the arab spring: much violence, little democracy
TRANSCRIPT
The Arab Spring: Much Violence,
Little Democracy
Ibrahim Elbadawi
Dubai Economic Council and ERF
Democracy and Economic Development
ERF 21st Annual Conference
Gammarth, Tunisia, March 20-22, 2015
Motivation
Three Fundamental Questions
Is Democracy important for Development,
especially in oil-dependent MENA?
If so, why has the “Arab Spring” been such a
“late awakening”?
And, why has it been so violent?
Two cross-cutting themes
Resource-dependency
Social polarization
Is Democracy Important for Development:
The Received literature
The received literature (e.g. Barro, 1996; Rodrik,
1997; Rodrik and Wacziarg, 2005 …etc. ) suggests
that Democracies:
Yield long-run growth rates that are more
predictable
Produce greater stability in economic performance
Handle adverse shocks much better
Pay higher wages
Generate more investment in human capital –
health and education
Produce more equitable societies
Is Democracy Important for Development:
Managing Natural Resources
The received (second generation) Growth Literature
on Oil and other point-source Minerals (Collier and
Goderis, 2007) The curse is real but conditional on bad political governance
It is a long-term phenomenon
Economic factors: channels rather than true causes
More recent (third generation: Elbadawi and Soto,
2012) Account for country heterogeneity and cross-dependency
Unpack political institutions: inclusiveness & credibility
Generate country-specific rents effects and institutional mitigation
potential
Endogenously derive the country resource-management trajectory
Managing Natural Resources: Benchmark
Results (Elbadawi and Soto, 2012)
Table 1 Econometric Results: Long-Run Growth Determinants
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Resource Rents (as % of GDP)
- -0.049* (0.030)
-0.032 (0.031)
-0.029 (0.031)
-0.033 (0.031)
Checks and Balances (polity index)
- - 0.028*** (0.008)
- 0.025*** (0.008)
Democracy (index)
- - - 0.275** (0.088)
0.181* (0.094)
Constant 0.108*** (0.041)
0.126*** (0.041)
0.129*** (0.042)
0.192*** (0.044)
0.252*** (0.046)
Note: Number of countries=90, number of observations=2745, maximum number of instruments=605, time and country fixed effects included.
Managing Natural Resources: Typology of
NR Management Experiences (Elbadawi & Soto)Political
Regimes
High
Inclusiveness
(political
democracy)
Low
Inclusiveness
(political
democracy)
High commitment
(checks and
balances)
Use resource rents to
diversify and grow
(Australia, New Zealand)
May avoid curse and
use rents to grow but
political transition
remains a challenge(China, SGP, HKG,
MYS)
Low commitment
(checks and
balances)
May Experience curse(Greece, Latin American
countries)
Experience curse(Populous Arab oil,
Resource-dependent
SSA)
Is Democracy Important for Development:
Managing Social Fractionalization
Non-factional inclusive democracy is better in
managing social fractionalization
Programmatic authoritarian regimes are not likely to
survive in socially fractionalized societies:
The insight from “Can Africa Claim the 21st Century” Report:
Uganda vs Tanzania
The Baath Parties: Syria, Iraq
Likely to be captured by sub-national interests
Like SSA, most Arab societies are highly
fractionalized (Figures)
The Asian development model is not likely to be
transferrable to the Arab world or SSA
Social Fractionalization in the Arab world
(Elbadawi, 2004)
Figure 3: Dominant Social Fractionalization by Country
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
Ye
me
n
Tu
nis
ia
Lib
ya
Sa
ud
i
Eg
yp
t
Om
an
UA
E
Qa
tar
Alg
eri
a
Wo
rld
Ku
wa
it
Moro
cco
Ira
q
Sy
ria
Ba
hra
in
Jord
an
Mau
rita
nia
Su
da
n
Leb
ano
n
Djibo
uti
So
ma
lia
So
cia
l F
rac
tion
aliza
tion
Ethnicity Language Religion
Social Polarization in the Arab world
(Elbadawi, 2004)
Figure 4: Dominant Social Polarization by Country
0
0.1
0.20.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.70.8
0.9
1
Ye
me
n
Tun
isia
Lib
ya
Sa
ud
i
Ara
bia
Eg
yp
t
Om
an
UA
E
Leb
ano
n
So
ma
lia
Qa
tar
Syri
a
Worl
d
Alg
eri
a
Su
da
n
Djib
outi
Ba
hra
in
Jo
rdan
Iraq
Ma
urita
nia
Mo
rocco
Ku
wait
So
cia
l P
ola
riza
tio
n
Ethnicity Language Religion
Is Democracy Important for Development:
Lessons for the Arab Spring
Lesson 1: “…For every Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, there are
many like Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo” (Dani Rodrik, 2010)
Lesson 2: Arab spring should not only bring democracy, as
badly needed as it is in this region, but should also lay the
foundations for strong systems of political checks and balances
Lesson 3: Programmatic benevolent authoritarianism has been,
and will likely be, an exception to the rule in the socially
fractionalized Arab world; hence democracy is central to the
survival of the nation state in this region, but factional, winner
take all, democracy is not the answer
Why has the “Arab Spring” been such a “late
awakening”?
