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31 1 TheEmergenceofthePreponderant Single-PartySystems The political preponderance of one party at independence distinguishes Tunisia, South Yemen, and Algeria from the other cases analyzed in this study. True, these parties were not the only parties present on the political stage at independence : Tunisia’s Neo-Destour and South Yemen’s and Algeria’s respective National Liberation Fronts had their would-be rivals. They were “preponderant ,” however, in that they were mass parties organized in all (or nearly all) urban and rural areas: they exerted social control in both the capital and the countryside.1 By contrast, all other parties either were elite organizations and/or were rural-only, urban-only, or regional parties. The preponderant parties’ territorial breadth and social depth rendered their rivals politically irrelevant for the shaping of founding regimes. Chapter 4 will argue that these single preponderant parties were causally pivotal for inspiring and enabling party leaders to rapidly construct (one-party) authoritarian regimes in these three countries. This chapter is devoted to illuminating the dynamics and factors that produced single, preponderant, mass-mobilizing parties in Tunisia, South Yemen, and Algeria. When Middle East elites began demanding independence from their imperialoccupiers,thesocietiestheyinhabitedwereintransitionfrombeing largely rural ones, with simple class stratifications in which patron-client ties predominated, to ones that were more educated and more urban and thatharboredimportantnewsocialforces.Thesesocieties’“traditional”elites included wealthy landowners who were patrons to peasants, tribal leaders who were patrons to tribesmen, and merchants, traders, and the ulama (the Muslimclericalclass)whowerepatronstothehumblerurbanstrata,including guild members. Industrialization, agricultural commercialization, and the spread of education confronted traditional elites with the emergence of new professional middle-class groups (lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, teachers, civil servants, and so on), a budding urban working class, and, in some cases, an urban subproletariat made up of peasants and tribesmen migrating to cities in search of increased economic opportunity. Single, preponderant, mass-mobilizing parties in Tunisia, South Yemen, and Algeria resulted from the impact of imperial powers’ policies on traditional elites’ sociopolitical standing. In these three countries, imperialists ’ modes of occupation significantly disrupted traditional patron-client relationships, while imperial responses to traditional elites’ demands for independence (or lack thereof) discredited the latter in the eyes of newly emergent social forces. Both dynamics critically weakened traditional elites’ social power, leading to a situation wherein a new, humbler elite was able to assume control of nationalist movements, building preponderant mass-mobilizing political parties by recruiting to their cause not only traditional and new urban strata but also peasants and tribesmen. France and Britain took control of Tunisia, South Yemen, and Algeria quite early with respect to the onset of nationalism. Nationalist demands emerged 40, 110, and 90 years respectively after the onset of European control . What’s more, France and Britain took control of these lands in an international context that granted them considerable freedom of choice regarding their policies there. The territories they seized after the close of World War I were mandates awarded them by the League of Nations with the expectation that they would protect natives’ welfare and prepare them for independence. By contrast, Tunisia, South Yemen, and Algeria fell to European control during the nineteenth century, an era characterized by much more permissive international norms regarding imperialism. These were straightforward colonial possessions not subject to the higher ethical standards of the mandate system (Balfour-Paul 1991, 49). A presumption of Western civilizational superiority justified imperialism (Jackson 1990, 60– 61), and blatant practices of imperial exploitation were not looked down upon (Spruyt 2000, 82). As a result, the European powers had both the time and the latitude they needed to significantly alter the socioeconomic structures they found when they arrived. For example, France turned Tunisia and Algeria into settler colonies, and sizable numbers of citizens from the colonial metropoles relocated to live and work in positions both inside and outside of the 32 party system characteristics 6] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 16:10 GMT) colonialadministration.2 Theprocessesbywhichsettlersacquiredlandoften disruptedestablishedpatternsof landownership,cultivation,andsocialrelations in the countryside. Imperialists’ economic policies—especially the importation of cheap European manufactured goods—harmed merchants’ and craftsmen’s livelihoods in towns. Policies that secularized governance underminedtheulama.Allof thesedevelopmentschippedawayatthefoundations of traditional patron-client relationships by undermining patrons’ abilities to continue to provide for client needs. Traditional elites’ power in society began to weaken as a result. Still, for the most part, across the region traditional elites were the first to establish nationalist political parties and demand independence. The parties they built were elaborated only to a limited...

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