The advent of Arab 'Presidential Security States'....

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[OXFAN: Excerpts]

".... Talk of a third wave of democratisation or of a global move towards greater political and economic openness obscures the fact that, in most of the Middle East, developments are moving in the opposite direction -- towards the intensification of presidential power and its support by a growing security apparatus.

The majority of Arab regimes which used to be styled 'authoritarian' are now mutating into something much more durable and powerful and can no longer be seen as transiting towards liberal forms. Instead they are being reworked to concentrate ever more power in life-time presidencies even while paying lip service to electoral democracy.

• This is the case in Yemen and Syria as well as all across Arab North Africa.
  
• Much the same analysis can be applied to the major Arab monarchies such as Jordan and Morocco.
  
• The Libyan system is similar, especially as regards the inheritance of family power, but is yet more authoritarian.
  
• Only Lebanon and, for the time being, Iraq, remain immune.

Presidential security state mimic the monarchies in being hereditary and for life ('republican monarchies'); support from a small elite with a vested interest in preserving the existing distribution of power; strong backing from the military and from a growing security system (police, intelligence and under-cover forces); support from the United States, Europe and Russia for their role in combating terrorism and facilitating the flow of oil, which involves little criticism of their human rights records, treatment of local oppositions and manipulation of elections.

Presidential power. the president, who rules by weakening civil society organisations and the legislative and judicial branches, while balancing the various instruments of coercion under his control. They are highly personal and so dependent on the individual relationships and political skills and resources of the president. They also depend on having a family member as a plausible successor .... Presidents have to be adept at balancing two unequal forces -- the military and the internal security apparatus:

• Whereas the military is a unified institution with a clear view of its own political role, the security apparatus is larger, more diffuse, more closely involved with society, omnipresent inside and outside government, and with immediate power to identify and punish persons taken to be a threat to regime.
  
• Despite its ubiquitous presence, the security apparatus's lack of broader legitimacy, fragmentation into numerous components and structural subordination to the military militate against it assuming ultimate and direct political power.

..... the regime('s) with difficult choices:

• It needs to hold out the prospect of expanding popular participation in political decision-making, including the holding of reasonably free and fair elections, ........It also has to achieve economic progress while fulfilling its 'social contract' with the people, which presents divisive choices between public and private economic actors ....

Strengths and weaknesses. This system is likely to be durable, at least in the medium term. However, much will depend on the lessons to be drawn from Egypt and the possible accession to power of President Hosni Mubarak's untested son, Gamal -- only the second such event after the transfer of power from Hafez al-Assad to Bashar in Syria in 2000. If this is seen to be successful, other fathers, such as Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi and Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh, will become emboldened.

Such systems are probably most vulnerable if the president is weakened or incapacitated:

• prior to or having just completed preparations for the transfer of power to a relative;
  
• immediately after such a transfer but before power is consolidated by the successor; or
  
• when the regime is internally divided in the face of a major threat to security.

In these situations, intervention by the military as an institution, or a component within it (possibly supported by either a broadly popular political force, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, or elements of the security forces), is the most likely outcome. However, a complete breakdown of political order remains a possibility.

Deep state. At present, an orderly transfer of presidential power to a son or other relative is the most plausible outcome. It is likely that the vast internal security forces controlled by Interior Ministries will not only continue to grow but also become more blatant in the way they suppress dissent. What could emerge is a 'deep state' -- a core of clandestine military, intelligence and security operatives who arrogate to themselves the right to decide what is in the nation's interest, and work underground to achieve that.

Middle East exceptionalism. The reasons why the Middle East seems to be bucking a world trend towards greater political pluralism include:

• the comparatively large size of the military and its dominant role in post-colonial Arab republics;
  
• the role of oil and strategic rents in providing patronage to incumbent elites and, in the case of the former, incentives for external actors to accommodate those elites; and
  
• the legacy of Western interference and confrontation with Arab nationalism and Islamism, which discredit Western systems and preferences.

Given the spread of republican monarchies across North Africa and into the Levant and the south-western corner of the Arabian Peninsula, it seems less likely that either Islam or direct confrontation with Israel have played a decisive role in creating or sustaining the system.

Another explanation of the system's origins and persistence is the modelling effect in the region. Republican monarchies have learned not only from one another, but from the actual monarchies, the resilience of which has confounded predictions of some 30-40 years ago. In both republics and monarchies the frailty of political infrastructure requires simplification of leadership succession and family inheritance to become the standard type.

Another factor is the support provided to these governments by Western powers in order to combat terrorism or other threats to Western interests, including illegal migration, sometimes reinforced by well-meaning attempts to promote democracy. These typically end up strengthening executive branch institutions or encouraging a quasi-capitalism in political economies monopolised by a small number of business families allied to the regime, thereby reinforcing the regime itself rather than forces seeking to reform or replace it..."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 7:50 PM