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Promise and Threat of Managed Reform
Incumbent Regimes and the “ King’s Dilemma”
in the Arab World

By Marina Ottaway and Michele Dunne

Incumbent regimes in the Arab world, monarchical and republican alike, have
weathered the period of intense, worldwide political change that has followed
the end of the Cold War without giving up much of their power. Though not
completely untouched by events that have shaken the rest of the world, most
Arab regimes have survived the wave of political transformation that has engulfed
the rest of the world relatively intact. Many regimes have carried out
reforms, but the reforms have been directed at modernizing the economy and
addressing social issues rather than redistributing power in the political system.

Indeed, most regimes that talk of political reform are in reality avoiding it. To
be sure, there have been some political changes: For example, more political
parties exist today in most Arab countries than fifteen years ago, and more
countries hold elections of varying quality. Access to information and the quality
of political debate have increased in many countries as well. Power, however,
remains firmly where it was: in the hands of kings and presidents.

Even the names of most incumbents are those long familiar to analysts of the
Arab world. In countries where a long-standing leader has died, a son is likely to
have replaced him. Hosni Mubarak has been in power in Egypt since 1981, and
when he dies another Mubarak will likely succeed him. Muammar al-Qaddafi
has been at the helm in Libya for almost four decades, with a son waiting in
the wings. President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali remains in power in Tunisia and
President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen. The royal houses of the Gulf countries
are still firmly in place, although the vast number of their members makes it
somewhat difficult to predict precisely who the next incumbent will be. Algeria,
after ten years of a particularly nasty civil war, managed to stabilize by resurrecting
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the country’s first postindependence foreign minister.

In Morocco and Jordan, sons have succeeded their fathers, as could be
expected, but so has Hafez al-Assad in republican Syria. Indeed, Arab kings and
presidents alike still die in office, particularly now that coups d’état have gone
somewhat out of fashion.

Despite their continuity, even their apparent immobility, incumbent Arab
regimes are ultimately likely to emerge as important actors in processes of political
reform in Arab countries, if and when it takes place. They have power
and they have control. They can introduce reforms and they can prevent them.

True, regimes are not likely to introduce reforms that will undermine their
own power if they can avoid it and may not introduce any reform at all unless
some pressure is brought to bear on them. But in all countries, there are people
within the ruling establishment who see the need for change. Reformers within
the ruling establishments can be important agents of political change—and
particularly of carefully managed reform.

There are reform advocates in all Arab regimes. Even the most conservative
among them are conscious of the fact that the world is changing rapidly
politically and economically, and that their countries have to adapt, embracing
ideas and adopting policies more in line with dominant trends in the world.

The ideologies with which republican Arab governments sought to justify their
rejection of democracy have lost their luster. Instead, embracing the ideal of
liberal democracy is now perceived as a necessity even by governments that have
no intention of abiding by it. No regime talks of a specific Arab brand of democracy
today (except to some extent that of Qaddafi in Libya), although many
argue that each country must get to democracy in its own way and its own time.
Monarchical regimes also feel the pressure to demonstrate the new vitality and
continued relevance of their rule. Even the monarchs who control power most
firmly in their own hands—at best sharing it within the family—want to be
viewed as constitutional monarchs. Although even the most open-minded and
reformists among them have no intention of ruling without governing, they all
rewrite and amend their countries’ constitutions with surprising frequency—
without transferring any real power to the new institutions.

Amending constitutions has turned into a veritable industry. Parliaments
and local governments are prime targets for reform, finding their prerogatives
and duties constantly modified. In Egypt and Algeria, constitutional amendments
have also targeted the presidency, forcing incumbents to compete with
other candidates in elections, rather than being chosen by a tame parliament
and anointed in a popular referendum. Laws that regulate political competition
and contestation—election laws, laws on the registration of political parties,
even laws on press freedom—are being revised, often repeatedly, in most countries.

Indeed, the institutional architecture is being modified throughout the
Arab world, and electoral contestation, while not necessarily leading to greater
democracy, is at least giving many countries a veneer of modernity. Even the
new rules are generally so restrictive, however, that incumbents are in no danger
of losing elections any time soon.

Such reforms have mostly been driven by the monarchy or the ruling party—
occasionally, but not often, as a result of pressure coming from below. Although
there are indications in all Arab countries of a growing demand for more open
political systems and greater popular participation, the organizations through
which the demand is channeled are weak, and the pressure on governments
far from overwhelming. Pressure from the Unites States and Europe has also
helped convince some regimes to introduce change, but that pressure has not
been particularly strong or consistent. This has allowed most regimes to introduce
as much or as little reform as they want, preserving their power even as
they try to give their countries at least a veneer of political openness.

Because reform has been introduced mostly from the top, the goal has not
been democratization but modernization, both as a genuine attempt to improve
the quality and efficiency of governance and as a cosmetic device to make the
system look better and thus be more acceptable domestically and internationally.

This introduces a great deal of confusion in discussion about reform. As
used by regime reformers, the concept of modernization has come to embrace
neoliberal economic policies and administrative efficiency. This is a far cry from
the socialist-oriented approach to modernization accepted in the past by Arab
nationalists, who rejected the idea that modernization was synonymous with
Westernization, advocating instead a different path to development and a different
approach to political participation. Today, the idea of modernization has
gained new acceptance, particularly among incumbent regimes that reject democracy yet perceive the need for greater efficiency both in the administration
and in the economy, although it is called “reform.”

With the possible exception of the United Arab Emirates, no Arab country,
not even major oil producers, feels complacent about its economic position. Until
the oil price increases triggered by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most oil-producing
countries were feeling the economic pinch brought about by falling oil prices
and a growing population. Oil was no longer the inexhaustible source of revenue
capable of satisfying all economic requirements and giving governments an infinite
capacity to manipulate and buy consensus. Saudi Arabia was beginning to
feel the necessity to budget and make choices—giving the royal family a strong
incentive to share some power over economic decisions with the Shura Council.

