http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2948-9511
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Abstract
This article contributes to the Global International Relations project by critically evaluating the roles ascribed to Europe and the EU by Levitsky and Way in their model for explaining regime transitions. Focusing primarily on their international dimensions of linkage and leverage, it assesses both the normative geopolitical underpinnings and explanatory power of their thesis, drawing on the North African cases of Tunisia and Mauritania at the start of the Arab Spring to illustrate and substantiate its observations and arguments. It concludes that the EU’s failure to discipline either country’s competitive authoritarian regime raises important questions about the validity of the privileged role in which they cast Europe.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers and Sophie Hague for their thoughtful and constructive comments.
Notes
1. Levitsky and Way adopt a procedural definition of democracy that includes five key attributes, namely: ‘(1) free, fair, and competitive elections; (2) full adult suffrage; (3) broad protection of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, press, and association; … (4) the absence of nonelected “tutelary” authorities’, and (5) ‘the existence of a reasonably level playing field between incumbents and opposition’. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 5–6.
2. Ibid, 44.
3. Hill, Democratisation in the Maghreb.
4. Acharya, “Dialogue and Discovery,” 620.
5. Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There no Non-Western International Relations Theory?,” 289.
6. Ibid, 287.
7. Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds,” 619.
8. Ibid, 619.
9. Acharya, “Dialogue and Discovery,” 620.
10. Ibid, 623.
11. Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds,” 650.
12. Acharya, “Dialogue and Discovery,” 623.
13. Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds,” 619.
14. Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There no Non-Western International Relations Theory?,” 289.
15. Acharya, “Dialogue and Discovery,” 623.
16. Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There no Non-Western International Relations Theory?,” 293.
17. Ibid, 290.
18. Ibid, 308.
19. Ahmad, “Postcolonial Theory and the ‘Post’-Condition,” 368.
20. Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There no Non-Western International Relations Theory?,” 309.
21. Ibid, 17.
22. Ibid, 3.
23. Ibid, 3.
24. Collier and Levitsky, “Democracy with Adjectives,” 451, cited in Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 13–4.
25. Ibid, 14.
26. Ibid, 15.
27. Ibid, 16.
28. Ibid, 39.
29. Ibid, 39.
30. Ibid, 39–40.
31. Ibid, 39.
32. Ibid, 39–40.
33. Ibid, 43.
34. Ibid, 43.
35. Ibid, 40–1.
36. Ibid, 41.
37. Ibid, 41.
38. Levitsky and Way define these states as high-income countries (with per capita GDPs of at least US$10,000), or major military powers (that spend more than US$10 billion a year on defence). Ibid, 372.
39. Ibid, 54.
40. Ibid, 55.
41. Ibid, 56.
42. Ibid, 44.
43. Ibid, 44.
44. Nye, Soft Power, 31–2.
45. Levitsky and Way take the term from Hufbauer et al. See: Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered.
46. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 41.
47. As Nadia Marzouki reports, ‘in April 2008, on an official visit to Tunis, French President Nicholas Sarkozy declared that “some people are way too harsh with Tunisia, which is developing openness and tolerance in many respects”’. Marzouki, “Tunisia’s Wall Has Fallen,” 17–8.
48. This equated to 161 of 214 seats for the RCD and 74 of 146 for the UR. Powel and Sadiki, Europe and Tunisia, 53; Miller et al., Democratization in the Arab World, 67; and Buehler, Continuity through Co-optation, 379.
49. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 7.
50. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 43–4.
51. European Commission, “European Union, Trade in Goods with Tunisia,” 8.
52. The World Bank, “Personal Remittances, Received (current US$)”; The World Bank, “Personal Remittances, Received (% of GDP).”
53. These are the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity (PfDSP).
54. The agreement came into force on 1 March 1998. Holden, “Security, Power or Profit?,” 22.
55. The plan took effect on 4 July 2005. Del Sarto and Schumacher, “From Brussels with Love,” 932.
56. This funding was awarded over two periods: €428 million between 1995 and 1999, and €517.6 million between 2000 and 2006. European Union, “Mediterranean Neighbourhood Countries.”
57. Bicchi, “Politics of Foreign Aid,” 329.
58. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “Education: Inbound Internationally Mobile Students.”
59. Institute of International Education, “Inbound Mobility – Past Years.”
60. De Bel-Air, “Migration Profile: Tunisia,” 5.
61. Republic of Tunisia, Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts, “Tourism in Figures.”
62. Eurostat, “Arrival of Tourists at the Border.”
63. EuroMed Rights, “Who We Are.”
64. EuroMed Rights, “Members: Committee for the Respect of Freedom and Human Rights.”
65. World Bank, “Mobile Cellular Subscriptions.”
66. World Bank, “Individuals using the Internet.”
67. European Commission, “European Union, Trade in Goods with Mauritania,” 8.
68. Agence Mauritanienne d’Information, “Le Gouvernement.”
69. Migration Policy Centre, “Mauritania,” 1.
70. World Bank, “Mobile Cellular Subscriptions.”
71. World Bank, “Individuals using the Internet.”
72. Ibid, 372–3.
73. In 2010, Tunisia’s GDP was US$44 billion, and in 2016 it was US$42 billion. World Bank, “Tunisia.”
74. Cavatorta and Haugbølle, “The End of Authoritarian Rule,” 182.
75. In 2010, Mauritania’s GDP was US$4.3 billion, and in 2016 it was US$4.6 billion. World Bank, “Mauritania.”
76. Lounnas, “Confronting Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghrib,” 814–6.
77. Girod and Walters, “Elite-Led Democratisation in Aid-Dependent States,” 184.
78. Lounnas, “Confronting Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghrib,” 815.
79. Attinà, “Mediterranean Security Revisited,” 124–5.
80. This means that ‘European states can “return” migrants to Mauritania who belong to any African nationality’, and that Mauritania, in turn, ‘can “return” sub-Saharans [to] just outside its borders’. Cross, “Rents, Rights, Rejections and Resistance,” 836.