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The Arab World in a transition process through the Arab Spring phenomenon
George Voskopoulos, Assistant Professor of European Studies, Department of International and European Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
Abstract: The social and political turmoil in the Arab world constitutes a complicated sequel of a variety of domestic forces seeking change. The semantics of the term “spring” overtly or covertly refer to a newly-emerging state of affairs. Cognitively the term Arab spring implies a multifaceted change in societies that bear similar but also dissimilar features. Through their commonness and differences local societies produce a political and social interplay of domestic and inter-state forces in a struggle for change and political domination. The paper looks into the process as a transitional phase to an outcome difficult to determine for a number of defining reasons related to intermingling domestic parameters. As a result, clear prognostications may constitute an academically risky affair.
Key words: Arab Spring, securitized idealism, Arab transition, explaining, understanding
Introduction
The term Arab Spring directly or indirectly refers to a wave of politico-economic changes on a multilevel framework. These changes came forward as a means of the internal activation of social and political forces struggling for power and power re-distribution. The terms of engagement in this multifaceted interplay are defined, inter allia, by the degree of homogeneity of the Arab world[1] and the level of parcelisation of an assumingly compact in behavioural and cognitive terms space. Divergence in goals, aims and an incompatible conceptualization of domestic order led to an internal conflict, resulting in a perplexed heterogeneity of the actors involved.
The Arab World is in a state of multilevel internal transition which resulted in the coming to power of three Islamist-led governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The outcome of regime change is to be determined by a clash of wills and a clash of abilities. The will and ability of those who challenged and eventually overthrew the old regimes to structurally impose a post-autocratic domestic order as well as the ability of a secular and Islamist milieu to politically capitalize their victory[2] and impose their own organizational structure. Transitional phases are by default non-permanent and may not provide all the required structural clues for sound forecasting. This very fact imposes a thorough analysis of the terms of domestic power struggle, underpinning the potential of the forces involved (i.e. Islamists and secularists) as well as the degree the pillars of domestic order (i.e. Egyptian Army) will be able to retain a privileged status within the newly established order. Transition times critically define whose interests will be most served and who is going to advance a political order closer to their own image of governance, in our case secular or Islamist. Operationally, constitutionally and cognitively this refers to the traditional international relations question of who gets what, when, where.
The Arab spring within a time and space dimension
Within the wider context of Middle East Studies most academics and analysts failed to predict[3] the dramatic changes in the Arab world for a number of inter-related reasons. First, focal inability to scrutinize local societies within a comparative, economic and political perspective. Second, their leaving out crucial social and political factors of varying importance and weight in the states where uprisings took place. Third, the tendency to clearly identify differences among Arab societies and build causational approaches based on special political conditions and the various roles of political Islam and Islamists.
What is important is not so much to pinpoint similarities but differences within the Arab world[4]. These may bring to the surface the heterogeneity of a much parcelized Arab society that does not behave in conformity and responds in various ways to domestic pressure and outside stimuli. The time factor during a transition may prove catalytic in defining not only intra-balances but above all prerogatives and status during processes.
The Arab spring and the quest to democracy through its transitional phase
The appearance of political Islam across the region created a new dynamic in terms of politics and multiplied the number of actors involved in the quest for influence, power and democracy. Yet, in a transitional phase defining winners and losers is by far a difficult task. In the case of the Arab World forecasting outcomes is far more complicated because of radical ideology and the means used by its supporters in their internal multi-front struggle.
Transition is not only a process, a step to a new domestic order but also a process of socialization or re-socialization to rules set during this crucial phase. Their acceptance will critically define terms of political engagement in the future model of governance. Islamists in particular disagree on the forms of political interaction and use operational means that trouble their opponents as well as third parties. Their nominal advantage is not having being corrupt by power, yet a process of politicization may cost them their image. At this point Plato’s writings on the features of those being in power may provide an insight on the perils of corruption when in power.
The Arab regimes had been established under different geopolitical and security conditions as well as internal structural settings. What they had in common was their ability to withstand time and social pressure from within their social structure. Elsewhere changes took place in a much less dramatic or much more orderly way (Central and Eastern Europe[5], Latin America)[6] and as a consequence previous case studies on transition to democracy and the rule of law may not provide useful insights of the complexities and behavioural patterns of the Arab world.
In Arab states the concept of democracy should be scrutinized outside the traditional or conventional western liberal model simply because its conceptualization demands cognitive prerequisites not disposed by the actors involved. Failing to do that, any approach may lead to unrealistic results that leave out common and uncommon elements of these societies. What we really need is a causative approach to the Arab uprisings without suggesting that this constitutes the single truth, a monolithic or positivist approach. The need for causative flexibility in defining causes stems from the very fact that outsiders engage in a process of looking into a series of events in an area with non-European, non-American, non-Christian structural, societal, religious and economic elements. In essence, observance on the part of an outsider may lead to oversimplifications, ungrounded generalizations, distorted results or the ability to distinguish between fact-based and value-based assumptions.
Some authors reject the myth of authoritarian stability[7] thus underpinning alternative causational approaches to the uprisings and their timing of expression as well as the “internal variation” in regime collapse[8]. This overtly or covertly refers to the mature conditions that will lead a collectivity to a revolutionary outbreak. Recent analyses have focused on the action – reaction framework between the various coercive mechanisms in Arab regimes and local societies, underpinning that variation related to repressive apparatus resulted in “determining the durability of the authoritarian regimes”[9]. In this case, durability was tested by the triggering effects of the events in Tunisia, thus showing that timing has been determined by a state where conditions for change were more favourable, resistance weaker and security complications for the rest of the world less severe.