Kuwait worried about the possibility that current oil revenue would no longer
cover the budget. Oil price increases have given producers a respite from mounting
economic pressure, but all governments are acutely aware that oil alone cannot
provide eternal security to countries with rapidly growing populations facing the
competitive environment of the world economy. For non-oil-producing countries,
the imperative of developing a viable economic niche is even stronger. For them,
the price of failure is not merely having to cut back on generous services and allowances to the population and curbing marginally the lavish spending of huge ruling families. Rather, the price of failure for these countries is seeing the further impoverishment of an already poor population, possibly leading to political unrest.

Furthermore, there is growing awareness in the Arab world as there is elsewhere
that developing viable, competitive economies requires a host of reforms.
Banking systems, contract laws, courts that adjudicate commercial cases, and
the way in which bureaucrats deal with foreign investors all need to be overhauled,
as does the education system in many cases. Although reforms are always
partial in all countries and none usually attain the textbook perfection
suggested by international financial institutions and foreign experts, Arab countries
know that with few exceptions they have a very long way to go before attaining
competitiveness.

There is no agreement, however, about the role of political reform in modernization
and economic revitalization. Some incumbent regimes view democratization
as an obstacle to the development of a more dynamic economy and
a more efficient administration—and of course as a threat to their own power.

Many in the Kuwaiti government and ruling family, for example, complain that
Kuwait’s parliament is an obstacle to the development of a vibrant economy
and the administrative and legal reform capable of supporting it. They point
with envy to Dubai, whose booming economy, they argue, is unfettered by
the delays and inefficiency caused by parliamentary debates and compromises
among political factions. The Moroccan regime, committed to a vigorous reform
program in the realm of human rights and, increasingly, economic development,
has given no sign that it perceives the need to build stronger political
institutions at the same time.

The drive toward modernization is likely to accelerate in the coming years.
Many Arab countries have just experienced a generational transition or are on
the verge of one. In Jordan, Syria, and Morocco the generational transition has
taken place with a transfer of power from father to son even in republican Syria.

A generational transition—probably also from father to son—is likely to take
place soon in Egypt and Libya. And in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will
also face the same problem as the advanced age of the present generation of rulers
will soon make impossible the brother-to-brother power transmission that
has kept power in the hands of an aging group.

The idea that the rise to power of a young ruler might provide the spark
needed for real transformation in the Arab world became popular when in a
short period of time five sons succeeded their fathers: Emir Hamad bin Khalifa
al-Thani in Qatar in 1995; King Muhammad VI in Morocco, King Abdullah II
in Jordan, and King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa in Bahrain in 1999; and President
Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2000. All five came to power talking of reform
and raising hopes both at home and abroad that they would pursue a vigorous
agenda of economic and political transformation, as Juan Carlos had done in
Spain. The hopes proved unfounded, however. All five, like the sons who may
yet succeed their fathers in Egypt and Libya, undoubtedly saw themselves as
modernizers, but none pursued a transformational political reform agenda.

Nonetheless, the drive toward modernity is likely to accelerate with the next
generation. Although young heads of state and their supporters may lack the
vision and courage to drive toward democratization, they will feel more keenly
the need to be seen as modernizers, and their actions will be subject to greater
public scrutiny due to the changed information environment. This means that
Arab countries will soon face even more starkly than they do now what many
years ago Samuel Huntington called “the king’s dilemma”: that is, limited reforms
introduced from the top often increase rather than decrease bottom-up
demand for more radical change.1 The unintended consequence of even cautious
reforms may be an out-of-control change that wipes out the very ruling elite
who initiated the reform. The fate of the shah of Iran is a prime example of the
unintended consequences of top-down reforms. He promoted a “white revolution”
to modernize the country but was eventually deposed by a religion-based
movement that developed at least in part in response to the dislocation resulting
from the white revolution. Similarly, Gorbachev’s perestroika led to a series of
catastrophic (from his point of view) events culminating in his demise, confirming
that the king’s dilemma is a peril to which all reformers are exposed—no
matter the kind of political system in which they operate. There are of course
also examples of countries where the regime succeeds in maintaining firm political
control in the midst of a rapid modernization—China has done so for several
decades. Although the outcome is not certain, it is nevertheless clear that even
reform managed from the top can set in motion uncontrolled change.

Incumbent regimes in the Arab world are as acutely aware of the dangers of
runaway reform as they are of the necessity for change. Different regimes are
following different approaches in an attempt to control the process of change,
making sure that it will go as far as they want but will not gain an unstoppable
momentum.

Models of Managed Reform

Each Arab country has dealt with the domestic and international expectation
that reform needs to take place in its own unique manner, depending on the
character of the regime, the views of the leaders, the intensity of the political
opposition, the degree of external pressure, and other factors. It is nevertheless
possible to recognize three main patterns of managed reform. One consists of
reforming political institutions in a way that projects an image of change but
does not entail a significant degree of power redistribution—what many Arabs
in the Gulf refer to as the “Bahrain model,” but which is also discernible, in a
different form, in Egypt.

A second pattern involves a degree of reform relating to social issues, particularly
concerning personal status and occasionally individual rights but does not
address the reform of political institutions in a meaningful way. Morocco is the
best example of this second pattern, and Saudi Arabia may well follow that path,
but much more slowly. A variant of this model, seen most clearly in the United
Arab Emirates and Tunisia, entails an aggressive policy of economic development
and some administrative modernization, with virtually no political reform nor
even a modest degree of liberalization. Such a model is proving increasingly attractive to young rulers, such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria and apparently Muammar Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, who is being groomed to succeed his father.

The third pattern of managed reform includes a degree of acceptance of the
inevitability, and even the legitimacy, of an opposition, coupled with attempts
to contain that opposition and reduce its role. Yemen provides an example of
this pattern as does Algeria.

To be sure, no country fits one model perfectly. In most, managed reform
from the top includes features that belong to more than one model. Nevertheless,
there are dominant trends in each country, and the models help explain what is
happening in each.

All attempts at managed reform share one common characteristic: They represent
efforts to stimulate and limit a process of change simultaneously. This
means that all these attempts are highly problematic and marked by tensions
and conflicts, with each approach having its own type of dominant tensions
and conflicts.

