Islamists and Secularists in Egypt

Opposition, Conflict & Cooperation

Dina Shehata

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135179281
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

In a detailed analysis of the continued survival of authoritarian governments in the Arab world, this book uses Egypt as a case study to address the timely and complex issue of democratization in the Middle East.

This book examines how relations between different actors in the Egyptian opposition have contributed to the endurance of authoritarianism in Egypt over the past three decades. The author argues that the longevity of the authoritarian government is not only a function of the strength and cohesion of the regime, but is also related to the weaknesses and divisions between opposition groupings, particularly between Islamists and non-Islamists. Looking at how such ideological differences and mobilizational asymmetries have impeded successful cooperation between different opposition groups, and how this allows the authoritarian regime to successfully ensure its continued hegemony, the author illustrates the extent to which opposition strategies profoundly affect successful transitions to democracy in the Arab world.

Highlighting the main obstacles to democratic political reform in the region, the author provides important insights for the promotion of democracy in the region which will be a valuable addition to the literature on Middle Eastern politics and government.

1
Introduction

The American invasion and occupation of Iraq in April 2003 ushered in a brief interval of extraordinary politics in many of the countries of the Arab world. American and European pressures on Arab regimes to democratize created a temporary political opening that opposition movements across the region used to press for far-reaching political and constitutional reforms. Arab regimes responded to these growing internal and external pressures to reform by making some concessions to their challengers. Saudi Arabia convened municipal elections for the first time in five decades (Menoret, 2005). Qatar promulgated a written constitution for the first time in its history, and Bahrain held parliamentary elections for the first time in 30 years (Cook and Fellow, 2004; Sengupta, 2002). In Egypt, Parliament amended the constitution to allow the first competitive presidential elections in Egyptian history; in Lebanon forces in the opposition took to the streets and forced the pro-Syrian government to resign and Syrian troops to pull out from Lebanon (Shehata, 2008). Finally, elections in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt, in 2005–2006, led to important electoral gains by opposition parties and movements.

These extraordinary events, which were described by some observers as the “Arab Spring,” led optimists to foresee a fundamental shift toward greater freedom and democracy in a region notorious for the longevity of its authoritarian regimes. However, rather than create a momentum for further liberalization and democratization, these political openings seem to have had the opposite effect. In many parts of the Arab world, democratic openings and relatively free and fair elections have led to heightened social conflict and polarization rather than to the initiation of successful transitions to democracy. In Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine such polarization culminated in the total or near total breakdown of social order and governability, while in Egypt it reinforced the divide between secularists and Islamists and ushered in a new wave of political repression and de-liberalization.

Though the events of 2004–2005 were in many respects unique, they nonetheless fit into a pattern that has come to characterize Arab politics in recent decades. During the course of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, various internal and external crises have driven a number of Arab regimes to adopt political liberalization measures. Regimes in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Morocco, Kuwait, and Jordan allowed the creation of opposition parties, civil society organizations, and an independent media and have, on some occasions, convened freer and fairer elections. However, political liberalization measures in many of these countries eventually gave way to violent social conflict or polarization and to the resumption of more repressive forms of authoritarianism. Civil strife in Yemen in 1994, and in Algeria in 1992, was closely tied to prior democratic openings in which opposition forces made important successes (Schewdler, 2002, p. 49; Addi, 1996, p. 99). Similarly, political de-liberalization in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, during the 1990s, resulted from growing polarization precipitated in part by prior liberalization (Kienle, 2001; Lucas, 2003; King, 2003).

The failure of periodic political openings in the Arab world to generate a sustained momentum toward democratization, and their tendency to exacerbate divisions between forces in the opposition and to precipitate heightened social conflict and polarization, is not adequately explained by much of the existing literature on authoritarianism in the Arab world. Most of this literature tends to attribute the endurance of authoritarianism and the weakness of democratic mobilization, in the region, to the continued strength and cohesion of the incumbent regimes and their continued ability to disburse patronage to a large network of allies and to dole out repression to actual and potential challengers. And, although these propositions provide compelling explanations for the endurance of authoritarianism, they do not fully explain why political liberalization in the Arab world has tended to produce increased social tension and polarization rather than a sustained momentum toward democratization even in those Arab states where the state is weak and the ruling coalition is divided.

In this book, I argue that, even though explanations that emphasize regime strength and cohesion are central to understanding the endurance of authoritarianism in the Arab world, these explanations do not fully account for the weakness of democratic mobilization in this region, particularly in liberalized autocracies. In this book, I argue that important ideological divisions and mobilizational asymmetries between different political and societal forces, and the successful manipulation of these divisions and asymmetries by ruling elites, have also contributed to the resilience and endurance of authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. I argue that these variables are particularly helpful for understanding the durability of authoritarianism in liberalized autocracies that allow a measure of political liberalization and contestation such as Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen, and Egypt.