The Arab Spring is a late “awakening”
High persistence of autocracy in the Arab
world (Figure)
Accumulated effect of lack of “sustainable
democratic transitions” (Figure)
Modelling “sustainable democratic transitions”
Deconstructing democratic transition in the
Arab world (Elbadawi, Makdisi and others)
Key factors: oil rents and conflicts, but also
idiosyncretic country-specific determinants
Table 1: Democracy across the Developing World {-10 (extreme autocracy) to +10 (full-fledged democracy)}
(Elbadawi& Makdisi, 2013)
1960-64 1965-69 1970-74 1975-80 1981-84 1985-90 1991-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-09
Arab -7 -7 -8.35 -8.4 -8.2 -8 -7.4 -7 -6.7 -4
Sub-Saharan Africa -6 -6.6 -7 -7 -7 -7 -5.4 -1.5 0 2.5
Latin America -1.7 -2.6 -6 -6 -4 3 6 7 8 8
Southern Central Asia -9.4 -8 -8 -7.4 -6 -5.7 -3 -3.8 -5.2 -2.25
East Asia -6 -6.4 -4.8 -7 -7 -2 2.5 1.4 4.125 2.25
Figure 2: Frequency of Democratic
Transitions in Developing Regions:1960-09(Elbadawi& Makdisi, 2013)
79
52
41
13
7
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Latin America Sub-Saharan Africa East Asia Southern Central Asia Arab
Modeling Democratic Transitions (an extended
Przeworski- Ross Model): cannot reject the
following selected set of hypotheses
H1: Controlling for initial income, growth and democratic legacy,
natural resource rents hinders democratic transition
H2: However, the resource rents impact on democratic
transition is subject to threshold effects (i.e. below a certain
threshold, resource rents have no impact)
H3: Wars impede democratic transitions (Table)
H4: high unemployment, beyond a certain threshold (U>10),
promotes democratic transitions
H5: However, employment does not fully account for the
authoritarian bargain in highly resource endowed societies:
Unlike lower levels, high resource rents remain negative and highly
significant, despite controlling unemployment
The authoritarian bargain still holds, possibly through other means
of social transfers
Table 2: Average Number of Wars Arab world second only to SSA
1960-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 Average
Arab
Homewar 4.5 5.5 5.5 5 5.1
Neighbor war 6.5 10 9 10.5 9.0
Sub-Saharan Africa
Homewar 2 6.5 8 9 6.4
Neighbor war 10.5 18 22.5 22 18.3
Latin America
Homewar 2.5 3 5.5 4 3.8
Neighbor war 5 7 14 12 9.5
Southern Central Asia
Homewar 1.5 2 3 3 2.4
Neighbor war 2.5 2.5 3 4 3.0
East Asia
Homewar 2 3 5 3.5 3.4
Neighbor war 2 5.5 6.5 6.5 5.1
Hypotheses (cond :).