Institutional Reform Without Power-Sharing

Among current approaches to political reform, steps taken by various regimes
to introduce formal institutional reform without actually transferring real
power to the new institutions may be an attempt to appease either internal or
external forces calling for change. Internal opponents may be lured into playing
a political game where the odds are stacked against them, in the hopes of
gaining strength and being able to exert greater pressure on the regime in time.
|}Outsiders are more easily satisfied, particularly if they have little vested interest
in the domestic politics of the so-called reforming country but need to show
instead that their policy is working.

Bahrain. Bahrain is an example of institutional reform that does not entail
a transfer of power. It has been so successful, in fact, that other countries in
the Gulf would like to emulate “the Bahraini model” of political reform. In
1999, King Hamad ascended the throne following five years of violent unrest
by the economically and politically underprivileged Shi’a, who constitute some
70 percent of Bahrain’s population. Eager to stabilize the country and to build a
power base independent of his powerful uncle, the long-serving prime minister,
Hamad promised broad reforms. He showed goodwill by releasing political
prisoners and welcoming home political exiles and won extensive public support
in a 2001 referendum on a vaguely worded “National Charter” that promised
to restore parliamentary life that had been suspended since 1975.

When the promised new constitution was issued in 2002, however, it gave the
elected lower house of parliament fewer legislative powers than it had enjoyed
under the old constitution and at the same time created an appointed upper
house with greater powers. In response, the principal political societies (Bahrain
does not permit parties) boycotted the 2002 legislative elections. Al-Wefaq, the
largest Shi’i political society, decided after much soul-searching to participate in
the 2005 municipal elections and then in the 2006 legislative elections in the
belief that it would surely capture a majority in the lower house. But through
a combination of district gerrymandering and targeted campaigns to defeat al-
Wefaq’s few Sunni allies, the regime managed to deprive al-Wefaq of a majority.

The United States, which had applauded Hamad’s National Charter initiative
and other steps to reconcile with the opposition, ignored the emptiness of the
reforms, even after the Bahraini government ousted the U.S.-funded National
Democratic Institute (NDI)—after NDI had helped persuade al-Wefaq to participate
in the 2006 elections but before it could monitor the polling. More
serious than the gerrymandering of electoral districts, which could be easily
reversed, is the fact that the king is trying to permanently change the composition
of the population by giving citizenship to Sunni Arab workers from Syria
and Jordan, and even to Sunna from the subcontinent, in an attempt to turn
Shi’a into a minority.

From the point of view of the regime, Bahrain’s institutional reforms have
been extremely successful, strengthening its position in several important respects.
Although the Shi’i opposition remains dissatisfied, civil unrest is much
less than it was in the 1990s, partly because al-Wefaq has decided to play the
political game by the government’s rule and partly because of undeniable improvements in human rights practices and civil liberties. The opposition has
been fragmented due to disagreements over whether or not to participate in
elections; al-Wefaq now faces competition from a new popular movement,
al-Haqq. Instead of being isolated and facing a united Shi’i opposition, the
Bahraini regime has managed to position itself in the comfortable political
center between the Sunni Islamist societies who hold a majority in parliament
and a divided Shi’i opposition. Bahrain also need not worry about any serious
pressure to reform from the United States; even if the United States were not
bogged down in Iraq, Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet and has already been
granted a free trade agreement.

From the point of view of progress toward a more open political system,
Bahrain’s reforms do not amount to much. Furthermore, the first, largely cosmetic
step toward institutional reform from the top does not appear to be the
prelude to more substantive reform. The ruling establishment has not given any
sign of wanting to follow up, and the situation that has developed in the region
would make it particularly difficult for it to embark on a slow process of power
transfer. The confessional tensions triggered in the entire Gulf region by the war
in Iraq and the perceived threat to Sunni regimes by a rising Iran is making an
already cautious regime even more cautious. So while the palace has effectively
outflanked the opposition for the present, this story is far from over because the
Shi’i majority will continue to press for greater rights.

Egypt. The case of Egypt highlights more strongly the true downside of institutional
reform from the top—its reversibility. Egypt has had what could be considered
a modern political system for most of the twentieth century. After a reasonably
liberal period beginning in the 1920s, Egypt’s political system returned
to authoritarianism under Gamal Abdel Nasser after the 1952 Free Officers’
coup, before returning to a limited multipartyism under his successor, President
Anwar al-Sadat. Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded Sadat after the latter’s assassination at the hands of militant Islamist groups in 1981, has been in power
ever since, and the system has wavered between relative openness and repression
for over twenty years. More recently, with Hosni Mubarak approaching the
inevitable end of his natural life and the problem of succession after a twenty
five-year reign looming, the country has entered a tense transitional phase combining more free-wheeling political debate with self-serving reforms and harsh
treatment of the opposition. Institutional reform is a central component of this
repressive phase. It is also the newest. The other major component, repression
by the security services, has never been far below the surface in Egypt.

Under pressure to open up the political system from the United States and
the domestic opposition, including an Islamist opposition that has embraced
the democratic creed, the Egyptian government has responded by embracing
the idea of reform, but then twisting it around, closing the system further rather
than opening it. At the center of the maneuver has been the issue of constitutional
reform. Like all Arab constitutions, the Egyptian one creates an imbalanced
system. On paper, the powers are separated, although certainly not equal,
with the executive holding a disproportionate sway. In practice, the situation
is worse, because the already weak parliament is controlled by the president’s
party and emergency laws have allowed the government to bypass the relatively
independent regular courts to have political cases tried in the military courts.
Demands of the opposition thus have concentrated on constitutional reform,
and Mubarak appeared to accept the idea.

A first constitutional reform was implemented before the 2005 presidential
elections. The new article provided for direct, universal suffrage election of the
president, replacing the old system in which the parliament chose the president
and the populace confirmed the choice in a referendum. Though ostensibly
more democratic, the new constitutional provision introduced many restrictions
on presidential candidates to guarantee that no viable opposition personality
would be able to challenge the incumbent or his designated successor in
the foreseeable future. A new series of constitutional amendments was approved
by the parliament in early 2007 and overwhelmingly approved in a referendum
in which the voters’ turnout was probably well under 5 percent (even the official
estimate was only 25 percent).

