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Responses to the ‘Arabellions’: The EU in Comparative Perspective — Introduction
TANJA A. BÖRZEL ASSEM DANDASHLY & THOMAS RISSE
Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany;
Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT This article introduces the themes of this special issue which is devoted to the reactions by external actors including the EU to the events unfolding in the Arab world beginning in December 2010. In particular, we look at the balancing act by external actors between their desire for stability, on the one hand, and their normative principles toward human rights and democracy, on the other. We compare the action (and inaction) of the European Union (EU) with other international and regional players, including the United States, Russia, Turkey and Israel. The contributions assess the response of these actors to the Arabellions events and analyse changes in their approaches to the Arab region. We ask three questions: (1) How have external actors assessed the ‘Arabellions’ and what role did they see for themselves in this context? (2) Which goals and instruments did external actors pursue toward the MENA region? In particular, how did they deal with conflicting goals, such as support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and concerns about security and stability, on the other? (3) How can we explain the varying responses of external actors to the Arabellions?
The Tunisian protests triggered by Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation on 17 December 2010, led to a spiral of revolutions and rebellions across North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf.1 For a short period of time, there was hope that the peoples were finally empowered to get rid of their autocratic rulers who had prevented political and economic progress in the Arab world for a long period of time. A few years later, these hopes had somehow been shattered. Tunisia is still in the midst of a difficult transition process. Egypt is now ruled by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who was elected following a military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood who governed the country for a short time. Libya has turned into a failing state whereby large parts of the territory are outside the control of the central government and the country suffers from insecurity and instability. The Syrian civil war is still ongoing, but the rebels have lost significant ground to the Assad regime. In Bahrain, the monarchy has reasserted itself.
The ‘Arabellions’2 have presented quite a few challenges to external actors. While it took everybody by surprise, particularly Western actors quickly realized that they had to walk a fine line between their principled support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and their quest for security and stability in the region, on the other. Moreover, their experiences in Libya and, to a greater extent, Iraq, have had many Western powers (the US, in particular) question their abilities to adequately adapt to and intervene in a region that is rapidly changing. ‘The ebbing of “western” political and economic influence places great strain on the military and security dimensions of relationships that have for so long underpinned the structure and balance of regional power’ (Held and Ulrichsen 2014).
This special issue examines the balancing act by external actors between their desire for stability, on the one hand, and their normative principles toward human rights and democracy, on the other. In particular, we compare the action (and inaction) of the European Union (EU) with other international and regional players, including the United States, Russia, Turkey and Israel. The contributions assess the response of these actors to the Arabellions events and analyse changes in their approaches to the Arab region.
The changes taking place in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) provide an excellent testing ground for the role of external actors who seek to promote democracy, security and stability, ensure access to natural resources or develop strong trade ties. By ‘external’, we mean states and regional organizations, which are not themselves subject to protests and opposition during the Arabellions. We focus on three actors outside the region (the US, EU and Russia) and one regional actor (Israel), with Turkey being a case in between. The five actors differ in their regime type and actorness, which allows us to explore how important these two variables are in accounting for what goals the actors pursue, which instruments they employ and how consistent and coherent their foreign policies are.
The special issue tries to accomplish two tasks. The first task is empirical stocktaking: How have the EU and other international as well as regional players reacted to the Arabellions? In this context, we address two sub-questions:
- How have external actors assessed the Arabellions and what role did they see for themselves in this context?
- Which goals and instruments did external actors pursue toward the MENA region? In particular, how did they deal with conflicting goals, such as support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and concerns about security and stability, on the other?
The results of the empirical analyses are rather straightforward: Only the US and the EU perceived the events in the MENA region as opportunities for democratic change, at least initially, seeing themselves as active shapers or more passive facilitators (see Dandashly 2014; Huber 2014; Noutcheva 2014). Turkey, under the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), viewed the Arabellions as an opportunity to spread its model of democracy and vision for a new regional order. The more events unfolded, however, the more the two Western powers joined with other external actors who had initially prioritized security and stability, including preventive measures, should Islamic extremism sweep over the remaining MENA countries. The contrast between Turkey and Israel is particularly relevant in this context (see articles by Ayata 2014; Magen 2014): While Turkey, under Prime Minister Erdogan, saw itself as a transformative power for the region, Israel — the only stable democracy in the region — tried to insulate itself as a somewhat ‘active by-stander’ from the perceived security risks emanating from the Arabellions.
