Muslim World Initiative

Oppositions, Liberalization, and Democracy: A New Dynamic?

Political reform in the Arab world has thus far taken place through a process of formal regime-oppositions, negotiations, and discussions whose content, scope, and timing have been controlled by ruling elites. The basic goal has been to promote a sufficient level of political openness in civil society, media, and the political-electoral arena for opposition elites to let off steam, without affording them the opportunity or capacity to undermine the institutional, legal, and informal props that sustain regime control of the political system.

The top-down nature of this process is by no means unique to the Arab world. On the contrary, regime-initiated liberalizations have been a common feature of regime transitions in many parts of the globe. But what distinguishes the Arab cases is the failure (or perhaps unwillingness) of civil society groups and political parties to take advantage of opportunities to press for genuine democratization as opposed to regime managed liberalization.

The absence of opposition effectiveness cannot be attributed solely to the coercive capacity of Arab regimes, or to their distribution of direct and indirect rents to clients. Hand in hand with such sticks and carrots has been a political legacy of personal, institutional, and ideological fragmentation within opposition circles on one side, and popular apathy and depoliticization on the other. Moreover, and partly as a consequence of such internal constraints, opposition leaders have often grudgingly accepted meager benefits from liberalized autocracies over the unknowns of challenging the status quo.

Yet in the last two or so years, opposition elites have begun to tire of the informal consensus that has sustained the modis vivendi within oppositions and between oppositions and state. This shift is partly a consequence of the political frustrations born of state managed liberalization. As noted before, liberalized autocracies tend to cycle back and forth between periods of political liberalization and deliberalization. The process of retreat to greater state control and interference—if not outright repression—is usually provoked by the gains that mainstream Islamist forces acquire under the umbrella of liberalized autocracy. Using networks of preacher-ideologues and mosques, mainstream Islamists have out-organized their non-Islamist competitors to emerge as the only movements and/or parties that have a mass, organic constituency. Emboldened by electoral gains, Islamist leaders have frequently violated ambiguously defined lines of state-tolerated dissent, thus provoking crackdowns from regime hardliners.

The resulting net of repression has often entangled a wide range of political activists, particularly non-Islamist actors advocating for greater political freedom and inclusion of Islamists in the political process. Thus, for example, Egypt’s Saad Eddin Ibrahim was arrested and imprisoned, not because he and his allies in civil society represent a threat, but rather because their advocacy of Islamist inclusion in electoral politics (and election monitoring) challenges the carefully calibrated mechanism of liberalized autocracy that rulers are resolved to maintain.

Frustrated by the limits of state-managed liberalization, and particularly by the periodic retraction of liberties granted by regimes, both Islamists and non-Islamist leaders have begun talking about ways to cooperate in an effort to step beyond the limits of liberalized autocracy. Granted, these discussions are at an early stage, but they represent a potential learning process that might invigorate oppositions that have traditionally suffered from internal weakness and division.

Case Studies

Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen are “liberalized autocracies” whose leaders have used state-managed political openings to sustain regime survival and hegemony. All four have experienced repeated cycles of regime openings followed by a souring of the regime-opposition honeymoon and implementation of deliberalizing measures. The split in the budding relationship is usually the result of expanding opposition activism threatening the balance of power. Yet despite these cycles, the cumulative degree of political openness and de facto, or de jure, freedoms enjoyed by oppositions has differed from country to country.

On a spectrum of the most open or pluralistic to the most closed or hegemonic, Morocco is situated at the most open end of the range. It has allowed for the largest measure of political openness and opposition activism, enjoys the most robust civil society movements, and boasts a relatively pluralistic political arena that includes Islamist, secular nationalist, and ethnic (Berber) parties.

By contrast, the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen have tolerated a narrower playing field. Jordan has permitted Islamist and non-Islamist parties some political room, but has also used legal, constitutional, and informal measures to restrict opposition activity and to favor East Bankers and Bedouin groups over the more urban Palestinian populations.

Egypt has forbidden Islamists formal representation in party life, but has tolerated a measure of de facto pluralism and competition in the media, civil society, and party field. The recent electoral victories of Muslim Brethren independents, coupled with the inclusive (and murky) efforts of self proclaimed “reformers” in the ruling National Democratic Party to align themselves behind a more pluralistic agenda, suggests that Eyptian leaders have grudgingly acceded to favoring pluralism as a tool of regime survival.

As for Yemen, two or three years ago it would have been located a few short steps to the right of Morocco on the spectrum illustrated above. During the first years following unification in 1991, tribal, religious, and secular groups and parties competed in a fairly open system. However, in the aftermath of Yemen’s brief civil war in 1994, the president and ruling party initiated a campaign to narrow the space for political opposition. This trend, which has been exacerbated by continuing tensions between Northern-Islamist leaders and Southern-secular leaders, as well as the determination of the president to remain in power, has moved Yemen much closer to the “most closed” end of the spectrum.

Secondary Project: Assessing U.S. Effort to Engage Islamists

In conjunction, and by way of augmenting the conclusions derived from the above study of opposition effectiveness and political reform in the Arab world, this project will also include an assessment of the efforts of U.S. democracy promoters to encourage and promote moderate Islamist opposition parties, movements, and organizations. In particular, the assessment will focus on efforts to involve moderate, non-violent Islamist political parties and leaders in specific democracy promotion activities pursued by NDI and IRI over the last four years in countries with active, legal Islamist parties such as Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, and Kuwait. While much of the research will be Washington-based, the study may undertake 1-2 case studies, possibly in Morocco and Jordan.

In tackling this complex issue, this study will consider the following questions:

1. What have been the primary institutional foci of U.S. democracy promotion efforts in each country (parties, movements, civil society organizations)?
2. What have been the specific goals of these programs and what measures of success or failure have been used (if at all) by the democracy promoter to assess the efficacy of the program?
3. What is the ideological and programmatic range of the specific groups that U.S. democracy promoters have worked with?
4. How have Islamist political leaders responded over time to U.S. efforts to engage them in democracy promotion activities? By “response” we mean:

a. How have Islamist leaders responded and interacted over time with U.S. democracy promoters? Have we established a working professional relationship with particular leaders?

b. What impact, if any, have these interactions had on the ideological and programmatic emphasis of Islamist leaders? Have they encouraged a process of social learning marked by a greater acceptance of cooperation and compromise in both opposition and ruling circles?

c. Have in effect, U.S. efforts to engage Islamist leaders in democracy promotion activities helped moderate their politics, agendas, and political activities, and/or reinforced more moderate forces within Islamist movements, parties or organizations?

d. How, and to what degree, have U.S. efforts to engage Islamist political actors in democracy promotion facilitated more effective cooperation, alliance making or pact making between Islamist and non-Islamist opposition groups?

e. Have U.S. efforts to help opposition groups professionalize their activities and cooperate across party or ideological lines had a discernable affect on the ability of these groups to push Arab governments to enlarge the field of political liberalization and/or democratization?

Project Participants

Egypt: Dina Salah Shehata, Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

Jordan: Janine Clark, University of Guelph.

Morocco: Maryam Montague, Management Systems International.

Yemen: Iris Glosemeyer, Free University of Berlin.

Engaging Islamists: Mona Yacoubian, Special Adviser, USIP.