Democratic Neighborhood
H6: Neighborhood democracy promotes democratic
transitions
H7: Moreover, resource rent is not a constraint to
democratic transition in democratic neighborhood
H8: Neighborhood wars impede democratic
transitions
Implications of the Arab-Israeli conflict
Other inter-state conflicts- Gulf wars
Potential ramifications of the Arab Spring
H9: Moreover, resource rents remain impediment to
democratic transition in war-affected neighborhoods
Figure 6: Neighborhood Democracy (Average level of Democracy in the immediate Neighbors)
-7 -7
2.95
-8.1
-3.5
0.33
2
8
-6.5
3.08
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
Arab Sub-Saharan Africa Latin America Southern CentralAsia
East Asia
1960-64
2005-09
Why has the “Arab Spring” been so violent: Peoples
Power and Autocracy (Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica
Frantz, April 9, 2014: The Washington Post)_
Since the turn of the 2000 decade autocrats are now ousted more by popular
uprisings than by coups
However, they are learning and mounting counter-revolutions through “induced
violence (El-Affendi, 2013)
Why has the “Arab Spring” been so violent:
assessing the magnitude
Political violence has been specially intensive
during and after the onset of the Arab Spring
300,000 casualties in Syria alone
More than 10 million refugees and internally
displaced Syrians
Economy: $202 b lost to the war
(http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/alienation_a
nd_violence_impact_of_the_syria_crisis_in_2014_e
ng.pdf)
Much Violence, Little Democracy
-9
-8
-7
-6
-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Med
ian
Po
lity
Batt
le-R
ela
ted
Death
s (
per
millio
n p
op
ula
tio
n)
Arab Casualties Non-Arab Casualties Median Arab Polity
Gulf War
Sudan and Iraq
Civil War
Invasion
of Iraq
Arab
Spring
Source: WDI (World Bank) and Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Uppsala University Version 5.0)
Civilian Victims by Country (Monthly data)
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1/1
1
3/1
1
5/1
1
7/1
1
9/1
1
11
/11
1/1
2
3/1
2
5/1
2
7/1
2
9/1
2
11
/12
1/1
3
3/1
3
5/1
3
7/1
3
9/1
3
11
/13
1/1
4
3/1
4
5/1
4
7/1
4
9/1
4
11
/14
1/1
5
Inte
rnal
Co
nfl
ict
Civ
ilia
n D
eath
s Libya
Sudan
Egypt
Tunisia
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
1/1
1
3/1
1
5/1
1
7/1
1
9/1
1
11
/11
1/1
2
3/1
2
5/1
2
7/1
2
9/1
2
11
/12
1/1
3
3/1
3
5/1
3
7/1
3
9/1
3
11
/13
1/1
4
3/1
4
5/1
4
7/1
4
9/1
4
11
/14
1/1
5
Inte
rnal
Co
nfl
ict
Civ
ilia
n D
eath
s Syria
Source: Armed Conflict Project and Event Data Project (ACLED)
Source: The Syrian Revolution Martyr Database
Why has the “Arab Spring” been so violent:
The Received Literature
No role for natural resources or social structures in mainstream
political transition literature:
Modernization strand (Lipset, 1959, Barro, 2012)
Intuitional school (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2001, 2006)
Extension: Incumbent strategy for pre-empting a revolt largely
driven by the size of rents pc (Ali and Elbadawi, 2012; Diwan, 2014):
High rents, beyond a certain rents pc threshold: investment in
public goods, expanding public sector employment and social
transfers
Low and moderate rents pc: political repression and violence as the
dominant strategy
However, while accounting for natural resource effect, this
literature does not consider social structures in resource
endowed societies
Resource Rents pc: GCC vs Populous Oil
Arab Economies (2005 fixed dollars)
-
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
Med
ian
Oil R
en
ts p
er
Cap
ita
(co
nsta
nt
2005 U
SD
)
GCC - Nationals only
-
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Med
ian
Oil R
en
ts p
er
Cap
ita
(co
nsta
nt
2005 U
SD
)
Populous Arab-Oil
Source: WDI (World Bank)
Source: WDI (World Bank)
Why has the “Arab Spring” been so violent:
The Received Literature (contd.)
