Beyond the Impasse? Dynamics of youth agency in times of crisis

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue examines the structural context of the political economy in the Middle East and North Africa in relation to the civic and political participatory trends of young people today.  It is concerned with understanding the extent to which young people influence public policies, social, cultural and economic structures from below, and how they themselves are influenced by these same structures from above. It analyzes the impact of youth agency on social change and continuity in the Middle East and North Africa today.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• political economy
• MENA
• youth movements
• participation

Introduction

The decade preceding the Arab Uprisings of 2010/11 was marked with high levels of civic and political participation in the Middle East and North Africa. The issues around which civic and political participation were centred were varied, ranging from street demonstrations against government unemployment policies in Tunisia and Morocco, to organized strikes which have developed beyond the formal professional syndicates or unions like in Egypt (Ottaway & Hamzawy, 2011; Beinin, 2012). New initiatives and movements were also established in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings like Le gouvernement parallèle des jeunes, (the young parallel government) and the Rif movement in Morocco, the #You Stink movement in Lebanon, and the Kassbeh 1 and Kassbeh 2 in Tunisia (Birzeit University, 2016; Harb, 2016; Zerhouni & Akesbi, 2016). In 2019 a new wave of contentious activities has developed in the region. The new hirak in Algeria and Sudan, ousted two long-term autocrats, while the rest of the hirak is sweeping through Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt.

Even though these dynamics from below were on the rise during the early years of the new millennium, scholars who are interested in the region were busy understanding the dynamics of authoritarian resilience from above (Valbjorn, 2015). Since the Arab Uprisings of 2010/11, scholarly interest in politics from below has risen, providing more nuanced analyses of the reasons beyond the increased civic and political participation, political mobilization and the faltering of many Arab regimes. Many analyses have concentrated on the mobilized publics, the socioeconomic and political grievances of citizens from below and the dynamics of authoritarian restructuring from above (Asseburg & Wimmen, 2016; Lynch, 2014; Durac, 2015; Bayat, 2013). The role of young people in the dynamics of contention has also been taken for granted in the majority of scholarly debates (Herrera, 2014; Hoffman & Jamal, 2012; Markus, 2017; Tohamy, 2016). A large number of youth studies, however, are overly structural and analyse either the dynamics of contention from below, or the regime policies from above. Few studies have analysed the dynamic relation between contestation, participation and the role of the MENA regimes in developing political opportunities and threats for participation from below (Bayat, 2013; Bennani-Charaïbi, 2017; Herrera, 2014).

This special issue adds to this nascent literature through examining the structural context of the political economy and authoritarianism in the MENA regimes in relation to the civic and political participatory trends of young people in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings. It is concerned with understanding the extent to which young people influence public policies, social, cultural and economic structures from below, and how young people themselves are influenced by these same structures from above. It analyzes the impact of the political economy and authoritarianism on youth agency and the extent to which young people add to social and political change and continuity today.

Why a special issue on youth?

Youth functions as a relational concept, one that is defined and given meaning through its contrastive relationships with the concepts of both childhood and adulthood (Sukarieh & Tannock, 2015; Sika, 2017). Research on youth in Western societies has suggested moving away from focusing on youth as a moral or a generational issue and rather focus on the political and economic developments associated with our understanding of youth. This could help us understand the social, economic, political and structural changes in society (Kelly, 2000). In the field of youth studies, many scholars have developed the ‘political economy of youth perspective’ (Cote, 2014; Murphy, 2017; Sukarieh & Tannock, 2016). This perspective seeks to understand the main causes and consequences of young people’s positioning over time and space in relation to adults within a given society. The main aim here is to investigate how people in power develop policies that could promote the political rights of young people and consequently develop their economic interests (Cote, 2014). According to Mayssoun Sukarieh & Stuart Tannock (2016, p. 1283), the political economy approach to youth studies enhances not only our understanding of the relationship between the economy and youth, but also enhances the analysis of society at large. It sheds light on the continuous yet changing nature of youth ‘ … as an identity, social category and ideology, in relation to the broader contexts of local, national and global culture, society, politics and economy.’

