transition, transformation, and democratisation in the mena region 15th october, 2014 – ceseden,...
TRANSCRIPT
TRANSITION, TRANSFORMATION, AND
DEMOCRATISATION IN THE MENA REGION
15th October, 2014 – CESEDEN, Madrid
Professor Christian W HaerpferPresident of World Values Survey Association-
WVSAFirst Chair of Politics
Department of Politics and International RelationsUniversity of Aberdeen
Director of ArabTrans ‘Political and Social Transformations in the Arab World’ research
program
• First Wave: American and French Revolutions in 18th
century until 1930
• Second Wave: Post Second World War 1945 – 1967
• Third Wave:1968 – 2009 Southern Europe, Post-Communist Europe and Post-Soviet
Eurasia
• Forth Wave:2010 - * MENA Region & Asia
Waves of Democratisation
• Commencement: Youth Revolution of May 1968
• First sub-wave:Portugal, Spain, Greece in early 1970’s
• Democratization in post-communist Europe: 1989 – 2009
• 20 years of political transformation
Third Wave of
Democratisation
• November 1989: Start of democratization in Central and South-East Europe
• January 1992: Beginning of democratization in Eastern Europe and collapse of Soviet Union
Third Wave of
Democratisation
• December, 2010: Beginning of protests in Tunisia & Algeria
• 2011-2014: Protests and uprisings in Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Yemen; civil war & disorder in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq
• 2014: Authoritarian regimes overthrown in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt & Yemen; governmental changes introduced in Jordan, Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco; on-going changes in most of MENA countries
Forth Wave of
Democratisation
Waves of DemocratizationFigure 4.2 Emergence of democracies, 1800-1998
Source: Based on Jaggers and Gurr (1996).
Note: Countries scoring 8 and higher on the Polity III scale are coded as democratic.
= ‘positive’ conjuncture = ‘negative’ conjuncture = ‘mixed’ conjuncture
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Year
N
Global Distribution of Political Regimes, 1972-2012
Distribution of Political Regimes in MENA, 1972-2012
Democracy in World RegionsFigure 5.1 Mean level of democracy by world regions, 1972-2004
World region
∆ North America, western Europe, and Oceania
□ Latin America and Caribbean
+ Soviet/communist bloc
○ Asia
0 Sub-Saharan Africa
x Middle East and North Africa
Sources: Polity IV Project (2007) and author’s regional classification.
Year 2004 2002 2000 1998 1996 1994 1992 1990 1988 1986 1984 1982 1980 1978 1976 1974 1972
10
5
0
-5
-10
Mean POLITY IV score
Stage 1: Decline of Ancient Regime
• Stagnation and decline between 2000 and 2010
Stages of Democratisation
Stage 2: Liberalisation of Ancient Regime• Perestroika and Glasnost in Soviet
Union 1985 – 1991
• Attempts of liberalisation in Jordan, Morocco
Stages of Democratisation
Stage 3: Regime Transition
• Non-violent transition in Tunisia, Egypt
• Violent transition in Iraq, Syria, Libya
Stages of Democratisation
Stage 4:• Creation / Birth of new political
regime, mostly a ‘new democracy’• Triple transition of society, economy
and politics
Stages of Democratisation
Stage 5:
• Consolidation of new and partial democracy towards a full and complete democracy
Stages of Democratisation
Path 1: From new democracy towards consolidated democracy
• Tunisia
Dynamics of
Democratisation
Path 2: • From new democracy towards
‘Electoral Democracy’
• Jordan, Algeria, Morocco
Dynamics of
Democratisation
Path 3: • From new democracy via Electoral
Democracy towards ‘Competitive Autocracy’
• Egypt
Dynamics of
Democratisation
Path 4: • From new democracy via Competitive
Autocracy towards ‘Full Autocracy’
• ???
Dynamics of
Democratisation
• Path 1: New democracy towards consolidated democracy
• Path 2: New democracy towards electoral democracy
• Path 3: New democracy towards competitive autocracy
• Path 4: From new democracy towards full autocracy
Dynamics of
Democratisation
• Level 1: consolidated democracy – Tunisia
• Level 2: electoral democracy – Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Jordan
• Level 3: competitive autocracy – Egypt
• Level 4: full autocracy – Saudi Arabia
Levels of Democratisation
• Democratization = open process of political transformation, not an inevitable and necessary transition towards democracy
• Democratization can lead to democracy but also to autocracy and hybrid political regimes
Transformation and
Democratisation
• Transition = Stage 3 of Democratization • Regime from non-democratic regime to
democratic regime• Transition is not automatic historical
process towards democracy and free market economy
• Transition is not the ‘end of history’ (F. Fukuyama)
• Transition is not blind and automatic process towards full democracy
• Transition = Stage 3 of Transformation within the process of Democratization
Transition and
Democratisation
Three Processes of Transformation on Three levels
Field of Transformation
Political Regime
Social System Civil Society
Process of Transformation
Democratisation
Social modernisation
Development of civil society
Level of Transformation
Political System Social System Civic System
a. Macro-level Political
institutions and parties
Social institutions and factors
Civic institutions(Media, Trades Unions, Churches)
b. Meso-levelPolitical activities
Social activities
Forms of public participation, NGOs
c. Micro-levelCitizens and voters
Social actors and households, families
Social networks
Countries in open-ended democratization processes:
• Tunisia• Egypt• Libya• Syria
Future of Democracy
Elections in Tunisia 2011
Importance of Politics for personal life(Percentage ‘Very Important’ & ‘Important; source:
WVS-6)# Country %1 Egypt 75%
2 Bahrain 70%
3 Qatar 67%
4 Kuwait 59%
5 Libya 57%
6 Palestine 50%
7 Lebanon 47%
8 Yemen 44%
9 Jordan 40%
10 Iraq 42%
11 Tunisia 40%
12 Algeria 39%
13 Morocco 16%
TOTAL
MENA AVERAGE 51%
Interest in Politics(Percentage ‘Very interested’ & ‘Interested’;
source: WVS-6)# Country %1 Egypt 74%
2 Qatar 69%
3 Bahrain 65%
4 Kuwait 61%
5 Palestine 60%
6 Libya 59%
7 Lebanon 54%
8 Yemen 49%
9 Iraq 47%
10 Tunisia 42%
11 Jordan 39%
12 Algeria 36%
13 Morocco 15%
TOTAL
MENA AVERAGE 52%
# CountryImportance
of democracyHow democratically
is country today1 Jordan 8,29 6,692 Algeria 8,12 5,793 Lebanon 8,00 5,764 Yemen 8,49 5,085 Iraq 7,95 4,586 Egypt 8,95 4,587 Palestine 7,78 4,468 Libya 8,13 4,319 Morocco 8,49 4,29
10 Tunisia 8,46 3,9211 Bahrain 7,22 N/A12 Kuwait 8,17 N/A13 Qatar 8,33 N/A
MENA AVERAGE 8,19 4,90
Assessments of Democracy(MEANS according to scale from 1 to 10 where “1” is the
lowest mark and “10” – the highest; source: WVS-6)
