The End of the Democratic Bargain

This week protest movements in the Arab world have continued to expand and intensify.  Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya have all experienced historic levels of unrest, while large protest movements have also begun in Jordan, Yemen, and Algeria.  In addition to these seven countries, demonstrations have been organized in Syria, Morocco, Kuwait, Mauritania, Sudan, Oman, and Iraq.  In short, a wave of protests calling for political reform (and in most cases for democratization) has swept through the entire Arab world.

There is no question that this movement is distinctly Arab, and not limited to one particular part of the Arab world writ large.  From the moment protests began in Tunisia it became clear that Arabs throughout the Middle East still identify closely with each other, and saw that their neighbors' were suffering under conditions very similar to their own.  The cry for democracy has been heard nearly everywhere -- from the poorer one-party military states to the richest Gulf sheikdoms, the full spectrum of the Arab world has joined in the groundswell for change.  Many of these states -- besides the fact that they are Arab -- are quite different.  They vary considerably in size, population, geography, wealth, politics, history, political economy, local culture, and ethnic or sectarian makeup.  Still, nearly every Arab state has seen a call for liberalization and reform in the recent months.

One useful way to explain this phenomenon is what Steven Heydemann refers to as the "democratic bargain."  Similar to the concept of a "democracy of bread" as it is sometimes known in North Africa, the democratic bargain describes an implicit agreement between rulers and ruled in the Arab Middle East.  In brief, under the democratic bargain governed peoples may exchange their political freedom for social stability and services from the state, allowing governments to secure political quietism and rule as they please so long as they are able to provide services such as education, health care, and secure employment opportunities.

Incumbent governments everywhere in the Arab world use the democratic bargain as a tool to retain their authority and weaken opposition.  In fact, the first response of many Arab governments to the revolt in Tunisia -- such as Algeria and Jordan -- was to raise subsidies on basic goods and offer pay raises to public sector employees.  Bahrain has employed the most literal interpretation of the democratic bargain so far, offering each Bahraini family 1000 dinars ($2650) in the days before several planned protests (since then, King Hamad has become a little more hard-nosed).

In the post-colonial era, many Arab states built their legitimacy on a mixture of populism, nationalism, and in some cases (such as Saudi Arabia and Morocco) religious authority.  Ruling regimes were not born out of popular sovereignty, but they derived legitimacy by providing jobs and basic services to their people (and often by supplanting years of unwelcome foreign domination).  The enormous government bureaucracies throughout the Arab world are a legacy of the democratic bargain, which compelled governments to guarantee jobs to their university graduates.

Arab governments have been unable to hold up their end of the democratic bargain for decades.  Steady population growth and economic decline have combined to create a situation in which states that based their legitimacy on the ability to provide for their people are unable to do so.  At the same time, the populist and nationalist rhetoric that lent these governments some ideological credibility have eroded and ultimately been repudiated by the Arab public.

Lacking popular support and any semblance of political legitimacy, Arab states turned to repression as a means to hold onto power.  Fierce security services grew to brutalize their people and cow opposition to ensure survival of the incumbent regime.

Foreign military aid, and in some cases revenue from oil exports, have allowed many Arab regimes to artificially perpetuate their regimes in defiance of their own people and their failure to continue the democratic bargain.  The region-wide revolts against this system are the result of years of disservice and abuse the Arabs have suffered at the hands of their own governments.  Today they seek a restoration of some form of legitimacy for their beleaguered states, and a new democratic bargain.

However, this does not mean they are willing to accept another strongman leader in exchange for dead-end bureaucratic jobs and unsustainable price subsidies.  By and large the protest movements are calling for democracy, or at the very least fair treatment from their governments and respect for their rights.  The old democratic bargain has been ineffective for years, and the recent awakening of the Arab world is based on a desire for true democracy, legitimate popular sovereignty, and a government that will serve its people.  The chances for success in this endeavor have increased dramatically -- today they depend primarily on three factors, which I will discuss in my next post.