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Abstract
Scholars working in the transitology tradition assume that authoritarian breakdown leads to movement towards democratization after an initial period of uncertainty. If a transition falls short of democratization, there is an assumption that a return to authoritarian normalcy has transpired. Yet, whether one looks at Egypt, Libya, Syria, or Bahrain, the emergent trend is neither democratization, a return to the old authoritarian order, or a delayed transition. Rather, the weakening and fragmenting of regimes by popular mobilizations stimulated elites’ militarization of the state apparatus and unprecedented levels of state violence against ordinary citizens in a process of regime re-making.
Notes on contributor
Joshua Stacher is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Kent State University. He is the author of Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt & Syria (Stanford University Press, 2012) and is on the editorial board of MERIP's Middle East Report.
Notes
1 Brinks and Coppedge, “Diffusion is No Illusion.”
2 Calling these moments a “Spring” has European origins. The revolutions of 1848 were called the “Springtime of the People.” Marc Lynch claims credit for naming the 2011 protests the Arab Spring. See Lynch, The Arab Uprising, 9.
3 Huntington, The Third Wave. It is not surprising that journal articles and issues started to directly reference Huntington's canonical text. For example, Current History called its November 2011 issue “Democracy's Next Wave.” The Journal of Democracy's October 2013 issue focused on “Tracking the ‘Arab Spring.'”
4 Fukuyama, “Middle-Class Revolution”; Fukuyama, “Political Order in Egypt.”
5 Tunisia is different than the other cases for a number of reasons. First, its military actually sided with the population against the executive and domestic security forces. Yet, the military did not step into the void and try to govern. It returned the system to civilian rule where fits and starts continue to move the country into the best case of a transition from authoritarian rule. See Anderson, “Demystifying the Arab Spring.” Also, Henry and Springborg, “A Tunisian Solution.”
6 Waterbury, “Democracy without Democrats?”; Stepan with Robertson, “An ‘Arab’ More than ‘Muslim’ Electoral Gap.”
7 Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.
8 Lust, “Why Now?”
9 O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, Transitions; Bunce, “Rethinking Recent Democratization”; Linberg, Democratization by Elections, 1–21.
10 Jones, “Saudi Arabia”; Brownlee, “The Transitional Challenge.”
11 I employ “regime” in ways that Charles Tilly defined it. As he argues, “Once we have identified a government, we can search around that government for organized political actors that sometimes interact with the government. The whole set of interactions with each other and with the government constitutes a political regime.” Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence, 28–29.
12 Stepan and Linz, “Democratization Theory.”
13 Ibid., 22.
14 Ibid., 29.
15 Ibid, 20.
16 Ibid., 29.
17 Ibid., 21.
18 O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, Transitions, 26–28.
19 Ibid.
20 McFaul, “The Fourth Wave.”
21 Ibid., 225.
22 Bunce, “Rethinking Recent Democratization,” 172.
23 Schmitter and Karl, “What Democracy Is,” 85.
24 Fein, “More Murder in the Middle,” 170–191.
25 Ibid., 170.
26 Khalili, “Thinking About Violence,” 791.
27 Neep, “Occupying Syria.”
28 Tilly, “War Making.”
29 Nixon, Slow Violence, uses “slow violence” to mean everyday violations such as environmental pollution to constitute a type of violence that society accepts because it is not as visible as a violent event such as a school shooting. Yet, over time, slow violence is perhaps more deadly to a society than spectacular events that people stop to notice. Yet, “slow violence” can also be limited everyday accepted levels of repression that physically maim or inflict psychological damage but do not necessarily result in actual or immediate death.
30 During field research in the spring and summer of 2005, for example, I personally witnessed Kifaya protesters in Egypt being beaten and sexually assaulted by security forces or those employed by them. In Syria during April 2004, dissident lawyer Anwar al-Bunni showed me a formal invitation that he received from state security that requested he come to the directorate to talk to them about his activism. In 2006, a video appeared on YouTube of a taxi driver named Emad al-Kabir being sodomized in an Egyptian police station. The purpose of its release was to humiliate the victim.
31 Just in my own research experience, I watched nearly all of my Syrian opposition contacts spend time in prison. In particular, those jailed included Anwar al-Bunni, Michel Kilo, and Haitham al-Maleh. In Egypt, most of the leadership contacts I had while researching Egypt's Muslim Brothers had spent time in jail.
32 Singerman, Avenues of Participation; also Bayat, Life as Politics, 43–64.
33 Ali, “Saeeds of Revolution.”
34 Henry and Springborg, “A Tunisian Solution.”
35 Most notably, Chokri Belaid was assassinated in February 2013 and Mohamed Brahmi was killed in July 2013.
36 Tunisia's Armed Forces comprises around 48,000 people. They have 84 tanks, 25 patrol boats, and 27 combat planes. By comparison, Egypt's armed forces include 468,000 active soldiers. Its Air Force has over 1300 combat planes and the Egyptian Army has more tanks than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America combined. See Marshall, “Egypt's Other Revolution.”
37 Stacher, Adaptable Autocrats, 12–18.
38 Haddad, “As Syria Free-Falls.”
39 Heilprin, “UN Decides to Stop Updating Syria Death Toll.”
40 As of July 2013, there were over two million Syrians living in neighbouring countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Israel. Nearly 6000 people a day leave the country. Another four to six million are internally displaced. See Davis and Taylor, “Syrian Refugees.”
41 Hilsum, Sandstorm, 99–116.
42 Fahim, “Still Torn by Factional Fighting.”
43 Matthiesen, Sectarian Gulf.
44 Carlstrom, “In the Kingdom of Tear Gas.”
45 Kafai and Shehabi, “The Struggle for Information.”
46 El-Ghobasy, “The Praxis.”
47 Stacher, Adaptable Autocrats, 5–12.
48 Stacher, “Deeper Militarism in Egypt.”
49 Stacher. “Egypt Transformed by State Violence.”
50 There is some debate about whether Egypt's generals intentionally pursued this policy of military take-over from the beginning or not. It is unknowable but the best estimate is that SCAF was caught off guard by the Egyptian uprising.
51 “Health Ministry: 590 Injured.”
52 Carr, “Why is Maspero Different?”
53 “Clashes Erupt Again in Mohamed Mahmoud Street.”
54 “Details Emerge Over Latest Cabinet Attack.”
55 Fahmy and Lee, “Anger Flares.”
56 Werr and Awad, “Army Imposes Curfew.”
57 “January Death Tool in Egypt's Port Said Reaches 48.”
58 Fahmy and Lee, “Anger Flares.”
59 Hussein, “Egyptian Protestors.”
60 Al-Tawy, “Egypt's Islamists.”
61 Kingsley, “Killing in Cairo.”
62 Kirkpatrick, Baker, and Gordon, “American Hopes.”
63 Saleh and Robinson, “With Dozens Dead.”
64 Abi-Habib and El-Mergawi, “Hundreds Dead.”
65 For the best analysis of the increase in deaths, see Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, “The Weeks of Killing.”
66 Teti, “The Function of Violence.”