Presented as democratic reforms, the thirty-four constitutional amendments
gave the president the power to disband the parliament, removed elections from
the judicial supervision that had prevented complete manipulation by the government, gave the president wide discretion to move trials to military courts,
and barred any party with a religious orientation from registering. The latter
amendment was a blatant attempt to undermine the Muslim Brotherhood. In
the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood, an illegal organization, had
nevertheless captured 20 percent of parliamentary seats by presenting its candidates as independents. Constitutional amendments also cleared the way for
the planned change to a mixed system in which most seats are elected through a
party list system, yet another way to disadvantage the Brotherhood.

Institutional reform introduced from the top, as the Egyptian experience
shows, can lead to quick change, quicker in fact than if the reforms were seriously
discussed in a parliament where the opposition is well represented, where
they would be the object of lengthy haggling and difficult compromises. This
is of course an advantage when reforms facilitate participation and lead to a
more open political system. It is a serious problem when they close the political
space.

Both the Bahraini and Egyptian examples show that institutional reform introduced
from the top by a government under only moderate domestic pressure
or no pressure at all is extremely unlikely to affect the core power of the ruling
establishment. For that reason, regimes embarking on institutional reform from
the top refuse to recognize a legitimate role for the opposition. Opponents are
repressed in Egypt, where even centrist opposition parties are treated as a danger
by the government. Bahrain does not even allow the formation of political
parties, only that of political societies. In reality, however, the opposition enjoys
strong public support and has more ability to put pressure on the government
than in most Arab countries.

Outright repression of regime opponents, combined with constitutional and
institutional maneuvering, has so far preserved these regimes’ monopoly over
power. But they have not been able to quell the widespread discontent in the
society that stems from lack of economic opportunities and political outlets.

Bahrain has a history of periodic upheavals. Egypt is at present experiencing a
wave of strikes and protests that even the powerful security apparatus cannot
prevent. Though too uncoordinated and unorganized to put real pressure on
the government, spontaneous unrest nevertheless constitutes a troublesome and
difficult-to-control phenomenon for the regime.

Substantive Change Without Institutional Reform

Reform introduced from the top does not always start with institutions. In
fact, one of the most promising examples of managed reform in the Arab region
comes from Morocco, where the king has put much more emphasis on
substantive reform in areas that affect citizens most immediately—human
rights, personal freedoms, and more recently economic reform, while leaving
the country’s institutional architecture largely untouched. To the extent that
Saudi Arabia embarks on a reform process in the foreseeable future, it is more
likely to start in the realm of human rights and socioeconomic issues than in
the political realm.

Morocco. Since the 1990s, Morocco has undergone a steady process of reform,
first under King Hassan II and then under his son Muhammad VI. Slowly,
the initiatives taken by the king have improved the country’s human rights
record, thrown light on the repressions of first decades of independence and
compensated some of the victims, enacted a significantly liberal reform of the
personal status and family code, allowed freer though by no means completely
free elections, and allowed an Islamist party to register and compete in elections.
During this entire period, the reform process has been managed tightly
from the top. The king has maintained the initiative throughout, monopolized
the reform process, and limited the role of the parliament.

Changes in Morocco cannot be dismissed as purely cosmetic. The country
is without doubt more open, and the government less repressive, than it was in
the past. Nor is there any sign that this process of managed reform has run its
course and can go no further. The king is targeting economic reform and development as the next important steps. In the runup to the 2007 parliamentary
elections, there was also much speculation that the country was also about to
reach an important political milestone, with the main Islamist party, the Party
for Justice and Development (PJD) receiving the largest number of votes. In
reality, however, the PJD received the second largest number of votes (fewer
than in the previous elections) and was not invited to join the new coalition
government led by the Istiqlal Party.

Despite these changes, power in Morocco is still where it has always been,
firmly in the hands of the king or, more broadly, the palace. The reform process
in Morocco is not meant to lead to democracy but only to a more liberal environment and better governance, and to some extent it is succeeding. Morocco thus illustrates both the possibilities and the limits of managed substantive reform.

Saudi Arabia. The example of Morocco has some relevance in interpreting
trends emerging in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi kingdom has undergone very little
visible reform. The politics of the country is particularly opaque, because so
much unfolds inside the royal family, tied to the issue of succession and the
relationship between the royal family and the religious establishment. The only
reform of political institutions so far has been the relaunching, after a long
hiatus, of elected municipal councils. The councils have limited power, have
not been particularly assertive so far in using whatever power they have, and
have not elicited much long-term interest on the part of Saudi citizens. Other
reforms that appeared possible when oil prices were low before the Iraq war,
particularly the possibility that the Shura Council be given some oversight role
over the budget, lost urgency as oil prices skyrocketed, easing budgetary pressures
and thus reducing the necessity to share responsibility for difficult choices
and unpopular cuts. The already weak drive toward institutional reform appears
to have halted for the time being.

The need and demand for substantive reforms continue, however. Oil price
increases have not eased the tensions that come from the fundamental dissonance
in the society between the changes that are taking place as the population
becomes urbanized, the economy changes, and young people get an education,
and the unchanging, strict social and moral codes that regulate the lives
of individuals. This dissonance is to some extent a problem in all Gulf countries,
where oil revenue has bought new opportunities and lifestyles that are in
conflict with tradition and moral codes, but the tension is particularly high in
Saudi Arabia.

