UCHICAGO Institutional Change and Veto Players: Displacing Militaries Paper Presented to the CPW - UChicago Dina Rashed 1/15/2016 Draft: Please do not cite or circulate without author permission. All feedback is welcome, please send to [email protected] Dear Colleagues and readers, I am interested in publishing a more polished version of this working paper; the purpose is to get my theory out to a bigger audience. So I would appreciate all feedback that makes it a stronger and more publishable piece. I also would like to get your feedback: 1- Whether there are too many details in the Egyptian case. I tend to think that the detailed accounts carry a big weight in showing evidence and proving the theory. But maybe I am putting too much. [On a personal level: I love history and stories, and I grew up in the Middle East where we love details and gossip .] 2- Whether I should discuss, albeit briefly, some of the cases that are listed in the table on p. 11. With appreciation, Dina DRashed 1 Introduction: In October 1973, the Egyptian military initiated a military offensive against Israeli occupying forces of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The war resulted in the liberation of parts of Egyptian land and put into gears a peace process that ultimately facilitated the return of Egyptian territory. In many ways, the war was a political victory for the military, restoring its image as a capable force, and opening venues for international professional and financial support. Yet the Egyptian president was able to gradually disengage his generals from their once-held strong domain: domestic control, by enhancing police powers. Only two years after the war, President Anwar Sadat appointed Minister of Interior Mamdouh Salem to be Egypt’s prime minister. Not only was he the longest serving prime minister under Sadat, but also the country’s first police officer to assume such high executive office since the founding of the republic in 1952. The rise of police powers registered a process of civilianization of force, where missions of domestic control were shifted away from the military and delegated to the Ministry of Interior (MoI). How can we understand this change in militaries’ political roles in systems where they traditionally held despotic and infrastructural power? Why do ruling elites shift the responsibilities of domestic control from militaries to civilian institutions of force, when they do? What factors might prevent the civilianization of force when elites attempt to implement the shift? By responding to these queries, this paper aims to produce a theoretically-informed analysis of the dynamics of leader-military relations. In militarized regimes, armies enjoy extensive powers compared to other state institutions and societal groups. While many leaders in militarized regimes rely on militaries for domestic control, some re-assign this responsibility to civilian institutions of force, such as ministries of interior (MoIs) or homeland secretaries. I DRashed 2 argue that threats from militaries to leaders’ policies prompt a shift to another coercive apparatus to control domestic dissent and minimize militaries’ involvement in governance. My enquiry into politics of domestic security arrangements relies on a thorough comparative historical investigation of Egyptian politics under Sadat. The paper first engages with literature on institutional change and militaries. In then discusses the significance of the civilianization of force theory. In the third section I layout the building blocks of the theory, the underlying assumptions, the variables and mechanisms. The fourth section examines the historical account of the empirical case. In the fifth section, I turn to analyze the mechanism of displacement and compensation. Institutional Change, Veto Players and Militaries: Not all institutional changes are created equal. While some evolve in response to impending crises, others brew over a long period of time producing incremental but lasting impact. Be they rapid or slow, sudden or gradual, these changes tend to rearrange the position of players within political systems, shifting their relative status and power. Earlier institutionalism studies have focused on path-dependence and the durability of institutions than failure.1 More recent scholarship has turned to identifying critical junctures that trigger patterns of institutional instability, as well as slow moving processes that lead to change.2 Using a power-distributional approach, James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen explore the different kinds of transformations institutions experience, distinguishing between displacement, layering, convergence and drift.3 They note that displacement of institutional rules is difficult to implement when agents enjoy veto possibilities, but that layering - which they define as the 1 [XXX] 2 Clemens and Cook 1999, Mahoney and Thelen 2010. 3 Mahoney and Thelen 2010. DRashed 3 attachment of new institutions or rules onto or alongside existing ones – is a more viable option. They posit that convergence takes place when rules are ambiguous enough to permit different interpretations,4 and that drift occurs when failure to adapt and update an institution in a changed environment.5 Mahoney and Thelen insightfully highlight the importance of veto powers in explaining institutional change especially when it comes to displacement; however their conceptualization fails to discuss what happens to the agents tied to the displaced institutions.6 In other words, does the displacement process necessitate the abolition of the organizational actor invested in the institutional practice? This point is central to any explanation of civil-military institutional change. This analytical oversight may explain why Mahoney and Thelen contested the possibility of institutional displacement in the presence of veto players. Strong actors with veto- powers remain the most resistant to institutional change. However veto players, including armed actors, do not react uniformly to new challenges. Some show unwavering resistance while others bargain to get the best possible position in the new arrangement. Explaining this variation in behavior requires attention to the identity of actors, the nature of services they provide, and the post-transformation scenarios and how they impact actors’ interests including survival. Unlike Ellen Immergut, who argues that there are veto points within political systems and not veto groups within societies,7 George Tsebilis argues that political systems should be compared based on policy outcomes, which are influenced by veto players. He defines veto players as “individual or collective actors whose agreement is necessary for a change of the 4 Convergence as a form of institutional transformation is similar to what Elisabeth Clemens and James Cook (1999) call “institutional mutability.” 5 Mahoney and Thelen 2010, 14 -22. 6 North defines institutions as “a set of rules, compliance procedures and moral and ethical behavioral norms designed to constrain the behavior of individuals in the interest of maximizing the wealth or utility of principals.” 7 Immergut, 391. DRashed 4 status quo.” 8 These actors can be institutional or partisan, with the first group enjoying constitutionally-mandated veto powers, while the second practicing de facto powers through the system’s informal rules. Although Tsebelis’ acknowledges that outcomes are an important part of policy making, his theoretical discussion is confined to veto-players in the arena of agenda setting and inadequately examines veto-players in the phase of policy implementation.9 A framework that puts more emphasis on policy-makings fails to capture professional particularity of militaries as policy enforcement remains aspect of militaries’ political roles.10 A more useful theoretical framework to explaining institutional change in militaries would have to take into account their ability to block policies in their capacity as agenda setters and policy spoilers. While the first role enables them to block the making of new policies, in their second role they can block the implementation of policies and even coerce the political leadership to roll back on the new legislation or institutional arrangement. As Steven Levitsky and Maria Murillo note “those who write the rules do not always have the power to systematically enforce them.”11 Militaries are not only veto players, but tend to be monopolizers of force. As representatives of the state, more often than not soldiers identify with the state to the extent that they appropriate the state’s right to monopolize legitimate force as their societal-given right. Samuel Finer has argued that militaries intervene in politics through influence and blackmail, as much as through displacement and supplantment.12 Militaries may influence governmental policies through lobbying, or blackmail them to effect change. Alfred Stepan notes that there are 11 domains that a strong military assumes the right to control or at least the privilege to 8 Tesebelis 2002,19. 9 Contrastingly, Tsebelis states “Politicians or parties are replaced in office when the policies they propose lead to undesirable coutcomes or when they do not apply the policies they promised before an election.” (Tesebelis 2002, 6). 10 Slater 2010, 135. 11 Levitsky and Murillo 2009. 12 Finer 1962. DRashed 5 influence. These domains include the military’s constitutionally sanctioned role in the political system, its relationship to the chief executive, the government, the legislature, its role in intelligence, police