Robert MacDonald (2011) argues that interest in youth studies is not only about what young people believe, or what they say or do, but that it is more about how the youth phase can tell us about society at large. Research on youth advances our knowledge on the processes of social change and continuity, or social change and disruption. When new social, economic and political trends occur, these should be most observed among new generations. Another importance of understanding youth is that we can analyse how powerful social actors like the political elite in an authoritarian regime try to develop narratives and policies about young people that serve their own self-interest more than that of youth (MacDonald & King 2020 in this special issue). Hence, analysing young people reveals the wider social and political transformations within a polity.

The social construction of youth on the other hand reveals the political strategies of domination in authoritarian regimes (MacDonald & King, forthcoming in the special issue). Most youth scholars have mainly analysed the role of youth and social change in Western contexts and how countries in the South can learn from these experiences. In this special issue however, Robert MacDonald and Hannah King bring together youth studies from the MENA, juxtaposing it with youth studies from the North, to provide a more nuanced understanding of youth in different scholarly disciplines and in different areas of the world. Emma Murphy (2018) suggests that the analysis of young people today is useful when thought of as a cohort that is located at the centre of larger social, political, economic and cultural transformations. Moving to a more focused political economic analysis in the MENA, Maria Cristina Paciello and Daniela Pioppi analyse state-labour relations and demonstrate how these relations have led to labour and youth fragmentation, leading to more sporadic public protests with less structured mobilizational capacities than was the case in the preceding decades. Nadine Sika analyses youth contention more broadly and argues, that youth mobilization and contestation in the region, is not only driven by economic grievances, but rather through the amalgam of socioeconomic and political grievances. Economic grievances alone can bring about small scale protests, but when linked with political grievances, large scale protest activities are more likely to occur. In the conclusion to the special issue, Emma Mruphy and Nadine Sika, build further on this approach through discussing the policy implications of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and how it influenced young people in the region.

This approach, however, is contested by some scholars like France and Threadgold (2016), who argue that the increasing inequalities amongst young people should draw scholars’ attention to youth’s racial, religious, gender and family backgrounds, instead of focusing only on the totality of the political economy within a polity. They argue that there is a vital importance in understanding the different experiences of youth as a cohort, and how their backgrounds influence their life experiences, and how these influence and reconstruct the social inequalities within a given society. In this special issue, Ruba Salih, Lynn Welchman and Elena Zambelli look at both the international structure and the regional dynamics, and how these influence young people, and how on the other hand young people’s agency influence these developments. They discuss these dynamics through a case study on the Palestinian Youth Movement and how it operates across various Arab and Western countries. They demonstrate the importance of intersectional alliances and the impact of different racial backgrounds on the ability of young people to mobilize and try to bring about social and political change, not only on the regional level, but on the international level as well. Similarly, Mona Harb, Sami Atallah and Mohamed Diab analyse the social, economic and religious background of young people in Lebanon to demonstrate the extent to which a young person’s background influences their subjective experiences, which impacts social relations and reproduces social and economic inequalities.

Research questions and methodology

Drawing on the above observations on the role of youth in broadening our understanding of social and political change and continuity, the following questions are at the heart of each contribution to this special issue:

• What is the impact of authoritarianism and neoliberalism on social and political fragmentation?

• What is the impact of the global neoliberal economic system on narratives of young people in the global south today?

• How does youth’s social, economic, racial and gender background impact their mobilizational structure and ability to bring about change in different regional and international contexts?

The analysis in this special issue is based on a research project that was funded within the scope of an EUFP7 research grant – POWER2YOUTH (P2Y). All articles in the special issue are based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis for this research project.

