Kurt Weyland’s piece is clearly a social scientific study
seeking to explain the parallels between the 1848 revolutions in Europe and
those currently taking place in the Middle East and North Africa that have
endured since 2010 as part of a wider ‘Arab Spring’. In this study, Weyland canvases
the fields of both political science and psychology. His methods include assessing
the causal explanations for the similarities of both revolutions and the cognitive
psychology of the masses during their early stages.
First of all, it is necessary to briefly outline the
respective revolutions of 1848 and 2011. In respect of the former, those were a
series of revolts against the various monarchies of Europe encouraged by
republican ideals and dreams of democracy, which substantially ended in failure
and a repression of the populace, with the exception of France. The latter
refers to the numerous revolts throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa
that were and still are driven by the prospect of regime change in favour of
democracy from authoritarianism. Thus far, the rebellions have mostly ended in
either civil war or repression by the existing regimes.
Weyland’s Four Key Points & Relevance to Class
Discussion:
Firstly, the Arab Spring spread with incredible pace, much
like in 1848, because of the significant media coverage of the fall of
Tunisia’s autocrat in 2010 and the impression that those events left on the
rest of the Arab peoples throughout the Middle East. Weyland emphasises the
fact that although the level of sophistication of the media in 2010 compared to
1848 was radically different, news still travelled incredibly quickly in 1848
via the railways and that this difference does not materially distinguish the
scenarios from a comparison. In both instances, news spread like wildfire and
persons were encouraged to revolt by the news of rebellions happening elsewhere
just as quickly across both time periods. It’s pointed out that the only
disparity in relation to the spread of information is that the revolts broke
out in a much more fragmented way in 2011 than they did in 1848, due to the
instantaneous dissemination of information via the Internet. The media coverage
of the issues which acted as catalysts for rebellion in Tunisia highlighted similar
problems facing other Arab states under similarly authoritarian regimes, and
did not mention the material dissimilarities between relative strengths of
those regimes, thus providing the rest of the Arab world with a reason for
believing that their people might effect change the same way as in Tunisia. The
common and infuriating denominator that Arabs likely dwelled on via the
coverage was the common sense of unfairness which, as discussed in class, is
likely the biggest factor in provoking a revolt.
Secondly, subsequent attempts by the masses of various Arab
states to revolt largely failed, much like in 1848, due to a misguided and
overly simplistic belief that the downfall of one regime in one state could be recreated
in much the same way in other Arab states. Weyland notes that, just as the
removal of King Louis Philippe of France inspired the masses of European states
to revolt elsewhere, the removal of Ben Ali in Tunisia inspired other Arabs to
revolt in 2010 and 2011. The rebels of the Arab Spring appeared to initially
and improvidently believe that the Tunisian example could be recreated by
rather candidly demanding democratic reforms or a resignation of an established
dictator. In doing so, they failed to acknowledge that different regimes were
likely to respond in different ways to popular pressure, depending on their
relative strength. In reality, the demonstrators overestimated their capacity
to succeed in receiving what they demanded and, in their disorganisation,
failed to get what they had desired. Saudi Arabia, for example, was less
susceptible to dissident pressure since its significant oil wealth, in contrast
to Tunisia, ensured that its people lived fairly comfortable lives and were
guaranteed public sector jobs under the regime. What’s more, the instability
created by the bloody civil war in Libya served as a further deterrent for the
populace to revolt. Therefore, there was substantially less popular desire for
any transition to democracy to take place.
Thirdly, the poor collective organisation within Arab civil
society, much the same as in 1848, led to the failure of many of the attempted
revolts. As the revolutions of 1848 proved, democracy does not sprout out of
nothing and wanting democracy does not necessarily equate with actually having
it; democratic transition requires effective collective action since such
transitions are often likely to mean conflict with a non-democratic regime. Weyland
clearly takes the view that the reason for their lack of success was inability
of the rebels to rally around a single leader who could then organise the
masses in an efficient manner to conduct any meaningful revolt. Arab often find
themselves highly polarised in their beliefs due to tribal factionalism, which
makes the task of rallying around a common leader much more challenging than it
might otherwise be. Established regimes, therefore, able to take advantage and
repress any small rebel factions who try to act independently. Weyland remarks
that this is precisely what happened in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria and
Bahrain, and notes that even those rebel factions who were able to achieve some
extent of unification were still poorly organised and that, without Western
interference, rebels such as those in Libya would not have succeeded in
overthrowing their regimes.
Fourthly, where revolts did succeed in toppling the regime,
for example in Egypt, various powerful interests have often had an influence in
ensuring the instability of any resulting democracy. This was similarly characteristic
of the 1848 revolutions. In Egypt, Weyland argues, any attempts at achieving a
functioning democracy have been incremental and significantly hampered by
either the military or Islamists who oppose the idea of a pluralist democracy. This
illustrates one of the problems of the strong culturalist hypothesis, which
fails to recognise that democracies typically fail because powerful interests,
such as the military and Islamists in Egypt’s case, want them to fail. Additionally, since democracy requires people
upholding certain values such as toleration to be sustainable, it seems likely
that the factionalism in Egypt with respect to the military, the Islamists and the
rebels is partly to blame for Egypt’s failure to sustain a stable democracy.
Criticism:
Weyland undertakes what he regards as a novel political
science analysis in assessing the cognitive psychology of the actors involved
in the political events in question. He can only be lauded for encouraging this
approach, as it gives much practical depth to any analysis insofar as it gives
a true insight into the minds and motivations of the actors involved.
Sources:
Written
by:
Rian Walden (300362860)
Interesting stuff Rian.
ReplyDeleteI find it particularly interesting how often in these situations, the result of the revolutions is an even less democratic regime. I can still understand why people in both the Arab Spring and the 1848 Revolution protested though; when things are bad, you don't have much to lose so it's worth a shot.
It's interesting to see that the level of democracy in Egypt increased immediately after the Arab Spring, during 2011 and 2012, it has fallen back and has levels of democracy similar (slightly lower even) to what they were before the uprising - according to the Economist's Democracy Index - https://infographics.economist.com/2018/DemocracyIndex/.
It's pretty crushing to see how some of the protesters felt - elated and hopeful for a democratic future (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/egypt-marks-seventh-anniversary-arab-spring-uprising-180125072839691.html) - given that in time this progress would be reversed. Since the coup, tens of thousands of citizens have been imprisoned without charge, the operations of the 47,000 charities and NGO's across the country have become heavily regulated by the state, and access to more than 64 news websites (those that are not aligned with the state narrative) have been blocked.
It will be interesting to see if Egyptians repeat this process of revolution or whether their disappointing experience with it from the Arab Spring was enough to crush their spirits. My guess is that another revolution will eventually happen in Egypt, but not for quite a long time.
Excellent summary, Rian!
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