The list of tensions is almost endless. Young men and women spend long
years in school but remain unemployed because they are not prepared for the
available jobs, which continue to be filled by foreigners. The position of women
and the personal status codes that regulate the rights of individuals and family
relations are unchanged, but Saudi women are educated, including a high
percentage at the tertiary level and go into business. Young Saudis, men and
women, spend years studying abroad or at least are exposed to a different world
of ideas and debates through the mass media. At the same time, the society
remains deeply religious, and Islamic extremism, though controlled, is a strong
presence in the society. There is no predictable, inevitable resolution of these
tensions—certainly, there is no reason to believe that the spread of education
will lead inexorably to the Westernization of the society or to democracy nor,
conversely, that an explosion of social discontent is inevitable. However, the
considerable areas of dissonance that exist in Saudi Arabia suggest that the
government is likely to introduce reforms in areas such as education, women’s
rights, or individual rights in general. There has already been considerable debate
on some of these issues, particularly concerning education. There has also
been some relaxing of rules concerning organizations of civil society and professional
syndicates, as well as some efforts to improve the functioning of the
judicial system.

The process of managed reform in Morocco started by addressing social and
human rights issues, and it seems probable that Saudi Arabia will also address
social issues first. In Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, however, reformers
have chosen economic transformation as the way to move the country forward.
Both countries have been extremely successful, despite the quite different
characteristics of their economies. Strikingly, both countries have been able to
manage the social transformation entailed in such rapid growth without opening
themselves to pressure for political change. The new economy has not as yet
created demands for change in the political system.

Coming to Terms With the Opposition

Only a few Arab states where the reform process is strictly controlled from the
top have been willing to come to terms with the existence and indeed with the
legitimacy of opposition forces. This does not mean that the ruling establishment
does not seek to curb the opposition—indeed, all governments, in all
countries, would like to limit the influence of the opposition. Rather, it means
that it is resigned to its existence.

Not all countries that have accepted the existence of multiple parties also
truly accept the existence of an opposition. Staying with previous examples,
Morocco tries to co-opt all opposition parties and to appropriate their reform
plans, whereas the Egyptian regime immediately intervenes to discredit or destroy
any political party whose role threatens to become significant. Countries
that were forced to accept the existence of an opposition when faced with unfavorable circumstances still seek to free themselves from it when conditions improve.

In Kuwait, for example, the ruling family was forced to acknowledge the
power of merchant families and thus an elected parliament in the past, but not
all its members have abandoned the dream of getting rid of the parliament. In
fact, the ruling establishment of Kuwait regards Bahrain and Dubai with a degree
of envy. Bahrain has set up a tame, closely controlled, only partially elected
parliament; in Dubai, the emir rules unfettered. Kuwait itself has to deal with a
parliament determined to exercise real power, proposing legislation and holding
hearings in which government ministers are exposed to harsh questioning and
censure by the parliament even if they are members of the ruling family.

In a similar vein, many regimes still refuse to recognize the legitimacy of
political parties. With the exception of Yemen, no country on the Arabian
Peninsula allows parties, nor does Libya. Syria allows no party other than those
affiliated with the ruling Baath Party. Other countries allow political parties but
make the registration process extremely difficult. Egypt, for example, does not
allow political parties whose programs have religious overtones and also refuses
to register any new political party whose program is deemed insufficiently different
from that of already registered organizations, leaving aspiring parties with
a very small margin for maneuver.

There are, nevertheless, some countries where the ruling establishment tries to
control closely any political reform but at the same time has resigned itself to the
existence of an opposition. Two interesting cases in this respect are Yemen and
Algeria. For different reasons, the governments of these countries, while essentially
authoritarian, appear to have concluded that they must tolerate opposition
parties. In neither case does the acceptance of opposition parties denote a particular openness of the regime or the willingness to accept true democratic participation. Rather, special circumstances have led to this anomalous situation.

Yemen. In Yemen, the government was forced to come to terms with the existence of an opposition to prevent the recently reunified and rather shaky country from splitting apart again. The Republic of Yemen was formed in 1990,
when the northern Yemen Arab Republic and the southern People’s Democratic
Republic of Yemen decided to unify. Unification was difficult, because the two
republics were very different. For years, the more conservative north had been
propped up by the West, and the supposedly Marxist-oriented south by the
Soviet Union. Both countries had single party systems, however, and reunification
was swiftly carried out when the northern General People’s Congress
(GPC) and the Southern Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) entered into a powersharing
agreement, dividing up posts on a fifty-fifty basis. Because of the way
reunification took place, the existence of at least two political parties became
entrenched and irrevocable. A few months after unification, former members of
the GPC formed the Islamist Islah Party in an attempt to win away votes from
the YSP by appealing to religious conservatism.

True unification of north and south proved quite difficult, however, with
competing northern and southern elites remaining jealous of their power and
prerogatives and little inclined to share. In 1994, tension flared into a brief
period of civil war. Inevitably, the much more populous north emerged as the
dominant section of the country. The YSP, which had reneged on its commitment
to unity, lost its clout in the cabinet and the parity of posts with the GPC.

The northern-dominated military took control of the southern territory, and
the GPC took control of the government and the parliament. The GPC share
of the parliament increased relentlessly from about half the parliamentary seats
before the civil war in 1993, to almost two-thirds in 1997, to well over twothirds
in 2003. Yet, despite the setback, the YSP was allowed to survive. The
government could ill afford to eliminate the last vestige of southern power.

The existence of an opposition has thus remained entrenched in the political
system of Yemen. It was strengthened by the 1997 decision by Islah to leave the
government and become a loyal opposition and by the 2003 decision by Islah
and the YSP, together with some smaller parties, to enter into a coalition. It can
be argued that the GPC can well afford to improve its democratic credentials by
tolerating an opposition, even an unusual alliance of leftist and Islamist parties,
because it still controls a large majority in parliament and has all the tools of
control and manipulation an overwhelming majority provides. Indeed, it is less
dangerous for the regime to accept the existence of the opposition than to try
to crush it, given the weakness of the state and the fact that Islah is a movement
with deep tribal roots. The regime, in other words, has concluded that closely
managed reform from the top is compatible with tolerance of an opposition.

Algeria. The case of Algeria has some striking parallels to that of Yemen. There,
too, tolerance of an opposition in a system that can at best be defined as semiauthoritarian evolved as a result of the need for reconciliation after civil war rather than out of a desire for democracy. As a result, as in Yemen, the recognition of the legitimacy of the opposition has not been accompanied by real power-sharing
or a substantive process of democratization.