Using the case of Egypt, I examine how divisions between Islamists and secularists in the Egyptian opposition have weakened the ability of opposition parties and movements to build broad-based alliances that are capable of effectively challenging the hegemony of the authoritarian regime. I argue that three variables in particular have impeded sustainable cooperation and alliance building between Islamists and secularists in the Egyptian opposition, namely ideological divisions, mobilizational asymmetries, and divide and rule tactics employed by the regime. To test the impact of these variables on the capacity of Islamists and secularists to forge successful alliances, I survey more than 20 attempts at alliance building between Islamists and secularists, over the past three decades. I argue that most of these attempts proved tactical and short-lived owing to the persistence of fundamental ideological divisions and mobilizational asymmetries between Islamists and secularists. The Egyptian regime for its part has successfully manipulated and deepened these divisions and asymmetries to ensure its continued survival and the continued weakness and fragmentation of its challengers.

The Egyptian case provides a strong test for the arguments here because, unlike other countries in the Arab world, which are riveted by sectarian and ethnic conflicts and where the boundaries of the state are still in dispute, Egyptian society is largely homogeneous and the boundaries of the state have been stable for millennia. Thus if it can be shown that divisions between different forces in the opposition have impeded successful mobilization against the Egyptian regime, then it is all the more likely that such divisions have contributed to the stability of authoritarianism in some of the more divided Arab countries.

State-centered approaches to the study of authoritarianism in the Arab world

Political scientists have tended to look for the causes of the survival or breakdown of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes within ruling coalitions rather than within their oppositions. It has frequently been argued that authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes are able to survive as long as they are able to maintain their internal cohesion and to secure the material resources needed to coopt allies and repress challengers. However, once cracks begin to appear within the ruling coalition, or when ruling elites are no longer able to secure the material resources needed to coopt allies and repress opponents, authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes become more vulnerable to pressures from their oppositions and regime breakdown becomes more likely. This proposition is reflected in one of the most widely quoted volumes on the sources of the breakdown of authoritarian regimes and transitions to democracy. In their seminal work on transitions from authoritarian rule, O’Donnell and Schmitter maintain that “there is no transition [from authoritarianism] whose beginning is not the consequence—direct or indirect —of important divisions within the authoritarian regime itself’ (O’Donnell and Schmitter, 1986, p. 19).

Much of the literature on authoritarianism in the Arab world has attributed the endurance of authoritarianism to the continued cohesion of ruling elites in the region (Brownlee, 2007; Herb, 1999). Such cohesion has been attributed to a combination of three distinct but interconnected variables: access to rents; patronage and cooptation; and repression. It is argued that because ruling elites in the Arab world have access to large amounts of external rent or revenue, particularly oil revenue, they are able maintain a significant measure of financial autonomy from their societies and to largely ignore societal pressures for democratization. Moreover, access to external rents and control over the economic resources of the state enables authoritarian regimes in the Arab world to disburse patronage to a large network of clients and allies allowing them to maintain broad-based ruling coalitions and ensuring the continued acquiescence of important segments of the population. Finally, by maintaining robust security establishments and high levels of security spending, Arab regimes are able to ensure the continued acquiescence of their militaries, while also intimidating their challengers and potential challengers. In the following, I examine these three propositions in more detail and argue that, although these propositions provide a compelling explanation for the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab world, they nonetheless fail to fully explain why Arab oppositions parties and movements have failed to build broad-based coalitions that are able to effectively challenge authoritarian regimes in the region, particularly in those Arab countries that allow for a measure of political liberalization and contestation such as Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen.

The rentier state thesis

One of the most salient explanations for the continued cohesion of authoritarian regimes in the Arab world is the rentier state thesis. Proponents of this thesis maintain that what sets the Arab world apart from the rest of the developing world is that Arab states are by and large rentier states. Rentier states are states that receive substantial rents from foreign individuals, concerns or governments, or, as Beblawi maintains, states where the rents are paid by foreign actors, and where they accrue directly to the state (Beblawi and Luciani, 1987; Ross, 2001, p. 329). It has been argued that the abundance of oil resources in the Arab world has transformed both the oil-producing and non-oil-producing countries of the region into rentier states, or rentier economies. Oil revenue constitutes the primary source of revenue for the Gulf states, Iraq, Libya, and Algeria, sometimes amounting to more than half of their gross domestic product (GDP). The non-oil-producing countries of the region have, by virtue of their proximity to the oil-producing states, also been transformed into rentier economies (Luciani, 1998, p. 211). The non-oil-producing states have been able to secure external revenue in the form of strategic rents (e.g. foreign grants and loans), location rents (e.g. pipe lines and Suez Canal revenue) and workers’ remittances. Such rents have at some points amounted to more than 40 percent of their GDP, effectively transforming some of the non-oil producing states into induced rentier states:

More than half of the revenues in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and Libya have, at times, come from the sale of oil. The Governments of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt variously earn large locational rents from payments for pipeline crossings, transit fees, and passage through the Suez Canal. Workers’ remittances have been an important source of foreign exchange in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, although these rents go (at least initially) to private actors, not the state. The foreign aid that flows to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan may also be considered a type of economic rent.