All external actors ‘struggled to find a consistent response and a long-term strategy to events, which are changing by the day and sometimes by the hour’ since any action will affect them, not only regarding their role in the region, but also domestically (Malmvig and Tassinari 2011, 94). Therefore, Western actors based their actions heavily on what was happening on the ground. In most cases, the EU and US policies have been mainly reactive. This ‘wait-and-see approach’ might have been, if not a brave and visionary policy, at least a prudent option. Both the EU member states and the US ‘eventually managed to get from the new Arab governments — even in the case that they included representatives from Islamist parties — the same basic assurances as to their main regional interests they got from their predecessors’ (Alcaro 2012, 18). Their policies towards MENA countries might have simply looked for assurances that their regional interests would be protected under the rule of these new governments. Neither the EU nor the US ‘seems convinced that existing policies towards North Africa and the Middle East are in need of a radical review, based on a long-term perspective of how the region can reasonably look like in the next years’ (Alcaro 2012, 17).
The second task of the special issue is theoretical: How can we explain the varying responses of external actors to the Arabellions? In this context, we utilize a diverse set of theoretical approaches drawn from the field of foreign policy analysis. The individual contributions look at three explanatory factors as drivers of the external actors’ responses:
(1) Geostrategic interests as theorized by realism and its variants;
(2) self-understandings of actors including their collective identities as suggested by social constructivist approaches;
(3) domestic as well as bureaucratic politics as privileged by liberal approaches.
Once again, the findings are rather clear: In each and every case, geostrategic — both security and economic — considerations did play a role, but not in a deterministic sense. Rather, these geostrategic ‘interests’ have been filtered by collective self-understandings and identities, on the one hand, and by domestic as well as bureaucratic politics, on the other. The two latter factors account, for example, for the variation in responses to the Arabellions by three rather different actors, namely the EU, the US and Russia (Dannreuther 2014; Huber 2014; Noutcheva 2014). Actors’ properties, by contrast, including actorness and regime type, cannot explain their responses. It is largely irrelevant whether the external actor is a state or a regional organization. Nor does it make much of a difference whether external actors are democratic, semi-democratic or authoritarian. We come back to this point in the conclusions.
The rest of the introduction lays out the analytical framework for the special issue. In the next section, we briefly provide a background on the Arabellions. We then discuss the dependent variable of the special issue, namely, the responses by external actors to the events in the MENA region. The third section discusses the three explanatory variables that form the common criteria for comparison among the various articles. Section four highlights the reasoning for our case selection. Finally, we provide an overview of the papers in this special issue.
The Arabellions
For decades, MENA countries have lived under oppressive and highly corrupt regimes that afforded them very little political freedoms and civil rights. In fact, the MENA region has been and continues to be one of the most autocratic regions in the world, in which Israel remains the only stable democracy. The lack of democracy in the region did not prevent the EU, the US and other Western powers from cooperating with its regimes — as long as stability and security were guaranteed. Yet, the security and stability that had prevailed on the EU’s southern borders for decades could not withstand the unexpected protests that broke out in Tunisia and spilled over into Egypt, Libya, Syria and other Arab countries. While each country has had a unique experience, rising unemployment rates (especially youth unemployment),3 high inflation, low growth, along with political oppression, resulted in a widespread call for change, particularly when the repercussions of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis worsened the economic situation.
The political developments that have unfolded since the Arabellions have been mixed, ranging from reassertion of authoritarian rule (Bahrain) to incremental democratic transition (Tunisia). Since January 2011, Tunisia has engaged in a steady process of institution building, including the first open and fair elections of a Constituent Assembly on 23 October 2011 and, most importantly, the first steps towards constitution building. However, the political parties that participated in the revolution have had difficulties to form a stable government. The current coalition, which had formed after the fall of Hamadi Jebali’s government in February 2013, has been facing repeated protests sparked by the assassination of one of the opposition leaders, Mohammad Brahimi, on 25 July 2013.