Field research for P2Y was based on qualitative and quantitative fieldwork in six MENA countries, namely those based in the southeast Mediterranean region: Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories [OPT], Lebanon and Egypt. Qualitative fieldwork was conducted between April 2015 until November 2015 by academic teams based in each country. It was based on five focus groups and 30 semi-structured interviews with young people aged 18–30 in each of these countries. In Tunisia, focus groups were held in five urban cities (Tunis, Tataouine, Medenine, Sousse, Greater Tunis). In Morocco, they were held in four cities (Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier and Marakech). In the rest of the countries concerned, focus groups were held in only one major city: Istanbul, Cairo, Ramallah and Beirut. Participants in these focus groups did not necessarily reside in these major cities; some were either migrants from other areas, or had been invited by the research teams specifically to attend the focus groups. Young participants in these interviews and in the focus groups were members from development NGOs, Human Rights NGOs, protest movements, Islamist movements, political parties and student unions, as well as business entrepreneurs and young people who have established various campaigns and initiatives in the social, economic and political fields.

The quantitative fieldwork for P2Y is based on a large N-survey study conducted by Fafo foundation. Between October 2015 and August 2016, almost identical national representative surveys of youth aged 18–29 were carried out in the six MENA countries. The major topics that were addressed in the survey were employment, education, trust, civic and political participation, the use of social media and family relations.¹ A total of 7,579 young people were surveyed in all countries. The sampling approach was not identical in all countries. However, the results are representative at the national level (Tiltnes et. al., 2017). The sample in Palestine was composed of 1,353 individuals, and was carried out from 13 October to 31 December 2015. The sampling frame was based on the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ 2007 Population Census. It included both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In Morocco, the survey was carried out during the period from 14 December 2015 until 9 January 2016, and the sample included 1,022 young people. The sample is a quota sample based on the 2014 Population Census. In Lebanon the sample was composed of 1,000 young people from 12 January to 5 February 2016. These were proportional to the number of all registered voters in each Lebanese governorate. These were then divided to 26 Lebanese districts. In every neighbourhood, households were selected on a random sampling method through taking the buildings’ number as the starting point of departure. In Egypt, the survey was conducted from 17 April until 10 May 2016 with a sample of 1,200 young people. The sample was taken from the 2006 Census of the Central Agency for Popular Mobilization and Statistics, in which enumeration areas were used as clusters. In Tunisia, the survey was carried out from 23 July to 29 August 2016 with 1,200 young people. The sampling was taken from the 2014 census sampling frame, in which the enumeration areas served as clusters. In Turkey, a several stage stratified sample was used on a sample of 1,804 young people during the period from January 2 until 10 February 2016. Two hundred twenty-six clusters or sampling points, which represented all regions and all metropolitan and non-metropolitan in addition to rural districts were visited.²

A political economy of youth approach to understanding change and continuity

Political economy is the analysis of a political process of control, which is shaped by the various relationships of power within a society. These relations consist of the social and historical change and transformation within a polity (Mosco, 2009). In most societies, the dominant political and economic power structures are closely related. Governments normally develop policies which favour these same economic powers, while ignoring the rights and interests of others who lack economic power.  Côté (2014, p. 528) contends that: ‘The political-economy-of-youth perspective thus promises to be particularly useful in analysing those societies in which government policies are unsupportive of youth interests, leaving youth cohorts open to exploitation by dominant economic interests.’ Given the fact that in most of the MENA region, government policies are distorted by crony capitalism and nepotism (Springborg (2011), analysing youth in the region through this approach can provide scholars and policy makers with much insight on change and continuity within the region.

Mobilization for the Arab Uprisings was largely successful due to the slogans adopted by various movements like the one in Egypt calling for ‘Food, Freedom, Social Equity.’ Nevertheless, since the Arab Uprisings, not much has been done to alleviate the economic burdens of citizens. On the contrary, the social, economic and political barriers to youth participation and economic well-being remain the same. Most importantly, the political economy based on authoritarianism and neoliberalism remains intact. The political economy of authoritarianism in the MENA, in conjunction with its associated corruption and cronyism has led to social, economic and political alienation and marginalization of the majority of young people in the region. These practices precipitate an infringement on the economic and political inclusion of the middle-class youth who do not have access to this cycle of informalities. Different aspects of clientelism and nepotism inhibit young people’s capability of participating in the different spheres of life (Henry & Springborg, 2010; Soliman, 2011; Diwan, 2013; Joya, 2017; Sika, 2019).