(Ross, 2001, p. 329)

External rents have given regimes in the region significant financial autonomy from societal forces. It is argued that regimes elsewhere in the developing world have had to extract revenue by taxing their populations and were thus compelled to respond to societal pressures for increased popular participation and oversight over the decision-making process. In contrast, Arab regimes have, for the most part, been less dependent on domestic sources of revenue for their survival and have thus felt less compelled to involve their citizenry in the decision-making and resource allocation process (Anderson, 1992, p. 170).

The patron state thesis

A second thesis that is often invoked to explain the cohesion of authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, and one that is closely intertwined with the rentier state thesis, is the patron state thesis (Harik, 2001). Proponents of this thesis maintain that authoritarian regimes in the Arab world have been able to endure far longer than their counterparts elsewhere in the developing world because they have continued to disburse patronage to broad segments of their population. It is argued that authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, whether republican or monarchical, have based their legitimacy on a national-populist social pact whereby the state provides social welfare and economic privileges in return for political acquiescence (Brumberg, 1998, p. 233; Heydemann, 2008). This social contract or populist authoritarian ruling bargain, as it has been called, led to the emergence of broad-based ruling coalitions and patronage networks whose interests are closely wedded to those of the populist-authoritarian regime.

By maintaining large state bureaucracies and large public sectors, Arab regimes have successfully incorporated large segments of the professional middle class and organized labor into the ruling coalition (Waterbury, 1989, p. 39). Moreover, by adopting land reforms, subsiding agricultural inputs, and fixing agricultural rents many Arab regimes succeeded in coopting large segments of the peasantry (Beinin, 1999). Also by adopting import substitution industrialization policies, Arab regimes have protected the domestic bourgeoisie against foreign competition and have encouraged the development of a parasitic relationship between the public and the private sectors (Waterbury, 1995, p. 27). Finally, by devolving power at the local level to local strongmen and traditional leaders and by allowing them to act as intermediaries between the state bureaucracy and local populations, Arab regimes have successfully coopted this pivotal social group (Migdal, 1988). As a result, broad segments of the population in most Arab countries directly depend on the regime for their economic wellbeing and have thus had a stake in the perpetuation of the status quo.

Populist authoritarian bargains are not unique to the Arab world and have been typically associated with the early and intermediate stages of economic development (Collier, 1979, p. 19). However, authoritarian regimes in the Arab world have been unique in their ability to uphold these bargains well into the twenty-first century. In many parts of the developing world, severe economic crises have forced populist authoritarian regimes to abandon their welfare and developmental functions, to dismantle their public sectors, and to streamline their bureaucracies (Haggard and Kaufman, 1995). Harsh economic reforms generally entailed a new democratic social contract whereby the regime reinstituted political rights and freedoms in return for the suspension of economic and social rights (Brumberg, 1998).

Starting the late 1980s and early 1990s, and largely as result of the steep decline in oil prices, a number of Arab countries adopted a series of economic reform and structural adjustment measures. Such measures have led to the relative liberalization of Arab economies and to the emergence of a private sector alongside the public sector. However, in spite of these reforms, Arab regimes have continued to harbor large state bureaucracies and large public sectors (Henry and Springborg, 2001; Kienle, 2001). In most Arab countries, the state continues to be the largest employer and the public sector continues to play an important, albeit diminishing, economic role. It is argued that Arab regimes have been able to uphold these populist authoritarian bargains, or at least important aspects thereof, even during periods of economic crisis and retrenchment, because of continued access to external rent. As a result Arab regimes have been able to avoid some of the deeper structural reforms that have led to intra-elite divisions and subsequent democratic openings elsewhere in the developing world (Brumberg, 1998).

The Mukhabarat state thesis

The third thesis that is often used to explain the resilience of authoritarianism in the Arab world is the Mukhabarat or police state thesis. The proponents of this thesis maintain that the endurance of authoritarianism in the Arab world is largely a function of coercion and repression. Authors such as Kienle, King, Brownlee, and Lucas suggest that authoritarian regimes in the Arab world have endured into the twenty-first century largely because they rely on repression to keep their own societies in line. These authors have argued that the implementation of economic reform and structural adjustment measures in many of the countries of the Arab world during the 1990s has driven Arab regimes to adopt more exclusive economic and social policies. However, rather than forge new democratic bargains with their societies, regimes in the region have resorted to more exclusive and repressive forms of authoritarianism (Kienle, 2001; Lucas, 2003; King, 2003; Brownlee, 2002).

Various scholars of the region have also noted that Arab regimes continue to maintain robust security establishments and to spend a significantly higher percentage of their gross national product (G...

Table of contents

• Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of interviewees
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Egyptian political system from full autocracy under Nasser to liberalized autocracy under Sadat and Mubarak
• 3 Islamists and secularists in the Egyptian opposition
• 4 Alliance building between Islamists and secularists in the Egyptian opposition
• 5 Cycles of conflict and cooperation between Islamists and secularists in the opposition
• 6 Opposition cohesion in comparative perspective
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index