Hodler (2012) fills this lacuna: an incumbent autocrat had two
options to prevent democratization in a socially polarized
society, depending on:
The extent of resource endowment
Whether he belongs to an ethnic minority or majority group
Major predictions:
In highly resource endowed societies, equilibrium behavior of an
autocrat form the majority group would be to ‘bribe’ all citizens in
order to remain in power
Instead, if the dictator controls only intermediate or low level of
appropriable resources, he will have no option but to relatively
peacefully extend the franchise (Egypt, Tunisia)
On the other hand, the violent option will be preferred by a dictator hailing
from the minority group, because it is cheaper to bribe his group to fight to
keep him in power than to bribe both groups (Libya, Syria)
Why has the “Arab Spring” been so violent:
Toward a Research Agenda
Extend Hodler’s type model so that it is even more relevant to
explaining the violence associated with the Arab Spring:
First, relax the implicit assumption of the ‘winners take all’
democratization
Second, the effect of conflictive and polarized neighborhood (such
as the rising sectarian divide in the region) and the consequent
external interventions spawned by it
Third, group cohesion as an alternative approach to understanding
why ethnic minority-led regimes were capable of mounting extreme
violence in response to popular democratic demands
Test predictions of the theoretical literature:
New panel data on popular uprisings and violence
However, not yet extended to more recent years
References
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2006. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2001. “A Theory of Political Transitions.” American Economic
Review, 91 (4): 938-963.
Ali, Omer and Ibrahim Elbadawi (2012),” The Political Economy of Public Sector Employment in Resource
Dependent Countries,” ERF Working Paper # 673, the Economic Research Forum, Cairo, Egypt.
Barro, Robert, (2012), “Convergence and Modernization Revisited”, Working Paper 18295, National Bureau
of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Barro, Robert (1996), “Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study,” NBER
Working Paper no. 5698, August.
Collier, P. and B. Goderis. (2007), “Commodity Prices, Growth, and the Natural Resource Curse:
Reconciling a Conundrum,” CSAE Working Paper WPD/2007-15, Department of Economics, University of
Oxford.
Diwan, Ishac (2014),”The Effects of Oil on Development and the Uncertain Rise of the GCC,” unpublished
mimeo, ERF, Cairo.
El-Affendi, Abdelwahab (2015),” Overcoming Induced Insecurities: Stabilizing Arab Democracies after the
Spring,” unpublished mimeo, Project on Deconstructing Arab Democratic Transitions, American University
of Beirut.
References (cond.)
Elbadawi, Ibrahim (2015),”Deconstructing Democratic Transitions in the Arab World,” unpublished mimeo,
Project on Deconstructing Arab Democratic Transitions, American University of Beirut.
Elbadawi, Ibrahim and Raimundo Soto (2012),” Economic Growth During the Oil Cycle,” ERF Working
Paper # 678, the Economic Research Forum, Cairo, Egypt.
Elbadawi, Ibrahim (2004),” The politics of Sustaining Growth in the Arab World: Getting Democracy Right,”
Lecture and Working Papers Series No. 2, Institute of Financial Economics, AUB, Beirut, Lebanon.
Geddes, Barbara et al (2015), “New Data Set: Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions,” unpublished
mimeo, Department of Political Science UCLA Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Hodler, Ronald (2012),”The Political Economics of the Arab Spring,” OxCarre Research Paper 101,
Department of Economics, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, Oxford University,
UK.
Lipset, S., (1959), “Some Social Pre-requisites of Democracy: and Economic Development and Political
Legitimacy”, American Political Science Review 53.
Rodrik, Dani (2010), “The Myth of Authoritarian Growth,” Project Syndicate, The World Opinion Page,
August.
Rodrik, Dani (1997), “Democracy and Economic Performance,” presented at the conference on
democratization and economic reform in South Africa, Cape Town, January, 16-19.
Rodrik, Dani and Romain Wacziarg (2005), “Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes,”
CDDRL Working Paper, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford Institute of
International Studies, Stanford University, CA, USA.