Youth are therefore able to influence, but are also influenced by, the general context in which they live. Informal institutions in MENA societies influence youth and youth organizations. These informal institutions range from bureaucratic and legislative norms to clientelism and patrimonialism (Helmke & Levitsky, 2004). These informal institutions are important in shaping social and political behaviour and political outcomes. There is an array of informal institutions, from personal networks to clientelism, corruption and traditional culture.

In the MENA context, clientelism is an important concept, which identifies relationships between different economic, social and political actors. It is also largely associated with youth exclusion from the economic, social and political spheres. It is associated with the particularistic use of public resources and with the electoral arena in the political realm. It entails that votes and support for a political contestant are exchanged for jobs or other benefits. This can become a useful strategy for winning elections and for building political support, through selectively releasing public funds for supporters. It is therefore a strategy of partial political mobilization that differs from more universal patterns, such as programmatic appeals or mobilization motivated by a certain political party’s achievements (Roniger, 2004).

These informalities are at the backbone of the neoliberal and authoritarian system in the region. Neoliberalism is essentially based on privatization and market economy, in which the state rolls back from the market and the welfare of its citizens (Dean, 2014). This impacts the daily lives and security of young people, especially the poor, as it privatizes and commercializes social programmes (Bogaert & Emperador, 2011). In the MENA however, neoliberalism means the rollback of some state functions like healthcare and education, while intensifying the role of the state in repression and social control (Bogaert & Emperador, 2011; Sika, 2019). Through the past three decades, neoliberalism has been adopted through one way or another in all MENA countries (Springborg, R. 2016). However, since these policies have also been tied to cronyism and nepotism, as was shown in the previous lines, the majority of young people became marginalized, which added to their precarity (Henry & Springborg, 2010; Sika, 2019). These policies have put more pressure on society, especially in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, where civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya have increased the number of refugees in the region, and while the Palestinian problem has been neglected by MENA regimes.

The MENA regimes’ strategy to further a neoliberal economic system was also through developing NGOs which could fill the gap of government non-intervention in the market, which led to the establishment of many NGOs concerned with entrepreneurship and small business enterprise start-ups, in addition to the already existing developmental NGOs present in these countries since 1990s. However, these NGOs and initiatives are examples of the neo-authoritarian adjustments that undermine the welfare state vis-à-vis balances of power, and that contribute to fragmented and polycentric policies (Guazzone & Pioppi, 2009 cited in Catusse & Destremau, 2016). One of the regime’s strategies in Turkey, for instance, was to build the hegemony of a single party system, through establishment of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which directly funds youth initiatives and organizations that are close to the regime, while neglecting and obstructing the functioning of other organizations which are not in favour of the ruling AKP (Akyüz et al., 2016).

In the OPT, the problems associated with authoritarianism and neoliberalism that supports the development of NGOs are two-fold. There has been an influx of NGOs since the Oslo accords in 1993. However, these organizations are present in response to foreign funding alone. According to young Palestinian interviewees, NGOs work on a project-to-project basis, which is donor-driven and not organic. Hence, youth working in these organizations, rather than initiating various topics of their own interest, rely on what their funders require them to do. For example, according to one interviewee, ‘Many of the new organizations focus on youth just because it allows them access to funding, while there is no real interest in the welfare, development or needs of the young people’ (Birzeit University, 2016, p. 17). In Egypt, the Sisi regime encourages young people to develop start-up business initiatives. It also encourages young people to participate in various youth sports clubs. However, only young people who are connected to civil servants or young people who belong to the mainstream political elite have access to these clubs. Young people who belong to human rights organizations or to the political opposition are obstructed from being included in the public sphere (Sika, 2016). In Morocco, since the ascendance of King Mohammed VI to power, there has been an increasing tendency to build issue-oriented organizations and political parties. However, these NGOs and parties are under tight control from the monarchy. The regime promotes and sponsors pro-regime organizations, while young people from the opposition are repressed. Nevertheless, according to Maghraoui (2008), since the regime enacted certain reforms, especially the Decree on the Right to Establish Associations which came into effect in 2008, young people have been more likely to participate in independent human rights and cultural organizations.