A perfect model of centralized state authority in a single party system under
military tutelage from independence in 1962 until the late 1980s, Algeria embarked
on a poorly planned electoral process in an attempt to quell popular discontent.
With little preparation, in 1989 Algeria put an end to the monopoly
over power by the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale), the independence
movement that had dominated the country until then. Parties were allowed to
form, including the FIS (Front Islamique du Salut, or Islamic Salvation Front).

The FIS participated in the 1990 municipal elections on a radical platform calling
for an Islamic state and emerged as the strongest party. It entered the first
round of the parliamentary elections in December 1991 on the same platform,
winning a plurality although not the absolute majority of votes. The likelihood
that the FIS would win the second election round scheduled in early 1992
prompted the army, which still retained ultimate power, to intervene directly,
deposing the president and halting the election process.

The outcome was a brutal civil war that ravaged the country until 1999 in
which both Islamist groups and the military committed massacres of civilians.
Because the Algerian government to this day has not been willing to open an
investigation into the events of this period or to set up a truth and reconciliation
commission, information about the events of the civil war remains murky
though sufficiently clear to conclude that all sides committed heinous acts of
brutality.

Politically, the years of the civil war were marked by a tug-of-war between a
series of weak presidents and the generals in the army and secret services. It was
only with the election of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 1999 that power
started moving back into civilian hands, although even now the military looms
as a heavy presence in the politics of Algeria, the 800-pound gorilla that could
reappear at any time. An important factor in the military acquiescence to pull
back was the desperate need for Algeria to emerge from the international isolation
in which it had fallen during the war. This required not only curbing the
violence and restoring a degree of stability but also improving the image of the
country. The outward restoration of civilian power helped in this respect.

It is against this background that the pluralist politics of Algeria under
Bouteflika needs to be understood. The real contention for power is between
the civilian establishment around the president and the military. No matter
what the constitution and laws say, the president is not chosen solely by the
voters but by the security services who play a determinant role. In the 1999
presidential elections, all contenders dropped out of the race at the last moment
at the instigation of the military, leaving the field open for the election of
Bouteflika. The competition for parliamentary seats is real, however, as shown
by the change in the fortunes of various parties between 1997 (the first elections
after the 1992 cancellation) and the present. Many parties compete, including
three Islamist parties. But major political forces in the country are outside the
electoral competition, particularly the military and the FIS. Party politics and
electoral competition are part of the process of recovery from civil war, of refurbishing the image of the country, and of convincing citizens that times have
changed. As in Yemen, party politics has less to do with power allocation than
with keeping the country at peace.

Politics of Managed Reform

Not one of the models of managed reform we have discussed—institutional
change without power-sharing, substantive improvements in citizens’ rights
without institutional reform, and accepting the presence of an opposition—has
affected how political power is actually acquired and used. These limited reform
processes have provided some benefits to the population in some countries, but
managed reform has remained just that, a carefully controlled process to introduce
change only where and when it suits the goals of the ruling establishment.

Saying that change is carefully managed, however, does not imply that regimes
are free agents when it comes to implementing reforms. Any step toward
reform, no matter how limited, has its supporters and detractors, triggering a
battle between the old guard and the new guard and forcing the latter to accept
compromises and make concessions. And reform is also driven from the outside,
both by the impersonal pressure of globalization and by direct demand from the
United States and European countries, which have their own ideas about how a
reform process should unfold. Such external pressures can change the balance of
power in favor of reform but can also lead to the enactment of measures in which
the regime does not believe and which are promptly voided by other steps.
Reformers themselves tend to be somewhat ambivalent about their goals, to
some extent because they want something that may be impossible: Driven by
what many perceive to be the imperative of economic reform and modernization,
they want real change in the economic and administrative arena but without
any spillover into the political realm. And although regime reformers could
benefit from having allies among opposition groups and civil society organizations
in their battle against the old guard, they are afraid to give these groups
a role, fearing that this would both embitter the battle between reformers and
hardliners and undermine the reformers’ own power.

The tensions and dilemmas typical of managed reform processes need to be
understood because they determine how effective reform from the top can be,
and thus the chances that it will make a real difference in the character of Arab
governance.

Old Guard and Reformers: Hardliners and Softliners

In their discussion of transitions from authoritarian rule in Latin America and
southern Europe, Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter point out
that all transitions lead to, indeed are made possible by, a split between hardliners
and softliners in the regime.2 Hardliners may be opportunists who oppose
democratization merely because they want to hold on to power and perquisites,
or they may oppose it on principle. Softliners generally believe that the regime
will require some degree or some form of electoral legitimation in the future
and therefore advocate undertaking reforms while the regime can still control
the process. It is important to keep in mind that softliners or reformers are not
necessarily liberals, although some may be. Rather, they are individuals who
understand that a country cannot remain static and that some degree of adaptation
is necessary. Some softliners, argue O’Donnell and Schmitter, hope to
carry out only a limited liberalization that keeps the ruling elite in power, while
others favor a true democratic transition and aspire to elected positions in a
future democratic system. In the Arab countries, softliners usually belong to the
first category, and the liberalization they seek is more economic than political.

In Arab countries over the past decade, the division between hardliners and
softliners has been linked to the transition of power from one generation to
another. In Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, and Qatar, young leaders have
come to power promising—and to a limited and often temporary extent delivering—
a political and economic opening. In Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, regime
reformers frustrated by the old guard are rallying around the sons of leaders who
have spent more than a quarter century in office. In all of these countries, young
leaders or pretenders have surrounded themselves with entourages of reformists
who have broken taboos by criticizing the ancien régime and have proclaimed
the need for economic, educational, administrative, and even political reform.
It remains to be seen how far these reformers would be willing to push change
if they came to power.

