The Arab Spring has ended the post-colonial Middle East; it probably also would have been the end for General Moustache had he still been around. What I find remarkable is how much success kings and emirs have had during the period of chaos. They seem to have a legitimacy that secular regimes never had; this allows them to act with considerably more freedom and cynicism. I really have to wonder if places like Syria or Libya would still be functioning as states if they had kings of their own?
Is monarchy the best model for the Middle East?
- Thread starter Mouthwash
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Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I think that monarchy generally reflects the stability of a regime, rather than contributes to it. Several Arab republics used to have monarchies, after all, which collapsed because those regimes were basically unstable. The common thread between most of the Arab monarchies isn't really monarchy, at this point, but oil- or, at least, natural resources more generally- and the consequent ability to maintain an extensive network of patronage among the bourgeoisie and officialdom.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
So, when the oil dries up, would the monarchies be gone, or would they be entrenched well-enough by then? Although, considering not even oil saved Libya and Egypt, that might be dubious..
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Maybe? I guess it depends if they can fill the gap in the economy. Jordan mostly exports minerals and oil, at this point, and has relatively strong agricultural and light manufacturing sectors, for example, although that would probably be difficult for some of the land-poor emirates to imitate.
But given how clannish Arab society is, it just seems like a king would have enormously more legitimacy. In Jordan, love of the king is their patriotism. It's also hard to draw the line between 'bourgeoisie and officialdom' and prestigious tribal members.
The millions of slaves might help out with that.
Tahuti
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With the possible exception of the UAE, most Arab countries don't have a bourgeoisie that has any political power. This why Liberal democracy like the ones seen in Japan and Europe haven't gained a foothold and likely will not until a powerful bourgeoisie develops. (And being the reactionary that I am, the Arab countries should keep it that way!)
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Why does clannish imply monarchical legitimacy? Clans are kinship-groups, they don't have anything to do with states or monarchies. If anything, clannishness should mitigate against the formation of stable monarchies, by functioning as an alternative location of sovereignty. Certainly there's no clear relationship between clannishness and the sort of popular monarchy you're identifying in Jordan, which seems to ask that people set aside their identification with a kinship-group in favour of identification with a monarch.
The thinking here seems to be that clannish is pre-modern, kings are pre-modern, so the two must in some way support each other, but that's really just falling back on a flattened imagine of Ye Olden Days, the presumption that the past is an undifferentiated and unchanging whole, which isn't really true at all. "Traditional" social and political forms are as fluid and fractious as the modern, even if they played out over a longer time-scale.
That's really just a function of kinship and patronage, isn't it? The old Marxist (really, Jacobin) dichotomy of aristocracy and bourgeoisie has never really held up in reality, was a matter of ideology even at the time, so I don't think it's some bizarre quirk of Arab society that a traditional elite and a modern capitalist class overlap heavily. It's just more obvious, is all, because the Peninsular Arab states have entered into capitalism with a peculiar combination of rapidity and autonomy which allowed traditional elites to transform themselves into a capitalist class while maintaining the trappings of a traditional elite. (And who knows how long that will continue to be possible?)
There's a difference between lacking political power and lacking independent political power. They don't have a classical entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, that's true, but there is still a capitalist class in the Arab world, however dependent it tends to be on the state or on foreign capital. You might have to roll out the debated term "lumpenbourgeoisie" to capture the difference, but there's undoubtedly a capitalist social structure present, not just a state presiding over a mass of peasants.
Tahuti
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The connection isn't all that tenuous. The origins of capitalism coincided with the erosion of clannish structures in the West. When manorialism was it at its heyday, European countries had a social structure not unlike that of Arab countries today. Likewise, the Dutch Republic and England were fertile soils for capitalism as cousin marriage became less common and individuals were less often involved in tightly knit families were cousin marriage was normal.