In Egypt, the uprising was bloody and more deadly when compared to the similar experience of Tunisia. After several failed attempts of reforms to buy the silence of the people, President Mohammad Husni Moubarak had to step down and relinquish power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The army assured the protesters that free and fair elections would take place and that all regional and international obligations and agreements would be respected — a step that was welcomed by Israeli leaders. Elections took place thereafter and resulted in Islamists winning not only the majority of the parliament’s seats, but also the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi winning the presidential election. After a year of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule, millions of protesters returned to the streets calling for the removal of President Morsi. The new protests led to chaos and high numbers of casualties. The new violence caused the army to interfere; under the leadership of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a military coup toppled Morsi from power. The military suspended the Egyptian constitution and arrested many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi himself. Following these events, a new constitution was written, followed by new presidential elections that resulted in a victory for el-Sisi.
Bahrain’s history of popular opposition to the rule of the al-Khalifa royal family dates back to the 1920s due to ‘unequal and selective development’ (Ulrichsen 2012, 28) — on sectarian basis between Sunnis and Shiites. The events in Tunisia and Egypt triggered protests in Bahrain in February 2011. Although the protestors were mainly youth from Sunnis and Shiites, shortly afterwards, the Shiite parties took over and were supported by secular leftist and liberal groups (al-Jazeera 30 August 2011). The protests escalated, quickly demanding the King to step down (Ulrichsen 2012, 29). In response to the opposition, the regime sponsored counter-demonstrations. The fact that the majority of the population is Shiite Muslims (about 70 per cent) ruled by a Sunni minority made it easy to blame Iran for the escalation of the violent protests. In March 2011, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — under Saudi leadership — sent forces through its Peninsula Shield Force to help the Bahraini regime maintain its grip over the situation. With the help of this force, the Bahraini military detained thousands of the protesters and oppressed the opposition.
Prior to the outbreak of the conflict in Syria, Libya experienced the most violent rebellion, highlighted by the toppling and killing of Mouammar al-Gaddafi. In a country lacking basic infrastructure and dominated by tribal structures, a civil war broke out between Gaddafi’s regime and his allies and the opposition in that rich oil and gas country with a population of around 6.4 million. Concerned for its oil and gas deposits, Western countries rushed to interfere and ultimately helped bringing down Gaddafi’s regime. The United Nations Security Council adopted several resolutions including the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone and authorized the use of force to protect Libyan civilians from Gaddafi’s military attacks. Despite the fact that Gaddafi’s regime fell after a bloody civil war, the divisions among the various tribal groups continue to block the country’s progress toward democracy. Libya is currently a failing state which suffers from a severe lack of domestic security and stability.
The Western involvement in Libya and its eagerness to end Gaddafi’s rule did not spillover to Syria. Rather, the experiences of Libya and the aftermath of the fall of the Gaddafi regime contributed to the decision not to intervene militarily in Syria. Shortly after the uprising in Libya, peaceful protests that called for the abdication of the Assad regime began in Syria. After these demonstrations were violently oppressed by the regime, a civil war broke out. More than 100,000 people have been killed thus far in Syria, making it the bloodiest instance of the Arabellions. In addition, the Assad regime used chemical weapons against the uprising triggering an international response which led to the chemical disarmament of Syria and its accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention. However, while Western powers asked Assad to step down, the UN Security Council has been blocked from implementing any meaningful action by vetoes of Russia and China (see article by Dannreuther 2014). The Syrian opposition has been split early on between various factions with Islamic fundamentalists — including local Al Qaeda forces — increasingly taking control. Moreover, the Syrian opposition has not been able to topple Assad and has been losing ground to Assad’s army supported by Hizbullah, Iran and other groups. The Syrian crisis created more pressure on the Syrian neighbours (mainly Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey) and the EU. In 2013 alone, a quarter of the total detected illegal refugees came from Syria (25,500; according to Frontex 2014, 7).
This brief discussion of the Arabellions demonstrates that the road to reform and democracy is long and bumpy, to say the very least. Syria is still in the midst of a war. Libya is struggling to maintain security and stability in a failing state. While protests in Bahrain have been violently suppressed, Egypt is currently under military rule. Tunisia appears to be the only country in the region with any ...