In countries where the generational transition has taken place and even in
some others, reformists have been appointed to many important positions in
cabinets, royal courts, and parliaments, but they have yet to attain control of
the real levers of power—that is, military, internal security, and intelligence apparatuses— in most countries. The old guard (hardliners) still dominate such
institutions, with a few notable exceptions. In Morocco, for example, the powerful
Interior Minister Driss Basri, emblem of the old guard’s repressive policies,
was dismissed in 1999. Leaders still rely on defense and interior ministers, as
well as directors of intelligence, to ensure stability, their grip on power, and
their personal safety. In addition, the old guard still holds certain key political
positions that are often tightly linked to the security apparatus (for example, the
prime ministership in Bahrain, the foreign ministry in Syria, and the secretary
generalship of the ruling National Democratic Party in Egypt).

Thus reformists, while rising in prominence in many Arab countries, face
ongoing struggles within the ruling elite. Such struggles sometimes focus on
specific reform issues such as the revision of laws or constitutions to enhance
human or civil rights and sometimes on broader concepts such as openness versus
security or change versus continuity. But they are just as often pure power
struggles between ambitious people in their 30s or 40s trying to access authority
and those in their 60s or 70s trying to hold on to it for as long as possible. In
many cases the reformists have latched on to the issue of change partly out of
conviction but also partly because they believe it will help them gain popular
or foreign support. This generational transition and the accompanying struggle
are taking place in Arab countries not only within ruling elites but also within
opposition movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and parties
such as the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) in Morocco.

Globalization, Modernization, and Economic Reform

A common thread among regime reformists in Arab countries is that they are
motivated primarily by economic concerns related to globalization. Studying
or working abroad has given many young members of the elite a perspective
on the outside world that the older generation lacked, leaving them intensely
aware that the global economy is changing and worried that their countries are
being left behind. Satellite television and Internet connectivity highlight daily
the growing gap that separates Arab countries from the highly performing, dynamic
economies around the world.

A major concern of regime reformers is thus how to modernize economic,
legal, and educational systems to benefit from economic globalization. In countries
with relatively large populations and significant unemployment—such as
Egypt, Morocco, and Syria—leaders have focused on the need to generate jobs
by stimulating the private sector and increasing domestic and foreign investment.
Younger leaders, for example, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif
and others in Gamal Mubarak’s coterie, have championed extensive changes
to banking, taxation, and customs policies to facilitate investment. In Algeria
and Bahrain, leaders have undertaken reforms to develop more professional
judicial establishments capable of handling commercial and other economic
disputes. Leaders in most Arab countries have expressed concern about the
need to improve education to prepare students for employment in the global
economy, although only a few countries—such as Tunisia and Qatar, which
have small populations and relatively thriving economies—have had both the
political will and the resources necessary to mount serious educational reform
campaigns so far.

Occasionally, ruling establishment reformists have also called for explicitly
political reforms. Their goal, however, has been to promote the improved governance and international image supposed to contribute to economic growth
rather than democratic participation. For example, the Moroccan royal court
has tried to modernize parliamentary operations—the ministry of finance has
offered to train parliamentary staff in the software needed to scrutinize the government’s budget—to increase the legislative body’s domestic and international
credibility. It has not, however, agreed to give the parliament more extensive
powers, reducing those of the king accordingly, as demanded by the opposition.
President Mubarak of Egypt has championed a host of constitutional amendments
calling for direct popular election of the president and instituting a technically
independent electoral commission, but the amendments also close off
avenues to the political opposition, particularly for the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are also several Arab countries in which ruling establishments have
specific political motivations for political reform—for example, Bahraini King
Hamad’s need to quell violent unrest and consolidate his power base, or Gamal
Mubarak’s quest to build domestic and foreign support for his bid to succeed
his father in the presidency. Such young leaders want to modernize their countries’
polities just as they want to modernize their economies—but not to the
extent of opening up true competition for political power.

Uncorking the Bottle and Controlling the Genie:
Opposition and Civil Society

Ruling establishment reformists shrink from opening their political systems to
unfettered competition so they can preserve power for themselves and their associates.

But reformists also seek to justify the limits they impose on competition
by arguing that opposition forces are irresponsible, backward, and weak. This
is often a thinly disguised excuse for repression; the weakness of the opposition
in particular should be a factor facilitating its incorporation in the system
in a nonthreatening way, rather than a reason for banning it. In one respect,
however, the contention contains an element of truth. Reformists within ruling
establishments are sometimes more socially liberal than some of the opposition
groups, particularly Islamist ones, or even the society at large. Women would not
have obtained the vote in Kuwait for example, nor would personal status laws in
Morocco have been revised, if rulers had not strong-armed some Islamist groups.
Opposition groups with no prospect of ever coming to power often take extreme
positions on issues to capture public attention, and many are as undemocratic in
their internal practices as the ruling establishments they oppose, are controlled by
a small clique for many years, and are unable to renew themselves.

Ruling party reformists cannot dismiss opposition groups altogether, however.
First, they would find it difficult to maintain their reformist credentials
if they showed the same propensity for repression as the old guard. Second,
reformists realize that some civil society organizations can be useful allies in
pursuing a reform agenda. Reformists in Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, and other
countries have sought to include civil society activists in quasigovernmental
institutions, attempting to marshal the credibility and networks of opposition
and civil society groups behind a government-driven reform agenda. The
Egyptian government invited credible leaders of human rights organizations to
join the National Council on Human Rights, for example, and the Moroccan
palace pressed civil society and opposition groups to endorse its Reconciliation
and Equity Tribunal exploring past human rights abuses, as well as changes in
its family law (Mudawwana). Trust is often lacking in these fragile partnerships,
however, because opposition groups in many cases have endured decades of
regime attempts to co-opt, corrupt, intimidate, undermine, or even destroy
them. For their part, the old guard within regimes is often strongly suspicious
of cooperating with oppositionists, deriding them as purely out for their own
interests—further demonstrating the old guard’s failure to accept diversity and
competition as constructive.

