it aims to contribute to the understanding of security decision-making by members of the armed forces. Second, the study will assess Arab militaries’ integration into the political economy of Jordan, Tunisia, Oman, and Egypt. This will contribute to understanding institutional support for the regimes. Finally, the study will look at the intelligence community’s contribution to stability in Jordan. The Jordanian intelligence community is the primary government apparatus that keeps the monarchy in