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Preface
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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p r e f a c e The idea for Ruling But Not Governing crystallized when I began asking questions about the intersection of religion and mass politics, the resilience of certain types of regimes confronting what seem to be serious challenges, and the inadequacy of prevailing scholarly work to explain authoritarian stability. This book brings the issues of Islamism, the military and politics, and the evolution of institutions together in an e√ort to explain, first, why some states have proved resistant to democratic change and, second, how external actors can play a role in breaking the authoritarian logjam. Despite increasingly vocal questions about the sources of political power, legitimacy , and authenticity, regimes in the Middle East have remained remarkably stable. In the first half of the 1990s, scholars devoted considerable energy to what many believed to be an imminent wave of democratic transition in the region. In the latter part of that decade, when expectations of a more open and democratic Middle East were not realized, analysts turned their attention to understanding the staying power of authoritarian regimes. Although this work contributed important insights into authoritarian stability, it tended to overlook the e√ect of militaries and the legacies of military rule in a variety of Middle Eastern countries on this phenomenon. The militaries of the Middle East relinquished their direct control of the ministries and agencies of government long ago, but countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey have remained military-dominated. The soldiers and materiel of Middle Eastern militaries are the obvious outer perimeter of regime protection, but it is actually the less apparent, multilayered institutional legacies of military domination that play the decisive role in regime maintenance. The character of the military’s interest in both a facade of democracy and in direct control of key aspects of political control is complex and nuanced. The o≈cers seek to rule but not to govern. Ruling but not governing has insulated Egyptian, Algerian, and Turkish o≈cers from the vicissitudes of day-to-day governance; however, this strategy does pose risks x Preface to the military establishment. A democratic facade of elections, parliaments, opposition press, and the ostensible guarantee of basic freedoms and rights in these countries ’ constitutions have provided dedicated counter-elites (in the present cases Islamists ) the opportunity to advance their agendas. The o≈cers and their civilian collaborators not only tolerate but also in some cases benefit from including these groups. Yet this participation in the formal political arena has proven tenuous. As Islamist groups have accumulated political power, the regimes’ defenders have seen to it that the Islamists were ultimately repressed. This pathological pattern in which Egyptian, Algerian, and Turkish Islamist groups have historically been included in and excluded from politics reflects the stability of these regimes. Turkey has recently broken out of this pattern, o√ering insight into how militarydominated regimes can move away from authoritarian politics. Although a transition to democracy—a process that is far from complete in Turkey—is the result of internal problems and contradictions, it is clear that the European Union has had a dynamic e√ect on the Turkish political system. Indeed, the prospect of EU membership has altered the interests of Turkey’s Islamists and constrained its o≈cers, creating an environment in which wide-ranging and thoroughgoing institutional reform could take place. The relationship between Europe and Turkey is quite di√erent from the United States and Egypt or France and Algeria, but the EU-Turkey story highlights how external actors can encourage political change through incentives. In the end, my primary goal in this book is to provide scholars and policymakers alike with good assumptions about the political patterns and processes that are at the foundation of authoritarian stability and, in turn, how those patterns and processes can be weakened. This is vitally important at the present moment, as the United States is engaged simultaneously in a war in Iraq, a global war on terror, and an e√ort to promote democratic change in the Middle East. When I think back on how this book came into being, from conception of the idea to the research to the writing, I am grateful to the people who gave their time, advice, and energy to assist me. Before naming names, however, I must acknowledge those individuals whose identities I promised not to share given the sensitive issues this research project addresses. So to begin, I o√er generic and blanket words of gratitude...