Thus ruling party reformists find themselves in a conundrum when it comes
to opposition and civil society. They want an opposition to exist because they
realize that regime-directed reform efforts ring hollow without a diversity of
views and inputs from the society. Some reformists even complain—unconvincingly—
that they wish opposition and civil society groups were more credible
and effective. But at the same time, reformists share the old guard’s fear of the
implications of a truly strong opposition, and so they participate in efforts to cut
the opposition down to size, resulting in Bahrain’s constitution that deprives the
parliament of powers, Egypt’s tortured regulations for eligibility for presidential
elections, Jordan’s history of extensive electoral gerrymandering, and Morocco’s
electoral laws that prevent any party from controlling a majority of seats.

Dealing with External Expectations

The United States and European countries also put pressure on Arab regimes to
introduce reforms. Exercised inconsistently and in a rather piecemeal fashion,
such pressure has been both a blessing and a curse to ruling party reformers at
different times. The young monarchs of Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, and Qatar,
for example, became darlings of the U.S. administration after 2001 in part
because of their reformist credentials and benefited from free trade agreements,
assistance packages, and enhanced military cooperation. Similarly, reform advocates in Egypt have used U.S. pressure for financial and other kinds of economic reform to help overcome the objections to change by regime hardliners. The sometimes exaggerated praise with which reforms have been greeted, however,
has also sent a signal to regime reformers that external expectations were not
very high. Praising constitutional reform in Bahrain that created a parliament
constructed in such a way that the regime would always dominate it, or heaping
praise on the Moroccan reform of the personal status code while ignoring the
nondemocratic implications of the new election law, sends a signal that external
actors would be easily appeased.

Ruling party reformists, furthermore, are not sure what they want from external
actors, complaining at times that external pressure is too strong; at others
that it is not strong enough. Most regime reformists in the Arab world saw the
Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative agreed on at the 2004 G8
summit as the kiss of death for their own efforts—fearing that if they pursued a
reform agenda they would be seen in the region as agents of the former colonial
powers and of the new regional hegemon. At the same time, Arab reformists
often complain privately that multilateral initiatives, whether G8 or European
Union, are too watered down to be effective and cannot help them fight corruption
and other internal problems.

Conclusions

Top-down reform, closely managed by ruling elites, has so far brought extremely
limited results in the Arab world, particularly concerning political reform. Even
when regime reformers have talked of political change, in reality they have taken
at best timid steps, which are usually cancelled out by contradictory measures.
With few exceptions even economic and social reforms have been limited.
Looking to the future, two main questions arise. First, will a process managed
from the top bring more than limited, technical institutional reforms and a modest
degree of liberalization to Arab countries? Second, if establishment reformers
decide to implement more meaningful change under domestic or international
20 | Incumbent Regimes and the “King’s Dilemma” in the Arab World
pressure, can they avoid the king’s dilemma, that is, can they avoid triggering an
ultimately uncontrollable process that can cost them their power?

Extrapolating from present trends, the most likely scenario for most countries
appears to be continued political stagnation, with limited change, rather than an
uncontrolled slide into an uncertain future. Softliners still have limited impact,
their own goals are modest at best, and the old guard remains strong everywhere.

Regime reformers have generally failed to convince the population that they are
serious about change. In most countries, the image of the young reformers has
become tarnished. The Damascus spring is a distant memory in Syria, where
Bashar has now succeeded in replacing most members of his father’s old guard
with his own supporters, who have rejected political change and liberalization
in favor of measures directed at promoting modernization. For different reasons,
the reforming impetus has also ground to a halt in Jordan, where the king
is fearful that events in the region will undermine the stability of his country.

The dashed hopes of these managed reform processes have engendered a greater
degree of cynicism in the region. The climate of optimism that prevailed a few
years ago has faded. Other young leaders waiting in the wings, like Egypt’s Gamal
Mubarak and Libya’s Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, will probably be greeted with much
more skepticism from the outset if they succeed their fathers.

This limited success of regime reformers gives some plausibility to the king’s
dilemma scenario. To succeed, regime reformers need allies, and to find allies—
in civil society or moderate political parties—they would need to make some
concessions. Some reformers could decide that their own political future would
be brighter in a more openly competitive political environment and thus break
with hardliners. This could transform a process managed from the top into
one that is much more participatory and thus unpredictable. Such a scenario is
plausible but not the most likely, however.

In seeking to promote political reform in the Middle East, the United States
and Europe have favored a process of managed reform. This is hardly surprising
given the unpredictability of change triggered by strong and possibly radical
opposition forces—the demise of the shah and the rise of a theocratic regime in
Iran offer a cautionary tale, for example. The U.S. and European preference for
top-down reform by Arab governments has been strengthened by the election
of Hamas in Palestine in January 2006. The new trend is for outside donors
to emphasize institutional and moderate civil society development more than
risky elections, which is very much to the liking of reformists in Arab-ruling establishments who want to improve governance but avoid competition. Yet, the
evidence so far is that the top-down process is having very little effect, making
at best a marginal difference on specific issues but not leading to the redistribution
of power that a true process of democratization and even liberalization
would entail. For domestic advocates of managed reform and for outsiders seeking
to promote change alike, the lesson appears to be that political reform can
never be risk free: Too much close management perpetuates authoritarianism,
and unmanaged processes have unpredictable outcomes.

Notes

1 Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1968).

2 Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule:
Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1986), pp. 15–17.

Marina Ottaway is a senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program and director of the Carnegie Middle East Program. Her most recent book, Uncharted Journey: Democracy Promotion in the Middle East (co-edited with Thomas Carothers), was published in January 2005. Michele Dunne is a senior associate and editor of the Carnegie Endowment’s Arab Reform Bulletin. A specialist on Middle East affairs, formerly at the State Department and White House, Dunne is the author of Evaluating Egyptian Reform, Integrating Democracy Promotion Into U.S. Middle East Policy, and Libya: Security Is Not Enough. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

Editor's note: This commentary was originally published by Carnegie PAPERS Middle East Series, Middle East Program, Number 88, December 2007. (www.CarnegieEndowment.org/pubs.) Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. Founded in 1910, Carnegie is nonpartisan and dedicated to achieving practical results. Through research, publishing, convening and, on occasion, creating new institutions and international networks, Endowment associates shape fresh policy approaches.(www.CarnegieEndowment.org)

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