Modeling Mechanisms of Democratic Transition in the Arab Uprisings

Abstract

While the Arab uprisings triggered momentous historical change, in many Arab countries the transition to more comprehensively democratic rule is unfinished or has stalled. Most explanations for the dynamics and the difficulties of democratic transition focus on a number of determinants, such as social, cultural, religious, and economic causes, combined with generalizations on empirical uniformities and actors' propensities. An approach focusing on causal social mechanisms, including environmental, cognitive, and relational ones, promises to provide more complete explanations of how relevant factors interact, why democratic transition does or does not proceed, and what could be done to promote it more successfully. This article critically examines the fruitfulness of modeling democratic transition, for the case of Egypt, using the framework of causal social mechanisms.

Keywords::

• Arab uprisings
• co-optation
• democratic transition
• Egypt
• mobilization mechanisms
• neopatrimonialism
• preference falsification
• social mechanisms

Notes

¹ P. C. Schmitter (2012) Ambidextrous Democratization and Its Implications for MENA (Manuscript, Florence: European University Institute), pp. 3–4. Available at http://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/SPS/Profiles/Schmitter/AmbidextrousDemocratization.pdf, accessed November 1, 2013.

² See M. Bunge (1997) Mechanism and explanation, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 27(4), pp. 410–411; R. Mayntz (2004) Mechanisms in the analysis of social macro-phenomena, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34, pp. 252–256.

³R. Mayntz, Mechanisms in the analysis of social macro-phenomena, p. 240.

⁴ P. Machamer, L. Darden & C. F. Craver (2000) Thinking about mechanisms, Philosophy of Science, 67(1), pp. 21–22; M. Bunge, Mechanism and explanation, pp. 419–420; M. Bunge (2004) How does it work? The search for explanatory mechanisms, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34(2), p. 203; R. Mayntz, Mechanisms in the analysis of social macro-phenomena, p. 244; and P. Hedström & P. Ylikoski (2010) Causal mechanisms in the social sciences, Annual Review of Sociology, 36(1), pp. 50–52.

⁵ See D. McAdam, S. G. Tarrow & C. Tilly (2001) Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 24–28, 92, 67–70, 310, 316.

⁶Mayntz, Mechanisms in the analysis of social macro-phenomena, pp. 252–256.

⁷ Bunge, Mechanism and explanation, p. 441, 458; Machamer, Darden & Craver, Thinking about mechanisms, pp. 13–16; L. Darden (2002) Strategies for discovering mechanisms: Schema instantiation, modular subassembly, forward/backward chaining, Philosophy of Science, 69, S3, S359–363; A. L. George & A. Bennett (2005) Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 67–72; D. Collier (2011) Understanding process tracing, PS: Political Science & Politics, 44, pp. 824–828.

⁸ C. Tilly (2001) Mechanisms in political processes, Annual Review of Political Science, 4, pp. 36–38.

⁹Hedström & Ylikoski, Causal mechanisms in the social sciences, p. 56.

¹⁰ Ibid, p. 59, distinguish situational, action-formation, and transformational mechanisms; analogously Tilly, Mechanisms in political processes, p. 24, lists environmental mechanisms describing the causal influences brought about by the system's environment, relational mechanisms altering connections between people, groups, interpersonal networks, and cognitive mechanisms altering individual and collective perception.

¹¹ G. Erdmann & U. Engel (2007) Neopatrimonialism reconsidered: Critical review and elaboration of an elusive concept, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 45(1), p. 104.

¹² P. Pawelka (1985) Herrschaft und Entwicklung im Nahen Osten: Ägypten [Authority and development in the Middle East: Egypt] (Heidelberg: Müller), pp. 22–39.

¹³ D. Art (2012) What do we know about authoritarianism after ten years?, Comparative Politics, 44(3), p. 361.

¹⁴ P. Pawelka (2002) Der Staat im Vorderen Orient: Über die Demokratie-Resistenz in einer globalisierten Welt [The state in the Middle East: On resistance to democracy in a globalized world], Leviathan, 30(4), p. 435.

¹⁵Erdmann & Engel, Neopatrimonialism reconsidered, p. 105.

¹⁶ See J. Gerschewski (2013) The three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes, Democratization, 20(1), p. 14.

¹⁷ C. Tilly (2007) Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 23.

¹⁸ P. Bauer & B. Schweitzer (2013) The Egyptian Revolution 2011: Mechanisms of violence and non-violence, in: B. Preiss & C. Brunner (eds) Democracy in Crisis: The Dynamics of Civil Protest and Civil Resistance, pp. 316–322 (Wien: Lit).

¹⁹ H. Kandil (2012) Why did the Egyptian middle class march to Tahrir Square?, Mediterranean Politics, 17(2), pp. 206–211.

²⁰ Interview with an Egyptian activist, Cairo, February 17, 2011.

²¹ T. Kuran (1989) Sparks and Prairie Fires: A theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution, Public Choice, 61(1), p. 14.

²² A. Mahfouz (2011) Video blog, January 18, 2011. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = ZhbKN9q319g, accessed March 17, 2011.

²³ T. Kuran (1995) The inevitability of future revolutionary surprises, American Journal of Sociology, 100(6), p. 1528.

²⁴ As one Egyptian activist put it, ‘the news from Tunisia is interesting but nothing of the sort will happen in Egypt; Mubarak could rule Tunisia with one hand, nay, with one little finger.’ Author Interview, Cairo, December 27, 2010. I conducted all interviews on a confidentiality basis and have withheld the names of interviewees by mutual agreement.

²⁵ M. El-Naggar (2011) Equal rights takes to the barricades, New York Times. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/world/middleeast/02iht-letter02.html, accessed March 11, 2011; interview with an Egyptian activist, Cairo, October 21, 2014.

²⁶ Some opposition activists exercised more caution, though, as exemplified by the leaflet Kayfa tathour bi-hadaa'ia: Ma‘aloumaat wa-taktikaat haamma [How to protest intelligently: Important information and tactics] (2011) (Cairo, January). Available at http://info.publicintelligence.net/EgyptianRevolutionManual.pdf, accessed March 6, 2012. It has been used for preparing street protests and contains warnings against transmitting the leaflet's content via Twitter and Facebook, claiming these ‘are being monitored’ (pp. 1, 26), though it recommends, somewhat incongruously, distributing it by email in addition to printing and photocopying it.

²⁷ See also D. Gregory (2013) Tahrir: Politics, publics and performances of space, Middle East Critique, 22(3), pp. 236–237.

²⁸ Interview with an Egyptian activist, Cairo, February 17, 2011.

²⁹ This meticulous planning is captured in the leaflet Kayfa tathour bi-hadaa'ia, pp. 4–8, including diagrams and maps.

³⁰ Ibid, pp. 21–22; see also Bauer & Schweitzer, The Egyptian revolution 2011, pp. 316–322.

³¹ Interviews with retired senior officials from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Cairo, October 21, 2014.