![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
This article contributes to debates that aim to go beyond the “democratization” and “post-democratization” paradigms to understand change and continuity in Arab politics. In tune with calls to focus on the actualities of political dynamics, the article shows that the literatures on State Formation and Contentious Politics provide useful theoretical tools to understand change/continuity in Arab politics. It does so by examining the impact of the latest Arab uprisings on state formation trajectories in Iraq and Syria. The uprisings have aggravated a process of regime erosion – which originated in post-colonial state-building attempts – by mobilizing sectarian and ethnic identities and exposing the counties to geo-political rivalries and intervention, giving rise to trans-border movements, such as ISIS. The resulting state fragmentation has obstructed democratic transition in Syria and constrained its consolidation in Iraq.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Francesco Cavatorta, Raymond Hinnebusch, and an anonymous reviewer for their very useful comments and suggestions on previous versions. I am responsible for any remaining flaws.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Adham Saouli is Lecturer in International Relations and Middle East Politics at the University of St Andrews. His most recent publications include: “Performing the Egyptian revolution: Origins of Collective restrain action in the Midan” (Political Studies, 2014); “Intellectuals and Political Power in Social Movements: The Parallel Paths of Fadlallah and Hizbullah” (British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2014); and The Arab State: Dilemmas of Late Formation (Routledge, 2012).
Notes
1 For a critical overview, see Hinnebusch, “Authoritarian Persistence,” 373–95.
2 For examples see Salame, “Introduction”; Waterbury, “Democracy Without Democrats?”; Brynen et al., Political Liberalization and Democratization.
3 Schlumberger, “Arab Authoritarianism,” 6 (emphasis in original); Bellin, “The Robustness of Authoritarianism,” 148.
4 Gause III, “Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring,” 81–90.
5 Valbjorn, “Upgrading Post-democratization Studies,” 29; Brynen et al., Beyond the Arab Spring, 1.
6 Anderson, “Searching Where the Light Shines,” 209.
7 Schlumberger, “Arab Authoritarianism,” 7–8.
8 Tripp, The Power and the People, 4.
9 Saouli, The Arab State.
10 Valbjorn, “Upgrading Post-democratization Studies,” 31; see also Anderson, “Searching Where the Light Shines,” 210; Cavatorta and Durac, Civil Society and Democratization, 9; Hinnebusch, “Toward a Historical Sociology,” 214; Saouli, The Arab State, 3.
11 See also, Teti, “Beyond Lies the Wub,” 18–20; Valbjorn, “Upgrading Post-democratization Studies”.
12 Anderson, “Searching Where the Light Shines,” 199.
13 Compare with Raymond Hinnebusch, “Toward a Historical Sociology,” 201–16.
14 As Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, 60, observes of Syria “when the legitimacy of party institutions and the holders of coercive power were confronted in the starkest fashion, the latter triumphed”.
15 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States.
16 A regime is “an alliance of dominant ideological, economical, and military power actors coordinated by the rulers of the state”; Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 18.
17 Weber, Politics as a Vocation, 78.
18 Hinnebusch, “Toward a Historical Sociology”.
19 Saouli, The Arab State.
20 McAdam et al., Dynamics of Contention, 5.
21 Snow and Benford quoted in Snow, “Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields,” 384.
22 Saouli, “Performing the Egyptian Revolution”.
23 McAdam et al., Dynamics of Contention, 43.
24 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 216.
25 For an illustration of this point, see the documentary produced by Vice News on ISIS's state-making processes in territories occupied in Iraq and Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUjHb4C7b94 Accessed 3 October 2014.
26 For an alternative argument on the emergence of consolidated states in Syria and Iraq with “strong state institutions” that “aimed at securing and enhancing national sovereignty”, see Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 9.
27 For Syria, see Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria, 34–75. For Iraq, see Saouli, The Arab State, 109–24.
28 Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, 115–38.
29 Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria, 91.
30 For a detailed analysis of this process, see Saouli, The Arab State, 118–20.
31 Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria, 48–74.
32 For the rise of Shi'a political consciousness, emergence of Shi'a political organizations and regime-Shi'a contention, see Jabr, The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq.
33 On the 1991 Shi'a uprising, see Jabr, The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq, 269–71. On regime-Kurdish relations, see Gunter, The Kurds of Iraq.
34 Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria, 105–17.
35 Ibid., 91.
36 Hinnebusch, “Syria: From ‘Authoritarian Upgrading’ to Revolution?”.
37 For a theoretical and empirical base for this argument, see Saouli, The Arab State, 49–65.
38 During the crisis, Sadat highlighted Assad's regime as “firstly Alawi, secondly Ba'thist, and thirdly Syrian”, hoping to contribute to the weakening of his regime. Sadat quoted in Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria, 73.
39 For the uprising and the activation of sectarian boundaries in Iraq, see Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 65–86.
40 Saouli, The Arab State, 128–33.
41 On Sunni perception of the new Iraq, see Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 143–78.
42 Saouli, The Arab State, 130–2.
43 On the rise of Sunni resistance, see Dodge, Iraq, 44, 57, 89–90.
44 Ibid., 193–4.
45 Ibid., 147–80.
46 For Iraqi responses to the Syrian uprisings, see Saouli, “The Foreign Policy of Iraq and Lebanon”.
47 Guardian, 26 December 2012 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/26/iraq-protests-tension-sunni-shia
48 Guardian, 10 June 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/10/iraq-sunni-insurgents-islamic-militants-seize-control-mosul
49 BBC, 30 June 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28082962
50 Reuters, 16 June 2014 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/16/us-iraq-security-qatar-idUSKBN0ER1JF20140616
51 New York Times, 13 June 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/iraq.html?_r=0
52 Ismail, The Syrian Uprising, 538–49; see also, Tripp, The Power and the People, 55–8.
53 Hinnebusch, “Syria: From ‘Authoritarian Upgrading’ to Revolution?” 98–100.
54 BBC, 29 March 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12892870; Guardian, 26 February 2012 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/26/syria-referendum-constitution-homs-shelling
55 Hokayem, Syria's Uprising, 71–2.
56 International Crisis Group, Syria's Metastasising Conflicts, 143.
57 Hinnebusch, “Syria: From ‘Authoritarian Upgrading’ to Revolution?” 107.
58 On the Islamist factions of the opposition, see, Hokayem, Syria's Uprising, 93–102.
59 Hinnebusch, “Syria: From ‘Authoritarian Upgrading' to Revolution?” 99.
60 For example, the Syrian regime continues to pay the salaries of state employees in territories occupied by the opposition “maintaining an image of the state”, see Firas Khalife, “Life continues in Damascus … with an eye on the ‘Coalition' war [Dimashq tamdee bi hayatiha … wa iynaha ala harb ‘al-tahaluf’] as-Safir http://assafir.com/Article/5/374920.
61 Hokayem, Syria's Uprising, 105–48.
62 For Hizbullah's perception of the uprising in Syria, see Saouli, ”Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Arab Uprisings,” 37–44.
63 Guardian, “Humanitarian Crisis: Syria's Nightmare”, 4 September 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/04/humanitarian-crisis-syria-nightmare-editorial Accessed 19 October 2013.
64 BBC, 30 June 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28082962
65 Guardian, 14 August 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/iraqi-prime-minister-maliki-step-aside-abadi