Across the Arab World pressure for essential political changes along with multifaceted demands for re-distribution of wealth found innovative means of support in the face of the social media and the youth, particularly those politically socialised and educated in western societies where the image and cognitional formation of otherness has been defined by tolerance. Yet, these represent only a portion of those involved in the quest for democracy and the establishment of a more egalitarian society. Eventually this existential demand and the need for economic survival along with the need for economic survival cut the umbilical cord between regime leaderships and the Arab peoples.
Explaining and understanding in international relations as theoretical tools
A detailed analysis of the insights of the Arab Spring requests the use of analytical, causational and explanatory tools in order to decode the interaction pattern of the actors domestically involved as well as their expectations from regime change. These may be provided by the use of two processes traditionally used in international relations, namely explaining and understanding[10]. Engagement in such a parallel process will bring to the surface causes, expectations and a better understanding of the transitional phase Arab states are going through. They are most useful because events taking place at a domestic level have an impact on world security and inter-state relations.
Explaining and understanding may operate as a twin pillar process of defining facts and non-facts and also provide rectangular reality lens through which scholars look into the world and seek answers to critical questions such as who, when, why, what, under which conditions. It is a process of looking under the surface of a fragile and obviously dysfunctional transitional phase of a fluid nature.
Explaining focuses on “identifying what caused a particular event or state of affairs” through a process that involves “generating and testing hypotheses”[11]. The way these hypotheses are tested have long caused major methodological debates among scholars on an inter-disciplinary basis. Through explanation, scholars attempt to come up with scientific proof of the parameters that influence international relations. J. Rosenau suggests that the role of explaining is "to comprehend the political universe" and portrays International Relations scholars as puzzle solvers[12]. In the case of the Arab Spring the puzzle has the form of a multi-purpose challenge, since domestic changes in several Arab states produce a colossal effect – challenge on international security and regional balances by threatening checks and balances of a vital security sub-system.
The actual purpose of explaining is to clearly identify the factor(s) that produced specific outcomes. Scholars seek explanation to satisfy their need to identify and "explain underlying and recurring patterns, which are central to the system on which they focus"[13]. The aforementioned “recurrent” patterns may support alternative explanations and understandings of the triggering effects of the events in Tunisia. This is a very important process in the Arab World where certain common features (secular – political, social, religious) exist and add to the notion of a common future. Explaining provides a framework of learning what is taking place and this is what scholars have been trying to do with the Arab Spring. To learn, "means to go beyond the obvious, to move from knowledge of the discrete to knowledge of the general, to make connections and to understand concepts"[14] as well as to provide “explanatory locations”[15]. It has been suggested that “theory and explanation are two sides of the same coin” since “theory is a crucial and necessary element in understanding international behaviour”, while “explanation is inextricably a part of understanding”[16].
M. P. Sullivan suggests three ways of explaining[17]; the first is to explain an event by “merely presenting a plausible interpretation, one that seems to make sense and does not contradict any canons of logic”. The second is “to trot out a series of plausible reasons, with the inference that only one of them singly or all of them combined account for the behaviour under investigation”. This way may provide a multi-purpose approach to the common or uncommon motives of the Arab peoples to revolt. The third method is “to describe the events under consideration with the explanation implied in the description”. Although this process has been conventionally applied to states, its logic may provide answers to a sequel of events like those that resulted in the Arab Spring and may reveal cognitive elements on the behaviour of a number of peoples.
By contrast, understanding “involves a search not so much for the cause of an event as for its meaning”[18]. Practically understanding focuses on investigating the overt or covert meaning of an event, and therefore, on enlightening the search for its origins, evolution and consequences[19]. In the case of the Arab Spring in system and out of system, intrusive actors are puzzled by the potential consequences of a series of uprisings that have overthrown the security foundations of a fragile region.
Martin Hollis and Steve Smith make a clear-cut distinction between explaining and understanding, since they are used for different purposes[20] but they may serve the same cause. Understanding means “that we can talk clearly and explicitly about the puzzle we want to solve”[21]. This demands a deep knowledge of motives, alternative choices, domestic bargaining, actors involved and their appeal to the Arab peoples. In essence and in terms of the processes of explaining and understanding, the issue at hand is the meaning of the uprisings (understanding) and the causes (a causational approach) of the Arab spring (explaining) as portrayed in the Table below.
Explaining Understanding
Seeking the causes Looking for the meaning
Identifying the causes Decoding the meaning of
Looking for the factors that produced the Arab spring events
a specific outcome (uprisings) Seeking origins, evolution.
What is taking place in the Arab World consequences
The political economy of the Arab spring
As part of different and at times contending approaches to the Arab uprisings, economics[22] have provided a structural explanation and motivational axis of the social unrest. The term structure refers here to the established development order, means, production patterns and methods of finance in a number of societies where disparities and multilevel inequalities have left evident signs of an at least two-tier world. This led to pressures to the base, the people, who seriously questioned processes, outcomes and relative/absolute gains of a system that failed to provide opportunities to a wider spectrum of the societal strata. In effect long-term inequality may eventually take the form of a zero-sum game between leaderships and collectivities.
One approach looks into the uprisings as a result of an economic failure[23] of a more or less outdated statist model of development that went beyond its capacity. The tools used here are conventional economics and might imply that western liberal rationality may provide a realistic image of what has been happening in Arab states for years under autocratic regimes. Adeel Malik and Bassem Awadallah suggest that the sequel of economic fail, statism, intervention and redistribution may provide us with the cognitive fundamentals of a causative approach driven by economic stimuli and social dictates. If one looks at a society as a system, its operational mode is defined, among other things, by the economic input provided. In effect the multi-level interplay of negative economic input gave vent to a social output (uprisings) through which groups expressed their desire for a revised re-distributional policy but also for political involvement in the process. That was the result of a de-legitimization process that led collectivities to social mutiny.