The field research for P2Y also shows that the educational system adds to the structural problems and precariousness faced by young people in the region today. In Morocco, for instance, there is a wide discrepancy in the educational attainment of young people in urban areas compared to those in rural areas: ‘We tend to always forget about the child of the mountain, he doesn’t have the means to study, he doesn’t have a kindergarten, there are no roads, no hospitals, the child is missing basic things, he doesn’t know what exists beyond the mountain’ (Zerhouni & Akesbi, 2016, p. 18). Young people who are from affluent backgrounds and have the monetary capability of entering the private education system have more chances of employment compared to those whose parents do not have the economic means. In Turkey, the same problem of rural versus urban discrepancy is reported, in addition to the problem of unemployment which is mainly associated with the lack of good tertiary education (Akyüz et al., 2016). In Tunisia, young people who live in rural areas and in the south are socially and economically excluded compared to the rest of the population. According to young people from rural and coastal areas in Tunisia, there is no interest on the part of the authorities to develop the infrastructure and the education systems in this part of the country. This leads to two major problems, the first concerning employment opportunities. Young people in these areas are more likely to be unemployed compared to other regions in Tunisia. Young people who live in Tatouine, for instance, argue that they do not have the opportunities of business training sessions like their counterparts in big cities. In addition, the lack of infrastructure leads to the non-engagement of young people from these areas in NGOs or in civil society (Boubakri & Bouzidi, 2016).

The P2Y fieldwork, especially its qualitative analysis with young people adds to the political economy approach of youth studies, through providing an understanding of youth agency from below. This special issue analyses how young people act and react to the struggles and marginalization they face under the neoliberal systems they live in. Through this nuanced analysis, the majority of contributors to this study bring ‘the actor back in. not as a puppet. But as a historicized actor, an actor acting upon. Acting and interacting’ (Bennani-Charaïbi, 2017, p. 392).

Conclusion

Since the Arab Uprisings of 2010/11, Arab regimes have resorted back to the old authoritarian practices, while instantaneously building on the neoliberal economic policies which have been taking route since the 1990s. This amalgam of neoliberalism and authoritarianism has made citizens at large and young people in particular face new challenges and realities. The civil wars that ensued in Syria and Libya have also put young Arab citizens under more precariousness and challenges than they had been in the decade preceding the Arab Uprisings. How different are MENA regimes and citizens today compared to how they were in the decade preceding the uprisings? The special issue is concerned developing a nuanced analysis of politics from above and politics from below.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Daniela Pioppi and Maria Cristina for coordinating the P2Y research project. I would also like to thank all country based research groups for their enormous efforts with the fieldwork. I would like to thank the Egyptian research team, Hatem Zayed, Rana Gaber, Alia Alaa Eddin and Batoul Al Mehdar. All articles in the special issue were edited by Kaitlin Jenod.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme No. 612782.

Notes

1. For more information on the survey see Åge Tiltness, at http://www.power2youth.eu/survey#sthash.s9ql7zbK.dpbs: The survey in Egypt and in the Gaza strip did not include many questions relating to participation, specifically the ones relating to participation in protest activities, protest movements and questions relating to gender rights.

2. For ore information on the survey methods see http://www.power2youth.eu/system/resources/W1siZiIsIjIwMTcvMDcvMDgvMTNfMTVfMTFfMzE5X0FsbF9jb3VudHJpZXNfdGFibGVzX1AyWS5wZGYiXV0/All%20countries%20tables%20P2Y.pdf.