Not to mention that monarchies themselves regularly practised cousin marriage to keep the succession safe. It is a bit harder to that as a dynastic survival tactic when such is a taboo. The Netherlands has recently banned cousin marriage, yet if such legislation were active in the 19th century, the monarchy as we know it wouldn't have existed, if at all.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
But, again, that's not an argument for any mutually-supporting relationship between the two institutions, just an observation that the coincided. It's a denial of the possibility of pre-modern history, of the existence of historical processes in the pre-modern world, a flattering of the pre-modern past into a simple, self-contained whole.
(Anyway, I'm not really convinced by your comparison to the Netherlands. The areas of Northern Europe were capitalism developed weren't particularly clannish, by the standards of other regions, were much less concious of extended family and much more concious of the individualisation of the household. They certainly didn't have true clans, the sort of defined kinship groups you found among the Gaels or the Arabs.)
(Anyway, I'm not really convinced by your comparison to the Netherlands. The areas of Northern Europe were capitalism developed weren't particularly clannish, by the standards of other regions, were much less concious of extended family and much more concious of the individualisation of the household. They certainly didn't have true clans, the sort of defined kinship groups you found among the Gaels or the Arabs.)
ParkCungHee
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Yeah, and bringing Gaels into it, I don't think you can find a more vicious and continuous example of natural antagonisms between the concept of a king and the concept of a clan.
James Stuart
King
You're sure it's not as simple as the ings and emirs being closely associated with the US, and the rebellious groups there not being able to "fight for democracy" in the same way that Libyan and Syrian rebels could? Of strong US allies in the region, only Egypt fell to the Arab Spring, and even there the results are very mixed and confused. And Mubarak already had the most difficult domestic situation to deal with, and seemed to go out of his way to make his job harder.
@Kaisergard: Clans have historically made kingship harder. Scotland is probably the best example; many Scottish monarchs spent huge portions of their reign either buying off or tring to subjugate the Highlanders.
Regarding the OP's question; I think stable monarchies are a hell of a lot better than what's going on in Syria and Iraq right now. With that said, Tunisia seems to be doing quite well for itself, and it has never been a monarchy since the French left. So I think it's a matter of stability, which can be gained in several different ways, rather than strictly monarchy, that is best for the Middle East.
James Stuart
King
Double Post. Internet not happy right now.
Blame the French for chasing the Hashemites out of Damascus.
Jordan, minerals yes (potash specifically), oil no. Jordan is a net importer of oil.
The oil factor also does not explain Morocco's relative calm.
Jordan, minerals yes (potash specifically), oil no. Jordan is a net importer of oil.
The oil factor also does not explain Morocco's relative calm.
James Stuart
King
The French were simply rescuing the Levant from British rule, under their chosen viceroy, T.E. Lawrence.
James Stuart
King
The problem with the Middle East wasn't colonisation. It was decolonisation! Give it back to the Europeans already!
James Stuart
King
I could get behind that. Split the Balkans between them and Austria while you're at it.Spot on! Give it back to the Ottomans.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I actually meant to write "minerals and water". My bad!
True. Although, I think in the case of the Western North African states, we have to consider the more direct history of confrontation with and resistance to European powers, which creates a different sort of political legitimacy. That's something you really find in the Penninsula monarchies, political legitimacy seems to have remained quite personalised and patronage-based.
(Of course, you then have to consider why the regime in Morroco has maintained this anti-colonial legitimacy where the regimes in Tunisia and Algeria failed, and in that case I think monarchy actually might become quite important, because kings are often more able than parties to be all things to all people. But that's not really what Mouthwash was getting at with the Penninsula monarchies, I think, and certianly not what Kaiserguard was getting at.)
Minerals and water?!? I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that Jordan could even keep its population alive without regular water imports!
Well yes, however I think there is a mentality with very deep roots to view kingship as a paternal relationship to the tribe. Scottish clans might not have appreciated their kings but the Middle East has had sheer despotism for five thousand years (due to geography, really, more than anything). It's the only kind of state they really understand.
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